Book 1

1. Cynthia first ensnared me, wretched, with her eyes, untouched until then by any desire. Then Love cast down the look of my steady pride and pressed my head beneath his planted feet, till he taught me, the scoundrel, to loathe chaste girls and to live with no plan to guide me at all. Ah, this madness has not let go for a whole year now, and still I am forced to find the gods against me. Milanion, by shirking no labour, Tullus, broke down the cruelty of hard Atalanta. For now he wandered, witless, in Parthenian caves, and now he went out to face the shaggy beasts; struck too by the blow of Hylaeus' club, wounded, he groaned upon Arcadian crags. Thus he was able to master the swift-footed girl: so much in love do faith and good deeds avail. In me sluggish Love can think of no devices, nor remember, as before, to walk the well-known roads. But you who have the trick of drawing down the moon, whose task is to work rites on magic fires, come now, turn round the heart of my mistress, and make her face grow paler than my own! Then I would believe you can lead spirits and stars wherever you will with Cytaean spells. Or you, my friends, who call me back too late from my fall, seek remedies for a heart that is not sound. Bravely I will endure both the knife and the cruel fires, if only I have freedom to say what anger wills. Carry me through farthest nations, carry me over the waves, where no woman may know the road I take. You stay behind, to whom the god has nodded with kindly ear, and may you always be matched in safe, untroubled love. For my own Venus drives me through bitter nights, and Love, never empty, fails me at no hour. Avoid this evil, I warn you: let each keep to his own beloved, and never shift the bed of accustomed love. But if anyone turns dull ears to my warnings, alas, with what grief he will recall my words!

2. What good is it, my life, to go out with hair adorned and stir the thin folds of a Coan gown, or to drench your locks with myrrh of Orontes, and sell yourself off with foreign trinkets, to ruin nature's grace with bought refinement, and not let your limbs shine in their own good things? Believe me, there is no medicine for your beauty: naked Love does not love a beauty contrived. Look at the colours the unploughed earth sends up, how ivy comes the better of its own accord, how the arbutus rises lovelier in lonely caves, and the untaught stream knows how to run its course. The shores gleam, painted with native pebbles, and birds sing the sweeter with no art at all. Not so did Phoebe, daughter of Leucippus, kindle Castor, nor her sister Hilaira, by adornment, Pollux; nor she, once the cause of strife between Idas and ardent Phoebus, the daughter of Evenus on her father's shores; nor did Hippodamia draw her Phrygian husband by false fairness, carried off on foreign wheels: but a face was theirs that owed nothing to gems, such as the colour in the paintings of Apelles. They had no eagerness to hunt lovers with rouge: for them ample beauty was their chastity. I do not now fear that you are cheaper to me than these: if a girl pleases one man, she is adorned enough; especially since Phoebus grants you his songs and Calliope gladly her Aonian lyre, and there is no lack of singular grace in your charming words, all that Venus and all that Minerva approve. By these you will always be most dear to my life,

3. As lay the Cnossian maid, languid, on the deserted shore when the keel of Theseus drew away; as the daughter of Cepheus, Andromeda, sank into first sleep, now free at last from the hard rocks; and no less as the Thracian woman, worn with constant dances, collapses on the grassy bank of Apidanus: so seemed Cynthia to me, breathing soft repose, her head propped on hands clasped together, when I dragged my drunken steps, heavy with much wine, and the boys were shaking the torch in the late night. Not yet entirely robbed of my senses, I tried to approach her, pressing softly on the couch; and though, seized by a double ardour, they bade me on, Love on this side, Bacchus on that, both harsh gods, to slip an arm beneath and try her as she lay, and with hand brought near to take slow kisses, still I did not dare to disturb my mistress' rest, fearing the reproaches of cruelty I had known; but I clung there, fixed with intent eyes, as Argus on the strange horns of Io. And now I loosed the garlands from my brow and laid them, Cynthia, on your temples; now I delighted to shape your fallen hair; now I gave stolen apples into your cupped hands: all gifts I lavished on ungrateful sleep, gifts often rolling from your sloping breast; and whenever you drew a sigh with rare movement, I stood stunned, credulous of an idle omen, lest some vision should bring you unwonted fears, lest someone force you, unwilling, to be his: till the moon, hurrying past the parted windows, the busy moon with its lingering light, opened your closed eyes with gentle rays. Thus she spoke, leaning on her elbow on the soft couch: 'So another's wrong has at last brought you back to my bed, shut out from her closed doors? For where have you spent the long hours of my night, worn out, alas, now that the stars are gone? O that you, scoundrel, might pass such nights as you always make me, poor wretch, endure! For now I beguiled sleep with the purple thread, and again, weary, with the song of Orpheus' lyre; at times I softly mourned to myself, abandoned, the long delays so often spent in another's love: till Sleep pressed me, exhausted, with his pleasant wings. That was the last care of my tears.'

4. Why, Bassus, by praising so many girls, do you force me, changed, to leave my mistress? Why do you not let me lead whatever life remains with this servitude I have grown used to? Though you should recall in praise the beauty of Antiope, daughter of Nycteus, and you the Spartan Hermione, and all that the age of beauty's prime has borne; Cynthia would not let those bear the name of fair: still less, if she were set beside lesser figures, would she go off, by a harsh judge, the worse and base. But this beauty is the least part of my madness; there are greater things, Bassus, for which it is sweet to perish: a natural complexion, grace in her moving limbs, and joys it is sweet to learn beneath the silent gown. The more you strive to break apart our love, the more we both deceive you with a faith well kept. You will not get off scot-free: this wild girl will know it and will be your enemy with no silent words; nor after this will Cynthia entrust me to you, nor will she seek you out; she will remember so great a crime, and, enraged, will defame you to all the other girls: alas, at no threshold will you be welcome. She will not scorn any altars in her weeping, or any stone that is sacred, of whatever kind, wherever it stands. By no loss is Cynthia more grievously tried than when her glory ceases, with her love snatched away, mine above all. May she stay so always, I pray, and may I find nothing in her to complain of!

5. Envious one, restrain at last your troublesome words and let us go, paired in the course we are in! What do you want, madman? to feel my frenzies? Unhappy man, you hasten to know the worst of evils, and, wretched, to set your feet through unknown fires, and to drink the poisons of all Thessaly. She is not to be compared with fickle girls: she will not know how to be angry with you gently. But if by chance she is not opposed to your prayers, what thousands of cares she will give you! She will leave you now no sleep, now not your eyes: fierce in spirit, she alone binds men fast. Ah, how often, scorned, you will run to my threshold, when your brave words fall amid sobbing, and a trembling shudder rises from your sad weeping, and fear draws an ugly mark upon your face, and whatever words you wish flee you as you complain, and you cannot, poor wretch, know who or where you are! Then you will be forced to learn the heavy servitude of my girl, and what it is to come home shut out; no longer will you wonder so often at my pallor, or why I am nothing in my whole body. Nor will noble birth be able to help you in love: Love does not know how to yield to ancestral portraits. But if you give the slightest trace of a fault, how quickly you will become a rumour from so great a name! Then I shall not be able to bring you comfort when you ask, since I have no medicine for my own ill; but together, wretched, we shall be forced by shared love to weep, each on the other's bosom in turn. So cease, Gallus, to ask what my Cynthia can do: not unpunished does she come when she is courted.

6. I do not now fear, Tullus, to learn the Adriatic sea with you, nor to set sails on the Aegean brine, with whom I could climb the Riphaean mountains and go further, to the dwellings of Memnon; but the words of my mistress, embracing me, hold me back, and her grave pleas, with face often changed in colour. All night long she chatters to me of her flames, and complains, forsaken, that there are no gods; she now denies herself to me as mine, now she threatens what a sad mistress is wont against an ungrateful man. Against these complaints I cannot hold out an hour: ah, let him perish, whoever can love half-heartedly! Is it worth so much to me to know learned Athens and to behold the ancient riches of Asia, that Cynthia should hurl abuse at the launched ship and mark her face with frenzied hands, and say she owes her kisses to the opposing wind, and that nothing is harsher than a faithless man? Do you strive to outdo your uncle's well-earned axes, and restore old rights to the allies who forgot them. For your youth has never had leisure for love, but your care was always for your armed fatherland; and may that boy never bring you the labours I bear, and all that is known to my tears! Let me, whom fortune has always wished to lie low, yield up my last breath to this worthlessness. Many have gladly perished in long love, and in their number may the earth cover me too. I was not born suited to praise, not to arms: this is the warfare the fates would have me undergo. But you, whether soft Ionia stretches before you, or where Lydia wets the ploughed fields with the stream of Pactolus, whether you traverse lands on foot or the sea by oar, you will go, and be part of a welcomed government: then if some hour comes to you not forgetful of me, you will be sure that I live under a hard star.

7. While the Cadmean Thebes are sung by you, Ponticus, and the grim arms of brothers' warfare, and, so may I be happy, you vie with Homer himself (if only the fates are kind to your songs), I, as I am used, pursue my loves, and seek something against my hard mistress; not so much to my talent as to my grief am I forced to be a slave, and to lament the hard times of my youth. This is the manner my life is worn away in, this is my fame, from this I wish the name of my song to spread. Let them praise me for having pleased a learned girl, Ponticus, and for having often borne unjust threats; let the neglected lover read me diligently hereafter, and may it profit him to know my woes. If this boy too has struck you with his sure bow— would that our gods had not let me be wronged!— far from your camp, far, wretched, from your seven columns you will weep, lying deaf in eternal neglect; and in vain you will long to compose a tender verse, nor will Love, too late, supply you songs. Then you will often marvel at me, no humble poet, then I shall be preferred above Roman talents. Beware lest you scorn my songs in your pride: often Love comes late at great interest.

8a. Are you then mad, and does my love not hold you back? Or am I cheaper to you than icy Illyria? And does that man, whoever he is, now seem so much to you that you would go without me wherever the wind blows? Can you, brave, hear the murmurs of the raging sea, and can you lie on the hard ship? Can you press the frost laid down with tender feet, can you, Cynthia, endure the unaccustomed snows? O that the time of winter's cold were doubled, and the sailor idle while the Pleiades are slow, and that the rope were not loosed from the Tyrrhenian sand, nor a hostile breeze make light of my prayers, and let me, rooted to the empty shore, often call you cruel with a threatening hand! But however, perjured one, you deal with me, may Galatea not be hostile to your voyage; and may I not see such winds subside, when the wave carries off your departing ships, so that, the Ceraunia conquered with lucky oar, calm Oricos receives you on peaceful seas. For no women will be able to seduce me from lamenting at your threshold, my life, about you; nor will I cease to ask the hurrying sailors, 'Tell me, in what harbour is my girl shut up?', and I shall say, 'Though she settle on Artacian shores, and though on Hylaean, she will be mine.'

8b. She will stay here! she has sworn to stay! let my rivals burst with envy! I have won: she could not resist my constant prayers. Let greedy envy lay aside its false joys: my Cynthia has ceased to go new ways. I am dear to her, and through me Rome is said to be most dear, and without me she denies kingdoms can be sweet. She chose to rest with me on a narrow bed and to be mine in any way at all, rather than the ancient kingdom of dowered Hippodamia, and the wealth Elis had gained, well-suited to horses. Though he gave great gifts, though he would give greater, still she did not flee, greedy, from my arms. I could not bend her with gold, nor with Indian pearls, but I could, by the homage of a flattering song. So there are Muses, and Apollo is not slow to a lover, on whom I rely as I love: rare Cynthia is mine! Now I may touch the highest stars with my feet: whether day or night shall come, she is mine! Nor will a rival steal my certain love away: that glory will know my old age.

9. I told you, mocker, that love would come, and that your free words would not last forever: behold, you lie low, and come a suppliant to a girl's law, and now any girl, bought just now, gives you orders. The Chaonian doves cannot outdo me in love at telling which young men each girl tames. Grief and tears have rightly made me skilled: and would that, my love laid aside, I might be called untaught! What good now to you, wretched, is the singing of solemn song, or weeping over the walls of Amphion's lyre? In love a verse of Mimnermus avails more than Homer: gentle Love seeks soft songs. Go, I beg, and lay those grim little books aside, and sing what any girl would wish to know! What if you had no easy supply! As it is, you, madman, seek water in the middle of a river. You are not yet even pale, nor touched by the true fire: this is the first spark of the evil to come. Then you will long to approach Armenian tigers and to know the chains of the infernal wheel, rather than feel the boy's bow so often in your marrow and be unable to deny anything to your angry girl. Love has never lent his wings to anyone so freely that he did not press him down with alternating hand. Nor let it deceive you that she is willing enough: the more keenly she comes upon you, Ponticus, if she is yours, since it is not allowed to lead your idle eyes elsewhere, nor will Love let you keep watch at another's door. He is not revealed before his hand has touched the bone: whoever you are, flee constant flatteries! To them even flints and oaks might yield, still more you, that light breath of yours. So, if you have any shame, confess your errors as soon as you can: to say for whom you are dying often eases love.

10. O pleasant quiet, when as a witness to that first love I was present, sharing in your tears! O sweet delight to remember that night, O how often it must be invoked in my prayers, when we saw you, Gallus, embracing your girl dying, and drawing out long words in slow delay! Though sleep weighed down my drooping eyes and the Moon blushed in mid-heaven among her horses, still I could not withdraw from your play: so great was the ardour in your exchanged words. But since you were not afraid to trust me, receive the gifts of the gladness entrusted to me: not only have I learned to keep silent your griefs, there is something greater in me, friend, than faith. I can join sundered lovers again, and I can open a mistress' reluctant doors; and I can heal another's fresh cares, nor is there light medicine in my words. Cynthia taught me what each must always seek and what must be shunned: Love has done no little thing. Beware of wishing to fight with a sullen girl, or speaking proudly, or staying silent too long; nor, if she asks something, refuse with ungracious brow, nor let your kind words fall to no purpose. She comes provoked when she is scorned, nor does she remember, wronged, to lay aside just threats: but the more humble you are and subject to love, the more often you may enjoy a good outcome. He will be able to remain happy with one girl who is never free with an empty heart.

11. Does any thought of us come, Cynthia, lingering amid Baiae, where the path lies along the Herculean shores, and now marvelling at the waters laid beneath Thesprotus' realm, close to noble Misenum, to bring back nights mindful of our love? Does any place remain in the farthest reach of your love? Or has some enemy, with feigned flames, torn you, Cynthia, from my songs, as a girl is wont to slip when her guardian is removed, faithless, and to forget the gods we share? Would that a tiny skiff, trusting to slender oars, might rather keep you on the Lucrine water, or that the wave, easy to yield to alternate hand, might hold you shut in Teuthras' shallow stream, rather than that you be free to hear another's soft whispers, lying softly composed on a silent shore! Not that you are not known to me, your good name proven, but because in this region all love is feared. So you will forgive me, if my little books have brought you anything sad: it will be the fault of fear. Ah, may I have no greater care than for a dear mother, or any care of my life apart from you! You alone are my home, you, Cynthia, alone my parents, you all the seasons of my gladness. Whether I come sad or, on the contrary, glad to my friends, whatever I shall be, I will say, 'Cynthia was the cause.' Only leave corrupting Baiae as soon as you can: those shores will bring many a parting, shores that have been enemies to chaste girls: ah, perish the waters of Baiae, the reproach of love!

12. Why do you not cease to invent against me the charge of idleness, that Cynthia keeps me lingering in Rome? She is parted from my bed by as many miles as the Hypanis is divided from the Venetian Eridanus; nor does Cynthia nourish my accustomed loves with embrace, nor sound sweet in my ear. Once I was pleasing: at no time was it granted to anyone that he could love with like faith. We were the object of envy: has some god crushed me? or what herb, gathered on Promethean ridges, divides us? I am not what I was: a long journey changes girls. How great a love has fled in a brief time! Now for the first time I am forced to know the long nights alone, and to be heavy to my own ears. Happy is he who could weep before his present girl (Love rejoices, somewhat sprinkled with tears), or, if scorned, could change his ardours (there are joys too in a servitude transferred). But for me it is right neither to love another nor to leave her: Cynthia was the first, Cynthia will be the end.

13. You, as you often do, will rejoice in my fall, Gallus, that I lie empty, my love snatched away. But I will not imitate your words, faithless one: may no girl ever wish to deceive you, Gallus. While your fame grows with deceived girls, and, sure of yourself, you seek no delay in any love, ruined for a certain one, you begin to grow pale with slow cares, and, slipping, to fall at the first step. This will be the penalty for the grief of those you scorned: one girl will exact the wretched fates of many. This common girl will check those loves of yours, nor will you, ever seeking the new, be a friend. I learned this not from evil rumour, nor taught by augur; I saw it: can you, I beg, deny it with me as witness? I saw you grow faint, bound about her whole neck, and weep long, Gallus, with arms cast around her, and long to lay down your life on the lips you craved, and what after that, friend, my modesty conceals. I could not pull your embraces apart: so great was the maddened frenzy between you both. Not so did the Taenarian god, mingled with Haemonian Enipeus, press Salmoneus' daughter in willing love, nor so did the burning love of Hercules feel heavenly Hebe's first joys from the Oetaean pyres. One day was able to outrun all lovers: for she set beneath you no lukewarm torches, nor let past disdains take their place, nor will she: bound, your ardour will drive you on. Nor is it strange, since she is next to Leda, worthy of Jove, and more pleasing than Leda's offspring, one of three; she would be more charming than Inachian heroines, she could compel Jove himself to love by her words. But since you are once for all to perish of love, use it: you were worthy of no other threshold. Since a new error has befallen you, may it be lucky; and however many you wished, let her be your only one.

14. Though you lie at ease softly by the Tiber's wave and drink Lesbian wines from Mentor's workmanship, and now marvel at the swift skiffs running by and now at the barges going slow on their tow-ropes; and though the whole grove rear its planted woods aloft, with as many trees as press upon Caucasus; still these could not match my love: Love does not know how to yield to great riches. For whether she draws out longed-for rest with me, or passes the whole day in easy love, then the waters of Pactolus come beneath my roof, and pearls are gathered beneath the Red Sea; then my joys promise that kings will yield to me: may they last, until the fates will have me perish! For who rejoices in riches when Love is against him? Let no rewards be mine with Venus gloomy! She can break the great strength of heroes, she can be a grief even to hard hearts: she fears not to cross an Arabian threshold, nor dreads, Tullus, to mount a purple couch, and to toss the wretched youth all over his bed: what ease bring silks with their varied weaves? While she is present to me, appeased, I shall fear no kingdoms, and I will scorn the gifts of Alcinous.

15. Often I feared much harsh treatment from your fickleness, yet not this perfidy, Cynthia, before now. See in how great a peril fortune snatches me away! Yet you come slow to my fear; and you can arrange yesterday's hair with your hands and seek your beauty in long idleness, and load your breast no less with Eastern gems, as a fair girl who prepares to go to a new lover. Not so was Calypso moved at the Ithacan's departure, weeping once on the deserted seas: many days she sat, mourning with unkempt hair, speaking much to the unjust sea, and though she would never see him again after this, still she grieved, conscious of long happiness. Not so did Hypsipyle, anxious at the winds carrying off the son of Aeson, stand in her empty chamber: Hypsipyle felt no loves after those, once she wasted away in her Haemonian guest's love. Evadne, borne high through the wretched fires, died, the glory of Argive chastity. Alphesiboea avenged her brothers for her husband, and love broke the bonds of dear blood. None of these could change your ways, that you too might become a noble tale. Cease now to recall your perjuries with words, Cynthia, and forbear to stir the forgetful gods; too bold, ah, you will grieve at my peril, if by chance something harsher befall you! Sooner shall deep rivers glide back to the sea, and the year lead round its seasons reversed, than the care for you be changed beneath my breast: be whatever you will, you shall still not be a stranger to me. Let not those eyes seem so cheap to you, by which your perfidy has so often been trusted to me! By these you used to swear, if you had lied in anything, that they should fall from your hands into your lap: and can you raise them against the great Sun, and not tremble, conscious of the wickedness admitted? Who forced you to grow pale with many colours and to draw weeping from unwilling eyes? By these I now perish, ready to warn lovers like me to trust no flatteries as safe.

16. I, who once stood open to great triumphs, a door vowed to Patrician Chastity, whose threshold gilded chariots have thronged, wet with the suppliant tears of captives, now I, wounded by the nightly brawls of drunkards, beaten by unworthy hands, often complain, and there is no lack of shameful garlands hung on me, and always torches lie, the marks of one shut out. Nor can I ward off the shameful cries about my mistress, given over, noble that I am, to obscene songs; yet she is not recalled to spare her own good name, to live the fouler for the luxury of the age. Among these I am forced more grievously to bewail my complaints, sadder for a suppliant's long night-watches. He never lets my doorposts rest, singing songs with clever blandishment: 'Door, crueller far than your own mistress, why do you stand silent, closed to me with such hard doors? Why do you never, unbarred, admit my love, unknowing, unmoved, to return my stealthy prayers? Will no end be granted to our grief, and will shameful sleep be on a lukewarm threshold? Midnight pities me, the sinking stars pity me as I lie, and the cold breeze with its dawn frost. O that my little voice, cast through a hollow chink, might turn and strike the ears of my mistress! Though she be more patient than Sicilian rock, though she be harder than iron and steel, still she will not be able to control her own eyes, and a sigh will rise in unwilling tears. Now she lies, leaning on another's lucky arm, but my words fall to the night Zephyr. But you alone, you the greatest cause of my grief, door never won by my gifts, you alone, never pitying human griefs, answer me back with your silent hinges. No wantonness of my tongue has wronged you; such as an angry man is wont to say in bitter jest, that you should let me, hoarse with so long a complaint, keep an anxious vigil at the crossroads, delayed? But for you I often drew off songs in fresh verse, and, leaning on the steps, gave them pressing kisses. How often, faithless one, did I turn before your posts, and offer the vows I owed with hidden hands!' This he says, and whatever you wretched lovers have known, and drowns out the morning birds. So now, by my mistress' vices and the weeping of one always in love, I am torn by alternating reproach.

17. And rightly so, since I could flee my girl, now I speak to the lonely halcyons. Nor will Cassiope see my ship come safely, and all my vows fall on a thankless shore. Nay, even in your absence, Cynthia, the winds work for you: see how the gale roars out its savage threats. Will no calm come of a softened storm? Will this little sand cover my dead body? Yet turn your savage complaints to better: let the night and the unjust shallows be punishment enough for you. Or will you be able to demand back my fate with dry eyes, and hold no bones of mine to your bosom? Ah, let him perish, whoever first prepared the rafts and sails and made his way over the unwilling deep! Was it not easier to overcome my mistress' ways (though hard, yet a rare girl she was), than to behold these shores ringed with unknown woods, and to seek the longed-for Tyndarids? There, if some fates had buried my grief, and the last stone stood with my love laid to rest, she would have given her dear hair at my funeral, and softly laid my bones on a tender rose; she would have called my name over the final dust, that the earth might lie on me with no weight. But you, fair daughters of Doris of the sea, spread the white sails with your lucky band: if ever Love, gliding, has touched your waves, spare a comrade on your gentle shores.

18. These places, surely, are deserted and silent for one who complains, and the breeze of Zephyr possesses the empty grove. Here I may bring out my hidden griefs unpunished, if only the lonely rocks can keep faith. From what beginning shall I first retrace your disdain, my Cynthia? What cause of weeping, Cynthia, do you give me? I, who but now was numbered among happy lovers, now am forced to bear a mark in your love. What have I so deserved? what crimes change you toward me? Is a new girl the cause of your sadness? So may you return to me, fickle one, as no other has brought fair feet across my threshold. Though this grief of mine owes you much that is harsh, still my anger will not have come so savage that I should be your frenzy always for cause, and your eyes, from weeping, be made ugly with downcast tears. Is it because I give few signs by a changed colour, and no faith cries out in my face? You will be witnesses, if a tree has any loves, beech and the pine dear to the Arcadian god. Ah, how often my words echo beneath your shadows, and 'Cynthia' is written on the tender bark! Ah, how many cares your wrong has borne me, things known only to your silent doors! I have grown used, timid, to endure all the haughty commands, and not to complain of your deeds with sharp grief. For this I am given the unbroken mountains and the cold cliff and a hard rest on an untrodden path; and whatever my complaints can tell, I am forced to say to the shrill birds alone. But whatever you are, let the woods echo 'Cynthia' to me, and let the lonely rocks not be empty of your name.

19. I do not now, my Cynthia, fear the gloomy shades, nor do I delay the fate owed to the final pyre; but that my funeral might lack your love— this fear is harder than the obsequies themselves. Not so lightly has the boy clung to my eyes that my dust should be free of love, forgotten. There the hero, son of Phylacus, of his sweet wife could not, in the dark places, be unmindful, but, eager to touch his joys with phantom hands, the Thessalian shade had come to his ancient home. There, whatever I shall be, I will always be called your image: great love crosses even the shores of fate. There let the chorus of fair heroines come, whom the Dardan spoil gave to the Argive men: of whom none, Cynthia, will be more pleasing to me than your beauty—and (so may just Earth allow it) though the fates of long old age delay you, your bones will still be dear to my tears. Would that you, living, might feel this for my ashes! Then death would not be bitter to me anywhere. How I fear, Cynthia, that, scorning my tomb, unjust Love may drag you from my dust, and force you, unwilling, to dry the falling tears! A steadfast girl is bent by constant threats. So, while we may, let us be glad, we lovers, between us: love is never long enough at any time.

20. This for the sake of your unbroken love, Gallus, we warn you, that it may not slip from your idle mind: often fortune meets the unwary lover: so cruel was Ascanius to the Minyae. You have a passion not below Hylas in looks, not unlike in name, closest to Hylas, son of Theiodamas: for him, whether you skim the rivers of the shadowy wood by raft, or the wave of Anio wets your feet, or you walk the edge of the Giants' shore, or anywhere by the wandering hospitality of a stream, always defend him from the eager rapine of the Nymphs (no less is the love of the Ausonian Dryads); lest it be yours, Gallus, to go forever to hard mountains and cold rocks and untried lakes. These the wretched Hercules, suffering wandering error on unknown shores, had wept over for unconquered Ascanius. For they say that once the Argo, sailing from the docks of Pagasa, went far on its way from Phasis, and, already gliding past the waves of Athamas' daughter, brought its ship to the Mysian rocks. Here the band of heroes, when it landed on the calm shores, covered the soft beach with laid-out leaves. But the comrade of the unconquered youth had gone further to seek the scarce water of a secluded spring. Two brothers pursued him, the offspring of Aquilo (now Zetes flies above, now Calais), striving to snatch kisses with hovering feet, and to bear kisses in turn in alternating flight. But he mocks them as they hang at his wing-tips and wards off the winged ambush with a branch. Now the race of Pandion's Orithyia gave way: ah, grief! Hylas went on, went on to the Hamadryads. Here beneath the peak of Mount Arganthus was Pege, a pleasant home, moist, for the Thynian Nymphs, over which hung dewy apples, owed to no care, beneath the wild trees, and round about, in the watered meadow, rose lilies, white mingled with crimson poppies. Now plucking these childishly with tender nail, he preferred the flower to his appointed task, and now, leaning unaware over the lovely waters, he delays his straying with the charming reflections. At last he prepares to draw the streams with lowered palms, leaning on his right shoulder, drawing the full water. When the Dryad girls, kindled by his beauty, in wonder left off their accustomed dances and drew him, slipping, gently through the yielding water, then Hylas made a sound, his body snatched away. To him from afar Alcides answers thrice, 'Hylas!' but to him the breeze brings back the name from the farthest mountains. By these warnings, O Gallus, you will guard your love, lest you lose again your fair Hylas.

21. You who hasten to escape a shared fate, soldier, wounded from the Etruscan ramparts, why do you turn your swollen eyes at my groan? I am the part of your warfare nearest you. So, with you saved, may your parents be able to rejoice, may this my sister learn what has happened from your tears: that Gallus, snatched through the midst of Caesar's swords, could not escape unknown hands; and whatever scattered bones she may find upon the Etruscan mountains, let her know these are mine.

22. What kind of man, and from what stock, who my household gods are, Tullus, you ask, for the sake of our enduring friendship. If the Perusine graves of our country are known to you, the funerals of Italy in its hard times, when Roman discord drove out its own citizens— so, Etruscan dust, you are above all a grief to me, you who suffered the cast-out limbs of my kinsman, you who cover the bones of the wretch with no soil— the Umbria next to it, touching the plains laid beneath, bore me, fertile in its rich lands.