Book 2

1. You ask why I write so often of love, whence my soft book comes upon the lips. Not Calliope, not Apollo sings these things to me. The girl herself makes my talent. Whether you bid her walk gleaming in Coan silk, from this Coan gown the whole volume will come; or if I have seen her loose hair stray over her brow, she delights to go proud of her praised locks; or if she has struck the lyre's song with ivory fingers, I marvel how deftly her skilled hands press the strings; or when she droops her eyes that crave sleep, I, a poet, find a thousand new themes; or when, stripped, she wrestles with me, her cloak snatched off, then indeed we compose long Iliads; or whatever she has done, or whatever she has said, from nothing the greatest history is born. But if the fates, Maecenas, had granted me only the power to lead bands of heroes to arms, I would not sing of the Titans, nor of Ossa piled on Olympus, that Pelion might be a road to heaven, nor ancient Thebes, nor Pergama, the fame of Homer, nor that two straits met at Xerxes' command, nor the first kingdoms of Remus, or the courage of lofty Carthage, the threats of the Cimbri and the good deeds of Marius: the wars and deeds of your Caesar I would recall, and you, below great Caesar, would be my second care. For whenever I sang of Mutina, or Philippi, the graves of civil war, or the fleet-battles of the Sicilian rout, the overthrown hearths of the ancient Etruscan race, and the captured shores of Ptolemy's Pharos, or when I sang of Egypt and the Nile, when, dragged into the city, it went feeble with its seven captive streams, or the necks of kings ringed with golden chains, and the Actian beaks running along the Sacred Way; my Muse would always weave you into those arms, a head faithful both in war and in peace established: as Theseus bears witness to the powers below, Achilles to those above, the one to the son of Ixion, the other to the son of Menoetius. . . . But neither let Callimachus thunder of the Phlegraean strife of Jupiter and Enceladus from his narrow breast, nor does my heart suit me to found in hard verse the name of Caesar among his Phrygian ancestors. The sailor tells of winds, the ploughman of his oxen, the soldier counts his wounds, the shepherd his sheep; but I wage battles on a narrow bed: let each man wear away the day in the art he can. It is glory to die in love: a second glory, if it be granted to enjoy one love alone: O may I enjoy my own love alone! If I remember rightly, she is wont to blame fickle girls, and for Helen's sake disapproves the whole Iliad. Whether I must taste the cups of the stepmother Phaedra, cups that would not harm her stepson, or whether I must perish by Circe's herb, or whether the Colchian boil her cauldron on Iolcian fires, since one woman has plundered my senses, from this house my funeral will be led. Medicine heals all human griefs: love alone loves no healer of its sickness. Machaon healed the slow legs of Philoctetes, Chiron, son of Phillyra, the eyes of Phoenix, and the god of Epidaurus restored dead Androgeos to his father's hearth with Cretan herbs, and the Mysian youth, who had felt a wound from a Haemonian spear, felt help from that very spear. If anyone can take this fault from me, he alone could put the apples in Tantalus' hand; that same man could fill the casks with the maidens' urns, that their tender necks be not burdened with endless water; that same man could loose the arms of Prometheus from the Caucasian rock and drive the bird from the middle of his breast. Whenever, therefore, my fates demand back my life, and I shall be a brief name upon a little marble stone, Maecenas, the envied hope of our youth, and the just glory of my life and death, if by chance your road leads you near my tomb, halt your British chariot at its carven yoke, and, weeping, cast such words to the silent ashes: 'A hard girl was this poor man's doom.'

2. I was free, and meant to live with an empty bed; but Love, peace once made, deceived me. Why does this human beauty linger on earth? Jupiter, I forgive your old thefts. Golden is her hair, and long her hands, and tall her whole body, and she walks as a sister even worthy of Jove, or as when Pallas paces toward the Dulichian altars, her breast covered by the snaky Gorgon's locks; as was the heroine Ischomache, of Lapith stock, a welcome prey to the Centaurs in the midst of the wine; Mercury too is said, by the waters of Boebeis, to have laid his side beside virgin Brimo. Yield now, goddesses, whom the shepherd once saw lay aside their tunics on the Idaean peaks! Would that old age might not wish to change this beauty, even if she should live the ages of the Cumaean prophetess!

3. 'You who said that nothing could now harm you, you are caught fast, that spirit of yours has fallen! Scarcely can you, poor wretch, rest for a single month, and already there will be another shameful book about you.' I used to ask whether a fish could live on dry sand and the fierce boar, unused, in the sea; or whether I could keep watch over stern studies: any love is deferred, never removed. It was not so much her face that took me, however fair (let lilies be no whiter than my mistress; as Maeotic snow vies with Iberian vermilion, and as rose-petals float in pure milk), nor her hair flowing in its way down her smooth neck, nor her eyes, twin torches, our stars, nor if some girl shines in Arabian silk (I am no flattering lover for nothing): so much as how beautifully she dances when the wine is set out, as when Ariadne led the bands chanting euhoe, and how, when she tries songs with the Aeolian quill, learned to play matched with the Aganippean lyre; and when she sets her writings beside ancient Corinna's, poems that no one thinks equal to her own. Did bright Love at your birth, my life, in your first days, sneeze a clear omen over you? The gods gave you these heavenly gifts, nor think your mother chanced to give them. No, no, such gifts are not of human birth: ten months did not bring forth these blessings. You alone are born the glory of Roman girls: the first Roman girl, you will lie down with Jove, nor will you ever visit human beds with us; since Helen, this beauty returns to earth a second time. Why should I marvel now if our youth burns for her? It would have been fairer, Troy, for you to perish for her. Once I marvelled that a girl was the cause of so great a war at Pergama, of Europe and Asia: now, Paris, you were wise, and you, Menelaus, were too, you because you demanded, you because you were slow. A face indeed worthy that even Achilles should die for it; even Priam should approve it as the cause of war. If anyone wishes to surpass the old paintings in fame, let him set my mistress as a model in his art: whether he shows her to the West or shows her to the East, she will set on fire both East and West. Within these limits at least let me now be held! Or, if any keener love come to me, a second, that I may die! And just as at first the bull refuses the plough, then, the yoke grown familiar, comes gentle to the fields, so at first fierce young men quail in love, then, tamed, they bear thereafter the fair and the unfair alike. The prophet Melampus endured shameful chains, known to have stolen the cattle of Iphiclus; whom no gain, but rather fair Pero compelled, soon to be the bride of the house of Amythaon.

4. First you must complain of your mistress' many faults, often ask something, often go away rebuffed, and often gnaw your undeserving nails with your teeth, and in anger stamp your faltering foot with a sound! In vain were the perfumes poured on my hair, and my foot moved with measured, lingering step. Here no herb avails, no nocturnal Colchian, no boiled herbs of Perimede's hand; for to what false prophet am I not the reward? What old woman does not turn my dreams ten times? For where we discern neither causes nor open blows, yet whence so many evils come is a hidden way; this sick man needs no doctors, no soft beds, no season of weather, no breeze harms him; he walks—and suddenly his friends marvel at his funeral! So unguarded is whatever is held to be love. If I have any enemy, let him love girls: let him rejoice in a boy, if anyone is my friend. You go down a safe stream in a calm boat: how can the wave of so small a shore harm you? The one often changes his heart at a single word, the other will scarcely soften even with one's own blood.

5. Is this true, that you are talked of through all Rome, Cynthia, and live by no unknown wantonness? Did I deserve to hope for this? You will pay me the penalty, faithless one; and for me too, Cynthia, some wind will blow. Yet I shall find one among the many deceivers who will wish to become famous by my song, nor will insult me with manners so harsh, and will gall you: alas, too late will you weep, loved so long. Now my anger is fresh, now is the time to depart: if the grief is gone, believe me, love will return. Not so do the Carpathian waves shift with the North winds, nor does the black cloud turn with the doubtful South, as easily are angry lovers changed by a word: while you may, draw your neck from the unjust yoke. And you will grieve, not a little, but on the first night; every evil in love, if you endure it, is light. But you, by the sweet laws of mistress Juno, spare yourself, my life, lest your own spirit harm you. Not only does the bull strike his foe with hooked horns, but even the wounded sheep fights back against its attacker. I will not tear the clothes from your perjured body, nor will my anger break your barred doors, nor will I, enraged, dare to pull your braided hair, nor hurt you with hard thumbs: let some boor seek such shameful battles, whose head no ivy has wreathed. So I will write what no age of yours can erase, 'Cynthia, mighty in beauty; Cynthia, light in words.' Believe me, though you scorn the murmurs of rumour, this verse, Cynthia, will turn you pale.

6. The house of Lais of Ephyre was not so crowded, at whose doors all Greece lay; Menander's Thais once had no such throng, in whom the people of Erichthonius made sport; nor Phryne, made rich by so many men, she who could have rebuilt ruined Thebes. Nay, you often feign false kinsmen for yourself, nor are there lacking those who may kiss you by right. The painted faces of young men wound me, their names wound me, the tender boy in his cradle and without speech wounds me; it wounds me if your mother gives you many kisses, me your sister, and the friend who sleeps beside you: all things wound me: I am timid (forgive my fear) and, wretched, I suspect a man is in a woman's tunic. By these faults, as the story goes, they once came to battle, by these beginnings you see the Trojan funerals; the same harsh madness bade the Centaurs shatter their cups against Pirithous. Why should I seek Greek examples? You, the author of crime, nursed on the hard milk of the she-wolf, Romulus: you taught the rape of the chaste Sabines to go unpunished: through you Love now dares anything at Rome. Happy the wife of Admetus and the marriage-bed of Ulysses, and whatever woman loves her husband's threshold! What need to have built temples to Chastity for girls, if any bride is allowed to be anything she likes? The hand that first painted obscene pictures and set foul sights in a chaste house, that hand corrupted the innocent eyes of girls and would not leave them ignorant of its own wickedness. Ah, let him groan beneath the earth who brought forth by his art things shameful, hidden under silent delight! Not with such figures did men once adorn their homes: then the wall was painted with no crime. But not undeservedly! The spider has veiled the shrine and evil grass overruns the deserted gods. What guardians, then, what thresholds shall I set for you, which no hostile foot may ever cross? For stern watching is of no use against the unwilling: she who is ashamed to sin, Cynthia, is safe enough. No wife will ever lead me astray, no mistress ever: you will always be my mistress, always my wife.

7. Cynthia surely rejoiced that the law was repealed, at whose proclamation we both wept long ago, lest it should part us: though Jupiter himself cannot divide two lovers against their will. 'But Caesar is great.' Yet Caesar is great in arms: conquered nations are worth nothing in love. For I would sooner suffer this head to leave my neck than I could waste the wedding torches at a bride's whim, or pass, a husband, by your closed threshold, looking back, betrayed, with wet eyes. Ah, what songs of sleep my flute would then sing you, a flute sadder than the funeral trumpet! Whence should I furnish sons for Parthian triumphs? No soldier will come of my blood. But if I followed the true camp of my girl, not great enough for me would Castor's horse ride. For from this my glory has earned so great a name, a glory carried to the wintry Borysthenians. You alone please me: may I please you, Cynthia, alone: this love will be worth more than my ancestral name.

8. The girl long dear to me is now being snatched away: and you, friend, forbid me to shed tears? No enmities are bitter except love's: butcher me myself, I shall be a gentler foe. Can I look at her laid on another's arm? Will she not be called mine, who just now was called mine? All things change: surely loves change: you are conquered or you conquer, this is the wheel of love. Great leaders often, great tyrants have fallen, and Thebes had stood, and lofty Troy once was. What great gifts I gave, what songs I made! Yet she, iron-hearted, never said 'I love.' Was I then too rash for so many years, shameless one, that I bore you and your house? Did I ever seem free to you? Or will you forever hurl proud words upon my head? So, then, will you die in your first youth, Propertius? But die; let her rejoice in your destruction! Let her torment my shade, hound my ghost, insult my pyre, and trample my bones! What? Did not Boeotian Haemon fall at Antigone's tomb, his side wounded by his own sword, and mingle his bones with the wretched girl's, without whom he would not go to his Theban home? But you will not escape: you must die with me; from this same blade let the blood of both drip. Though this death will be dishonourable to me: a dishonourable death indeed, yet you shall die. He too, Achilles, deserted when his wife was snatched away, let his arms lie idle in his tent. He had seen the Achaeans laid low in flight on the shore, and the Dorian camp ablaze with Hector's torch; he had seen Patroclus, disfigured on the heaped sand, stretched out, his hair scattered in his blood, enduring all for the sake of fair Briseis: so great a grief rages over love snatched away. But after the captive was given back, a late atonement, he dragged that brave Hector behind his Haemonian steeds. Since I am far inferior both in mother and in arms,

9. That which he now is, I have often been: but perhaps in an hour another, this very one cast off, will be dearer. Penelope could live untouched for twice ten years, a woman worthy of so many suitors; she could defer marriage by false Minerva, undoing by night the work of day with a trick; and though she never hoped to see Ulysses, by waiting for him she stayed and became an old woman. Briseis too, embracing the lifeless Achilles, beat her white face with maddened hand; and the captive, mourning, washed her bloody lord, laid out by the yellow shallows of Simois, and fouled her hair, and lifted the body of great Achilles and his vast bones in her small hand; when neither Peleus was near you nor your sea-blue mother, nor Scyrian Deidamia in her widowed bed. Then, therefore, Greece rejoiced in true brides, then there was chaste honour even amid arms. But you could not be empty for a single night, impious one, could not stay alone for a single day! Nay, you drank cups together with much laughter: perhaps too there were evil words about me. He too is sought, who first deserted you before: may the gods grant you enjoy the man who caught you! Were these the vows I undertook for your safety, when the Stygian waters were already gaining this head, and we friends stood weeping around your bed? Where was he then, by the gods, faithless one, and who was he? What if I were kept a soldier among the distant Indians, or if my ship stood in the Ocean? But for you it is easy to compose words and deceits: this one work woman has always learned. Not so do the Syrtes shift with the uncertain breeze, nor leaves so trembled by the wintry South, as swiftly a pact in a woman's anger breaks, whether the cause be grave or the cause be light. Now, since this resolve has pleased you, I shall yield: bring out, I pray, boys, your sharper darts, vie to pierce me, and free me from this life! My blood will be your greatest prize. The stars are witnesses, and the morning frost, and the door opened stealthily to me, poor wretch, that nothing in life was ever more dear to me than you: now too it will be so, though you are my enemy, nothing. Nor will any mistress set foot on my bed: I shall be alone, since it is not allowed to be yours. And would that, if I have led pious years, that man might turn to stone in the midst of love! . . . The Theban leaders fell beneath dread arms, not for kingdoms more, not without their mother between them, than I, if I might fight with my girl between us, would not flee to undergo death by your death.

10. But it is time to range Helicon with other dances, and time now to give the field to the Haemonian horse. Now I would gladly recall the squadrons brave in battle and tell of the Roman camp of my leader. But if my strength fails, surely the daring will be praise: in great things even to have wished is enough. Let first youth sing of Venus, the last of tumults: I will sing of wars, since my girl has been written. Now I wish to go forward graver, with downcast brow, now my Muse teaches me another lyre. Rise, soul, from the lowly; now, my song, take up strength; Pierides, now there will be need of a mighty voice. Now the Euphrates denies that the Parthian horseman looks behind his back, and grieves to have detained the Crassi: nay, India, Augustus, gives its neck to your triumph, and the house of untouched Arabia trembles before you; and if any land withdraws itself to the farthest shores, let it later, captured, feel your hands! This camp I will follow; by singing your camp I shall be a great prophet: may the fates keep this day for me! But where one cannot touch the head of the great standards, the garland is laid here before its lowest feet; so we now, unable to climb the song of praise, give cheap incense at poor rites. Not yet do my songs know the Ascraean springs, but Love has only washed them in the stream of Permessus.

11. Let others write of you, or you may stay unknown: let him praise you who sows seed in barren soil. All your gifts, believe me, the black day of your last funeral will carry off with you upon one bier; and the traveller will pass by your bones in scorn, nor will he say, 'This ash was once a learned girl.'

12. Whoever he was, who first painted Love as a boy, do you not think he had wondrous hands? He first saw that lovers live without sense, and that great goods perish through light cares. The same man not in vain added windy wings, and made the god fly from the human heart: for we are tossed on alternating waves, and our breeze stays in no place. And rightly his hand is armed with barbed arrows, and the Cretan quiver hangs from either shoulder: for he strikes before we, safe, discern the foe, nor does anyone leave that wound unharmed. In me the darts remain, the boyish image remains: but surely he has lost his wings; for, alas, he never flies away from my breast, and wages constant war in my blood. What pleasure is it to you to dwell in dried-up marrow? If you have shame, hurl your darts elsewhere! It were better to try the untouched with that poison: it is not I, but my thin shade that is beaten. For if you destroy it, who will there be to sing such things, (this my light Muse is your great glory), who would sing the head and the fingers and the dark eyes of the girl,

13. Not with so many Persian arrows are Etruscan shafts armed as Love has fixed in my breast. He forbade me to scorn the slender Muses, and bade me dwell so in the Ascraean grove, not that the Pierian oaks should follow my words, or that I could lead the beasts down the Ismarian vale, but rather that Cynthia should be astounded by my verse: then would I be more famous in art than Inachian Linus. I am not so great an admirer of mere noble beauty, nor of a woman who boasts illustrious ancestors: let it delight me to have read in the lap of a learned girl, and to have proved my writings to pure ears. When these things have befallen, farewell, confused tale of the crowd: for with my mistress as judge I shall be safe. And if she happens to turn kind ears toward peace, then I can endure the enmity of Jove.

13b. Whenever, therefore, death shall close my eyes, learn the rites of my funeral that you may keep. Let not my procession then range with long display, nor let the trumpet be the empty lament of my death; nor let a couch be spread for me on an ivory frame, nor let my death rest on a couch of Attalus. Let the row of perfume-bearing dishes be absent, let there be the small obsequies of a plebeian funeral. My procession is great enough, if there be three little books, which I shall bear as greatest gifts to Persephone. But you, your breast bared and torn, will follow, nor will you grow weary of calling my name, and you will place last kisses on my cold lips, when the onyx full of Syrian gift is given. Then, when the fire set beneath has made me ashes, let a tiny urn receive my shade, and let a laurel be set above the small tomb, to shade with its shadow the place of my spent funeral, and let there be two verses: WHO NOW LIES HERE, GRIM DUST, WAS ONCE THE SLAVE OF A SINGLE LOVE. Nor will the fame of my grave grow less known than the bloody tomb of the Phthian hero. You too, if ever you come to your fate, remember, come white-haired by this road to the mindful stones. Meanwhile take care not to scorn me when buried: the knowing earth has no small sense of truth. And would that one of the Three Sisters had bidden me lay down my life in my first cradle! For why should the breath be kept for so doubtful an hour? Nestor's ash was seen after three generations: yet if some Gallic soldier on the Trojan ramparts had shortened for him the fate of long old age, he would not have seen the body of Antilochus buried, nor said, 'O death, why do you come to me so late?' Yet you will sometimes weep for your lost friend: it is right to love forever those who have passed. Witness he whom the hard boar once struck, white Adonis, as he hunted on the Idalian height, lay handsome in those marshes; thither you, Venus, are said to have gone with hair flowing loose. But in vain, Cynthia, will you call back my silent shade:

14. Not so did the son of Atreus rejoice in the Dardan triumph, when the great wealth of Laomedon fell; nor was Ulysses so glad when his wandering was done, when he touched the shores of dear Dulichia; nor Electra so, when she beheld Orestes safe, whose false bones, holding, the sister had wept; nor did the daughter of Minos so see Theseus unharmed, when with the thread he guided his Daedalian path; as much joy as I have gathered in the past night: I shall be immortal, if there be another such. But while I went a suppliant with bowed neck, I was said to be cheaper than a dry pool. Now she no longer seeks to set unjust disdains against me, nor can she sit slow while I weep. And would that this terms had not been known to me so late! Now medicine is given to ashes. The path shone before my blind feet: for surely no one in mad love sees. This I have felt to profit more: scorn them, lovers! So today she will come who refused yesterday. Others knocked in vain and called the mistress: with me the slow girl had laid her head. This is a victory dearer to me than the conquered Parthians, these will be my spoils, my kings, my chariots. Great gifts I will fix on your column, Cytherea, and such a song will be beneath my name: THESE SPOILS I, PROPERTIUS, PLACE BEFORE YOUR SHRINE, GODDESS, A LOVER RECEIVED THROUGH THE WHOLE NIGHT. Now it lies with you, my light, whether my ship comes to harbour saved, or settles laden in the midst of the shallows. But if by some fault you change toward me, may I lie dead before your porch!

15. O happy me! O night bright for me! and O you, little couch made blessed by my delights! How many words we spoke with the lamp set near, and what a struggle there was when the light was removed! For now she wrestled with me, her breasts bared, now, covered by her tunic, she made delay. She opened my eyes that had slipped in sleep with her own mouth and said, 'So, sluggard, you lie?' How with varied embrace we change our arms! How long my kisses lingered on your lips! It does not please to spoil Venus with blind motion: if you do not know it, the eyes are the leaders in love. Paris himself is said to have perished for the naked Spartan, when she rose from Menelaus' chamber; naked too Endymion is said to have caught Phoebus' sister and lain with the naked goddess. But if, persisting in your purpose, you lie clothed, you will feel my hands with your garment torn: nay, even, if anger carries me further, you will show your mother your bruised arms. Not yet do drooping breasts forbid you to play: let her see to that who is already ashamed to have borne a child. While the fates allow us, let us sate our eyes with love: a long night comes for you, and a day that will not return. And would that you wished to bind us so, clinging, with a chain, that no day might ever loose it! Let the doves joined in love be your example, male and female, a whole marriage. He errs who seeks an end to mad love: true love knows no measure to keep. Sooner shall the earth deceive the ploughman with false birth, and the Sun more quickly drive black horses, and the rivers begin to call back their waters to their source, and the fish be dry in a parched whirlpool, than I could transfer my griefs to another: hers I shall be living, hers I shall be dead. But if she will grant me such nights with her, even a year of life will be long. If she gives many, I shall become immortal in them: in a single night anyone can be even a god. If all men longed to run such a life, and to lie with limbs heavy with much wine, there would be no cruel sword nor warship, nor would the Actian sea toss our bones, nor would Rome, so often besieged round about by her own triumphs, be weary of loosing her hair in mourning. This at least posterity will rightly be able to praise: our cups have wronged no gods. Only you, while it is light, do not abandon the fruit of life! If you give all your kisses, you will give too few. And as the leaves leave the withering garlands, which you see scattered everywhere, floating in the baskets, so for us, who now breathe high as lovers, perhaps tomorrow's day will shut up our fate.

16. The praetor has just come, Cynthia, from the Illyrian lands, the greatest prey for you, the greatest care for me. Could he not have laid down his life on the Ceraunian rock? Ah, Neptune, what gifts I would give you! Now without me the banquets are held at a full table, now without me the door stands open all night. So, if you are wise, do not abandon the harvest offered and fleece the stupid sheep of its full coat; then, when, his gift spent, he is left a pauper, bid him sail again to other Illyrias! Cynthia does not follow the fasces nor care for honours, she always weighs the purse of her lovers. But you now, Venus, O help my grief, that he may burst his limbs with endless lusts! So anyone buys love with gifts? Jupiter, the girl perishes for an unworthy price. She always sends me to seek pearls in the Ocean, and bids me bring gifts from Tyre itself. And would that no one at Rome were rich, and the leader himself could dwell in a hut of straw! Never would mistresses be for sale to a gift, and the same girl would grow grey in one house; never would you lie apart for seven nights, your white arms flung round so foul a man, not because I have sinned (I call you to witness), but because fickleness has always been the friend of fair women. The barbarian stirs his loins with his ankles shut tight, and suddenly, lucky, he now holds my kingdom! See what Eriphyle found by bitter gifts, and with what evils the bride Creusa burned. Will no wrong soothe my weeping? Or does this grief not know how to be absent from your vices? So many days have now gone, when neither the care of the theatre nor of the Campus has touched me, nor does my table please. But surely let her be ashamed, ashamed! unless perhaps, as they say, shameful love is wont to have deaf ears. Behold the leader, who lately filled with empty din the Actian seas with his doomed soldiers: shameful love bade him turn his keels in flight and seek refuge at the world's edge. This is Caesar's virtue and Caesar's glory: with the hand by which he conquered, he laid up his arms. But whatever garments he gave you, whatever emeralds, or topaz with its golden light, may I see the swift gales carry these to nothing: may they become, I wish, earth to you, water to you. Not always does serene Jupiter laugh at perjured lovers and neglect their prayers with deaf ear. You have seen the thunder run across the whole sky, and the lightning leap down from its ethereal home: this the Pleiades do not, nor watery Orion, nor does the wrath of the bolt fall thus from nothing; then is he wont to punish perjured girls, since, deceived, the god himself once wept. So let not a Sidonian garment be worth so much to you that you fear, whenever the South wind is cloudy.

17. To break the promised night, to lead the lover on with promises, this is to have hands stained with blood! Of these I am the prophet, whenever, deserted, I have spent bitter nights, tossing on both sides of the bed. Whether you are moved by the lot of Tantalus at the streams, that the water mocks the thirst of his parched mouth; or whether you wonder at the labours of Sisyphus, how hard it is to roll the weight up the whole mountain; nothing on earth lives harder than a lover, nor, if you are wise, would you wish to be anything less. He whom envy lately bore as happy, marvelling, now I am scarcely admitted even on the tenth day. Now it pleases me, impious one, to lay my body on the hard rock, and to take the ground poison into my hands; nor may I rest in the crossroads under the dry moon, or send words through the chinks of doors. Yet however this may be, I will beware of changing my mistress: then she will weep, when she feels that there is faith in me.

18a. Constant complaints have bred hatred in many: often a woman is broken by a silent man. If you have seen anything, always deny you have seen it! Or if anything has chanced to grieve her, deny that you grieve!

18b. What if my age were growing white with grey years, and a languid wrinkle made my cheeks furrowed? Yet Aurora, not scorning the old age of Tithonus, did not let him lie deserted in her Eastern home: him often, as she departed, she cherished in her arms before she diligently washed the harnessed horses; when, embracing him, she rested near the Indians, she complained that the days returned too soon; she, mounting her chariot, called the gods unjust, and did her duty to the lands unwilling. For her the joys of living old Tithonus were greater than was her heavy grief at Memnon lost. It did not shame such a girl to sleep with an old man and so often to give kisses to white hair. But you hate me even young, faithless one, though you yourself will be a bent old woman in no long day. Nay, I lessen my care, since often Cupid is wont to be ill to him to whom he was good before.

18c. Now even, madwoman, do you imitate the painted Britons, and sport with your head dyed in foreign sheen? As nature gave it, so every figure is right: the Belgian colour is foul on a Roman face. May many evils befall that girl beneath the earth who foolishly, lying, changes her own hair! Take it off: surely you can seem fair to me, you are fair enough for me, if only you come often. Or if some girl has dyed her temples with blue tint, is a blue beauty therefore good? Since you have neither brother nor any son, let me be your brother, and let me be your only son. Let your own bed always be your guardian, nor wish to sit with too adorned a brow. I will believe rumour as it tells: do not give it cause: rumour leaps across both land and seas.

19. Although you depart from Rome against my will, Cynthia, I rejoice that you will dwell in remote fields without me. There will be no young corrupter in the chaste fields, who would not let you be virtuous with his flatteries; no brawl will arise before your windows, nor will sleep be bitter to you when called upon. You will be alone and gaze alone, Cynthia, at the mountains and the flock and the bounds of a poor farmer. There no games can corrupt you, nor shrines, the greatest cause of your sins. There you will continually watch the bulls ploughing, and the vine lay aside its tresses to the learned pruning-hook; and there you will bring scant incense to the rough chapel, where the rustic kid falls before the hearths; at once you will imitate the dances with bare leg; let all things only be safe from a stranger. I myself will hunt: now already it pleases me to take up the rites of Diana and lay aside the vows of Venus. I will begin to chase wild beasts and hang the horns on the pine, and myself to urge on the bold dogs; not, however, that I would dare to attack vast lions or go swift to close quarters with the field-boars. Let this then be my soft daring, to catch gentle hares and pierce the bird with the fitted reed, where Clitumnus covers his fair streams with his grove, and the wave washes the snowy oxen. Whenever you attempt anything, my life, remember that I will come to you within a few dawns. Here neither the lonely woods can turn me away, nor the wandering streams poured down the mossy ridges, from changing your name on my unceasing tongue: no one would wish not to have harmed the absent.

20. Why do you weep more grievously than Briseis snatched away? why do you weep, anxious, more sadly than captive Andromache? or why, madwoman, do you weary the gods about my treachery? Why do you complain that my faith has fallen so? Not so loudly does the Attic bird, deadly in nocturnal complaint, cry amid the Cecropian leaves, nor so much does Niobe, proud over twice-six graves, flow down weeping from anxious Sipylus. Though they bind my arms with brazen knots, though your limbs be hidden in the house of Danae, for you I will break even the brazen chains, my life, and leap across the iron house of Danae. Whatever is said of you, it is said to my deaf ears: only do not doubt my steadfastness. I swear to you by my mother's bones and my father's bones (if I lie, alas, may both ashes be heavy on me!) that I will remain yours, my life, to the final darkness: one faith, one day, will carry us both off. But if neither your name nor your beauty held me, your gentle servitude could hold me. Now the seventh circle of the full moon is drawn down, since no crossroads are silent about me and you: meanwhile your door has sometimes been soft to me, sometimes the freedom of your bed has been granted. Nor was any night bought for me with blessed gifts: whatever I was, this was the great grace of your heart. When so many sought you, you alone sought me: can I be unmindful of your nature? Then may the tragic Furies torment me, and may you condemn me, Aeacus, in the infernal judgment, and may my punishment wander among the birds of Tityus, and may I bear the rocks in Sisyphus' toil! Nor do you sue me with suppliant tablets: my last faith will be such as my first. This is my perpetual law, that I, alone among lovers, neither quickly cease nor rashly begin.

21. Ah, how much Panthus' page has feigned to you about me, so much may Venus not be a friend to that Panthus! But already I seem to you a truer prophet than Dodona. That handsome lover of yours has a wife! So many nights have perished: is there no shame? Look, he sings free: you, too credulous, lie alone. And now you are talk between them, and he, proud, says that he was often at home against his will. May I perish, if anything but glory is sought from you: this husband has these praises. So did the guest Jason once deceive the Colchian: she was cast out of the house (for Creusa held it). So was Calypso mocked by the Dulichian youth: she saw her lover spread his sails. Ah, too easy girls, to lend your ears, learn, deserted ones, not to be rashly kind! For this one too, who remains, another has long been sought: experienced in the first, foolish, you can beware. We in whatever place, we at every time are with you, whether sick alike or in health.

22a. You know that yesterday many girls pleased me alike; you know, Demophoon, that many ills come to me. No crossroads are roamed in vain by my feet; O theatres too much born for my ruin, whether someone parts her white arms with a soft gesture, or sings varied measures with her mouth! Meanwhile my eyes seek a wound for themselves, if some fair girl sits with uncovered breast, or if wandering locks stray on pure brows, which an Indian gem holds at the top of the head. If by chance she has harshly refused me anything with her look, cold sweat fell from all my brow. You ask, Demophoon, why I am so weak toward all? What you ask, 'why,' no love has. Why does someone slash his arms with sacred knives and cut himself to the Phrygian's frenzied measures? To each created thing nature has given a fault: to me fortune has given always to love something. Though the fate of Thamyras the singer follow me, I will never, envious one, be blind to fair women. But if I seem to you thin, wasted in my limbs, you are deceived: Venus is never won by labour. You may inquire: often a girl has proved my service strong the whole night through. Jupiter rested twin Bears for Alcmene, and the sky was twice by night without its king; yet not therefore did he come languid to his thunderbolts: no love itself takes away its own strength. What? When Achilles went from the embrace of Briseis, did the Phrygians flee the Thessalian darts the less? What? When fierce Hector rose from Andromache's bed, did the Mycenaean ships not fear war? The one or the other could destroy fleets or walls: here I am the son of Peleus, here I the fierce Hector. See how in the sky now the sun, now the moon serves: so for me too one girl is too little. Let one hold and cherish me with eager arms, if the other ever leaves me no room; or if by chance she is made angry at my servant, let her know there is another who wishes to be mine! For two cables better guard a ship, and the anxious mother more safely rears twins.

22b. Or if you are hard, refuse: but if you are not hard, come! What good is it to set these words nowhere? This one grief is keen of all to a lover, if some girl whom he hopes for suddenly refuses to come. How many sighs turn him all over his bed, when she herself forbids him to receive one who has not come? And again, asking, he wearies the boy with what he has heard, bidding him seek the fates he fears to know.

23. He for whom the path of the untaught crowd had to be shunned, now the water sought from the very pool is sweet to me. Does any freeborn man give gifts to another's slave, that he may carry the promised words to his mistress? And asks so often, 'What portico now covers her?' and 'How does she move her feet on the Campus?' Then, when you have endured what fame calls the labours of Hercules, so that she writes, 'Have you any gift?', that you may see the face of a bitter guardian, and, caught, often hide in a filthy hut? How dearly the night turns once in a whole year! Ah, let them perish, whom a closed door pleases! On the other hand, she who goes free with cloak thrown back, hedged by no fear of guardians, pleases? For whom the Sacred Way is often worn by a dirty shoe, nor does she allow delay, if anyone wishes to approach; she will never put it off, nor, prattling, demand what the father, tied up, often weeps to have given, nor will she say, 'I am afraid, hasten now to rise, I beg: unhappy me, today my man comes from the country.' And those whom the Euphrates and those whom the Orontes have sent me, let them help me: I would not have chaste thefts of the bed; since no freedom now remains to any lover: no one will be free, if anyone wishes to love.

24a. 'Do you speak, when you are already a tale in a famous book and your Cynthia is read throughout the whole forum?' For whom would not sweat sprinkle his temples at these words? Either honest shame, or a love that must be kept silent. But if Cynthia breathed so easy upon us, I would not be called the head of wantonness, nor be led, infamous, through the whole city, and though I burned, I would put words off under a false name. So let it not be strange to you that I seek cheap girls: they defame less: is the reason light to you? . . . And now she desires fans of the proud peacock's tail and to have a cool ball of hard crystal in her hands, and she demands, when I am angry, the ivory dice, and the cheap gifts that gleam on the Sacred Way. Ah, let me perish, if those expenses move me, but it shames me now to be a jest to a deceiving mistress!

24b. Was this above all what you bade me rejoice in? Are you not ashamed, so fair, to be so fickle? Not one or two nights yet have been spent in love, and already I am said to be heavy in your bed. Lately you praised me and read my songs: has that love of yours turned its wings so quickly? Let him contend with me in talent, let him contend in art, first of all let him learn to love in one house: if it pleases you, let him fight the Lernaean hydra and bring you apples from the Hesperian dragon, let him gladly drink foul poisons and, shipwrecked, the waves, and never refuse to be wretched for your sake: (would that you might prove these labours in me, my life!) soon that bold one will be among the timid for you, who now comes by tossing himself into swollen honour: next year will be your parting. But me no whole age of the Sibyl will change, nor the toil of Alcides, nor that black day. You will gather my bones and say, 'Are these your bones, Propertius? Alas, you were faithful to me, faithful you were, alas, though not noble in ancestral blood, and though you were not so rich.' I will endure anything, no wrong ever changes me: to bear a fair girl I think no burden. I believe not a few have perished for that beauty, I believe, but that many have not had faith. For a short space Theseus loved the daughter of Minos, Demophoon Phyllis, each a wicked guest. Now Medea is known to you by the Jasonian keel and lately left alone by the man she saved. She is hard who feigns a pretended love to many, and can make herself ready for more than one. Do not compare me with the noble, do not with the blessed: scarcely comes one who would gather my bones on my last day. These I will be to you: but rather, I pray, that you beat your bare breast with hair let down for me.

25. Only one, the fairest, born to my grief, since my lot shuts out 'come often,' that beauty of yours will become most famous in my little books, by your leave, Calvus, by your peace, Catullus. The aged soldier lies apart, his arms laid down, and the aged oxen refuse to draw the ploughs, and the rotting ship rests on the empty sand, and the old war-shield hangs idle in the temple: but no old age will lead me from your love, whether I shall be Tithonus or Nestor. Was it not better to serve a hard tyrant and groan in your bull, cruel Perillus? It were better to harden at the Gorgon's face, even if we suffered the Caucasian birds. Yet still I will resist. The iron blade is worn by rust, and the flint often by a little water: but love is worn away by no fault of the mistress, which remains and endures threats with undeserving ear. Unasked, scorned, he begs, and, wronged, confesses that he has sinned, and himself returns with unwilling feet. You too, who in full love assume disdain, credulous one, no woman has weight for long. Does anyone pay his vows in the midst of storms, when often the broken keel floats in harbour? Or demand the prizes before the race is run, before the seventh wheel has skilfully worn the goal? Lying gales play favourable in love: if any ruin comes late, it comes great. Yet you meanwhile, though she loves you, keep your joys shut in a silent breast. For in love each man's own greatest words, somehow, are wont to harm him. Though she call you very often, remember to go once: what causes envy is not wont to last long. But if the age were pleasing to ancient girls, I would be what you now are: I am conquered by the time. Yet that age will not change my ways: let each man know how to go his own road. But you, who recall your services to many loves, how great a grief tortures your eyes thus! You have seen a tender girl of full radiance, you have seen a dark one, each colour leads; you have seen one come forward in Argive figure, you have seen ours, each beauty captivates; that one in plebeian cloak or in scarlet: this and that is one road of an evil wound. When one girl carries enough sleeplessness for your eyes, one woman is enough, many ills, for anyone.

26a. I saw you in dreams, my life, with your keel broken, dragging weary hands through the Ionian spray, and confessing whatever you had lied to me, and unable now to lift your hair heavy with water, like Helle tossed on the purple waves, whom the golden ram bore on its soft back. How I feared lest the sea should take your name, and the sailor gliding over your water should weep! What vows then I made to Neptune, what then to Castor's brother, and what to you, now a goddess, Leucothoe! But you, scarcely lifting your first palms from the gulf, often call my name, now about to perish. But if by chance Glaucus had seen your eyes, you would have been made a girl of the Ionian sea, and the Nereids would have railed at you for envy, white Nesaee, sea-blue Cymothoe. But I saw a dolphin hasten to your aid, who, I think, had once borne the lyre of Arion. And now I was trying to throw myself from the topmost rock, when fear shattered such visions for me.

26b. Now let them marvel that so fair a girl serves me and I am called powerful in the whole city! Not if the rivers of Cambyses and Croesus should return, would she say, 'Rise from our bed, poet.' For when she recites my poems, she says she hates the rich: no girl reveres songs so devoutly. Much in love does faith avail, much constancy: he who can give much can also love much. . . . Whether my girl should think to go over the long sea, I will follow her, and one breeze will drive the two of us, faithful. One shore will be ours as we sleep, and one tree our roof, and from one spring we will often drink; and one plank will be able to hold two lovers, whether the prow be my bed or the stern. I will endure all: though savage Eurus press, and cold Auster drive the sails into the uncertain; whatever winds tormented wretched Ulysses and the thousand Greek ships on the Euboean shore; and who moved the two shores, when the Argo's leader was a dove sent over an unknown sea. Only let her never be absent from my eyes, though Jupiter himself set fire to the ship. Surely we shall be tossed together, naked, on the same shores. Let the wave bear me off, only let the earth cover you. But Neptune is not cruel to so great a love, Neptune, in love a match for his brother Jove: witness Amymone, embraced in the fields as she carried water, and the marsh of Lerna struck by his trident. Now the god by his embrace fulfilled her vow, and for her the golden urn poured forth divine waters. And Orithyia, snatched away, denied that Boreas was cruel: this god tames both lands and the deep seas. Believe me, Scylla will grow gentle for us, nor ever vast Charybdis, free for a while of her alternating water; and the very stars will be darkened by no shadows, and Orion will be clear, and the Kid will be clear. But if my life must be laid down upon your body, this ending will not be dishonourable for us.

27. But you, mortals, seek the uncertain hour of your death, and by what way death will come; you seek in the clear sky the discoveries of the Phoenicians, which star is favourable to man and which baleful! Whether we follow the Parthians on foot or the Britons by fleet, the blind perils of the road, of sea and land; and again we weep that our head is exposed to tumult when Mars mingles the doubtful ranks on both sides; . . . besides, fire to homes and ruin to homes, and lest black cups come to your lips. The lover alone knows when he will perish and by what death, and he fears neither the blasts of Boreas nor arms. Now though the oarsman sit beneath the Stygian reed, and behold the gloomy sails of the infernal boat: if only the breeze brings back the calling girl, he will return on the road, by no law conceded.

28a. Jupiter, at last pity the afflicted girl: so fair a one dead will be your crime. For this even your wife Juno can forgive you: Juno too is softened, if any girl perishes. For the time has come when the parched air seethes, and the earth begins to glow under the dry Dog-star. But the fault is not so much of the heat nor the crimes of the sky as that she has so often not held the gods holy. This ruins wretched girls, this has ruined them before: whatever they swore, the wind and the wave snatch away. Did Venus grieve to be compared to her? She, just as much, is a goddess envious of fair women before her. Or have you scorned the temples of Pelasgian Juno? Or dared to deny that Pallas' eyes are good? Always, fair ones, you do not know how to spare your words. This your harmful tongue, this your beauty has given you. But for you, your life vexed through many perils, a gentler hour comes at the last day. Io, her head transformed, lowed in her first years: now a goddess, who drank the Nile's streams a cow. Ino too in her early age wandered the lands: her the wretched sailor implores as Leucothoe. Andromeda had been doomed to the sea-monsters: this same one was the noble wife of Perseus. Callisto had wandered, a bear, through the Arcadian fields: she with her star guides the nightly sails. But if by chance the fates have hastened your rest, blessed those fates of your burial, you will tell Semele in what peril beauty stands, and she too will believe, a girl taught by her own ill; and among all the Maeonian heroines you will hold the first place, with none denying it. Now, however you can, wounded, yield to fate's way: both the god and the harsh day itself turns.

28b. The wheels twisted under the magic chant fail, and the scorched laurel lies on the dead hearth; and now the Moon refuses so often to come down from the sky, and the black bird chants a deadly omen. One boat of fate will carry our loves, sea-blue, with sails set for the infernal lakes. But pity, I beg, not one, but two! I will live, if she lives; if she falls, I will fall. For these prayers I bind myself by a sacred song: I will write, 'By great Jove the girl is saved'; and before your feet she herself will sit doing service, and sitting will tell her long perils.

28c. May this your mercy abide, Persephone, and may you, husband of Persephone, not wish to be more cruel. There are among the lower world so many thousands of fair women: let one fair one, if it be allowed, remain in the upper realms! With you is Iope, with you white Tyro, with you Europa and unchaste Pasiphae, and all the beauties old Troy bore and all Achaia, and Thebes and the ruined kingdoms of aged Priam: and whatever Roman girl was in the number, has died: the greedy fire holds them all. Neither is beauty eternal nor anyone's fortune lasting: nearer or further, his own death awaits each. Since you, my light, are released from great peril, pay the dances owed to Diana, pay too the vigils to the goddess now, before a heifer; pay me, alas, ten votive nights!

29a. Last night, my light, when, drunk, I wandered, and no band of slaves led me, a little throng of boys, I know not how many, met me (fear forbade me to count them); of these some held torches, some arrows, and part seemed even to prepare bonds for me. But they were naked. Of these the most wanton one said, 'Seize him, now you know him well: this was he, an angry woman set him for us.' He spoke, and already the knot was on my neck. . . . Here one bids drive me to the middle, but another, 'Let him perish, who does not think we are gods! She, undeserving, waits for you whole hours: but you, fool, seek I know not whose doors. When she has loosed the nightly bands of her Sidonian turban and moved her heavy eyes, there will breathe upon you not the scents of Arabian herbs, but those that Love himself made with his own hands. Spare him now, brothers, now he pledges sure love; and now, behold, we have come to the appointed house.' And so, casting my cloak over me, they said again: 'Go now and learn to stay home at night.'

29b. It was morning, and I wished, if she were resting alone, to visit her: but in her bed Cynthia was alone. I was astounded: never had she seemed fairer to me, not even when she was in her scarlet tunic, and was going to tell her dreams to chaste Vesta, lest they should harm herself or me: such she seemed to me, released from fresh sleep. Alas, how much of itself a bright beauty avails! 'What are you,' she said, 'a morning spy on your mistress, do you think I am like your ways? I am not so easy: one known to me will be enough, either you or whoever can be truer. No traces appear on the pressed bed, no signs of two having lain tossing. See how in my whole body there rises for me no breath known for adultery committed.' She spoke, and pushing back kisses with her opposing right hand, she leaps up, her foot set in a loose sandal. So I, the guardian of so holy a love, am mocked: from that time no night was happy for me.

30a. Where do you flee, madman? There is no flight: though you flee all the way to the Tanais, Love will follow all the way. Not if you ride on Pegasus' back through the air, nor if Perseus' wing should move your feet; or if the cleaving breezes snatch you with winged sandals, the high road of Mercury will profit you nothing. Love ever presses above your head, presses the lover, and himself sits heavy on the free neck. He keeps watch, a keen guardian, and will never let you lift from the ground eyes once captured. And now, if you sin, that god is to be entreated, if only he sees the prayers to be present.

30b. Though harsh old men may accuse these banquets: let us only, my life, wear out the road we have set. Their ears are burdened with ancient laws: this is the place where you, learned flute, may sound, you who once swam, cast unjustly into Maeander's shallows, when the swelling made Pallas' face ugly. Yet not undeservedly! Now to go through the Phrygian waters and seek the known shores of the Hyrcanian sea, to scatter the household gods with kindred slaughter in turn and bring dread prizes to the ancestral Lares! Should it shame me to live content with one love? If this is a crime, it will be the crime of Love: let no one cast it at me. May it please you, Cynthia, with me to hold the dewy caves on the mossy ridges. There you will see the Sisters cling to the rocks and sing the sweet thefts of ancient Jove, how he was burnt for Semele, how he was lost for Io, and at last how the bird flew to the roofs of Troy. But if no one stands who has conquered the Winged One's arms, why am I alone arraigned for a common fault? Nor are you moved by the reverent faces of the Virgins: this chorus too is not ignorant of what it is to love; if indeed one of them, embraced in the form of Oeagrus, once lay on the Bistonian rocks. When these set me in the first rank of the dance, and Bacchus is in the midst with learned thyrsus, then I will let the sacred clusters hang on my head: for without you my talent has no power.

31. You ask why I come to you rather late? The golden portico of Phoebus was opened by great Caesar. So great a sight it was, set out with Punic columns, among which stood the female throng of aged Danaus. Here Phoebus himself seemed to me fairer than the god, the marble one opening a song with silent lyre; and round the altar stood the herds of Myron, four oxen, the artist's living statues. Then in the middle rose the temple of bright marble, dearer to Phoebus than his native Ortygia: on it, above the gables, was the chariot of the Sun; and the doors, the noble work of Libyan ivory, one mourned the Gauls cast down from Parnassus' peak, the other the deaths of the daughter of Tantalus. Then, between his mother and his sister, the god himself, the Pythian, sounds songs in his long robe.

32. Who sees, sins: he, therefore, who has not seen you, will not desire: the eyes have the guilt of the deed. For why, O Cynthia, do you seek the doubtful lots of Praeneste, why the walls of Aeaean Telegonus? Why does the British chariot carry you to Herculean Tibur? Why so often the Appian Way to Lanuvium? Would that you might walk this place, whenever you are free, Cynthia—but the crowd forbids me to believe you, when it sees you run, dedicated, with kindled torches into the grove and bear lights to the goddess of the crossroads. No doubt the Pompeian portico is squalid to you with its shady columns, noble for its Attalic hangings, and the thick row of plane-trees rising together, and the streams that fall from sleeping Maro, and the lightly rippling waters of the nymphs through the whole city when suddenly Triton hides the water in his mouth. You are deceived: that road betrays the theft of your love: you flee not the city, madwoman, but my eyes! You do nothing, you lay empty snares against me, you, idle, spread well-known nets to me, the practised one. But about me there is less: the loss of chaste fame will be as great for you, wretched, as you deserve. For lately rumour of you wounded my ears, and was not good in the whole city. But you should not believe a hostile tongue: beauty has always had scandal for its penalty. Your fame is not condemned by poison caught: you will be witness, Phoebus, to see pure hands. But if one night or two has been spent in long play, small crimes do not move me. Tyndareus' daughter changed her country for a foreign love, and was brought back home alive without judgment. Venus herself is said to have been corrupted by lust for Mars, yet was no less always honoured in heaven. Though Ida say that she loved Paris the shepherd and that the goddess lay among the flocks, this too the throng of Hamadryad sisters watched, and the old Sileni, and the father of the chorus himself; with whom you gathered apples beneath the Idaean cave, catching, Naiad, the falling fruit in your cupped hand. Does anyone, amid so great a swarm of debaucheries, ask, 'Why is she so rich? Who gave it? Whence did he give it?' O Rome too happy in our time, if one girl acts against the manners! This same thing Lesbia did before her with impunity: she who follows is surely less hateful. He who seeks the old Tatii and the harsh Sabines has lately set his foot in our city. You will sooner be able to dry the sea-waves, and pluck the high stars with a mortal hand, than to make our girls not wish to sin: this was the custom when Saturn held the kingdom, and when the waters of Deucalion flowed over the world, and after the ancient waters of Deucalion. Tell me, who could keep a chaste bed, what goddess could live alone with one god alone? The wife of great Minos once, as they say, the white beauty of a fierce bull corrupted; nor less did Danae, ringed by a wall of bronze, fail to be unable to deny herself, chaste, to great Jove. But if you have imitated the Greek women and the Latin, live always free by my judgment!

33a. The sad festivals now return again to us: Cynthia has now done service for ten nights. And would they might perish, the rites that the daughter of Inachus sent from the warm Nile to the Ausonian matrons! The goddess who so often divided eager lovers, whoever she was, was always bitter. You surely, Io, in the secret loves of Jove, felt by many roads what it is to wander, when Juno bade you, a girl, to wear horns and lose your speech in the harsh sound of cattle. Ah, how often you hurt your mouth with oak leaves, and chewed the arbutus pastured in your stalls! Or, since Jupiter took the rustic shape from your face, are you therefore made a proud goddess? Is not Egypt enough for you with its dark children? Why was Rome sought by you by so long a road? What profit is it to you that lonely girls sleep? But for you, believe me, the horns will come again, or we will drive you, cruel one, from our city: the Tiber and the Nile have never had grace together. But you, who are too much appeased by my grief, on these nights, free, let us thrice make the journey.

33b. You do not hear and let my words sport in vain, when already the slow stars of Icarius bend the Wain. You drink slowly: the midnights cannot break you. Is your hand not yet weary of casting the dice? Ah, let him perish, whoever first found the pure grapes and corrupted good water with nectar first! Icarus, rightly slaughtered by the Cecropian farmers, you know how bitter is the smell of the vine-leaf! And you, O Centaur Eurytion, perished by wine, and you too, Polyphemus, by Ismarian wine. By wine beauty perishes, by wine youth is corrupted, by wine a girl often does not know her own man. Wretched me, that she is changed not at all by much Lyaeus! Now drink: you are fair: the wines harm you nothing, when your garlands hang drooping into your cups, and you read my songs with low voice. Let your table be wetter with more lavishly poured Falernian, and let it foam more softly in the golden goblet. Yet no woman willingly takes herself to bed alone: there is something that Love compels you to seek. Always the passion for absent lovers is more fortunate: long plenty diminishes constant men.

34. Why should anyone now trust his mistress' beauty to Love? So my girl was almost snatched from me. I speak from experience: no one is faithful in love: rarely does each not seek the fair one for himself. That god pollutes kinsmen, looses friends, and calls the well-agreed to gloomy arms. The adulterous guest came to Menelaus' hospitality: and did not the Colchian follow an unknown man? Lynceus, could you, faithless, touch my beloved? Did not your hands then fall away? What if she had not been constant and so sure? Could you live in so great a disgrace? Kill my breast with iron or with poison: only take yourself away from my mistress. Let you be the partner of my life, of my body, you I admit as lord of my affairs, friend: from my bed alone, from my bed alone I beg you off: I cannot bear a rival, even Jove. I myself, since it is nothing, am jealous of my own shadows, a fool, that I tremble with foolish fear. Yet there is one cause why I forgive so great crimes, that your words strayed with much wine. But the wrinkle of a stern life will never deceive me: all now know how good it is to love.

34b. Lynceus himself, my friend, raves with late loves! I rejoice that you alone approach our gods. What will your wisdom from Socratic books now profit you, or to be able to tell the ways of things? Or what profit you the songs of Erechtheus read? Your old man avails nothing in a great love. Better that you, mindful, imitate Philitas for the Muses and the dreams of unswollen Callimachus. For though you tell again of Aetolian Achelous, how the stream flowed, broken by a great love, and even how the deceitful Maeandrian water strays in the Phrygian plain and itself deceives its own paths, and what kind was Adrastus' vocal Arion, the victor horse, sad at the funeral of Archemorus: the fates of Amphiaraus' chariot will not profit you, nor the fall of Capaneus, pleasing to great Jove. Cease to set your words to the Aeschylean buskin, cease, and relax your limbs to soft dances. Begin now to enclose your verses on a narrow lathe, and come into your own fires, hard poet. You will go no safer than Antimachus, than Homer: a chaste girl scorns even the great gods. But the heavy bull does not yield to the plough before his horns have stuck in strong nooses, nor will you yourself endure hard loves: yet, fierce, you must first be tamed by us. None of these is wont to seek the reason of the world, nor why the Moon labours with her brother's horses, nor whether anything will remain after the Stygian woes, nor whether thunderbolts sent on purpose thunder. Look at me, to whom little fortune was left at home and no triumph of an ancestor's ancient war, how I reign as a banqueter amid girls thronged together by this very talent for which I am now belittled by you! Let it please me to lie languid amid yesterday's garlands, me whom the sure god has touched to the bone with his cast. Virgil delights to be able to tell the Actian shores of guardian Phoebus, and the brave ships of Caesar, who now rouses the arms of Trojan Aeneas and the walls flung up on Lavinian shores. Yield, Roman writers, yield, Greeks! Something greater than the Iliad is being born. You sing, beneath the pine-woods of shady Galaesus, Thyrsis and Daphnis with worn reeds, and how ten apples can corrupt girls, and a kid sent from the pressed udders. Happy you, who buy loves with cheap apples! To this one, ungrateful, Tityrus himself may sing. Happy Corydon, who tries to pluck untouched Alexis, the delight of his master the farmer! Though he, weary, rest from his pipe, he is praised among the easy Hamadryads. You sing the precepts of the old Ascraean poet, in what field the corn, on what ridge the grape grows green. Such a song you make on the learned lyre as the Cynthian tempers with his fingers laid upon it. Yet these will come not unwelcome to any reader, whether he be untaught in love or skilled. Nor, lesser here in spirit, though lesser in voice, the tuneful swan yields to the untaught song of the goose. These things too Varro played when his Jason was finished, Varro, the greatest flame of his Leucadia; these writings too wanton Catullus sang, by which Lesbia is more famous than Helen herself; these the page of learned Calvus also confessed, when he sang the funerals of wretched Quintilia. And how many wounds did Gallus, dead for fair Lycoris, lately wash in the infernal water! Nay, Cynthia too, praised in the verse of Propertius, if Fame will set me among these.