Idyll 30

30. The Boy Alas for this cruel and ill-fated sickness:

a quartan fever, love for a boy, holds me now a second month,

of beauty modest enough, yet as much as his feet rise

above the ground, that is grace; and on his cheeks there is a sweet smile.

And now the malady holds me some days, and other days no longer,

and soon there will not even be such respite as comes with sleep;

for yesterday, passing by, he glanced at me sidelong beneath his brows,

ashamed to look me in the face, and his skin reddened.

And love laid hold of my heart yet more,

and I went off home with a wound, and my heart bitten.

And much, calling in my own spirit, I reasoned with it:

Why do you do these things? What end will there be of your folly?

Do you not know that you carry white hairs at your temples?

It is time for you to be wise, not still young in your looks.

You do everything just like those who have only now tasted their years.

And another thing escapes you: it would have been far better

to be a stranger altogether to the cruel longings for a lovely boy.

For his life runs on, like the swift deer's, to forefathers gone,

and tomorrow he will spread his sails to cross another sea;

and the flower of sweet youth does not stay for him

among his comrades; but for me the longing eats even the marrow within,

as I remember; and many things I see in dreams at night,

and a year is not enough to end the cruel sickness.

These things and many others I reproached to my heart.

And it answered thus: Whoever thinks to conquer

the wily-scheming Love, let him think he can easily find

how many times nine are the stars above us.

And now, whether I will or no, I must stretch my long neck

and draw the yoke; for this, good sir,

is the will of the god, who overthrew even the great mind of Zeus

and of the Cyprus-born herself; and me, a leaf that lasts but a day,

needing only a small breath of wind, he carries where he will.