The Love Books of Ovid. Ovid

too. Tityrus and the garnered crops, Æneas and his doughty deeds, will be read so long as Rome shall wield her sceptre o’er the conquered world. So long as Cupid wields his fires and bends his bow, thy numbers, skilled Tibullus, will remembered be. In the West and in the East the name of Gallus shall be known to fame, and because of Gallus, the name of Lycoris shall live on. What though devouring time wear down the flint, and blunt the share of the enduring plough, yet poetry shall never die. Let kings, then, and all their train of conquests, yield to poetry, to poetry let the happy shores of the golden Tagus give place. Let the vulgar herd set their hearts on dross if they will. For myself, let Apollo bestow on me cups overflowing with the waters of Castaly; let the myrtle that dreads the cold adorn my brow and let my verses ever be scanned by the eager lover. While we live we serve as food for Envy; when we are dead we rest within the aureole of the glory we have earned. So, when the funeral fires have consumed me, I shall live on, and the better part of me will have triumphed over death.

      BOOK II

      ELEGY I. HE TELLS WHEREFORE, INSTEAD OF THE WARS OF THE GIANTS, WHICH HE HAD COMMENCED, HE IS CONSTRAINED TO SING OF LOVE.

      Behold here another work of Ovid, who was born in the moist land of the Peligni, of Ovid who singeth to the world of his own follies. This time, again, ’twas Love that willed it. Hence! Avaunt! ye prim and prudish ones. No fitting audience, ye, to strains that sing of tender love. I would be read of none save the maiden that grows warm when she beholds her lover, and of the boy till now unvisited by Love. I pray, too, that some young man, wounded by an arrow sped from the same bow that hath stricken me, may recognise in my verse the image of the flames whereby he is consumed. Long may he marvel, and then at last exclaim, “How comes it that this poet singeth the very story of my love? Who is it hath informed him?”

      I was, I remember, making bold to sing of the Wars of Heaven and Gyges of the hundred hands, and verily I was well equipped for that great argument. I was about to sin the fell revenge of Tellus and the fall of Pelion with Ossa crashing down from high Olympus whereon they were empiled. In my hands I held the clouds, Jove and his thunderbolts, wherewith he would not have failed to defend his heavenly realms. And then my mistress slammed her door against me. Forthwith I dropped Jupiter and his lightnings; aye, Jupiter himself clean vanished from my mind. Forgive me, Jupiter thy weapons were of no avail to me. That close-shut door moved me more than all thy thunderbolts. Back to my love songs and my gentle elegies went I; those are the arms for me, and ere long my gentle plaint moved to compassion the unfeeling doors. Poetry hath power to bring the blood-red moon to earth; poetry stayeth in mid-career the snow-white coursers of the sun. Poetry robbeth the serpent of his poisoned fang, and maketh the rivers to flow backward to their sources. Poetry hath battered down doors, it hath forced back locks, how tight soever they were welded to the massy oak. What had it booted me to sing Achilles fleet of foot; what would the sons of Atreus have done for me, or he who waged fierce war for ten long years and then wandered ten more upon his homeward way; or hapless Hector, dragged by the Hæmonian steeds across the dusty plain? But as soon as ever I pipe the praises of a sweet young girl, she cometh in person to pay the singer for his song. And that, methinks, is no small recompense. So farewell, ye heroes with illustrious names; not yours to bestow, the favours that I crave. But as for you, my charmers, look sweetly on the songs which rosy Cupid singeth in mine ear.