Since next week we mark the feast of St Valentine – a priest and physician in Rome whose cult came to be associated with love because of the traditional belief that birds pair up around this date – it might be entertaining to recommend phrases in Latin for those who go a-wooing. I regret that I know little Latin, but having grown up in an ambience where it was the language of faith, many Latin words have a familiar ring. Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Catullus and Ovid wrote phrases that might well be suitable for those seeking to impress a swain or inamorata. Imagine receiving a Valentine’s card with words taken from Virgil: “Omnia vincit amor: et nos cedamus amori.” (Love conquers all – let us, too, surrender to love.) Or, perhaps, choose Horace’s adage, which will surely be partly familiar: “Dum loquimur, fugerit invida aetas: carpe diem.” (While we are speaking, jealous time flies: seize the day.) Yes, that “carpe diem” has been motto-ised in many a collection of quotations. Ovid, who wrote whole books on love and seduction, could also be invoked with his warning: “Militiae species amor est.” (“Love is a kind of war.”) Although some of his amorous counsel would not pass muster in our age of feminist sensitivity to consent: “Risit et argutis quiddam promisit ocellis.” (“She smiled and made a certain promise with her eyes.”) Sorry, Ovid, that wouldn’t stand up in a court of law today … Latin terms of endearment can be very charming: Ocelle (apple of my eye), Vita (my life), Verculum (my little spring chicken) and Melculum (my little honey). Responses to declarations of romantic devotion may well be positive, with love reciprocated “Omnino” (completely), “Studiose” (devotedly) “Dulciter” (sweetly), “Iocose” (playfully) or “Corpus Animaque” (body and soul). Though, alas, hearts may also be broken and the wooer rebuffed, too, with “In somnis!” (In your dreams!) or “Noli me tangere!” (Leave me alone.) Or with more gentle rejection: “Te amo, sed non deperire” ("I love you, but I’m not in love with you.”) Those disappointed in romance can always sing, with Gloria Gaynor, “I Will Survive” (Superabo), or, more mournfully, Numquam alterum te inveniam – “I’ll never find another you.” St Valentine was a Roman, so Latin surely fits his feast day.