The Amores; or, Amours. Ovid

on the couch; all your neck, too, discoloured by the marks of toying. Especially let him see the presents, which another has sent. If he gives you nothing, the Sacred Street 133 must be talked about. When you have received many things, but yet he has not given you every thing, be continually asking him to lend you something, for you never to return. Let your tongue aid you, and let it conceal your thoughts; 134 caress him, and prove his ruin. 135 Beneath the luscious honey cursed poisons lie concealed. If you observe these precepts, tried by me throughout a long experience; and if the winds and the breezes do not bear away my words; often will you bless me while I live; often will you pray, when I am dead, that in quietude my bones may repose.".

      She was in the middle of her speech, when my shadow betrayed me; but my hands with difficulty refrained from tearing her grey scanty locks, and her eyes bleared with wine, and her wrinkled cheeks. May the Gods grant you both no home, 136 and a needy old age; prolonged winters as well, and everlasting thirst.

      ELEGY IX

      He tells Atticus that like the soldier, the lover ought to be on his guard and that Love is a species of warfare.

      Every lover is a soldier, and Cupid has a camp of his own; believe me, Atticus, 138 every lover is a soldier. The age which is fitted for war, is suited to love as well. For an old man to be a soldier, is shocking; amorousness in an old man is shocking. The years which 139 generals require in the valiant soldier, the same does the charming fair require in her husband. Both soldier and lover pass sleepless nights; both rest upon the ground. The one watches at the door of his mistress; but the other at that of his general. 140 Long marches are the duty of the soldier; send the fair far away, and the lover will boldly follow her, without a limit to his endurance. Over opposing mountains will he go, and rivers swollen with rains; the accumulating snows will he pace.

      About to plough the waves, he will not reproach the stormy East winds; nor will he watch for Constellations favourable for scudding over the waves. Who, except either the soldier or the lover, will submit to both the chill of the night, and the snows mingled with the heavy showers? The one is sent as a spy against the hostile foe; the other keeps his eye on his rival, as though upon an enemy. The one lays siege to stubborn cities, the other to the threshold of his obdurate mistress: the one bursts open gates, and the other, doors. 142 Full oft has it answered to attack the enemy when buried in sleep; and to slaughter an unarmed multitude with armed hand. Thus did the fierce troops of the Thracian Rhesus 143 fall; and you, captured steeds, forsook your lord. Full oft do lovers take advantage of the sleep of husbands, and brandish their arms against the slumbering foe. To escape the troops of the sentinels, and the bands of the patrol, is the part both of the soldier, and of the lover always in misery. Mars is wayward, and Venus is uncertain; both the conquered rise again, and those fall whom you would say could never possibly be prostrate.

      Whoever, then, has pronounced Love mere slothfulness, let him cease to love: 144 to the discerning mind does Love belong. The mighty Achilles is inflamed by the captive Briseis. Trojans, while you may, destroy the Argive resources. Hector used to go to battle fresh from the embraces of Andromache; and it was his wife who placed his helmet on his head. The son of Atreus, the first of all the chiefs, on beholding the daughter of Priam, is said to have been smitten with the dishevelled locks of the raving prophetess. 146 Mars, too, when caught, was sensible of the chains wrought at the forge; 147 there was no story better known than his, in all the heavens.

      I myself was of slothful habit, and born for a lazy inactivity; 148 the couch and the shade 149 had enervated my mind. Attentions to the charming fair gave a fillip to me, in my indolence; and Love commanded me to serve 150 in his camp. Hence it is that thou seest me active, and waging the warfare by night. Let him who wishes not to become slothful, fall in love.

      ELEGY X

      He tells his mistress that she ought not to require presents as a return for her love.

      Such as she, who, borne away from the Eurotas, 151 in the Phrygian ships, was the cause of warfare to her two husbands; such as Leda was, whom her crafty paramour, concealed in his white feathers, deceived under the form of a fictitious bird; such as Amymone 152 used to wander in the parched fields of Argos, when the urn was pressing the locks on the top of her head; such were you; and I was in dread of both the eagle and the bull with respect to you, and whatever form besides Love has created of the mighty Jove.

      Now, all fears are gone, and the disease of my mind is cured; and now no longer does that form of yours rivet my eyes. Do you inquire why I am changed? It is, because you require presents. This reason does not allow of your pleasing me. So long as you were disinterested, I was in love with your mind together with your person; now, in my estimation your appearance is affected by this blemish on your disposition. Love is both a child and naked; he has years without sordidness, and he wears no clothes, that he may be without concealment. Why do you require the son of Venus to be prostituted at a price? He has no fold in his dress, 153 in which to conceal that price. Neither Venus is suited for cruel arms, nor yet the son of Venus; it befits not such unwarlike Divinities to serve for pay. The courtesan stands for hire to any one at a certain price; and with her submissive body, she seeks for wretched pelf. Still, she curses the tyranny of the avaricious procurer; 154 and she does by compulsion 155 what you are doing of your own free will.

      Take, as an example, the cattle, devoid of reason; it were a shocking thing for there to be a finer feeling in the brutes. The mare asks no gift of the horse, nor the cow of the bull; the ram does not woo the ewe, induced by presents. Woman alone takes pleasure in spoils torn from the man; she alone lets out her nights; alone is she on sale, to be hired at a price. She sells, too, joys that delight them both, and which both covet; and she makes it a matter of pay, at what price she herself is to be gratified. Those joys, which are so equally sweet to both, why does the one sell, and why the other buy them? Why must that delight prove a loss to me, to you a gain, for which the female and the male combine with kindred impulse? Witnesses hired dishonestly, 156 sell their perjuries; the chest 157 of the commissioned judge 158 is disgracefully open for the bribe.

      'Tis a dishonourable thing to defend the wretched criminals with a tongue that is purchased; 159 'tis a disgrace for a tribunal to make great acquisitions. 'Tis a disgrace for a woman to increase her patrimonial possessions by the profits of her embraces, and to prostitute her beauty for lucre. Thanks are justly due for things obtained without purchase; there are no thanks for an intercourse disgracefully bartered. He who hires, 160 pays all his due; the price once paid, he no longer remains a debtor for your acquiescence. Cease, ye beauties, to bargain for pay for your favours. Sordid gains bring no good results. It was not worth her while to bargain for the Sabine bracelets, 161 in order that the arms should crush the head of the sacred maiden. The son