"If any person wish to be idle, let them fall in love"

Ovid’s assertion, “If any person wish to be idle, let them fall in love,” suggests a close relationship between the feeling of idleness and the experience of falling in love. Love here is not merely a romantic ideal, but rather a state of distraction that can overtake one’s time, purpose, and clarity of thought. The word ‘idle’ classically refers to a lack of productive labor, a drifting of intent or focus. Ovid wittily implies that to be in love is to surrender the disciplined structure of one’s days and succumb to a kind of pleasurable aimlessness.

When caught up in the throes of affection, individuals often find their daily routines and ambitions swept aside. Thoughts revolve ceaselessly around the beloved, aspirations and tasks lose urgency, and hours slip away in reverie or daydreams about the object of one’s desire. Rather than productivity, love invites longing, reflection, and oftentimes, inaction, an idleness not born of laziness but of preoccupation. Ovid, known for his insights into human passion and folly, seems to nod to the paradox that love, while deeply energizing emotionally, can render even the most diligent souls absentminded and distracted from their duties.

Yet, there is also an undercurrent of humor to his statement. Behind its cleverness lies the recognition that love both enlivens and incapacitates. The passionate lover may neglect chores, work, or responsibilities in favor of longing sighs and the poetry of the heart. Love, thus, is a kind of sanctioned idleness, an indulgence of the human spirit.

Underlying Ovid’s words is perhaps a gentle warning. While love inspires, it can also cause one to lose track of life’s necessary obligations. As such, to “fall in love” is to willingly risk a spell of delicious, and perhaps unproductive, idleness, a uniquely human folly that poets have celebrated and lampooned across the ages.