The Art of Love
Ars Amatoria
Headnote
The Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) is Ovid’s most notorious and most influential work: a mock-didactic poem in three books of elegiac couplets that takes the machinery of the technical manual — the georgic, the rhetorician’s handbook, the soldier’s drill — and turns it, straight-faced, to the teaching of seduction. The poet styles himself the praeceptor amoris, the "professor of love," and lectures with the worldly authority of a man who has mastered his subject. Books 1 and 2 instruct men — Book 1 on where to find a woman and how to win her, Book 2 on how to keep her — and Book 3, in a show of even-handedness, arms the women in turn against the men he has just trained.
Book 1 opens with the governing conceit: love, like seafaring or charioteering, is an art that can be taught, and Ovid has been appointed its Tiphys and Automedon by Venus herself. He bars respectable matrons from the poem — the fillets and long flounce of the married woman are sent away — and confines himself to "safe love and permitted stratagems." The book then falls into two halves. The first is a guide to the hunting-grounds of the city: the shaded porticoes, the temples, the Forum, and above all the theater and the Circus, where the crowds and the seating throw the sexes together. Here Ovid sets the celebrated set-pieces of the book — the rape of the Sabine women staged at Romulus’s rough first games, the flirtation manual for the races, and a flattering digression on the Parthian campaign of the young Gaius Caesar and the triumph to come. The second half turns from finding to winning: cultivate the maid, watch your timing, send the coaxing letter, follow her everywhere, groom yourself (but not into a fop), exploit the wine of the banquet, make lavish promises and swear them by gods who laugh at lovers’ perjuries, and press your advantage.
Book 2 turns from winning a love to keeping it, and the register warms: where the forma that won her will fade, the lover must add the gifts of the mind, so the book preaches patience, complaisance (obsequium), and the long service of the love-soldier — endure her moods, yield in everything, run her errands, brave the cold and the closed door, win over her maids, give small clever gifts, flatter without being caught at it, nurse her when she is sick, and let love grow by habit. Its great set-pieces are the fall of Icarus, which opens the book as the emblem of a love that cannot be chained, and the comic tale of Mars and Venus snared in Vulcan’s net, which points the lesson on secrecy and the folly of catching a lover out. The book closes on the mutual pleasure of the bed and a second triumph-song, "Naso was my master."
Book 3, in its show of even-handedness, arms the women against the men just trained — opening with a defense of the sex (men deceive more often, and the catalogue of the faithful answers the catalogue of the faithless) and a commission from Venus herself. Its long central movement is a treatise on cultus: grooming, hairstyles, the choice of colors and dress to suit the complexion, discreet cosmetics (with a plug for Ovid’s own Medicamina), the concealing of every defect, and the schooling of laughter, voice, gait, song, and the games. From adornment it moves to conduct — be seen in the city’s porticoes and theaters, beware the smooth-tongued seducer, master the secret letter and the eluding of the guard, govern the temper, favor poets, and use jealousy and the feigned rival to keep love keen. Its showpiece is the pathetic tale of Cephalus and Procris, the warning against believing a rival too quickly, and the book ends, like the others, in the bedroom and with the women inscribing the same spoils.
The wit is relentless and the irony double-edged. The poem heaps up mythological exempla — Pasiphae and the bull as the proof that female desire outruns the male, Byblis and Myrrha, the long catalogue of women undone by passion, the brilliant inset of Bacchus and the abandoned Ariadne — and the excess is at once the argument and the joke. But the Ars also contains the strain that modern readers find genuinely disquieting: the passage advising that force is welcome to women and that a girl wants to be overcome. The translation renders these lines as the Latin has them, without softening or euphemism, on the principle that the reader is better served by what Ovid wrote than by what a translator wishes he had written; the moral judgment is left to the reader, and the cynicism of the praeceptor ’s persona is part of what the poem is doing.
The Ars was wildly successful and, in the end, catastrophic for its author. When Augustus relegated Ovid to Tomis on the Black Sea in AD 8, the poet named two causes — "a poem and a blunder" (carmen et error) — and the poem was the Ars Amatoria, whose frank instruction in adultery sat ill with the emperor’s program of moral legislation. From exile Ovid would protest, in the Tristia, that the work was fiction and its women courtesans, not matrons. The translation keeps Ovid’s line structure where the sense allows and preserves the couplet’s two-beat shape, so that the pentameter’s closing turn still lands; the dense mythological and topographical references are carried in their standard classical forms and unpacked in the glossary rather than in the verse.
If anyone among this people does not know the art of loving, let him read this, and reading the poem, let him love with skill. By skill swift ships are driven with sail and oar, by skill the light chariots run: by skill must love be steered. Automedon was apt with chariots and the pliant reins, Tiphys was master on the Haemonian ship: me Venus set as craftsman over tender Love; I shall be called the Tiphys and Automedon of Love. He, indeed, is wild, and one who often fights me back: but he is a boy, an age soft and fit to be ruled. Phillyra’s son perfected the boy Achilles with the lyre, and with calming art he beat down his savage spirit. He who so often terrified comrades, so often foes, is believed to have dreaded an aged old man. The hands that Hector was to feel — at his master’s bidding, ordered, he held them out for the lash. Chiron taught the grandson of Aeacus, I am Love’s teacher: each boy savage, each born of a goddess. Yet even the bull’s neck is loaded with the plow, and the high-spirited horse wears the bit with his teeth; and Love will yield to me, though with his bow he wound my breast, and shake out his brandished torches. The harder Love has pierced me, the more fiercely he has burned me, the better avenger I will be of the wound he made. I will not falsely claim, Phoebus, that the arts were given me by you, nor am I prompted by the voice of a bird in the air, nor have Clio and Clio’s sisters appeared to me as I kept the flocks in your valleys, Ascra: experience moves this work; obey a poet who knows; I will sing the truth — mother of Love, attend my undertaking! Keep far off, slender fillets, the badge of modesty, and you, long flounce, that hide the feet halfway. We will sing of safe love and permitted stratagems, and in my song there will be no crime.
Siquis in hoc artem populo non novit amandi, Hoc legat et lecto carmine doctus amet. Arte citae veloque rates remoque moventur, Arte leves currus: arte regendus amor. Curribus Automedon lentisque erat aptus habenis, Tiphys in Haemonia puppe magister erat: Me Venus artificem tenero praefecit Amori; Tiphys et Automedon dicar Amoris ego. Ille quidem ferus est et qui mihi saepe repugnet: Sed puer est, aetas mollis et apta regi. Phillyrides puerum cithara perfecit Achillem, Atque animos placida contudit arte feros. Qui totiens socios, totiens exterruit hostes, Creditur annosum pertimuisse senem. Quas Hector sensurus erat, poscente magistro Verberibus iussas praebuit ille manus. Aeacidae Chiron, ego sum praeceptor Amoris: Saevus uterque puer, natus uterque dea. Sed tamen et tauri cervix oneratur aratro, Frenaque magnanimi dente teruntur equi; Et mihi cedet Amor, quamvis mea vulneret arcu Pectora, iactatas excutiatque faces. Quo me fixit Amor, quo me violentius ussit, Hoc melior facti vulneris ultor ero: Non ego, Phoebe, datas a te mihi mentiar artes, Nec nos aeriae voce monemur avis, Nec mihi sunt visae Clio Cliusque sorores Servanti pecudes vallibus, Ascra, tuis: Usus opus movet hoc: vati parete perito; Vera canam: coeptis, mater Amoris, ades! Este procul, vittae tenues, insigne pudoris, Quaeque tegis medios, instita longa, pedes. Nos venerem tutam concessaque furta canemus, Inque meo nullum carmine crimen erit.
First, work to find what you may wish to love, you who now come as a raw recruit to arms for the first time. The next task after this is to win the girl who pleases you: the third, that the love should last a long time. This is the bound, this the track my chariot will mark: this the turning-post to be grazed by the wheel let loose. While it is allowed, and you can range with reins slack, choose one to whom you may say, ’you alone please me.’ She will not come gliding down to you through thin air: the fit girl must be sought with your own eyes. The hunter knows well where to stretch his nets for the deer, knows well in what valley the gnashing boar lies up; the fowler knows his thickets; the man who holds the hooks knows what waters teem with many fish: you too, who seek matter for a lasting love, learn first in what place the girls are thick. I will not bid you, in your search, give your sails to the wind, nor must a long road be worn by you to find her. Let Perseus have carried Andromeda off from the dark Indians, and the Greek girl have been seized by the Phrygian man, Rome will give you girls so many and so lovely that you will say, ’this city holds whatever the world has had.’ As many as Gargara’s ears of corn, as many clusters as Methymna holds, as many fish as the sea hides, as birds the leaves, as many stars as the sky, so many girls your Rome holds: the Mother has taken her stand in the city of her Aeneas. If you are caught by first and still-growing years, a true girl will come before your eyes: or if you want one in her prime, a thousand in their prime will please you. You will be forced not to know your own wish: or if perhaps a later and wiser age delights you, this throng too, believe me, will be fuller still.
Principio, quod amare velis, reperire labora, Qui nova nunc primum miles in arma venis. Proximus huic labor est placitam exorare puellam: Tertius, ut longo tempore duret amor. Hic modus, haec nostro signabitur area curru: Haec erit admissa meta terenda rota. Dum licet, et loris passim potes ire solutis, Elige cui dicas ’tu mihi sola places.’ Haec tibi non tenues veniet delapsa per auras: Quaerenda est oculis apta puella tuis. Scit bene venator, cervis ubi retia tendat, Scit bene, qua frendens valle moretur aper; Aucupibus noti frutices; qui sustinet hamos, Novit quae multo pisce natentur aquae: Tu quoque, materiam longo qui quaeris amori, Ante frequens quo sit disce puella loco. Non ego quaerentem vento dare vela iubebo, Nec tibi, ut invenias, longa terenda via est. Andromedan Perseus nigris portarit ab Indis, Raptaque sit Phrygio Graia puella viro, Tot tibi tamque dabit formosas Roma puellas, ’Haec habet’ ut dicas ’quicquid in orbe fuit.’ Gargara quot segetes, quot habet Methymna racemos, Aequore quot pisces, fronde teguntur aves, Quot caelum stellas, tot habet tua Roma puellas: Mater in Aeneae constitit urbe sui. Seu caperis primis et adhuc crescentibus annis, Ante oculos veniet vera puella tuos: Sive cupis iuvenem, iuvenes tibi mille placebunt. Cogeris voti nescius esse tui: Seu te forte iuvat sera et sapientior aetas, Hoc quoque, crede mihi, plenius agmen erit.
Only stroll at leisure under Pompey’s shade, when the sun draws near the back of the Herculean Lion: or where, to her son’s gifts, the mother has added her own, a work rich with foreign marble. Nor shun the portico which, strewn with old paintings, bears the name of its founder Livia: and where the daughters of Belus, who dared to plot death for their wretched cousins, stand, and their fierce father with drawn sword. Nor let Adonis, wept by Venus, pass you by, nor the seventh-day rites kept by the Syrian Jew. Nor shun the Memphian temples of the linen-clad heifer: she makes many women do what she herself did for Jove. The forums too suit love (who could believe it?): and the flame has often been found in the noisy forum: where, set below the temple built of marble to Venus, the Appian nymph beats the air with her jetting waters, in that place the legal counsel is often caught by Love, and he who warned others takes no warning for himself: in that place the eloquent man often lacks his own words, and new business comes on, and his own case must be argued. At him Venus laughs from her neighboring temples: he who was lately a patron now longs to be a client.
Tu modo Pompeia lentus spatiare sub umbra, Cum sol Herculei terga leonis adit: Aut ubi muneribus nati sua munera mater Addidit, externo marmore dives opus. Nec tibi vitetur quae, priscis sparsa tabellis, Porticus auctoris Livia nomen habet: Quaque parare necem miseris patruelibus ausae Belides et stricto stat ferus ense pater. Nec te praetereat Veneri ploratus Adonis, Cultaque Iudaeo septima sacra Syro. Nec fuge linigerae Memphitica templa iuvencae: Multas illa facit, quod fuit ipsa Iovi. Et fora conveniunt (quis credere possit?) amori: Flammaque in arguto saepe reperta foro: Subdita qua Veneris facto de marmore templo Appias expressis aera pulsat aquis, Illo saepe loco capitur consultus Amori, Quique aliis cavit, non cavet ipse sibi: Illo saepe loco desunt sua verba diserto, Resque novae veniunt, causaque agenda sua est. Hunc Venus e templis, quae sunt confinia, ridet: Qui modo patronus, nunc cupit esse cliens.
But hunt above all in the curving theaters: these places are richer than your prayer. There you will find what you may love, what you may toy with, what you may touch just once, and what you may wish to keep. As the ant comes and goes thronging in a long column when it carries its wonted food in grain-bearing mouth, or as the bees, having found their glades and fragrant pastures, range over the flowers and the thyme-tops, so the smartest woman rushes to the crowded games: their plenty has often stalled my judgment. They come to look, they come that they themselves be looked at: that place holds ruin for chaste modesty. You first, Romulus, made the games a trouble, when the seized Sabines comforted the wifeless men. Then no awnings hung over a marble theater, nor was the stage made red with liquid saffron; there the leaves that the wooded Palatine had borne were set up plainly — the scene was without art; on steps built of turf the people sat, any chance leaf shading their shaggy hair. They look about, and each marks with his eyes the girl he wants, and stir much in a silent breast. And while, the Tuscan piper giving a rough measure, the dancer struck the leveled ground thrice with his foot, amid the applause (applause then lacked all art) the king gave the people the awaited signal for the prey. At once they spring forth, betraying their intent by a shout, and lay their eager hands upon the maidens. As doves, a most timid flock, flee the eagles, as the newborn lamb flees the wolves it hates, so the women dreaded the men rushing on without rule; in none stayed the color that was there before. For the fear was one, the face of fear not one: some tear their hair, some sit out of their minds; one is sadly silent, another vainly calls her mother: this one wails, this one is dazed; this stays, that flees; the seized girls are led off, the bridal bed’s plunder, and fear itself could become many of them. If any fought too hard and refused to go along, the man himself bore her off, caught up to his eager breast, and said, ’why spoil your tender little eyes with tears? What your father is to your mother, that I will be to you.’ Romulus, you alone knew how to give your soldiers bonuses: give me these bonuses, and I will enlist. So, of course, from that custom the solemn theaters to this day stay perilous to the lovely.
Sed tu praecipue curvis venare theatris: Haec loca sunt voto fertiliora tuo. Illic invenies quod ames, quod ludere possis, Quodque semel tangas, quodque tenere velis. Ut redit itque frequens longum formica per agmen, Granifero solitum cum vehit ore cibum, Aut ut apes saltusque suos et olentia nactae Pascua per flores et thyma summa volant, Sic ruit ad celebres cultissima femina ludos: Copia iudicium saepe morata meum est. Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsae: Ille locus casti damna pudoris habet. Primus sollicitos fecisti, Romule, ludos, Cum iuvit viduos rapta Sabina viros. Tunc neque marmoreo pendebant vela theatro, Nec fuerant liquido pulpita rubra croco; Illic quas tulerant nemorosa Palatia, frondes Simpliciter positae, scena sine arte fuit; In gradibus sedit populus de caespite factis, Qualibet hirsutas fronde tegente comas. Respiciunt, oculisque notant sibi quisque puellam Quam velit, et tacito pectore multa movent. Dumque, rudem praebente modum tibicine Tusco, Ludius aequatam ter pede pulsat humum, In medio plausu (plausus tunc arte carebant) Rex populo praedae signa petita dedit. Protinus exiliunt, animum clamore fatentes, Virginibus cupidas iniciuntque manus. Ut fugiunt aquilas, timidissima turba, columbae, Ut fugit invisos agna novella lupos: Sic illae timuere viros sine more ruentes; Constitit in nulla qui fuit ante color. Nam timor unus erat, facies non una timoris: Pars laniat crines, pars sine mente sedet; Altera maesta silet, frustra vocat altera matrem: Haec queritur, stupet haec; haec manet, illa fugit; Ducuntur raptae, genialis praeda, puellae, Et potuit multas ipse decere timor. Siqua repugnarat nimium comitemque negabat, Sublatam cupido vir tulit ipse sinu, Atque ita ’quid teneros lacrimis corrumpis ocellos? Quod matri pater est, hoc tibi’ dixit ’ero.’ Romule, militibus scisti dare commoda solus: Haec mihi si dederis commoda, miles ero. Scilicet ex illo sollemnia more theatra Nunc quoque formosis insidiosa manent.
Nor let the contest of noble horses escape you; the Circus, that holds a whole people, has many conveniences. There is no need of fingers to spell out your secrets, nor need you take in the signal by nods: sit right next to the lady, no one forbidding, press your side to her side as close as you can; and well that the dividing line, even unwilling, forces you near, since by the rule of the place the girl must be touched. Here let an opening for shared talk be sought, and let common words start the first sounds going. Whose horses are coming — be sure, with zeal, to ask: and without delay, whoever it is she backs, back him too. But when the crowded procession of ivory gods goes by, applaud your Lady Venus with a favoring hand; and as happens, if dust by chance falls into the girl’s lap, it must be flicked away with your fingers: and even if there is no dust, flick off the none all the same: let any pretext at all serve your attentiveness. If her cloak, slipped too far, lies trailing on the ground, gather it up, and zealously lift it from the dirty floor; at once, the wage of service, the girl allowing it, her legs will fall to be seen by your eyes. Look back besides at whoever will sit behind you both, lest he press her soft back with his planted knee. Small things win light minds: it has helped many a man to have set a cushion right with an obliging hand. It has profited, too, to stir the breeze with a thin fan, and to put a hollow stool beneath her tender foot.
Nec te nobilium fugiat certamen equorum; Multa capax populi commoda Circus habet. Nil opus est digitis, per quos arcana loquaris, Nec tibi per nutus accipienda nota est: Proximus a domina, nullo prohibente, sedeto, Iunge tuum lateri qua potes usque latus; Et bene, quod cogit, si nolis, linea iungi, Quod tibi tangenda est lege puella loci. Hic tibi quaeratur socii sermonis origo, Et moveant primos publica verba sonos. Cuius equi veniant, facito, studiose, requiras: Nec mora, quisquis erit, cui favet illa, fave. At cum pompa frequens caelestibus ibit eburnis, Tu Veneri dominae plaude favente manu; Utque fit, in gremium pulvis si forte puellae Deciderit, digitis excutiendus erit: Etsi nullus erit pulvis, tamen excute nullum: Quaelibet officio causa sit apta tuo. Pallia si terra nimium demissa iacebunt, Collige, et inmunda sedulus effer humo; Protinus, officii pretium, patiente puella Contingent oculis crura videnda tuis. Respice praeterea, post vos quicumque sedebit, Ne premat opposito mollia terga genu. Parva leves capiunt animos: fuit utile multis Pulvinum facili composuisse manu. Profuit et tenui ventos movisse tabella, Et cava sub tenerum scamna dedisse pedem.
These approaches the Circus will offer to new love, and the grim sand strewn in the anxious forum. On that sand Venus’ boy has often fought, and he who watched the wounds carries a wound himself. While he talks and touches her hand and asks for the program and, a bet laid down, inquires which of the two will win, wounded he groaned and felt the flying dart, and was himself a part of the show he watched. What of when, lately, with the mock image of a sea-battle, Caesar brought the Persian and the Cecropian ships? Why, from either sea young men, from either girls came, and the vast world was in the City. Who, in that crowd, did not find something to love? Alas, how many a stranger-love tormented!
Hos aditus Circusque novo praebebit amori, Sparsaque sollicito tristis harena foro. Illa saepe puer Veneris pugnavit harena, Et qui spectavit vulnera, vulnus habet. Dum loquitur tangitque manum poscitque libellum Et quaerit posito pignore, vincat uter, Saucius ingemuit telumque volatile sensit, Et pars spectati muneris ipse fuit. Quid, modo cum belli navalis imagine Caesar Persidas induxit Cecropiasque rates? Nempe ab utroque mari iuvenes, ab utroque puellae Venere, atque ingens orbis in Urbe fuit. Quis non invenit turba, quod amaret, in illa? Eheu, quam multos advena torsit amor!
Look, Caesar prepares to add what was lacking to the conquered world: now, farthest East, you shall be ours. Parthian, you will pay: rejoice, buried Crassi, and standards that suffered barbarian hands so ill. An avenger is here, and in his earliest years declares himself a leader, and as a boy handles wars not to be handled by a boy. Cease, you timid ones, to count the birthdays of gods: to the Caesars valor comes before its day. Heavenly genius rises faster than its years, and ill endures the losses of sluggish delay. He was small, and the Tirynthian crushed two snakes in his hands, and in the cradle was already worthy of Jove. You too, who are now a boy — how great you were then, Bacchus, when conquered India feared your wands! Under your father’s auspices and years, boy, you will set arms moving, and conquer by the years and auspices of your father: such a first trial you owe to so great a name, now prince of the young, hereafter to be prince of the old; since you have brothers, avenge your injured brothers: and since you have a father, guard your father’s rights. Your father, and your country’s, has armed you: the enemy snatches a kingdom from an unwilling parent; you will bear loyal weapons, he criminal arrows: right and piety will stand before your standards. The Parthians are beaten in their cause: let them be beaten in arms too; let my leader add the wealth of the East to Latium. Father Mars and father Caesar, grant your power as he goes: for one of you is a god, the other will be. I prophesy — see! — you will conquer; I will render the songs I vowed, and you must be sounded by me with a great voice. You will halt, and rouse the line with my words; O let my words not fail your spirit! I will tell of the Parthians’ backs and the Romans’ breasts, and the darts the foe hurls from his backward-turned horse. You who flee to conquer, what, Parthian, do you leave the conquered? Parthian, your kind of war already bodes an evil omen. So that day will come on which you, fairest of beings, will ride golden behind four snow-white horses. Before you the captains will go, their necks laden with chains, that they may not be safe, as before, in flight. Glad young men and girls mingled will watch, and that day will gladden the hearts of all. And when some one of them asks the names of the kings, what places, what mountains, what rivers are borne by, answer everything, and not only what she asks; and what you don’t know, report as if well known. This is the Euphrates, his brow girt with reed: the one with the dark hair hanging down will be the Tigris. Make these Armenians; this is Danaan Persia: that was a city in the Achaemenian valleys. This man, or that, are captains; and there will be names you give, truly if you can, if not, then fitting ones all the same.
Ecce, parat Caesar domito quod defuit orbi Addere: nunc, oriens ultime, noster eris. Parthe, dabis poenas: Crassi gaudete sepulti, Signaque barbaricas non bene passa manus. Ultor adest, primisque ducem profitetur in annis, Bellaque non puero tractat agenda puer. Parcite natales timidi numerare deorum: Caesaribus virtus contigit ante diem. Ingenium caeleste suis velocius annis Surgit, et ignavae fert male damna morae. Parvus erat, manibusque duos Tirynthius angues Pressit, et in cunis iam Iove dignus erat. Nunc quoque qui puer es, quantus tum, Bacche, fuisti, Cum timuit thyrsos India victa tuos? Auspiciis annisque patris, puer, arma movebis, Et vinces annis auspiciisque patris: Tale rudimentum tanto sub nomine debes, Nunc iuvenum princeps, deinde future senum; Cum tibi sint fratres, fratres ulciscere laesos: Cumque pater tibi sit, iura tuere patris. Induit arma tibi genitor patriaeque tuusque: Hostis ab invito regna parente rapit; Tu pia tela feres, sceleratas ille sagittas: Stabit pro signis iusque piumque tuis. Vincuntur causa Parthi: vincantur et armis; Eoas Latio dux meus addat opes. Marsque pater Caesarque pater, date numen eunti: Nam deus e vobis alter es, alter eris. Auguror, en, vinces; votivaque carmina reddam, Et magno nobis ore sonandus eris. Consistes, aciemque meis hortabere verbis; O desint animis ne mea verba tuis! Tergaque Parthorum Romanaque pectora dicam, Telaque, ab averso quae iacit hostis equo. Qui fugis ut vincas, quid victo, Parthe, relinquis? Parthe, malum iam nunc Mars tuus omen habet. Ergo erit illa dies, qua tu, pulcherrime rerum, Quattuor in niveis aureus ibis equis. Ibunt ante duces onerati colla catenis, Ne possint tuti, qua prius, esse fuga. Spectabunt laeti iuvenes mixtaeque puellae, Diffundetque animos omnibus ista dies. Atque aliqua ex illis cum regum nomina quaeret, Quae loca, qui montes, quaeve ferantur aquae, Omnia responde, nec tantum siqua rogabit; Et quae nescieris, ut bene nota refer. Hic est Euphrates, praecinctus harundine frontem: Cui coma dependet caerula, Tigris erit. Hos facito Armenios; haec est Danaeia Persis: Urbs in Achaemeniis vallibus ista fuit. Ille vel ille, duces; et erunt quae nomina dicas, Si poteris, vere, si minus, apta tamen.
Banquets too, the tables set, give an opening: there is something there besides the wine to seek. Often there, reclining, with his tender arms drawn round, rosy Love has gripped Bacchus by the horns: and when the wine has wetted Cupid’s thirsty wings, he stays on and stands heavy in the place he has seized. He, indeed, quickly shakes out his soaked feathers: but still, to have the breast sprinkled with love does harm. Wine readies the spirits and makes them apt for heat: care flees and is washed away by much unmixed wine. Then come the laughs, then the poor man takes up the horns, then grief and cares and the brow’s furrow go. Then candor, rarest in our age, opens minds, the god shaking out all artifice. There girls have often snatched young men’s hearts away, and Venus in the wine was fire upon fire. Here do not trust too much the deceiving lamp: for judging beauty, night and wine both do harm. By daylight, under open sky, Paris surveyed the goddesses, when he said to Venus, ’you beat them both, Venus.’ By night flaws lie hidden, every fault is forgiven, and that hour makes any woman lovely. Consult the day about gems, about wool dyed with purple, consult the day about the face and the figure.
Dant etiam positis aditum convivia mensis: Est aliquid praeter vina, quod inde petas. Saepe illic positi teneris adducta lacertis Purpureus Bacchi cornua pressit Amor: Vinaque cum bibulas sparsere Cupidinis alas, Permanet et capto stat gravis ille loco. Ille quidem pennas velociter excutit udas: Sed tamen et spargi pectus amore nocet. Vina parant animos faciuntque caloribus aptos: Cura fugit multo diluiturque mero. Tunc veniunt risus, tum pauper cornua sumit, Tum dolor et curae rugaque frontis abit. Tunc aperit mentes aevo rarissima nostro Simplicitas, artes excutiente deo. Illic saepe animos iuvenum rapuere puellae, Et Venus in vinis ignis in igne fuit. Hic tu fallaci nimium ne crede lucernae: Iudicio formae noxque merumque nocent. Luce deas caeloque Paris spectavit aperto, Cum dixit Veneri ’vincis utramque, Venus.’ Nocte latent mendae, vitioque ignoscitur omni, Horaque formosam quamlibet illa facit. Consule de gemmis, de tincta murice lana, Consule de facie corporibusque diem.
Why should I count for you the gatherings of women fit for the hunt? The sand will give way to my number. Why mention Baiae, and the shore fringed with sails, and the water that smokes from warm sulphur? From here someone, bearing a wound in his breast, said, ’this water was not, as the rumor goes, wholesome.’ Look — the woodland temple of suburban Diana, and a kingdom won by swords with a guilty hand: she, because she is a virgin, because she hates Cupid’s darts, has dealt the people many wounds, and will deal many.
Quid tibi femineos coetus venatibus aptos Enumerem? numero cedet harena meo. Quid referam Baias, praetextaque litora velis, Et quae de calido sulpure fumat aqua? Hinc aliquis vulnus referens in pectore dixit ’Non haec, ut fama est, unda salubris erat.’ Ecce suburbanae templum nemorale Dianae Partaque per gladios regna nocente manu: Illa, quod est virgo, quod tela Cupidinis odit, Multa dedit populo vulnera, multa dabit.
Thus far, where to choose what you may love, where to set your nets, Thalia, carried on unequal wheels, has taught. Now I undertake to tell by what arts she who has pleased you is to be caught — the work of choicest art. Wherever you are, men, turn teachable minds this way, and you, common crowd, favoring my promises, attend. Let confidence come first to your mind, that all of them can be caught; you will catch them — only stretch your snares. Sooner will the birds fall silent in spring, the cicadas in summer, sooner will the Maenalian hound turn its back to the hare, than a woman, coaxingly tried, will fight off a young man: even she whom you could think unwilling will be willing. As stolen love is welcome to the man, so to the girl: the man hides it badly; she desires more covertly. Were it agreed among males that none of us ask first, the woman, beaten, would already play the asker’s part. In the soft meadows the female lows to the bull: the female always whinnies to the horn-footed horse. Tamer in us, and not so frenzied, is desire: the male flame has a lawful limit. Why mention Byblis, who burned with forbidden love for her brother, and bravely punished her sin with a noose? Myrrha loved her father, but not as a daughter should, and now lies hidden, pressed beneath the bark drawn over her: with her tears, which she pours from the fragrant tree, we are anointed, and the drop keeps the lady’s name. By chance in the shady valleys of wooded Ida there was a white bull, the herd’s glory, marked with a little black between his horns: that one was the blemish; the rest was milk. Him the Cnossian and the Cydonian heifers longed to have borne upon their backs. Pasiphae rejoiced to become the bull’s adulteress; in jealousy she hated the lovely cows. I sing known things: not even Crete, that holds a hundred cities, liar though she is, can deny this. She herself, they say, with an unpracticed hand cut fresh leaves and the tenderest grass for the bull. She goes companion to the herds, nor does care for her husband hold her back from going, and Minos was beaten by a bull. What good is it, Pasiphae, to put on costly clothes? That adulterer of yours feels no riches. What have you to do with a mirror, when you seek the mountain herds? Why so often, foolish one, set your hair in place? Yet trust the mirror, which denies that you are a heifer. How you would wish horns born upon your brow! If Minos pleases you, let no adulterer be sought: or if you’d rather cheat your husband, cheat him with a man! Into the wood and glades, her chamber left behind, the queen is carried, like a Bacchant roused by the Aonian god. Ah, how often she eyed a cow with a grudging face, and said, ’why does that one please my lord? See how she frisks before him in the tender grass: nor do I doubt the fool thinks it becomes her.’ She spoke, and at once ordered her led from the huge herd and dragged, guiltless, beneath the curved yoke, or made her fall before the altars at a sham rite, and held her rival’s entrails in a glad hand. How often she appeased the gods with slaughtered rivals, and said, holding the entrails, ’go now, please my love!’ And now she demands to become Europa, now Io, the one because she is a cow, the other was borne by a bull. Yet the herd’s leader filled her, fooled by the maple cow, and by the offspring the sire was betrayed. Had the Cretan woman kept from Thyestean love (and how much is it, to do without one man?), Phoebus would not have broken his course midway and, the chariot wrenched round, gone back to meet the Dawn with his horses turned. The daughter who stole from Nisus his purple hair presses raging dogs at her loins and groin. He who escaped Mars on land, Neptune on the waves, the son of Atreus, was his own wife’s dreadful victim. By whom has the flame of Ephyraean Creusa not been wept, and the mother bloody with the murder of her sons? Phoenix, Amyntor’s son, wept through sightless eyes: Hippolytus, the frightened horses tore you apart. Why, Phineus, do you gouge the eyes of your innocent sons? That punishment will come back upon your own head. All these things were set in motion by female lust; keener than ours it is, and holds more of frenzy. So come, do not hesitate to hope for every girl; scarcely, out of many, will there be one to refuse you. Those who grant and those who refuse alike rejoice to be asked: even should you be wrong, your rebuff is safe. But why be wrong, when new pleasure is welcome and others’ things take the heart more than one’s own? The crop is always more fertile in another’s fields, and the neighbor’s herd has the fuller udder.
Hactenus, unde legas quod ames, ubi retia ponas, Praecipit imparibus vecta Thalea rotis. Nunc tibi, quae placuit, quas sit capienda per artes, Dicere praecipuae molior artis opus. Quisquis ubique, viri, dociles advertite mentes, Pollicitisque favens, vulgus, adeste meis. Prima tuae menti veniat fiducia, cunctas Posse capi; capies, tu modo tende plagas. Vere prius volucres taceant, aestate cicadae, Maenalius lepori det sua terga canis, Femina quam iuveni blande temptata repugnet: Haec quoque, quam poteris credere nolle, volet. Utque viro furtiva venus, sic grata puellae: Vir male dissimulat: tectius illa cupit. Conveniat maribus, ne quam nos ante rogemus, Femina iam partes victa rogantis agat. Mollibus in pratis admugit femina tauro: Femina cornipedi semper adhinnit equo. Parcior in nobis nec tam furiosa libido: Legitimum finem flamma virilis habet. Byblida quid referam, vetito quae fratris amore Arsit et est laqueo fortiter ulta nefas? Myrrha patrem, sed non qua filia debet, amavit, Et nunc obducto cortice pressa latet: Illius lacrimis, quas arbore fundit odora, Unguimur, et dominae nomina gutta tenet. Forte sub umbrosis nemorosae vallibus Idae Candidus, armenti gloria, taurus erat, Signatus tenui media inter cornua nigro: Una fuit labes, cetera lactis erant. Illum Cnosiadesque Cydoneaeque iuvencae Optarunt tergo sustinuisse suo. Pasiphae fieri gaudebat adultera tauri; Invida formosas oderat illa boves. Nota cano: non hoc, centum quae sustinet urbes, Quamvis sit mendax, Creta negare potest. Ipsa novas frondes et prata tenerrima tauro Fertur inadsueta subsecuisse manu. It comes armentis, nec ituram cura moratur Coniugis, et Minos a bove victus erat. Quo tibi, Pasiphae, pretiosas sumere vestes? Ille tuus nullas sentit adulter opes. Quid tibi cum speculo, montana armenta petenti? Quid totiens positas fingis, inepta, comas? Crede tamen speculo, quod te negat esse iuvencam. Quam cuperes fronti cornua nata tuae! Sive placet Minos, nullus quaeratur adulter: Sive virum mavis fallere, falle viro! In nemus et saltus thalamo regina relicto Fertur, ut Aonio concita Baccha deo. A, quotiens vaccam vultu spectavit iniquo, Et dixit ’domino cur placet ista meo? Aspice, ut ante ipsum teneris exultet in herbis: Nec dubito, quin se stulta decere putet.’ Dixit, et ingenti iamdudum de grege duci Iussit et inmeritam sub iuga curva trahi, Aut cadere ante aras commentaque sacra coegit, Et tenuit laeta paelicis exta manu. Paelicibus quotiens placavit numina caesis, Atque ait, exta tenens ’ite, placete meo!’ Et modo se Europen fieri, modo postulat Io, Altera quod bos est, altera vecta bove. Hanc tamen implevit, vacca deceptus acerna, Dux gregis, et partu proditus auctor erat. Cressa Thyesteo si se abstinuisset amore (Et quantum est uno posse carere viro?), Non medium rupisset iter, curruque retorto Auroram versis Phoebus adisset equis. Filia purpureos Niso furata capillos Pube premit rabidos inguinibusque canes. Qui Martem terra, Neptunum effugit in undis, Coniugis Atrides victima dira fuit. Cui non defleta est Ephyraeae flamma Creusae, Et nece natorum sanguinolenta parens? Flevit Amyntorides per inania lumina Phoenix: Hippolytum pavidi diripuistis equi. Quid fodis inmeritis, Phineu, sua lumina natis? Poena reversura est in caput ista tuum. Omnia feminea sunt ista libidine mota; Acrior est nostra, plusque furoris habet. Ergo age, ne dubita cunctas sperare puellas; Vix erit e multis, quae neget, una, tibi. Quae dant quaeque negant, gaudent tamen esse rogatae: Ut iam fallaris, tuta repulsa tua est. Sed cur fallaris, cum sit nova grata voluptas Et capiant animos plus aliena suis? Fertilior seges est alienis semper in agris, Vicinumque pecus grandius uber habet.
But first let it be your care to know the maid of the girl to be caught: she will smooth your approaches. See that she be closest to her mistress’s counsels, and a trusty confidante of her silent jests. Corrupt this one with promises, this one with asking: what you seek you will get easily, if she is willing. She will choose the time (doctors too watch their times) when her mistress’s mind is easy and apt to be caught. Her mind will be apt to be caught then, when, gladdest in her affairs, she luxuriates like the crop in rich soil. While hearts are glad and not bound tight by grief, they lie open of themselves; then Venus slips in by coaxing art. Then, when she was sad, Ilium was defended by arms: glad, she took in the horse pregnant with soldiers. She must be tried then too, when, wronged by a rival, she’ll grieve: then see, by your work, that she be not unavenged. Let the maid, combing her morning hair, spur her on, and add the oar’s help to the sail, and, sighing to herself in a low murmur, say, ’but I think you couldn’t pay him back in kind yourself.’ Then let her speak of you, then add persuading words, and swear that you are dying of mad love. But hurry, lest the sails drop and the breezes settle: like brittle ice, anger perishes with delay. You ask whether it pays to debauch the handmaid herself? In such ventures there is a great gamble. Bedding makes this one keener, that one slower; this one prepares you as a gift for her mistress, that one for herself. The outcome lies in chance: though here it favor the bold, my counsel, nonetheless, is to have abstained. I will not go over headlong, jagged peaks, nor will any young man, with me as guide, be caught. If, however, she pleases you, while she gives and takes the tablets, by her body, and not only by her diligence, see that you win the mistress first, the maid follow after: love is not to be begun by you with the servant. This one thing I warn — if any trust is put in art, and a grasping wind does not drive my words out to sea: either do not try the thing, or finish it; the informer is removed once she herself has come in for a share of the crime. The bird does not get clear by useful flight with limed wings; the boar does not get well out of the slackened nets. Let the wounded fish be held by the hook it has seized: press home the one you have tried, and leave only as victor. Then the shared guilt will not betray you, and her mistress’s deeds and words will be known to you. But let it be well hidden: if the informer is well hidden, your mistress will always lie within your knowledge.
Sed prius ancillam captandae nosse puellae Cura sit: accessus molliet illa tuos. Proxima consiliis dominae sit ut illa, videto, Neve parum tacitis conscia fida iocis. Hanc tu pollicitis, hanc tu corrumpe rogando: Quod petis, ex facili, si volet illa, feres. Illa leget tempus (medici quoque tempora servant) Quo facilis dominae mens sit et apta capi. Mens erit apta capi tum, cum laetissima rerum Ut seges in pingui luxuriabit humo. Pectora dum gaudent nec sunt adstricta dolore, Ipsa patent, blanda tum subit arte Venus. Tum, cum tristis erat, defensa est Ilios armis: Militibus gravidum laeta recepit equum. Tum quoque temptanda est, cum paelice laesa dolebit: Tum facies opera, ne sit inulta, tua. Hanc matutinos pectens ancilla capillos Incitet, et velo remigis addat opem, Et secum tenui suspirans murmure dicat ’At, puto, non poteras ipsa referre vicem.’ Tum de te narret, tum persuadentia verba Addat, et insano iuret amore mori. Sed propera, ne vela cadant auraeque residant: Ut fragilis glacies, interit ira mora. Quaeris, an hanc ipsam prosit violare ministram? Talibus admissis alea grandis inest. Haec a concubitu fit sedula, tardior illa, Haec dominae munus te parat, illa sibi. Casus in eventu est: licet hic indulgeat ausis, Consilium tamen est abstinuisse meum. Non ego per praeceps et acuta cacumina vadam, Nec iuvenum quisquam me duce captus erit. Si tamen illa tibi, dum dat recipitque tabellas, Corpore, non tantum sedulitate placet, Fac domina potiare prius, comes illa sequatur: Non tibi ab ancilla est incipienda venus. Hoc unum moneo, siquid modo creditur arti, Nec mea dicta rapax per mare ventus agit: Aut non rem temptes aut perfice; tollitur index, Cum semel in partem criminis ipsa venit. Non avis utiliter viscatis effugit alis; Non bene de laxis cassibus exit aper. Saucius arrepto piscis teneatur ab hamo: Perprime temptatam, nec nisi victor abi. Tunc neque te prodet communi noxia culpa, Factaque erunt dominae dictaque nota tibi. Sed bene celetur: bene si celabitur index, Notitiae suberit semper amica tuae.
He who thinks the busy seasons need watching only by those who till the fields, and by sailors, is wrong; grain is not always to be trusted to the treacherous fields, nor the hollow ship always to the green water, nor is it always safe to hunt for tender girls: often the same thing will go better at a chosen time. Whether her birthday is at hand, or the Kalends that gladly join Venus’s month to Mars’s, or whenever it is decked not, as before, with little figurines, but the Circus puts the wealth of kings on show, put off the work: then grim winter, then the Pleiades press in, then the tender Kid is plunged in the sea’s water; then it is well to stop: then, if anyone trusts the deep, he has barely kept the shipwrecked planks of a torn boat. You may begin on the day when the mournful Allia flows bloody with the wounds of Latium, and on the day when the seventh-day feasts return, kept by the Palestinian Syrian, less fit for getting things done. Let your mistress’s birthday be a great dread to you: and any day on which something must be given, let it be black. Avoid it well, and still she’ll carry something off; the woman finds the craft by which to pluck the eager lover’s wealth. A loose-robed peddler will come to your purchase-loving lady, and unpack his wares while you sit by: these she’ll ask you to inspect, so you may seem to have taste: then she’ll give kisses; then she’ll ask you to buy. She’ll swear she’ll be content with this for many years, she needs it now, she’ll say, it’s a good buy now. If you plead there’s no cash at home to give, a note will be demanded — so you’d wish you had never learned to write. What of when she asks for gifts with a birthday cake, and is born, as often as she needs to be, for her own sake? What of when, all grief, she weeps at a made-up loss, and a gem is pretended to have slipped from her hollow ear? Many things they ask to be lent for use, and refuse to give back once given: you lose, and in your loss there is no thanks. To pursue the sacrilegious arts of whores, ten mouths with as many tongues would not be enough for me.
Tempora qui solis operosa colentibus arva, Fallitur, et nautis aspicienda putat; Nec semper credenda ceres fallacibus arvis, Nec semper viridi concava puppis aquae, Nec teneras semper tutum captare puellas: Saepe dato melius tempore fiet idem. Sive dies suberit natalis, sive Kalendae, Quas Venerem Marti continuasse iuvat, Sive erit ornatus non ut fuit ante sigillis, Sed regum positas Circus habebit opes, Differ opus: tunc tristis hiems, tunc Pliades instant, Tunc tener aequorea mergitur Haedus aqua; Tunc bene desinitur: tunc siquis creditur alto, Vix tenuit lacerae naufraga membra ratis. Tu licet incipias qua flebilis Allia luce Vulneribus Latiis sanguinolenta fluit, Quaque die redeunt, rebus minus apta gerendis, Culta Palaestino septima festa Syro. Magna superstitio tibi sit natalis amicae: Quaque aliquid dandum est, illa sit atra dies. Cum bene vitaris, tamen auferet; invenit artem Femina, qua cupidi carpat amantis opes. Institor ad dominam veniet discinctus emacem, Expediet merces teque sedente suas: Quas illa, inspicias, sapere ut videare, rogabit: Oscula deinde dabit; deinde rogabit, emas. Hoc fore contentam multos iurabit in annos, Nunc opus esse sibi, nunc bene dicet emi. Si non esse domi, quos des, causabere nummos, Littera poscetur++ne didicisse iuvet. Quid, quasi natali cum poscit munera libo, Et, quotiens opus est, nascitur illa, sibi? Quid, cum mendaci damno maestissima plorat, Elapsusque cava fingitur aure lapis? Multa rogant utenda dari, data reddere nolunt: Perdis, et in damno gratia nulla tuo. Non mihi, sacrilegas meretricum ut persequar artes, Cum totidem linguis sint satis ora decem.
Let wax test the ford, poured over scraped tablets: let wax go first as the confidant of your mind. Let it carry your flatteries and words that mimic a lover; and, whoever you are, add no scanty prayers. Moved by prayer, Achilles gave Hector back to Priam; an angry god is bent by a pleading voice. Be sure to promise: for what harm is there in promising? In promises anyone at all can be rich. Hope holds on a long time, once she is believed: a deceiving goddess, indeed, but a useful one. If you have given something, you can be left off with reason: she’ll have carried off the past, and lost nothing. But what you have not given, always seem about to give: so the barren field has often cheated its owner; so, lest he lose, the gambler does not cease to lose, and the dice often call his greedy hands back. This is the task, this the toil — to be joined without a first gift; lest she have given for nothing what she gave, she’ll keep on giving. So let the letter go, ploughed out with coaxing words, and sound her feelings, and first try the road. A letter brought on an apple deceived Cydippe, and the unwitting girl was caught by her own words. Learn the good arts, Roman youth, I advise you, not only to shield trembling defendants; as the people, the grave judge, and the chosen senate yield, so a girl, conquered by eloquence, will give her hands. But let your powers lie hidden, don’t be eloquent on the surface; let troublesome words flee your speech. Who, unless out of his wits, declaims to a tender mistress? Often a strong letter has been a cause of hatred. Let your speech be believable, your words familiar, coaxing nonetheless, so you seem to speak in person. If she won’t take what you’ve written, and sends it back unread, hope she’ll read it, and hold to your purpose. In time the stubborn bullocks come to the plow, in time horses are taught to bear the slow reins: an iron ring is worn away by constant use, the curved ploughshare perishes in the constant soil. What is harder than stone, what softer than water? Yet hard stones are hollowed by soft water. Penelope herself — only persist — you’ll win in time: you see Pergama taken late, but taken still. She’s read it, and won’t write back? Don’t force her: only see she keeps reading your flatteries. She who wished to have read will wish to answer what she’s read: those things will come by their own stages and steps. Perhaps at first even a grim letter will come, asking that you not care to trouble her. What she asks, she fears; what she does not ask — that you press on — she wants; keep on, and presently you’ll have your wish.
Cera vadum temptet, rasis infusa tabellis: Cera tuae primum conscia mentis eat. Blanditias ferat illa tuas imitataque amantem Verba; nec exiguas, quisquis es, adde preces. Hectora donavit Priamo prece motus Achilles; Flectitur iratus voce rogante deus. Promittas facito: quid enim promittere laedit? Pollicitis dives quilibet esse potest. Spes tenet in tempus, semel est si credita, longum: Illa quidem fallax, sed tamen apta dea est. Si dederis aliquid, poteris ratione relinqui: Praeteritum tulerit, perdideritque nihil. At quod non dederis, semper videare daturus: Sic dominum sterilis saepe fefellit ager: Sic, ne perdiderit, non cessat perdere lusor, Et revocat cupidas alea saepe manus. Hoc opus, hic labor est, primo sine munere iungi; Ne dederit gratis quae dedit, usque dabit. Ergo eat et blandis peraretur littera verbis, Exploretque animos, primaque temptet iter. Littera Cydippen pomo perlata fefellit, Insciaque est verbis capta puella suis. Disce bonas artes, moneo, Romana iuventus, Non tantum trepidos ut tueare reos; Quam populus iudexque gravis lectusque senatus, Tam dabit eloquio victa puella manus. Sed lateant vires, nec sis in fronte disertus; Effugiant voces verba molesta tuae. Quis, nisi mentis inops, tenerae declamat amicae? Saepe valens odii littera causa fuit. Sit tibi credibilis sermo consuetaque verba, Blanda tamen, praesens ut videare loqui. Si non accipiet scriptum, inlectumque remittet, Lecturam spera, propositumque tene. Tempore difficiles veniunt ad aratra iuvenci, Tempore lenta pati frena docentur equi: Ferreus adsiduo consumitur anulus usu, Interit adsidua vomer aduncus humo. Quid magis est saxo durum, quid mollius unda? Dura tamen molli saxa cavantur aqua. Penelopen ipsam, persta modo, tempore vinces: Capta vides sero Pergama, capta tamen. Legerit, et nolit rescribere? cogere noli: Tu modo blanditias fac legat usque tuas. Quae voluit legisse, volet rescribere lectis: Per numeros venient ista gradusque suos. Forsitan et primo veniet tibi littera tristis, Quaeque roget, ne se sollicitare velis. Quod rogat illa, timet; quod non rogat, optat, ut instes; Insequere, et voti postmodo compos eris.
Meanwhile, whether she’s borne reclining on her couch, approach your lady’s litter as though by chance, and lest someone offer hateful ears to your words, hide them cleverly, where you can, in ambiguous signs. Or if on idle feet she wears the spacious portico, here too join your lingering to hers: and now go on ahead of her, now follow behind, and now hurry, and now go slow: and let it be no shame to cross past some of the columns between, or to keep your side pressed to her side; nor let the beauty sit in the curved theater without you: she’ll bring on her shoulders something for you to watch. At her you may gaze, at her you may marvel: say much with a lifted brow, much by signs. And applaud when some girl dances in the mime: and back the man, whoever plays the lover. When she rises, you’ll rise; while she sits, you’ll sit; waste your hours at your lady’s whim.
Interea, sive illa toro resupina feretur, Lecticam dominae dissimulanter adi, Neve aliquis verbis odiosas offerat auris, Qua potes ambiguis callidus abde notis. Seu pedibus vacuis illi spatiosa teretur Porticus, hic socias tu quoque iunge moras: Et modo praecedas facito, modo terga sequaris, Et modo festines, et modo lentus eas: Nec tibi de mediis aliquot transire columnas Sit pudor, aut lateri continuasse latus; Nec sine te curvo sedeat speciosa theatro: Quod spectes, umeris adferet illa suis. Illam respicias, illam mirere licebit: Multa supercilio, multa loquare notis. Et plaudas, aliquam mimo saltante puellam: Et faveas illi, quisquis agatur amans. Cum surgit, surges; donec sedet illa, sedebis; Arbitrio dominae tempora perde tuae.
But take no pleasure in twisting your hair with the iron, nor scrape your legs with biting pumice. Bid those do such things whose Cybeline Mother is hymned, howled out, in Phrygian measures. Neglected looks become a man; Theseus carried off Minos’ daughter with his temples dressed by no pin. Phaedra loved Hippolytus, and he was not well groomed; Adonis, the goddess’s care, was made for the woods. Please by neatness; let bodies be browned on the Field: let the toga sit well and be without a stain; let the shoe-strap not stiffen, the teeth be free of grime, nor your loose foot swim around in slack leather; nor let a bad cut disfigure your bristling hair: let hair and beard be trimmed by a practiced hand. And let your nails not stick out, and be free of dirt: and let no hair stand in your hollowed nostril. Nor let the breath of an ill-smelling mouth be sour: nor let the buck, the herd’s father, offend the nose. The rest let wanton girls do — allow it — and any man who basely seeks to have a man.
Sed tibi nec ferro placeat torquere capillos, Nec tua mordaci pumice crura teras. Ista iube faciant, quorum Cybeleia mater Concinitur Phrygiis exululata modis. Forma viros neglecta decet; Minoida Theseus Abstulit, a nulla tempora comptus acu. Hippolytum Phaedra, nec erat bene cultus, amavit; Cura deae silvis aptus Adonis erat. Munditie placeant, fuscentur corpora Campo: Sit bene conveniens et sine labe toga: Lingula ne rigeat, careant rubigine dentes, Nec vagus in laxa pes tibi pelle natet: Nec male deformet rigidos tonsura capillos: Sit coma, sit trita barba resecta manu. Et nihil emineant, et sint sine sordibus ungues: Inque cava nullus stet tibi nare pilus. Nec male odorati sit tristis anhelitus oris: Nec laedat naris virque paterque gregis. Cetera lascivae faciant, concede, puellae, Et siquis male vir quaerit habere virum.
Look, Liber calls his own poet; he too aids lovers, and favors the flame with which he himself is warm. The Cnossian girl wandered frantic on unknown sands, where little Dia is struck by the sea’s waters. And just as she was, fresh from sleep, veiled in an ungirt tunic, barefoot, her saffron hair unbound, she cried ’cruel Theseus!’ to the deaf waves, an undeserved shower wetting her tender cheeks. She cried out and wept at once, but both became her; she was made no uglier by her tears. And now, beating again her softest breast with her palms, ’that traitor is gone — what will become of me?’ she said. ’What will become of me?’ she said: cymbals sounded all down the shore, and drums struck by a frenzied hand. She fainted with fear, and broke off her last words; there was no blood in her lifeless body. Look — the Mimallonids with hair flung down their backs: look — the nimble satyrs, the god’s outrunning throng: look — drunken old Silenus on his sway-backed ass barely keeps his seat, clutching the mane in front. While he chases the Bacchae, and the Bacchae flee and seek him, and the bad horseman goads his mount with a wand, he slipped from the long-eared ass and fell on his head: the satyrs cried, ’up, come, get up, father!’ Now the god, in the chariot he’d roofed over with grapes, gave golden reins to his yoked tigers: the girl’s color and Theseus and voice were gone: three times she made for flight, three times was held by fear. She shuddered, as the slender ears of grain the wind drives, as the light reed trembles in the wet marsh. To her the god said, ’see, I am here, a more faithful love for you: lay aside fear: Cnossian, you’ll be Bacchus’ wife. Take heaven for your gift; in heaven you’ll be watched, a star; often, as the Cretan Crown, you’ll guide the doubtful ship.’ He spoke, and from the chariot, lest she fear the tigers, leapt down; the sand gave way beneath his planted foot: and folding her to his breast (for she had no strength to struggle) he bore her off; for a god all things are easy. Some sing ’Hymenaeus,’ some shout ’Euhion, euhoe!’ so on the sacred couch bride and god come together.
Ecce, suum vatem Liber vocat; hic quoque amantes Adiuvat, et flammae, qua calet ipse, favet. Cnosis in ignotis amens errabat harenis, Qua brevis aequoreis Dia feritur aquis. Utque erat e somno tunica velata recincta, Nuda pedem, croceas inreligata comas, Thesea crudelem surdas clamabat ad undas, Indigno teneras imbre rigante genas. Clamabat, flebatque simul, sed utrumque decebat; Non facta est lacrimis turpior illa suis. Iamque iterum tundens mollissima pectora palmis ’Perfidus ille abiit; quid mihi fiet?’ ait. ’Quid mihi fiet?’ ait: sonuerunt cymbala toto Litore, et adtonita tympana pulsa manu. Excidit illa metu, rupitque novissima verba; Nullus in exanimi corpore sanguis erat. Ecce Mimallonides sparsis in terga capillis: Ecce leves satyri, praevia turba dei: Ebrius, ecce, senex pando Silenus asello Vix sedet, et pressas continet ante iubas. Dum sequitur Bacchas, Bacchae fugiuntque petuntque Quadrupedem ferula dum malus urget eques, In caput aurito cecidit delapsus asello: Clamarunt satyri ’surge age, surge, pater.’ Iam deus in curru, quem summum texerat uvis, Tigribus adiunctis aurea lora dabat: Et color et Theseus et vox abiere puellae: Terque fugam petiit, terque retenta metu est. Horruit, ut graciles, agitat quas ventus, aristae, Ut levis in madida canna palude tremit. Cui deus ’en, adsum tibi cura fidelior’ inquit: ’Pone metum: Bacchi, Cnosias, uxor eris. Munus habe caelum; caelo spectabere sidus; Saepe reges dubiam Cressa Corona ratem.’ Dixit, et e curru, ne tigres illa timeret, Desilit; inposito cessit harena pede: Implicitamque sinu (neque enim pugnare valebat) Abstulit; in facili est omnia posse deo. Pars ’Hymenaee’ canunt, pars clamant ’Euhion, euhoe!’ Sic coeunt sacro nupta deusque toro.
So when the gifts of Bacchus, set before you, fall your way, and a woman shares the side of your couch, pray to the Nyctelian father and the nocturnal rites that they not bid the wine do harm to your head. Here you may say many things hidden in covered speech, that she may feel are said to her: and trace light flatteries in thin wine, so she may read herself your mistress on the table: and gaze at her eyes with eyes confessing the fire: a silent face often has a voice and words. See that you snatch up first the cup her lips have touched, and drink from the part the girl drinks from: and whatever food she has tasted with her fingers, you reach for, and as you reach, let her hand be touched. Let it be among your wishes, too, to have pleased the girl’s man: made your friend, he’ll be more useful to you both. To him, if you drink by lot, yield the first turn: to him let the garland be given, sent from your head. Be he beneath you or your equal, let him take all first: and don’t hesitate to speak in support of him. Safe and well-trodden is the road, to cheat under a friend’s name: yet safe and well-trodden though the road be, it holds a crime. So the agent, too, manages more than his trust, and thinks more is to be seen to for himself than he was charged with. A fixed measure of drinking will be set you by me: let mind and feet each keep their own duty. Beware above all of quarrels goaded by wine, and of hands too ready for savage fights. Eurytion died by foolishly drinking the wine he was given; the table and the cup are fitter for sweet jest. If you have a voice, sing; if supple arms, dance; and by whatever gift you can please, please. As true drunkenness harms, so the feigned will help: make your sly tongue stumble with a lisping sound, so that whatever you do or say too boldly, the wine may be believed to be the cause. And wish your lady well, and well to him she sleeps with; but in a silent mind pray the man ill.
Ergo ubi contigerint positi tibi munera Bacchi, Atque erit in socii femina parte tori, Nycteliumque patrem nocturnaque sacra precare, Ne iubeant capiti vina nocere tuo. Hic tibi multa licet sermone latentia tecto Dicere, quae dici sentiat illa sibi: Blanditiasque leves tenui perscribere vino, Ut dominam in mensa se legat illa tuam: Atque oculos oculis spectare fatentibus ignem: Saepe tacens vocem verbaque vultus habet. Fac primus rapias illius tacta labellis Pocula, quaque bibet parte puella, bibas: Et quemcumque cibum digitis libaverit illa, Tu pete, dumque petis, sit tibi tacta manus. Sint etiam tua vota, viro placuisse puellae: Utilior vobis factus amicus erit. Huic, si sorte bibes, sortem concede priorem: Huic detur capiti missa corona tuo. Sive erit inferior, seu par, prior omnia sumat: Nec dubites illi verba secunda loqui. Tuta frequensque via est, per amici fallere nomen: Tuta frequensque licet sit via, crimen habet. Inde procurator nimium quoque multa procurat, Et sibi mandatis plura videnda putat. Certa tibi a nobis dabitur mensura bibendi: Officium praestent mensque pedesque suum. Iurgia praecipue vino stimulata caveto, Et nimium faciles ad fera bella manus. Occidit Eurytion stulte data vina bibendo; Aptior est dulci mensa merumque ioco. Si vox est, canta: si mollia brachia, salta: Et quacumque potes dote placere, place. Ebrietas ut vera nocet, sic ficta iuvabit: Fac titubet blaeso subdola lingua sono, Ut, quicquid facias dicasve protervius aequo, Credatur nimium causa fuisse merum. Et bene dic dominae, bene, cum quo dormiat illa; Sed, male sit, tacita mente precare, viro.
But when the guest departs, the table cleared away, the crowd itself will give you approach and place. Work into the crowd, and lightly drawing near as she goes pluck at her side with your fingers, and touch foot with foot. Now is the time for talk; flee far from here, boorish shame; Fortune and Venus help the bold. Let your eloquence not come under my rules: only desire her, and you’ll be eloquent of your own accord. You must play the lover, and counterfeit wounds with words; let belief in this be won by you with any art. And to be believed is no labor: each woman thinks herself worth loving; be she the very worst, her own looks please her. Yet often the pretender has begun to love in earnest, often he became what at the start he had feigned. All the more, o girls, be kind to those who pretend: the love that was lately false will turn out true. Now let it be your work to catch her heart stealthily by flatteries, as the overhanging bank is eaten away beneath by clear water. Let it not weary you to praise her face, nor her hair, and her tapering fingers and her little foot: praises of their beauty please even the chaste; even to maidens their own looks are a care and a delight. For why does it still shame Juno and Pallas not to have won the judgment in the Phrygian woods? Juno’s bird, when praised, displays its feathers: watch in silence, and she hides her riches away. Among horses, in the contests of the swift course, a combed-out mane and a patted neck give pleasure.
At cum discedet mensa conviva remota, Ipsa tibi accessus turba locumque dabit. Insere te turbae, leviterque admotus eunti Velle latus digitis, et pede tange pedem. Conloquii iam tempus adest; fuge rustice longe Hinc pudor; audentem Forsque Venusque iuvat. Non tua sub nostras veniat facundia leges: Fac tantum cupias, sponte disertus eris. Est tibi agendus amans, imitandaque vulnera verbis; Haec tibi quaeratur qualibet arte fides. Nec credi labor est: sibi quaeque videtur amanda; Pessima sit, nulli non sua forma placet. Saepe tamen vere coepit simulator amare, Saepe, quod incipiens finxerat esse, fuit. Quo magis, o, faciles imitantibus este, puellae: Fiet amor verus, qui modo falsus erat. Blanditiis animum furtim deprendere nunc sit, Ut pendens liquida ripa subestur aqua. Nec faciem, nec te pigeat laudare capillos Et teretes digitos exiguumque pedem: Delectant etiam castas praeconia formae; Virginibus curae grataque forma sua est. Nam cur in Phrygiis Iunonem et Pallada silvis Nunc quoque iudicium non tenuisse pudet? Laudatas ostendit avis Iunonia pinnas: Si tacitus spectes, illa recondit opes. Quadrupedes inter rapidi certamina cursus Depexaeque iubae plausaque colla iuvant.
Promise without fear: promises draw girls on; to your pledge add any gods at all as witnesses. Jupiter from on high laughs at lovers’ perjuries, and bids the Aeolian south winds bear them off void. By the Styx Jupiter used to swear falsely to Juno; now he himself smiles on his own example. It is expedient that gods exist, and, as it is expedient, let us suppose they do; let incense and wine be offered on the ancient hearths; nor does a carefree rest, like sleep, hold them fast; live without harm: a divine power is near; return what is entrusted; let piety keep its compacts; let fraud be far off; keep your hands clean of blood. Trifle, if you’re wise, with girls alone, and go unpunished: in this one deceit, honesty need less be kept. Deceive the deceivers: for the most part they are a godless breed: let them fall into the snares they themselves have set. Egypt, they say, lacked the rains that help the fields, and was dry for nine years, when Thrasius came to Busiris and showed that Jove could be appeased by a guest’s spilled blood. To him Busiris said, ’you’ll be Jove’s first victim, and you, the guest, will give Egypt its water.’ And Phalaris roasted violent Perillus’ limbs in the bull: the luckless maker first broke in his own work. Each was just: for no law is fairer than that the contrivers of death perish by their own art. So, that perjuries may rightly cheat the perjured, let a woman grieve, hurt by her own precedent.
Nec timide promitte: trahunt promissa puellas; Pollicito testes quoslibet adde deos. Iuppiter ex alto periuria ridet amantum, Et iubet Aeolios inrita ferre notos. Per Styga Iunoni falsum iurare solebat Iuppiter; exemplo nunc favet ipse suo. Expedit esse deos, et, ut expedit, esse putemus; Dentur in antiquos tura merumque focos; Nec secura quies illos similisque sopori Detinet; innocue vivite: numen adest; Reddite depositum; pietas sua foedera servet: Fraus absit; vacuas caedis habete manus. Ludite, si sapitis, solas impune puellas: Hac minus est una fraude tuenda fides. Fallite fallentes: ex magna parte profanum Sunt genus: in laqueos quos posuere, cadant. Dicitur Aegyptos caruisse iuvantibus arva Imbribus, atque annos sicca fuisse novem, Cum Thrasius Busirin adit, monstratque piari Hospitis adfuso sanguine posse Iovem. Illi Busiris ’fies Iovis hostia primus,’ Inquit ’et Aegypto tu dabis hospes aquam.’ Et Phalaris tauro violenti membra Perilli Torruit: infelix inbuit auctor opus. Iustus uterque fuit: neque enim lex aequior ulla est, Quam necis artifices arte perire sua. Ergo ut periuras merito periuria fallant, Exemplo doleat femina laesa suo.
Tears, too, help: with tears you’ll move adamant: let her see, if you can, your cheeks wet. If tears (for they don’t always come on cue) fail you, touch your eyes with a wet hand. What clever man wouldn’t mix kisses in with coaxing words? Though she not give them, take them ungiven all the same. Perhaps she’ll fight at first, and say ’you brute’: yet in fighting she’ll want to be beaten. Only take care that snatched kisses don’t bruise her tender lips, nor let her be able to complain they were rough. He who has taken kisses, if he won’t take the rest as well, will deserve to lose even these that were given. How much was wanting to the full wish, after the kisses? Ah me, that was clownishness, not modesty. You may call it force: that force is welcome to girls: what delights, they often wish to have given against their will. Whoever is ravished by love’s sudden plundering rejoices, and counts the outrage as a gift. But she who, when she could have been forced, came away untouched, though she feign joy on her face, will be sad.
Et lacrimae prosunt: lacrimis adamanta movebis: Fac madidas videat, si potes, illa genas. Si lacrimae (neque enim veniunt in tempore semper) Deficient, uda lumina tange manu. Quis sapiens blandis non misceat oscula verbis? Illa licet non det, non data sume tamen. Pugnabit primo fortassis, et ’improbe’ dicet: Pugnando vinci se tamen illa volet. Tantum ne noceant teneris male rapta labellis, Neve queri possit dura fuisse, cave. Oscula qui sumpsit, si non et cetera sumet, Haec quoque, quae data sunt, perdere dignus erit. Quantum defuerat pleno post oscula voto? Ei mihi, rusticitas, non pudor ille fuit. Vim licet appelles: grata est vis ista puellis: Quod iuvat, invitae saepe dedisse volunt. Quaecumque est veneris subita violata rapina, Gaudet, et inprobitas muneris instar habet. At quae cum posset cogi, non tacta recessit, Ut simulet vultu gaudia, tristis erit.
Phoebe suffered force; force was brought upon her sister; and to each ravished girl her ravisher was welcome. A tale well known, indeed, but not unworthy to be told: the Scyrian girl joined to the Haemonian man. Already the goddess, worthy to beat the two, had given the evil prize of her praised beauty under the Idaean hill: already a daughter-in-law had come to Priam from the world’s far side, and a Greek wife was within the Trojan walls: all were swearing to the words of the injured husband; for one man’s grief had become a public cause. A shameful thing — had he not granted this to his mother’s prayers — Achilles had hidden his manhood in a long gown. What are you doing, son of Aeacus? wool is not your work; seek your titles by Pallas’s other art. What have you to do with wool-baskets? your hand is fit to bear a shield: why hold a weight of wool in the right hand by which Hector will fall? Throw down the spindles wound with their laborious thread! that Pelian spear must be brandished by this hand. By chance a royal virgin was in the same chamber; she found out, by his outrage, that he was a man. By force, indeed, she was conquered — so one must believe: but she wished, all the same, to be conquered by force. Often she said ’stay!’ when Achilles now made haste; for, the distaff put down, he had taken up brave arms. Where is that force now? Why, with coaxing voice, do you delay the author of your shame, Deidamia? Of course — as it is a shame for a woman to begin first, so it is welcome to submit when another begins.
Vim passa est Phoebe: vis est allata sorori; Et gratus raptae raptor uterque fuit. Fabula nota quidem, sed non indigna referri, Scyrias Haemonio iuncta puella viro. Iam dea laudatae dederat mala praemia formae Colle sub Idaeo vincere digna duas: Iam nurus ad Priamum diverso venerat orbe, Graiaque in Iliacis moenibus uxor erat: Iurabant omnes in laesi verba mariti: Nam dolor unius publica causa fuit. Turpe, nisi hoc matris precibus tribuisset, Achilles Veste virum longa dissimulatus erat. Quid facis, Aeacide? non sunt tua munera lanae; Tu titulos alia Palladis arte petas. Quid tibi cum calathis? clipeo manus apta ferendo est: Pensa quid in dextra, qua cadet Hector, habes? Reice succinctos operoso stamine fusos! Quassanda est ista Pelias hasta manu. Forte erat in thalamo virgo regalis eodem; Haec illum stupro comperit esse virum. Viribus illa quidem victa est, ita credere oportet: Sed voluit vinci viribus illa tamen. Saepe ’mane!’ dixit, cum iam properaret Achilles; Fortia nam posita sumpserat arma colo. Vis ubi nunc illa est? Quid blanda voce moraris Auctorem stupri, Deidamia, tui? Scilicet ut pudor est quaedam coepisse priorem, Sic alio gratum est incipiente pati. A!
Ah, a young man has too much faith in his own looks if he waits until she ask first. Let the man approach first, let the man speak the pleading words: graciously she’ll receive his coaxing prayers. To win her, ask: she only wants to be asked; give the cause and the beginning of your wish. Jupiter went as a suppliant to the heroines of old: no girl ever seduced great Jove. If, however, you sense that swollen disdain meets your prayers, spare your undertaking and draw your foot back. What flees them, many desire; they hate what presses; by pressing more gently take away their weariness of you. Nor must the hope of love always be declared by the asker: let love come in disguised under the name of friendship. By this approach I’ve seen a stern girl taken in: he who had been her admirer became her lover.
nimia est iuveni propriae fiducia formae, Expectat siquis, dum prior illa roget. Vir prior accedat, vir verba precantia dicat: Excipiet blandas comiter illa preces. Ut potiare, roga: tantum cupit illa rogari; Da causam voti principiumque tui. Iuppiter ad veteres supplex heroidas ibat: Corrupit magnum nulla puella Iovem. Si tamen a precibus tumidos accedere fastus Senseris, incepto parce referque pedem. Quod refugit, multae cupiunt: odere quod instat; Lenius instando taedia tolle tui. Nec semper veneris spes est profitenda roganti: Intret amicitiae nomine tectus amor. Hoc aditu vidi tetricae data verba puellae: Qui fuerat cultor, factus amator erat.
A fair complexion is ugly in a sailor; from the sea’s wave and the star’s rays he ought to be dark: ugly, too, in the farmer, who with curved ploughshare and heavy mattocks turns the soil under the open sky. And you, who seek the fame of Pallas’s crown, if your body is fair, you’ll be ugly. Let every lover be pale: this is the color that fits a lover; this becomes him — fools think it of no avail. Pale, Orion wandered in Side’s woods; pale was Daphnis for the unyielding naiad. Let leanness, too, prove your heart: nor think it shameful to have set a hood on your glossy hair. Nights kept awake thin out young men’s bodies, and care, and the grief that comes in a great love. To win your wish, be pitiable, so that whoever sees you can say, ’you’re in love.’
Candidus in nauta turpis color, aequoris unda Debet et a radiis sideris esse niger: Turpis et agricolae, qui vomere semper adunco Et gravibus rastris sub Iove versat humum. Et tibi, Palladiae petitur cui fama coronae, Candida si fuerint corpora, turpis eris. Palleat omnis amans: hic est color aptus amanti; Hoc decet, hoc stulti non valuisse putant. Pallidus in Side silvis errabat Orion, Pallidus in lenta naide Daphnis erat. Arguat et macies animum: nec turpe putaris Palliolum nitidis inposuisse comis. Attenuant iuvenum vigilatae corpora noctes Curaque et in magno qui fit amore dolor. Ut voto potiare tuo, miserabilis esto, Ut qui te videat, dicere possit ’amas.’
Shall I complain, or warn that right and wrong are all confounded? Friendship is a name, faith an empty name. Ah me, it is not safe to praise what you love to a comrade; once he’s believed your praise, he steps in himself. But Actor’s grandson did not defile Achilles’ bed; as far as Pirithous went, Phaedra was chaste. Pylades loved Hermione as Phoebus loved Pallas, and as Castor was to you, daughter of Tyndareus — a twin. If anyone hopes for the same, let him hope tamarisks will bear apples, and look for honey in mid-river. Nothing but the base gives pleasure: each one cares only for his own delight, and even that comes sweeter from another’s pain. Alas, the outrage! it is not the enemy a lover must fear; flee those you think loyal, and you’ll be safe. Beware the kinsman, the brother, the dear comrade: that crowd will give you your real frights.
Conquerar, an moneam mixtum fas omne nefasque? Nomen amicitia est, nomen inane fides. Ei mihi, non tutum est, quod ames, laudare sodali; Cum tibi laudanti credidit, ipse subit. At non Actorides lectum temeravit Achillis: Quantum ad Pirithoum, Phaedra pudica fuit. Hermionam Pylades quo Pallada Phoebus, amabat, Quodque tibi geminus, Tyndari, Castor, erat. Siquis idem sperat, laturas poma myricas Speret, et e medio flumine mella petat. Nil nisi turpe iuvat: curae sua cuique voluptas: Haec quoque ab alterius grata dolore venit. Heu facinus! non est hostis metuendus amanti; Quos credis fidos, effuge, tutus eris. Cognatum fratremque cave carumque sodalem: Praebebit veros haec tibi turba metus.
I was about to finish, but girls have differing hearts: catch a thousand minds in a thousand ways. Nor does one same earth bear all things; that suits the vine, this the olive; here the grain grows green well. There are as many characters in hearts as features in the face; the wise man will fit himself to countless characters, and like Proteus he’ll now thin into the light waves, now be a lion, now a tree, now a bristling boar. These fish are taken with the spear, those with the hook: these the hollow nets draw in with taut rope. Nor will one single method suit you for every age: the older hind will spot the ambush from further off. If you seem learned to a green girl, or bold to a shy one, she’ll at once lose all faith in her poor self. From this it comes that she who feared to entrust herself to an honorable man goes, cheapened, to a lesser man’s embrace. Part of the work begun is left, part is done: here let the cast anchor hold my ship.
Finiturus eram, sed sunt diversa puellis Pectora: mille animos excipe mille modis. Nec tellus eadem parit omnia; vitibus illa Convenit, haec oleis; hac bene farra virent. Pectoribus mores tot sunt, quot in ore figurae; Qui sapit, innumeris moribus aptus erit, Utque leves Proteus modo se tenuabit in undas, Nunc leo, nunc arbor, nunc erit hirtus aper. Hi iaculo pisces, illi capiuntur ab hamis: Hos cava contento retia fune trahunt. Nec tibi conveniet cunctos modus unus ad annos: Longius insidias cerva videbit anus. Si doctus videare rudi, petulansve pudenti, Diffidet miserae protinus illa sibi. Inde fit, ut quae se timuit committere honesto, Vilis ad amplexus inferioris eat. Pars superat coepti, pars est exhausta laboris. Hic teneat nostras ancora iacta rates.
Cry ’io Paean!’ and twice cry ’io Paean!’ — the prey I hunted has dropped into my nets. The glad lover awards my song the green palm, preferred to the old men of Ascra and Maeonia. Such was the stranger, Priam’s son, when from armed Amyclae he spread white sails with the wife he had snatched; such was he who bore you on his victor’s car, Hippodamia, carried off on foreign wheels. Why hurry, young man? Your ship still sails mid-sea, and the harbor I make for is far away. It is not enough that the girl has come to you by my verse: she was caught by my art, by my art she must be kept. To guard a thing won is no less skill than to seek it: in the seeking there is chance; this will be the work of art. Now, if ever, favor me, boy, and you, Cytherea, now Erato — for your very name is love’s. I undertake great things: to tell by what arts Love, that boy who roams so vast a world, may be made to stay. He is fickle, and has two wings to fly off on: it is hard to lay a limit upon them.
Dicite ’io Paean!’ et ’io’ bis dicite ’Paean!’ Decidit in casses praeda petita meos; Laetus amans donat viridi mea carmina palma, Praelata Ascraeo Maeonioque seni. Talis ab armiferis Priameius hospes Amyclis Candida cum rapta coniuge vela dedit; Talis erat qui te curru victore ferebat, Vecta peregrinis Hippodamia rotis. Quid properas, iuvenis? mediis tua pinus in undis Navigat, et longe quem peto portus abest. Non satis est venisse tibi me vate puellam: Arte mea capta est, arte tenenda mea est. Nec minor est virtus, quam quaerere, parta tueri: Casus inest illic; hoc erit artis opus. Nunc mihi, siquando, puer et Cytherea, favete, Nunc Erato, nam tu nomen amoris habes. Magna paro, quas possit Amor remanere per artes, Dicere, tam vasto pervagus orbe puer. Et levis est, et habet geminas, quibus avolet, alas: Difficile est illis inposuisse modum.
Minos had barred every road of his guest’s escape: yet that man found a daring path on wings. When Daedalus had shut away the thing got by the mother’s crime, the half-bull man and the half-man bull, he said, ’Let there be an end to my exile, most just Minos: let my native earth receive my ashes. And since, harried by unjust fates, I could not live in my own country, grant me the power to die. Grant the boy’s return, if an old man’s favor is cheap: if you will not spare the boy, then spare the old man.’ So he spoke; but this, and far more, he might have said: that man would grant him no way back. The moment he grasped it, ’Now, now, O Daedalus,’ he said, ’you have the matter to make your genius shine. Minos holds the lands, and Minos holds the seas: neither earth nor water lies open to our flight. The road of heaven remains: by heaven we will try to go. Jupiter on high, forgive my undertaking: I do not aim to touch the starry seats; there is no way but this to flee my master. Grant a road through Styx, and I will swim the Stygian waves; I must make new the laws of my own nature.’
Hospitis effugio praestruxerat omnia Minos: Audacem pinnis repperit ille viam. Daedalus ut clausit conceptum crimine matris Semibovemque virum semivirumque bovem, ’Sit modus exilio,’ dixit ’iustissime Minos: Accipiat cineres terra paterna meos. Et quoniam in patria, fatis agitatus iniquis, Vivere non potui, da mihi posse mori. Da reditum puero, senis est si gratia vilis: Si non vis puero parcere, parce seni.’ Dixerat haec; sed et haec et multo plura licebat Dicere: regressus non dabat ille viro. Quod simul ut sensit, ’nunc, nunc, o Daedale,’ dixit: ’Materiam, qua sis ingeniosus, habes. Possidet et terras et possidet aequora Minos: Nec tellus nostrae nec patet unda fugae. Restat iter caeli: caelo temptabimus ire. Da veniam coepto, Iupiter alte, meo: Non ego sidereas adfecto tangere sedes: Qua fugiam dominum, nulla, nisi ista, via est. Per Styga detur iter, Stygias transnabimus undas; Sunt mihi naturae iura novanda meae.’
Trouble often stirs up genius: who would ever believe a man could make his way along the airy roads? He sets feathers in order, an oarage for birds, and binds the light work with threads of flax, the lower part fastened with wax melted in the fire, and now the labor of the new art was done. The boy kept handling the wax and the feathers, beaming, not knowing these arms were readied for his own shoulders. His father said to him, ’By these keels we must reach home; by this device Minos must be escaped. The air Minos could not close, though he closed all else: cleave the air, since you may, by my invention. But you must not fix your eye on the Tegean maid, nor on Boötes’ companion, sword-bearing Orion: follow me by the wings I give you; I will go before: let it be your care to follow; with me as guide you will be safe. For if we go through the upper air, close to the sun, the wax will not endure the heat: or if we beat our wings low, near the sea, the moving feather will grow wet with the brine. Fly between the two; and fear the winds as well, my son, and where the breezes bear you, give your sails their favor.’ As he warns, he fits the work to the boy, and shows him how to move, teaching him as a mother bird teaches her unfledged young. Then he settles on his own shoulders the wings he had made, and balances his body, fearful, for the strange road. And now, about to fly, he gave his small son kisses, and the father’s cheeks could not hold back their tears.
Ingenium mala saepe movent: quis crederet umquam Aerias hominem carpere posse vias? Remigium volucrum disponit in ordine pinnas, Et leve per lini vincula nectit opus, Imaque pars ceris adstringitur igne solutis, Finitusque novae iam labor artis erat. Tractabat ceramque puer pinnasque renidens, Nescius haec umeris arma parata suis. Cui pater ’his’ inquit ’patria est adeunda carinis, Hac nobis Minos effugiendus ope. Aera non potuit Minos, alia omnia clausit; Quem licet, inventis aera rumpe meis. Sed tibi non virgo Tegeaea comesque Bootae Ensiger Orion aspiciendus erit: Me pinnis sectare datis; ego praevius ibo: Sit tua cura sequi; me duce tutus eris. Nam sive aetherias vicino sole per auras Ibimus, impatiens cera caloris erit: Sive humiles propiore freto iactabimus alas, Mobilis aequoreis pinna madescet aquis. Inter utrumque vola; ventos quoque, nate, timeto, Quaque ferent aurae, vela secunda dato.’ Dum monet, aptat opus puero, monstratque moveri, Erudit infirmas ut sua mater aves. Inde sibi factas umeris accommodat alas, Perque novum timide corpora librat iter. Iamque volaturus parvo dedit oscula nato, Nec patriae lacrimas continuere genae.
There was a hill, lower than a mountain, higher than the level plains: from here the two bodies launched on their sad flight. Daedalus moves his own wings, and looks back at his son’s, and all the while holds steady to his course. And now the strange road delights the boy, and fear laid aside Icarus flies more boldly by his daring art. Someone, while catching fish with a quivering rod, saw them, and his right hand dropped the work it had begun. Now Samos was on the left (Naxos had been left behind, and Paros, and Delos dear to the Clarian god), on the right lay Lebinthos and Calymne, shady with woods, and Astypalaea, ringed by fish-thronged shallows, when the boy, too reckless in his heedless years, drove his road higher and abandoned his father. The bindings loosen, the wax melts as the god draws near, and his beating arms cannot grip the thin winds. Terrified, he looked down from the height of heaven to the sea: night, risen from his quaking dread, came over his eyes. The wax had melted: he shakes his naked arms, and trembles, and has nothing to hold him up. He drops, and falling cries ’father, O father, I am carried off!’ — the green waters closed over the mouth that spoke. But the unhappy father, now no father, cries ’Icarus!’ ’Icarus,’ he cries, ’where are you? Under what sky do you fly?’ ’Icarus’ he kept crying — and saw the feathers on the waves. Earth covers his bones: the waters keep his name. Minos could not hold back a mortal’s wings; I make ready to hold back the winged god himself.
Monte minor collis, campis erat altior aequis: Hinc data sunt miserae corpora bina fugae. Et movet ipse suas, et nati respicit alas Daedalus, et cursus sustinet usque suos. Iamque novum delectat iter, positoque timore Icarus audaci fortius arte volat. Hos aliquis, tremula dum captat arundine pisces, Vidit, et inceptum dextra reliquit opus. Iam Samos a laeva (fuerant Naxosque relictae Et Paros et Clario Delos amata deo) Dextra Lebinthos erat silvisque umbrosa Calymne Cinctaque piscosis Astypalaea vadis, Cum puer, incautis nimium temerarius annis, Altius egit iter, deseruitque patrem. Vincla labant, et cera deo propiore liquescit, Nec tenues ventos brachia mota tenent. Territus a summo despexit in aequora caelo: Nox oculis pavido venit oborta metu. Tabuerant cerae: nudos quatit ille lacertos, Et trepidat nec, quo sustineatur, habet. Decidit, atque cadens ’pater, o pater, auferor!’ inquit, Clauserunt virides ora loquentis aquae. At pater infelix, nec iam pater, ’Icare!’ clamat, ’Icare,’ clamat ’ubi es, quoque sub axe volas?’ ’Icare’ clamabat, pinnas aspexit in undis. Ossa tegit tellus: aequora nomen habent. Non potuit Minos hominis conpescere pinnas; Ipse deum volucrem detinuisse paro.
He is deceived who runs off to Haemonian arts, and gives what he tears from a young colt’s brow. Medea’s herbs will not make love live on, nor Marsian chants mixed with magic sounds. The Phasian girl would have kept Jason, Circe Ulysses, if only love could be preserved by a spell. Nor will pale love-philtres do girls any good: philtres harm the mind, and carry the force of madness. Let all such wickedness be far off; to be loved, be lovable: which neither your face alone nor your figure will grant. Though you were a Nireus, beloved by ancient Homer, or tender Hylas, snatched off by the Naiads’ crime, to keep your mistress, and not wonder to find yourself dropped, add the gifts of the mind to the body’s goods. Beauty is a fragile good, and the more it gains in years the less it grows, worn away by its own span. Violets do not bloom forever, nor the gaping lilies, and the thorn stands stiff when the rose is shed. And to you too, handsome one, white hairs will come, soon the wrinkles will come to furrow your body. Now build a spirit that will last, and join it to your beauty: that alone stays with you to the final pyre.
Fallitur, Haemonias siquis decurrit ad artes, Datque quod a teneri fronte revellit equi. Non facient, ut vivat amor, Medeides herbae Mixtaque cum magicis nenia Marsa sonis. Phasias Aesoniden, Circe tenuisset Ulixem, Si modo servari carmine posset amor. Nec data profuerint pallentia philtra puellis: Philtra nocent animis, vimque furoris habent. Sit procul omne nefas; ut ameris, amabilis esto: Quod tibi non facies solave forma dabit: Sis licet antiquo Nireus adamatus Homero, Naiadumque tener crimine raptus Hylas, Ut dominam teneas, nec te mirere relictum, Ingenii dotes corporis adde bonis. Forma bonum fragile est, quantumque accedit ad annos Fit minor, et spatio carpitur ipsa suo. Nec violae semper nec hiantia lilia florent, Et riget amissa spina relicta rosa. Et tibi iam venient cani, formose, capilli, Iam venient rugae, quae tibi corpus arent. Iam molire animum, qui duret, et adstrue formae: Solus ad extremos permanet ille rogos.
And let it be no light concern to have schooled the heart in the liberal arts, and to have mastered the two tongues. Ulysses was not handsome, but he was eloquent, and yet he racked the sea-goddesses with love. Ah, how often Calypso grieved that he should hurry, and denied the waters were fit for rowing! Again and again she asked the fall of Troy: he had a way of telling the same tale each time differently. They had stood on the shore: there too the lovely Calypso demanded the bloody end of the Odrysian chief. He, with a light wand (for by chance he held a wand), draws in the firm sand the thing she asks. ’Here,’ he says, ’is Troy’ (he made walls on the shore): ’let this be your Simois; think of this as my camp. There was a plain’ (and he makes a plain) ’which we sprinkled with Dolon’s blood, the night he longed for the Haemonian horses. There stood the tents of Sithonian Rhesus: by this road I rode back that night on the captured steeds.’ He was drawing more, when a sudden wave swept off Troy, and Rhesus’ camp together with its chief. Then the goddess said, ’These names, so great, that the waves have destroyed — you see them? — yet you trust them to bear you safe.’ So come: be wary of trusting to a deceiving shape, whoever you are, or have something worth more than the body.
Nec levis ingenuas pectus coluisse per artes Cura sit et linguas edidicisse duas. Non formosus erat, sed erat facundus Ulixes, Et tamen aequoreas torsit amore deas. A quotiens illum doluit properare Calypso, Remigioque aptas esse negavit aquas! Haec Troiae casus iterumque iterumque rogabat: Ille referre aliter saepe solebat idem. Litore constiterant: illic quoque pulchra Calypso Exigit Odrysii fata cruenta ducis. Ille levi virga (virgam nam forte tenebat) Quod rogat, in spisso litore pingit opus. ’Haec’ inquit ’Troia est’ (muros in litore fecit): ’Hic tibi sit Simois; haec mea castra puta. Campus erat’ (campumque facit), ’quem caede Dolonis Sparsimus, Haemonios dum vigil optat equos. Illic Sithonii fuerant tentoria Rhesi: Hac ego sum captis nocte revectus equis.’ Pluraque pingebat, subitus cum Pergama fluctus Abstulit et Rhesi cum duce castra suo. Tum dea ’quas’ inquit ’fidas tibi credis ituro, Perdiderint undae nomina quanta, vides?’ Ergo age, fallaci timide confide figurae, Quisquis es, aut aliquid corpore pluris habe.
Above all, a deft indulgence captures minds; harshness breeds hatred and savage wars. We hate the hawk, because it lives always under arms, and the wolves that are wont to fall on the trembling flock. But the swallow, being gentle, is free from men’s snares, and the Chaonian bird has towers to dwell in. Keep far off, you quarrels and battles of the bitter tongue: tender love must be fed with sweet words. Let wives drive off husbands, and husbands wives, by feuding, and each believe a suit is always being pressed against them; this suits wives — strife is a wife’s dowry: let a mistress always hear the sounds she longs for. You came into one bed at no law’s command: in your case love performs the office of law. Bring soft flatteries and words that please the ear, so that she is glad at your coming.
Dextera praecipue capit indulgentia mentes; Asperitas odium saevaque bella movet. Odimus accipitrem, quia vivit semper in armis, Et pavidum solitos in pecus ire lupos. At caret insidiis hominum, quia mitis, hirundo, Quasque colat turres, Chaonis ales habet. Este procul, lites et amarae proelia linguae: Dulcibus est verbis mollis alendus amor. Lite fugent nuptaeque viros nuptasque mariti, Inque vicem credant res sibi semper agi; Hoc decet uxores; dos est uxoria lites: Audiat optatos semper amica sonos. Non legis iussu lectum venistis in unum: Fungitur in vobis munere legis amor. Blanditias molles auremque iuvantia verba Adfer, ut adventu laeta sit illa tuo.
I do not come as a teacher of loving to the rich: he who will give has no need of my art; he carries his own genius, who says, when he pleases, ’take this’; I yield: he pleases better than my inventions. I am the poet of the poor, because I loved as a poor man; when I could give no gifts, I gave words. Let the poor man love warily: let the poor man fear to speak ill, and bear much that the rich need not endure. I remember, in anger, disordering my mistress’s hair: how many days that fit of temper cost me! I don’t think — I didn’t feel — I tore her tunic; but she herself said so, and it was bought back at my expense. But you, if you are wise, flee your teacher’s sins, and dread the penalties of my fault. Let there be wars with the Parthians, but with your polished mistress, peace, and play, and whatever holds the cause of love.
Non ego divitibus venio praeceptor amandi: Nil opus est illi, qui dabit, arte mea; Secum habet ingenium, qui, cum libet, ’accipe’ dicit; Cedimus: inventis plus placet ille meis. Pauperibus vates ego sum, quia pauper amavi; Cum dare non possem munera, verba dabam. Pauper amet caute: timeat maledicere pauper, Multaque divitibus non patienda ferat. Me memini iratum dominae turbasse capillos: Haec mihi quam multos abstulit ira dies! Nec puto, nec sensi tunicam laniasse; sed ipsa Dixerat, et pretio est illa redempta meo. At vos, si sapitis, vestri peccata magistri Effugite, et culpae damna timete meae. Proelia cum Parthis, cum culta pax sit amica, Et iocus, et causas quicquid amoris habet.
If she is not flattering enough, nor kind to you who love, endure and hold firm: by and by she will be gentle. A branch is bent down from the tree by yielding pressure: you break it, if you try your strength against it. By yielding, waters are swum across: you could not master the rivers if you swam against the current’s pull. Compliance tames tigers, too, and Numidian lions; little by little the bull submits to the rustic plow. What was harsher than Nonacrian Atalanta? Yet, fierce as she was, she gave way to a deserving man. Often, they say, beneath the trees Milanion wept his own mischances and the girl’s unkind deeds; often he bore the treacherous nets on his bidden neck, often he pierced grim boars with the spear: he felt, too, the wound of Hylaeus’ taut bow — but there was another bow more famous than that one. I do not bid you scale the Maenalian woods in arms, nor carry the hunting-nets upon your neck: nor do I bid you bare your breast to flying arrows; the commands of my art will be soft, for the careful man.
Si nec blanda satis, nec erit tibi comis amanti, Perfer et obdura: postmodo mitis erit. Flectitur obsequio curvatus ab arbore ramus: Frangis, si vires experiere tuas. Obsequio tranantur aquae: nec vincere possis Flumina, si contra, quam rapit unda, nates. Obsequium tigresque domat Numidasque leones; Rustica paulatim taurus aratra subit. Quid fuit asperius Nonacrina Atalanta? Succubuit meritis trux tamen illa viri. Saepe suos casus nec mitia facta puellae Flesse sub arboribus Milaniona ferunt; Saepe tulit iusso fallacia retia collo, Saepe fera torvos cuspide fixit apros: Sensit et Hylaei contentum saucius arcum: Sed tamen hoc arcu notior alter erat. Non te Maenalias armatum scandere silvas, Nec iubeo collo retia ferre tuo: Pectora nec missis iubeo praebere sagittis; Artis erunt cauto mollia iussa meae.
Give way when she resists: by giving way you’ll come off winner: only be sure to play the part she bids. She finds fault — find fault; whatever she approves, approve; say what she says; deny what she denies. She laughs — laugh back; if she weeps, remember to weep; let her lay down the law for your own face. If she plays, and casts the ivory counters with her hand, throw badly, and badly hand over what you’ve thrown: or if you cast the knucklebones, let no forfeit dog her loss — see that the ruinous dogs come up for you often: or if the piece advances under the guise of brigandage, let your glass soldier fall to the enemy. Hold over her yourself the parasol stretched on its ribs, make room for her yourself in the crowd where she comes. Don’t hesitate to fetch a stool to her polished couch, and slip the sandal off, or onto, her dainty foot. Often, too, though you yourself will be shivering, the mistress’s hand must be warmed at your chilly breast. And do not think it shameful (though shameful, it will please) to have held the mirror in your freeborn hand.
Cede repugnanti: cedendo victor abibis: Fac modo, quas partes illa iubebit, agas. Arguet, arguito; quicquid probat illa, probato; Quod dicet, dicas; quod negat illa, neges. Riserit, adride; si flebit, flere memento; Imponat leges vultibus illa tuis. Seu ludet, numerosque manu iactabit eburnos, Tu male iactato, tu male iacta dato: Seu iacies talos, victam ne poena sequatur, Damnosi facito stent tibi saepe canes: Sive latrocinii sub imagine calculus ibit, Fac pereat vitreo miles ab hoste tuus. Ipse tene distenta suis umbracula virgis, Ipse fac in turba, qua venit illa, locum. Nec dubita tereti scamnum producere lecto, Et tenero soleam deme vel adde pedi. Saepe etiam dominae, quamvis horrebis et ipse, Algenti manus est calfacienda sinu. Nec tibi turpe puta (quamvis sit turpe, placebit), Ingenua speculum sustinuisse manu.
He who, by wearing out his stepmother with the monsters she set him, earned the heaven he had earlier borne on his own shoulders, is believed to have held the wool-basket among Ionian girls, and to have worked the raw wool. The Tirynthian hero obeyed his mistress’s command: go now, and hesitate to bear what that man bore. Bidden to attend at the Forum, see that you always come earlier than the appointed hour, and leave only late. She tells you to meet her somewhere: put everything off, run, and let no crowd delay the road you’ve begun. At night, going home, she’ll return from a finished banquet: then too, if she calls, come as her slave. She’s in the country, and says ’come’: Love hates the idle — if a wheel is wanting, make the journey on foot. Let no heavy season, no thirsty Dog-star slow you, nor the road gone white with fallen snow.
Ille, fatigata praebendo monstra noverca Qui meruit caelum, quod prior ipse tulit, Inter Ioniacas calathum tenuisse puellas Creditur, et lanas excoluisse rudes. Paruit imperio dominae Tirynthius heros: I nunc et dubita ferre, quod ille tulit. Iussus adesse foro, iussa maturius hora Fac semper venias, nec nisi serus abi. Occurras aliquo, tibi dixerit: omnia differ, Curre, nec inceptum turba moretur iter. Nocte domum repetens epulis perfuncta redibit: Tum quoque pro servo, si vocat illa, veni. Rure erit, et dicet ’venias’: Amor odit inertes: Si rota defuerit, tu pede carpe viam. Nec grave te tempus sitiensque Canicula tardet, Nec via per iactas candida facta nives.
Love is a kind of soldiering; be gone, you sluggards: these standards are not for timid men to guard. Night and winter and long roads and cruel pains and every toil are in this soft camp. Often you will bear the rain loosed from a cloud of heaven, and often lie cold on the bare ground. The Cynthian is said to have grazed the cows of Admetus of Pherae, and to have hidden away in a little hut. What suited Phoebus, whom does it not suit? Strip off your pride, whoever you are who care for a love that will last. If you are denied the safe and level way to go, and the door stands shut, propped by its bar, then drop down headlong through the open roof: let a high window, too, grant its stealthy roads. She will be glad, and know herself the cause of your danger; this will be to your mistress a sure pledge of love. Often, Leander, you could have done without your girl: you swam across, so that she might know your heart.
Militiae species amor est; discedite, segnes: Non sunt haec timidis signa tuenda viris. Nox et hiems longaeque viae saevique dolores Mollibus his castris et labor omnis inest. Saepe feres imbrem caelesti nube solutum, Frigidus et nuda saepe iacebis humo. Cynthius Admeti vaccas pavisse Pheraei Fertur, et in parva delituisse casa. Quod Phoebum decuit, quem non decet? exue fastus, Curam mansuri quisquis amoris habes. Si tibi per tutum planumque negabitur ire, Atque erit opposita ianua fulta sera, At tu per praeceps tecto delabere aperto: Det quoque furtivas alta fenestra vias. Laeta erit, et causam tibi se sciet esse pericli; Hoc dominae certi pignus amoris erit. Saepe tua poteras, Leandre, carere puella: Transnabas, animum nosset ut illa tuum.
Let it be no shame to win over the maidservants, each according to her rank, no shame to win the menservants too. Greet each by his own name (it costs you nothing), and, social climber, clasp their humble hands in yours. And even to a slave who asks (the outlay is slight) hold out small gifts on Fortune’s day: hold them out to the maid too, on the day the Gallic band paid its penalty, tricked out in a wife’s attire. Make the household yours, believe me; let the doorkeeper always be in it, and whoever lies before the bedroom doors. I do not bid you give your mistress a costly gift: give small things, but, shrewd man, choose them well from the small. While the field is richly laden, while the boughs nod with their weight, let a boy bring country gifts in a basket. You can tell her they were sent from your suburban farm, though they were bought, perhaps, on the Sacred Way. Let him bring grapes, or the nuts Amaryllis loved — but nowadays she does not love the chestnut. Why, with a thrush, even, or a dispatched dove, you may testify that you remember your mistress. Shamefully are the hope of a death and childless old age bought with these. Ah, perish those through whom gifts come to carry guilt!
Nec pudor ancillas, ut quaeque erit ordine prima, Nec tibi sit servos demeruisse pudor. Nomine quemque suo (nulla est iactura) saluta, Iunge tuis humiles, ambitiose, manus. Sed tamen et servo (levis est inpensa) roganti Porrige Fortunae munera parva die: Porrige et ancillae, qua poenas luce pependit Lusa maritali Gallica veste manus. Fac plebem, mihi crede, tuam; sit semper in illa Ianitor et thalami qui iacet ante fores. Nec dominam iubeo pretioso munere dones: Parva, sed e parvis callidus apta dato. Dum bene dives ager, cum rami pondere nutant, Adferat in calatho rustica dona puer. Rure suburbano poteris tibi dicere missa, Illa vel in Sacra sint licet empta via. Adferat aut uvas, aut quas Amaryllis amabat At nunc castaneas non amat illa nuces. Quin etiam turdoque licet missaque columba Te memorem dominae testificere tuae. Turpiter his emitur spes mortis et orba senectus. A, pereant, per quos munera crimen habent!
Why should I charge you to send tender verses, too? Alas for me, song carries no great honor. Songs are praised, but it is great gifts they ask for: let him only be rich, and the very barbarian pleases. Truly these are the golden ages now: with gold comes the greatest honor, by gold is love procured. Though you should come, Homer, with the Muses for company, if you bring nothing, Homer, out you will go. Yet there are learned girls, too — a very rare crowd; and another crowd, unlearned, but they want to seem so. Let both be praised in verses: let the reader commend the song, whatever its quality, with a sweet voice; so to these girls or those a poem labored through the night may perhaps stand in the place of a small gift. But whatever you mean to do of your own accord, and think useful, see to it that your mistress always asks it of you. Freedom has been promised to one of your slaves: still, have him beg it of your mistress: if you remit a slave’s punishment, his cruel chains, let her owe to you the thing you meant to do: let the advantage be yours, the credit be given to your mistress: lose nothing, and let her play the part of the powerful one.
Quid tibi praecipiam teneros quoque mittere versus? Ei mihi, non multum carmen honoris habet. Carmina laudantur, sed munera magna petuntur: Dummodo sit dives, barbarus ipse placet. Aurea sunt vere nunc saecula: plurimus auro Venit honos: auro conciliatur amor. Ipse licet venias Musis comitatus, Homere, Si nihil attuleris, ibis, Homere, foras. Sunt tamen et doctae, rarissima turba, puellae; Altera non doctae turba, sed esse volunt. Utraque laudetur per carmina: carmina lector Commendet dulci qualiacumque sono; His ergo aut illis vigilatum carmen in ipsas Forsitan exigui muneris instar erit. At quod eris per te facturus, et utile credis, Id tua te facito semper amica roget. Libertas alicui fuerit promissa tuorum: Hanc tamen a domina fac petat ille tua: Si poenam servo, si vincula saeva remittis, Quod facturus eras, debeat illa tibi: Utilitas tua sit, titulus donetur amicae: Perde nihil, partes illa potentis agat.
But you, whoever you are with a care to keep your girl, make her think you are struck dumb by her beauty. If she’s in Tyrian, you’ll praise the Tyrian robes: if she’s in Coan, think the Coan becomes her. Is she in gold? let her be more precious to you than the gold itself; if she’s put on frieze, approve the frieze she’s put on. If she stands there in her tunic, cry ’you set me ablaze,’ but in an anxious voice beg her to beware of chills. If her parting is neatly done, praise the parting: if she has curled her hair with the iron, curled locks, be pleasing. Marvel at her arms as she dances, her voice as she sings, and, when she has stopped, have the words of one bereft. Her very embraces, the very thing that delights, you may worship, and mark in words the joys she gives. Though she be fiercer than grim Medusa, she’ll turn gentle and fair to her own lover. Only, take care not to show yourself a pretender in those words, nor undo with your face the things you say. If it stays hidden, art helps: caught out, it brings disgrace, and rightly strips away trust for all time to come.
Sed te, cuicumque est retinendae cura puellae, Attonitum forma fac putet esse sua. Sive erit in Tyriis, Tyrios laudabis amictus: Sive erit in Cois, Coa decere puta. Aurata est? ipso tibi sit pretiosior auro; Gausapa si sumpsit, gausapa sumpta proba. Astiterit tunicata, ’moves incendia’ clama, Sed timida, caveat frigora, voce roga. Conpositum discrimen erit, discrimina lauda: Torserit igne comam, torte capille, place. Brachia saltantis, vocem mirare canentis, Et, quod desierit, verba querentis habe. Ipsos concubitus, ipsum venerere licebit Quod iuvat, et quae dat gaudia voce notes. Ut fuerit torva violentior illa Medusa, Fiet amatori lenis et aequa suo. Tantum, ne pateas verbis simulator in illis, Effice, nec vultu destrue dicta tuo. Si latet, ars prodest: adfert deprensa pudorem, Atque adimit merito tempus in omne fidem.
Often, toward autumn, when the year is at its loveliest, and the grape blushes red, swollen with purple wine, when now we are pinched with cold, now melt in the heat, the air unsettled, a languor takes our bodies. May she keep well, indeed; but if, in poor health, she has taken to bed, and, sick, has felt the fault of her own sky, then let your love and devotion be plain to the girl, then sow what later you may reap with a full sickle. And let no disgust at her fretful sickness come over you, and let what she allows be done by your own hands. Let her see you weeping, nor weary of giving kisses, and let her drink your tears with a parched mouth. Make many vows, but all aloud; and, as often as you like, see that you have happy dreams to tell her. And let an old woman come to purify the bed and the room, and bring sulphur and eggs in her trembling hand. In all these there will be traces of welcome care: this road has made for many a path into the will. Yet let no dislike be earned from the sick girl by your attentions: let there be a measure in your coaxing assiduity: neither forbid her food, nor hand her the cups of bitter draughts: let that rival of yours mix those.
Saepe sub autumnum, cum formosissimus annus, Plenaque purpureo subrubet uva mero, Cum modo frigoribus premimur, modo solvimur aestu, Aere non certo, corpora languor habet. Illa quidem valeat; sed si male firma cubarit, Et vitium caeli senserit aegra sui, Tunc amor et pietas tua sit manifesta puellae, Tum sere, quod plena postmodo falce metas. Nec tibi morosi veniant fastidia morbi, Perque tuas fiant, quae sinet ipsa, manus. Et videat flentem, nec taedeat oscula ferre, Et sicco lacrimas conbibat ore tuas. Multa vove, sed cuncta palam; quotiesque libebit, Quae referas illi, somnia laeta vide. Et veniat, quae lustret anus lectumque locumque, Praeferat et tremula sulpur et ova manu. Omnibus his inerunt gratae vestigia curae: In tabulas multis haec via fecit iter. Nec tamen officiis odium quaeratur ab aegra: Sit suus in blanda sedulitate modus: Neve cibo prohibe, nec amari pocula suci Porrige: rivalis misceat illa tuus.
But the wind you set sail to from the shore is not the one to use when you have gained mid-sea. While love is new and wandering, let it gather strength by use: if you nourish it well, in time it will be firm. The bull you fear, you used to pet as a calf: the tree you now lie under was once a sapling: a river is born small, but gathers wealth as it goes, and, where it comes, takes in many waters. Make her grow used to you: nothing is greater than habit — while you are winning her, flee no tedium. Let her always see you, always lend you her ears; let night and day show her your face. When you have more confidence that you can be missed, when, far off, you will be a care to her in your absence, give her rest: a rested field returns well what is entrusted, and the parched earth drinks down the waters of heaven. Present, Demophoon scorched Phyllis but mildly: she blazed more fiercely when his sails were set. Cunning Ulysses, absent, racked Penelope; your Phylacian lord was away, Laodamia. But short delay is safe: cares slacken with time, the absent love fades and a new one enters. While Menelaus was away, Helen, not to lie alone, was taken at night to her guest’s warm breast.
Sed non cui dederas a litore carbasa vento, Utendum, medio cum potiere freto. Dum novus errat amor, vires sibi colligat usu: Si bene nutrieris, tempore firmus erit. Quem taurum metuis, vitulum mulcere solebas: Sub qua nunc recubas arbore, virga fuit: Nascitur exiguus, sed opes adquirit eundo, Quaque venit, multas accipit amnis aquas. Fac tibi consuescat: nil adsuetudine maius: Quam tu dum capias, taedia nulla fuge. Te semper videat, tibi semper praebeat aures; Exhibeat vultus noxque diesque tuos. Cum tibi maior erit fiducia, posse requiri, Cum procul absenti cura futurus eris, Da requiem: requietus ager bene credita reddit, Terraque caelestes arida sorbet aquas. Phyllida Demophoon praesens moderatius ussit: Exarsit velis acrius illa datis. Penelopen absens sollers torquebat Ulixes; Phylacides aberat, Laodamia, tuus. Sed mora tuta brevis: lentescunt tempore curae, Vanescitque absens et novus intrat amor. Dum Menelaus abest, Helene, ne sola iaceret, Hospitis est tepido nocte recepta sinu.
What folly was this, Menelaus? You went off alone, under the same roof were guest and wife. Madman, do you trust the timid doves to the hawk? do you trust the full sheepfold to the mountain wolf? Helen does no wrong, this adulterer commits no crime: he does what you, what anyone, would do. You force the adultery by granting time and place; what did the girl do but follow your own counsel? What should she do? Her husband’s away, a guest is present, no boor, and she fears to lie alone in an empty bed. Let the son of Atreus see to it: I acquit Helen of the crime: she made use of an obliging man’s convenience.
Quis stupor hic, Menelae, fuit? tu solus abibas, Isdem sub tectis hospes et uxor erant. Accipitri timidas credis, furiose, columbas? Plenum montano credis ovile lupo? Nil Helene peccat, nihil hic committit adulter: Quod tu, quod faceret quilibet, ille facit. Cogis adulterium dando tempusque locumque; Quid nisi consilio est usa puella tuo? Quid faciat? vir abest, et adest non rusticus hospes, Et timet in vacuo sola cubare toro. Viderit Atrides: Helenen ego crimine solvo: Usa est humani commoditate viri.
But neither the tawny boar is so savage in mid-fury, when he whirls the maddened dogs on his lightning tusks, nor the lioness, when she offers the teat to her sucking cubs, nor the little viper crushed by a heedless foot, as a woman who has caught a rival in her partner’s bed: she burns, and wears in her face the proofs of her mind. She rushes on steel and flame, and, all grace laid aside, is borne along as if struck by the Aonian god’s horns. The barbarian Phasian woman, avenging her husband’s offense and her violated marriage-rights, struck through her own sons. Another such grim parent is this swallow you see: look, she bears the breast marked with blood. This dissolves well-ordered loves, this dissolves firm ones; these are the crimes that wary men must fear. Yet my censure does not condemn you to one girl alone: heaven forbid! a bride can scarcely hold to that. Have your sport, but let the fault be cloaked in modest concealment: no glory in one’s own sin is to be sought. Give no gift that another woman could recognize, and let there be no fixed times for your naughtiness. And, that no woman catch you in haunts she knows, do not meet them all in one place; and as often as you write, first look the whole tablet over yourself: many a woman reads more than was sent to her.
Sed neque fulvus aper media tam saevus in ira est, Fulmineo rabidos cum rotat ore canes, Nec lea, cum catulis lactentibus ubera praebet, Nec brevis ignaro vipera laesa pede, Femina quam socii deprensa paelice lecti: Ardet et in vultu pignora mentis habet. In ferrum flammasque ruit, positoque decore Fertur, ut Aonii cornibus icta dei. Coniugis admissum violataque iura marita est Barbara per natos Phasias ulta suos. Altera dira parens haec est, quam cernis, hirundo: Aspice, signatum sanguine pectus habet. Hoc bene compositos, hoc firmos solvit amores; Crimina sunt cautis ista timenda viris. Nec mea vos uni damnat censura puellae: Di melius! vix hoc nupta tenere potest. Ludite, sed furto celetur culpa modesto: Gloria peccati nulla petenda sui est. Nec dederis munus, cognosse quod altera possit, Nec sint nequitiae tempora certa tuae. Et, ne te capiat latebris sibi femina notis, Non uno est omnis convenienda loco; Et quotiens scribes, totas prius ipse tabellas Inspice: plus multae, quam sibi missa, legunt.
Wounded Venus takes up just arms, and hurls back the spear, and makes you yourself complain of what just now she complained. While the son of Atreus was content with one, she too was chaste: by her husband’s fault she was made bad. She had heard how Chryses, bearing laurel and fillets in his hand, had not prevailed for his own daughter: she had heard, captive Lyrnessian, of your griefs, and how the war was dragged out longer by shameful delays. Yet these she had only heard: Priam’s daughter she had seen herself: the victor was the shameful prey of his own prey. So she took the son of Thyestes to her heart and bed, and the daughter of Tyndareus avenged her foully-sinning lord. The things you have well hidden, if any deeds do come to light, those, though they lie open, deny all the same. Then be neither submissive nor more coaxing than your wont: such things carry many signs of a guilty mind: but do not spare your loins: peace lies wholly in one thing; the earlier love must be disavowed by lying with her. There are those who prescribe taking harmful herbs, savory; in my judgment those are poisons; or they mix pepper with the seed of the biting nettle, and yellow pellitory ground in aged wine; but the goddess whom high Eryx holds on his shady hill does not allow herself to be forced so to her joys. Take the white bulb that is sent from the Pelasgian city of Alcathous, and the salacious herb that comes from the garden, and eggs, and let Hymettian honey be taken, and the nuts the sharp-needled pine has borne. Learned Erato, why do you turn aside to the magic arts? The inner turning-post must be grazed by my chariot.
Laesa Venus iusta arma movet, telumque remittit, Et, modo quod questa est, ipse querare, facit. Dum fuit Atrides una contentus, et illa Casta fuit: vitio est improba facta viri. Audierat laurumque manu vittasque ferentem Pro nata Chrysen non valuisse sua: Audierat, Lyrnesi, tuos, abducta, dolores, Bellaque per turpis longius isse moras. Haec tamen audierat: Priameida viderat ipsa: Victor erat praedae praeda pudenda suae. Inde Thyestiaden animo thalamoque recepit, Et male peccantem Tyndaris ulta virum. Quae bene celaris, siqua tamen acta patebunt, Illa, licet pateant, tu tamen usque nega. Tum neque subiectus, solito nec blandior esto: Haec animi multum signa nocentis habent: Sed lateri ne parce tuo: pax omnis in uno est; Concubitu prior est infitianda venus. Sunt, qui praecipiant herbas, satureia, nocentes Sumere; iudiciis ista venena meis; Aut piper urticae mordacis semine miscent, Tritaque in annoso flava pyrethra mero; Sed dea non patitur sic ad sua gaudia cogi, Colle sub umbroso quam tenet altus Eryx. Candidus, Alcathoi qui mittitur urbe Pelasga, Bulbus et, ex horto quae venit, herba salax Ovaque sumantur, sumantur Hymettia mella, Quasque tulit folio pinus acuta nuces. Docta, quid ad magicas, Erato, deverteris artes? Interior curru meta terenda meo est.
You who just now hid your offenses by my counsel, turn your course, and by my counsel uncover your intrigues. And do not blame my fickleness: not always by the same wind does the curved keel carry those it bears. For now we run before Thracian Boreas, now before Eurus, often the sails swell with Zephyrus, often with Notus. See how the driver in his car now lets the reins run loose, now skillfully reins the racers in. There are women whom a timid indulgence serves without thanks, and, if no rival is at hand, their love goes slack. Spirits mostly run riot in prosperity, and it is not easy to bear good fortune with an even mind. As a feeble fire, its strength slowly spent, hides itself, and the ash grows grey atop the flame, yet, with sulphur brought near, finds again the dead flames, and the light that was before comes back: so, when hearts are dull and torpid, sluggish with neglect, love must be drawn out with sharp goads. Make her fear for you, warm up the cooled mind again: let her go pale at the sign of your offense. O happy — four times, and times past all reckoning — the man for whom an injured girl grieves: who, the moment the offense reaches her unwilling ears, faints, and from the poor wretch voice and color flee. Be that man I — whose hair she tears in her fury: be that man I — at whose tender cheeks she goes with her nail, whom she eyes in tears, whom she watches with grim glances, without whom she cannot live, though she would wish she could. If you ask the span, let it be brief in which she grieves the wrong, lest, drawn out, her slow anger gather strength; let her white neck be circled, before long, by your arms, and the weeping girl be gathered to your breast. Give her kisses as she weeps, give her Venus’ joys as she weeps, peace will come: by this one means is anger dissolved.
Qui modo celabas monitu tua crimina nostro, Flecte iter, et monitu detege furta meo. Nec levitas culpanda mea est: non semper eodem Impositos vento panda carina vehit. Nam modo Threicio Borea, modo currimus Euro, Saepe tument Zephyro lintea, saepe Noto. Aspice, ut in curru modo det fluitantia rector Lora, modo admissos arte retentet equos. Sunt quibus ingrate timida indulgentia servit, Et, si nulla subest aemula, languet amor. Luxuriant animi rebus plerumque secundis, Nec facile est aequa commoda mente pati. Ut levis absumptis paulatim viribus ignis Ipse latet, summo canet in igne cinis, Sed tamen extinctas admoto sulpure flammas Invenit, et lumen, quod fuit ante, redit: Sic, ubi pigra situ securaque pectora torpent, Acribus est stimulis eliciendus amor. Fac timeat de te, tepidamque recalface mentem: Palleat indicio criminis illa tui; O quater et quotiens numero conprendere non est Felicem, de quo laesa puella dolet: Quae, simul invitas crimen pervenit ad aures, Excidit, et miserae voxque colorque fugit. Ille ego sim, cuius laniet furiosa capillos: Ille ego sim, teneras cui petat ungue genas, Quem videat lacrimans, quem torvis spectet ocellis, Quo sine non possit vivere, posse velit. Si spatium quaeras, breve sit, quo laesa queratur, Ne lenta vires colligat ira mora; Candida iamdudum cingantur colla lacertis, Inque tuos flens est accipienda sinus. Oscula da flenti, Veneris da gaudia flenti, Pax erit: hoc uno solvitur ira modo.
When she has raged her fill, when she’ll seem a settled foe, then sue for the bond of the bed: she’ll grow gentle. There, with weapons laid down, dwells Concord: there, believe me, is the place where Grace was born. The doves that just now fought now join their bills, whose cooing has its flatteries and words. At first the world was a mass confused and without order, and stars, earth, and sea had a single face; soon heaven was set over the lands, the ground ringed by the sea, and empty chaos withdrew into its parts; the wood took the wild beasts to keep, the air the birds, and you, fish, hid yourselves in the flowing water. Then humankind wandered the lonely fields, and was sheer brawn and a rough body; wood was their house, grass their food, leaves their bed: and for a long while none knew another. A coaxing pleasure, they say, softened those fierce hearts: a woman and a man had halted in one place; what to do, they learned for themselves, with no teacher: with no art Venus accomplished the sweet work. The bird has what it loves; the female fish finds in mid-water one to join her joys with; the hind follows her mate, snake is held by snake, the bitch clings, coupled in union with the dog; the ewe is gladly mounted: the heifer too is glad of the bull: the snub-nosed she-goat bears the rank male; mares are driven into a frenzy, and, far apart, across the dividing river they follow the sundered stallions. So come, and give the angry girl the strong medicine: that alone has the power to still her fierce pain: that medicine surpasses the juices of Machaon: by it, when you have sinned, you must be restored.
Cum bene saevierit, cum certa videbitur hostis, Tum pete concubitus foedera, mitis erit. Illic depositis habitat Concordia telis: Illo, crede mihi, Gratia nata loco est. Quae modo pugnarunt, iungunt sua rostra columbae, Quarum blanditias verbaque murmur habet. Prima fuit rerum confusa sine ordine moles, Unaque erat facies sidera, terra, fretum; Mox caelum impositum terris, humus aequore cincta est Inque suas partes cessit inane chaos; Silva feras, volucres aer accepit habendas, In liquida, pisces, delituistis aqua. Tum genus humanum solis errabat in agris, Idque merae vires et rude corpus erat; Silva domus fuerat, cibus herba, cubilia frondes: Iamque diu nulli cognitus alter erat. Blanda truces animos fertur mollisse voluptas: Constiterant uno femina virque loco; Quid facerent, ipsi nullo didicere magistro: Arte Venus nulla dulce peregit opus. Ales habet, quod amet; cum quo sua gaudia iungat, Invenit in media femina piscis aqua; Cerva parem sequitur, serpens serpente tenetur, Haeret adulterio cum cane nexa canis; Laeta salitur ovis: tauro quoque laeta iuvenca est: Sustinet inmundum sima capella marem; In furias agitantur equae, spatioque remota Per loca dividuos amne sequuntur equos. Ergo age et iratae medicamina fortia praebe: Illa feri requiem sola doloris habent: Illa Machaonios superant medicamina sucos: His, ubi peccaris, restituendus eris.
As I was singing this, on a sudden Apollo, made manifest, struck with his thumb the strings of his gilded lyre. In his hands was laurel, and laurel wreathed his holy hair; the seer came on, a sight to behold. He said to me, ’Teacher of wanton Love, come, lead your pupils to my temple, where, famed throughout the scattered world, there stands the writing that bids each man come to know himself. He who is known to himself will alone love wisely, and will measure every task to his own powers. He to whom nature gave a face, let him be looked at for it: he who has fine skin, let him lie often with the shoulder bare: he who pleases in talk, let him shun taciturn silences: he who sings with art, let him sing; who drinks with art, let him drink. But let the eloquent not declaim in the midst of conversation, nor the half-mad poet recite his own writings!’ So Phoebus warned: obey Phoebus as he warns; sure faith is in the holy mouth of this god.
Haec ego cum canerem, subito manifestus Apollo Movit inauratae pollice fila lyrae. In manibus laurus, sacris inducta capillis Laurus erat; vates ille videndus adit. Is mihi ’Lascivi’ dixit ’praeceptor Amoris, Duc, age, discipulos ad mea templa tuos, Est ubi diversum fama celebrata per orbem Littera, cognosci quae sibi quemque iubet. Qui sibi notus erit, solus sapienter amabit, Atque opus ad vires exiget omne suas. Cui faciem natura dedit, spectetur ab illa: Cui color est, umero saepe patente cubet: Qui sermone placet, taciturna silentia vitet: Qui canit arte, canat; qui bibit arte, bibat. Sed neque declament medio sermone diserti, Nec sua non sanus scripta poeta legat!’ Sic monuit Phoebus: Phoebo parete monenti; Certa dei sacro est huius in ore fides.
I am called to nearer matters. Whoever loves wisely will win, and carry off from my art what he seeks. The furrows do not always return what is entrusted, with interest, nor does the breeze always help the wavering ships; little there is that pleases lovers, more that hurts them; let them set before their minds many things to be borne. As many as the hares on Athos, the bees that feed on Hybla, the berries the grey tree of Pallas bears, the shells on the shore — so many are the pains in love; the darts we suffer are steeped in much gall. She’ll be said to have gone out: perhaps she’s there to be seen: think she has gone out, and that you saw amiss. The door will be shut on you on a promised night: endure it, and lay your body even on the foul ground. And perhaps a lying maid, with a haughty look, will say, ’why does this fellow besiege our doors?’ Coax the doorposts and the hard-hearted girl as a suppliant, and lay on the door the roses taken from your head. When she wishes, you’ll come near: when she avoids you, you’ll go; it ill befits the freeborn to make themselves a bore. Why should your mistress be able to say of you, ’there’s no escaping this one’? Good sense is not always against you. And think it no shame to bear a girl’s curses, or her blows, nor to give kisses to her tender feet.
Ad propiora vocor. Quisquis sapienter amabit Vincet, et e nostra, quod petet, arte feret. Credita non semper sulci cum faenore reddunt, Nec semper dubias adiuvat aura rates; Quod iuvat, exiguum, plus est, quod laedat amantes; Proponant animo multa ferenda suo. Quot lepores in Atho, quot apes pascuntur in Hybla, Caerula quot bacas Palladis arbor habet, Litore quot conchae, tot sunt in amore dolores; Quae patimur, multo spicula felle madent. Dicta erit isse foras: intus fortasse videre est: Isse foras, et te falsa videre puta. Clausa tibi fuerit promissa ianua nocte: Perfer et inmunda ponere corpus humo. Forsitan et vultu mendax ancilla superbo Dicet ’quid nostras obsidet iste fores?’ Postibus et durae supplex blandire puellae, Et capiti demptas in fore pone rosas. Cum volet, accedes: cum te vitabit, abibis; Dedecet ingenuos taedia ferre sui. ’Effugere hunc non est’ quare tibi possit amica Dicere? non omni tempore sensus obest. Nec maledicta puta, nec verbera ferre puellae Turpe, nec ad teneros oscula ferre pedes.
Why do I linger on small things? My mind presses to greater; I will sing great matters: with all your heart, crowd, attend. We attempt the steep, but no virtue is anything but steep: a hard labor is demanded by my art. Bear a rival patiently, and victory will stand with you: you will be victor in great Jupiter’s citadel. Believe these words spoken to you not by a man, but by the Pelasgian oaks: my art has nothing greater than this. She nods to him — bear it; she writes — don’t touch the tablets: let her come from where she will, go where she pleases. This much husbands allow in a lawful wife, when you, soft sleep, come on to play your part as well. In this art, I confess, I am not perfect myself; what shall I do? I fall short of my own counsels. Shall someone make signs to my girl before my face, and I bear it, and not let anger carry me where it will? Her own man had kissed her, I remember: I complained of the kisses given; my love is full of such savagery. Not once has this fault hurt me: he is the more skilled by whose procuring other men come on the scene. But better to have known nothing: let affairs stay covered, lest the modesty once confessed flee from a feigning face. All the more, young men, forbear to catch your girls out: let them sin, and, sinning, think they have got away with it. Love grows when they are caught; when the fortune of the two is matched, each holds on in the cause of his own undoing.
Quid moror in parvis? Animus maioribus instat; Magna canam: toto pectore, vulgus, ades. Ardua molimur, sed nulla, nisi ardua, virtus: Difficilis nostra poscitur arte labor. Rivalem patienter habe, victoria tecum Stabit: eris magni victor in arce Iovis. Haec tibi non hominem, sed quercus crede Pelasgas Dicere: nil istis ars mea maius habet. Innuet illa, feras; scribet, ne tange tabellas: Unde volet, veniat; quoque libebit, eat. Hoc in legitima praestant uxore mariti, Cum, tener, ad partes tu quoque, somne, venis. Hac ego, confiteor, non sum perfectus in arte; Quid faciam? monitis sum minor ipse meis. Mene palam nostrae det quisquam signa puellae, Et patiar, nec me quo libet ira ferat? Oscula vir dederat, memini, suus: oscula questus Sum data; barbaria noster abundat amor. Non semel hoc vitium nocuit mihi: doctior ille, Quo veniunt alii conciliante viri. Sed melius nescisse fuit: sine furta tegantur, Ne fugiat ficto fassus ab ore pudor. Quo magis, o iuvenes, deprendere parcite vestras: Peccent, peccantes verba dedisse putent. Crescit amor prensis; ubi par fortuna duorum est, In causa damni perstat uterque sui.
A tale is told, the best-known in all of heaven, of Mars and Venus caught by Mulciber’s wiles. Father Mars, distracted by a mad love for Venus, from a dread captain had turned a lover. Nor was Venus, to his pleading (for no goddess is softer), boorish or hard to win for Gradivus. Ah, how often the wanton is said to have laughed at her husband’s limp, and at his hands hardened by fire or by craft. Aping Vulcan before Mars, she made it become her, and much grace was mingled with her beauty. But they used to hide their first couplings well. The fault was full of bashful shame. By the Sun’s informing (who could deceive the Sun?) the doings of his wife were made known to Vulcan. What bad examples you set, Sun! Ask a favor of her herself, and she has, if you keep silence, what she could give you. Mulciber sets, around and over the bed, his unseen snares: the work cheats the eye. He feigns a journey to Lemnos; the lovers come to their tryst: tangled in the snares, the two lie naked. He calls the gods together; the captives make a show: they think Venus could scarcely hold back her tears. They cannot hide their faces, nor at last set their hands over the obscene parts. Here someone said, laughing, ’O most valiant Mavors, if the chains are a burden to you, transfer them to me!’ Scarcely at your prayers, Neptune, did he loose the captive bodies: Mars makes for Thrace, she for Paphos. This is your reward, Vulcan: what before they hid, they now do more freely, all shame gone.
Fabula narratur toto notissima caelo, Mulciberis capti Marsque Venusque dolis. Mars pater, insano Veneris turbatus amore, De duce terribili factus amator erat. Nec Venus oranti (neque enim dea mollior ulla est) Rustica Gradivo difficilisque fuit. A, quotiens lasciva pedes risisse mariti Dicitur, et duras igne vel arte manus. Marte palam simul est Vulcanum imitata, decebat, Multaque cum forma gratia mixta fuit. Sed bene concubitus primos celare solebant. Plena verecundi culpa pudoris erat. Indicio Solis (quis Solem fallere possit?) Cognita Vulcano coniugis acta suae. Quam mala, Sol, exempla moves! Pete munus ab ipsa Et tibi, si taceas, quod dare possit, habet. Mulciber obscuros lectum circaque superque Disponit laqueos: lumina fallit opus. Fingit iter Lemnon; veniunt ad foedus amantes: Impliciti laqueis nudus uterque iacent. Convocat ille deos; praebent spectacula capti: Vix lacrimas Venerem continuisse putant. Non vultus texisse suos, non denique possunt Partibus obscenis opposuisse manus. Hic aliquis ridens ’in me, fortissime Mavors, Si tibi sunt oneri, vincula transfer!’ ait. Vix precibus, Neptune, tuis captiva resolvit Corpora: Mars Thracen occupat, illa Paphon. Hoc tibi pro facto, Vulcane: quod ante tegebant, Liberius faciunt, ut pudor omnis abest:
Yet often, out of your senses, you confess you acted like a fool, and they say you repented of your craft. Be warned against this: caught herself, Dione forbids the setting of such traps as she once bore. Do not lay snares for a rival, nor intercept the secret words marked by a hand. Let husbands hunt for such things, if now they think them worth hunting — men whom fire and water will make lawful. Look, again I swear it: nothing here is played at but what the law allows: no matron’s flounce is in our sport. Who would dare to spread Ceres’ rites to the profane, and the great mysteries found on Thracian Samos? It is a small merit to keep silence over things: but, on the other hand, it is a grave fault to tell what must be hushed. O well done, that grasping in vain at the fruit on the bough, chattering Tantalus goes thirsty in the midst of the water! Cytherea above all bids her own rites be kept silent: I warn you, let no babbler come to them. If the mysteries of Venus are not stored in chests, nor the hollow bronzes sound with frenzied strokes, yet they are so plied among us in common practice that they would still wish to lie hidden among us. Venus herself, whenever she lays her garments by, shields her groin, half-turned, with the left hand. In the open and everywhere the cattle couple: at this sight, too, many a girl, you see, turns her face away. Bedrooms and a shut door befit our stealth, and the shameful part lies hidden under a cast garment: and if not darkness, we seek some shade of cloud, and something less than the light wide open. Even then, when no tile yet kept off sun and rain, but the oak gave shelter and food, in the grove and the caves, not under the open sky, was pleasure joined; so great was the rude people’s care for shame.
Saepe tamen demens stulte fecisse fateris, Teque ferunt artis paenituisse tuae. Hoc vetiti vos este; vetat deprensa Dione Insidias illas, quas tulit ipsa, dare. Nec vos rivali laqueos disponite, nec vos Excipite arcana verba notata manu. Ista viri captent, si iam captanda putabunt, Quos faciet iustos ignis et unda viros. En, iterum testor: nihil hic, nisi lege remissum Luditur: in nostris instita nulla iocis. Quis Cereris ritus ausit vulgare profanis, Magnaque Threicia sacra reperta Samo? Exigua est virtus praestare silentia rebus: At contra gravis est culpa tacenda loqui. O bene, quod frustra captatis arbore pomis Garrulus in media Tantalus aret aqua! Praecipue Cytherea iubet sua sacra taceri: Admoneo, veniat nequis ad illa loquax. Condita si non sunt Veneris mysteria cistis, Nec cava vesanis ictibus aera sonant, At sic inter nos medio versantur in usu, Se tamen inter nos ut latuisse velint. Ipsa Venus pubem, quotiens velamina ponit, Protegitur laeva semireducta manu. In medio passimque coit pecus: hoc quoque viso Avertit vultus nempe puella suos. Conveniunt thalami furtis et ianua nostris, Parsque sub iniecta veste pudenda latet: Et si non tenebras, ad quiddam nubis opacae Quaerimus, atque aliquid luce patente minus. Tum quoque, cum solem nondum prohibebat et imbrem Tegula, sed quercus tecta cibumque dabat, In nemore atque antris, non sub Iove, iuncta voluptas; Tanta rudi populo cura pudoris erat.
But now we set titles on our nightly deeds, and nothing is bought at high price but the power to talk! No doubt you’ll rifle through every girl, wherever each may be found, so you can say to anyone, ’this one too was mine,’ and there’ll be no lack of those you can point out with your finger? that, touch whom you may, there’ll be a shameful tale? I complain of small things: some invent what they’d deny if true, and say there is no woman they have not lain with. If they cannot touch the bodies, they touch what they can — the names, and, the body untouched, the reputation bears the charge. Go now, hateful guardian, shut the girl’s doors, and fix a hundred bars on the hard posts! What safety is left, when there exists an adulterer of the name, and what never happened longs to be believed? We, for our part, are sparing even of confessing true loves, and our secret intrigues are covered by solid good faith.
At nunc nocturnis titulos inponimus actis, Atque emitur magno nil, nisi posse loqui! Scilicet excuties omnes, ubi quaeque, puellas, Cuilibet ut dicas ’haec quoque nostra fuit,’ Nec desint, quas tu digitis ostendere possis? Ut quamque adtigeris, fabula turpis erit? Parva queror: fingunt quidam, quae vera negarent, Et nulli non se concubuisse ferunt. Corpora si nequeunt, quae possunt, nomina tangunt, Famaque non tacto corpore crimen habet. I nunc, claude fores, custos odiose puellae, Et centum duris postibus obde seras! Quid tuti superest, cum nominis extat adulter, Et credi quod non contigit esse, cupit? Nos etiam veros parce profitemur amores, Tectaque sunt solida mystica furta fide.
Above all, spare to reproach girls with their faults, which it has profited many to have pretended not to see. Andromeda’s color was not cast in her teeth by him who had the moving feather on his two feet. To everyone Andromache seemed taller than is fair: the one to call her moderate was Hector. What you bear ill, grow used to: you’ll bear it well; much length of days will soften, and beginning love feels everything. While the new branch knits in the green bark, any breeze at all will shake it, tender, and it will fall: soon, the same one, hardened by time, will stand against the winds, and the firm tree will hold its adopted wealth. Time itself takes all the blemishes from the body, and what was a fault ceases to be one with delay. New nostrils refuse to bear the hides of bulls: the smell, mastered by steady time, cheats them. We may soften faults with names: let her be called ’dusky,’ whose blood is blacker than Illyrian pitch: if she squints, let her be ’like Venus’; if grey-eyed, ’like Minerva’: let her who is barely alive in her leanness be ’slender’; call any short one ’trim,’ the bloated one ’full,’ and let the fault hide in the nearness of a virtue. Don’t ask what year she’s in, nor under what consul she was born, inquiries the stiff Censor keeps as his office: above all if she’s past her bloom, her better time gone by, and she now plucks the whitening hairs.
Parcite praecipue vitia exprobrare puellis, Utile quae multis dissimulasse fuit. Nec suus Andromedae color est obiectus ab illo, Mobilis in gemino cui pede pinna fuit. Omnibus Andromache visa est spatiosior aequo: Unus, qui modicam diceret, Hector erat. Quod male fers, adsuesce, feres bene; multa vetustus Leniet, incipiens omnia sentit amor. Dum novus in viridi coalescit cortice ramus, Concutiat tenerum quaelibet aura, cadet: Mox eadem ventis, spatio durata, resistet, Firmaque adoptivas arbor habebit opes. Eximit ipsa dies omnes e corpore mendas, Quodque fuit vitium, desinit esse mora. Ferre novae nares taurorum terga recusant: Adsiduo domitas tempore fallit odor. Nominibus mollire licet mala: fusca vocetur, Nigrior Illyrica cui pice sanguis erit: Si straba, sit Veneri similis: si rava, Minervae: Sit gracilis, macie quae male viva sua est; Dic habilem, quaecumque brevis, quae turgida, plenam, Et lateat vitium proximitate boni. Nec quotus annus eat, nec quo sit nata, require, Consule, quae rigidus munera Censor habet: Praecipue si flore caret, meliusque peractum Tempus, et albentes iam legit illa comas.
Serviceable, young men, is this age, or the riper one: that field will bear the crops, that field is fit for sowing. While your strength and your years allow, endure the toils: soon bent old age will come on silent foot. Either cleave the sea with oars, or the earth with the share, or set your warring hands to fierce arms, or bring your flank and your strength and your service to girls: this too is soldiering, this too looks for gain. Add that in them there is a greater shrewdness in the work, and the one experience that makes the artist is at hand: they make good the losses of the years with elegance, and take pains not to look like old women. And, as you wish, they join in love through a thousand figures: no painted tablet finds more ways. With them pleasure is felt without being provoked: let what delights be shared in equal measure by woman and man. I hate the couplings that do not undo them both; this is why I am touched less by the love of boys. I hate her who gives because she must give, and, herself dry, thinks of the wool she has to spin. Pleasure given as a duty is no pleasure to me: let no girl do any duty for me. It delights me to hear the voice that confesses her joys, and that begs me to slow down and hold back. Let me see my frenzied mistress’s eyes overcome: let her droop, and forbid herself to be touched for a long while. These goods nature does not grant to first youth, which are wont to come quickly, past the thirty-fifth year. Let those in a hurry drink new must: for me let the jar laid down under early consuls pour the ancestral wine. The plane tree, unless grown, cannot stand against Phoebus, and the new-sprung meadows hurt bare feet. Could you, in truth, prefer Hermione to Helen, and was Gorge better than her own mother? But whoever you are who will reach for the riper love, if only you hold out, you’ll bear away worthy prizes.
Utilis, o iuvenes, aut haec, aut serior aetas: Iste feret segetes, iste serendus ager. Dum vires annique sinunt, tolerate labores: Iam veniet tacito curva senecta pede. Aut mare remigiis, aut vomere findite terras, Aut fera belligeras addite in arma manus, Aut latus et vires operamque adferte puellis: Hoc quoque militia est, hoc quoque quaerit opes. Adde, quod est illis operum prudentia maior, Solus et artifices qui facit, usus adest: Illae munditiis annorum damna rependunt, Et faciunt cura, ne videantur anus. Utque velis, venerem iungunt per mille figuras: Invenit plures nulla tabella modos. Illis sentitur non inritata voluptas: Quod iuvet, ex aequo femina virque ferant. Odi concubitus, qui non utrumque resolvunt; Hoc est, cur pueri tangar amore minus. Odi quae praebet, quia sit praebere necesse, Siccaque de lana cogitat ipsa sua. Quae datur officio, non est mihi grata voluptas: Officium faciat nulla puella mihi. Me voces audire iuvat sua gaudia fassas, Quaeque morer meme sustineamque rogent. Aspiciam dominae victos amentis ocellos: Langueat, et tangi se vetet illa diu. Haec bona non primae tribuit natura iuventae, Quae cito post septem lustra venire solent. Qui properant, nova musta bibant: mihi fundat avitum Consulibus priscis condita testa merum. Nec platanus, nisi sera, potest obsistere Phoebo, Et laedunt nudos prata novella pedes. Scilicet Hermionen Helenae praeponere posses, Et melior Gorge, quam sua mater, erat? At venerem quicumque voles adtingere seram, Si modo duraris, praemia digna feres.
Look — the bed, accomplice, has taken in two lovers: halt, Muse, at the closed doors of the bedroom. Of their own accord, without you, they’ll speak the well-worn words, nor will the left hand lie idle on the bed. Fingers will find what to do in those parts where Love secretly dips his darts. Bravest Hector did this once with Andromache, nor was he useful in war alone. Great Achilles did it, too, with his captive Lyrnessian, when, weary of the foe, he pressed the soft couch. By those hands you let yourself be touched, Briseis, hands that were always steeped in Phrygian slaughter. Or was it this very thing that pleased you, wanton — that conquering hands should come to your body? Believe me, the pleasure of love must not be hurried, but coaxed out gradually, with lingering delay. When you have found the places a woman is glad to have touched, let no shame stop you from touching them. You’ll see her eyes flicker with a tremulous gleam, as the sun often glances back from the clear water. Complaints will come, a lovable murmur will come, and sweet moans and words apt for the play. But neither leave your mistress behind, crowding sail too fast, nor let her outrun your own course; hasten to the goal together: then the pleasure is full, when woman and man lie vanquished alike. This is the pace you must keep, when free leisure is given, and no fear hurries the stealthy work. When delay is not safe, it helps to bend to all the oars, and to set the spur to the galloping horse.
Conscius, ecce, duos accepit lectus amantes: Ad thalami clausas, Musa, resiste fores. Sponte sua sine te celeberrima verba loquentur, Nec manus in lecto laeva iacebit iners. Invenient digiti, quod agant in partibus illis, In quibus occulte spicula tingit Amor. Fecit in Andromache prius hoc fortissimus Hector, Nec solum bellis utilis ille fuit. Fecit et in capta Lyrneside magnus Achilles, Cum premeret mollem lassus ab hoste torum. Illis te manibus tangi, Brisei, sinebas, Imbutae Phrygia quae nece semper erant. An fuit hoc ipsum, quod te, lasciva, iuvaret, Ad tua victrices membra venire manus? Crede mihi, non est veneris properanda voluptas, Sed sensim tarda prolicienda mora. Cum loca reppereris, quae tangi femina gaudet, Non obstet, tangas quo minus illa, pudor. Aspicies oculos tremulo fulgore micantes, Ut sol a liquida saepe refulget aqua. Accedent questus, accedet amabile murmur, Et dulces gemitus aptaque verba ioco. Sed neque tu dominam velis maioribus usus Desere, nec cursus anteat illa tuos; Ad metam properate simul: tum plena voluptas, Cum pariter victi femina virque iacent. Hic tibi versandus tenor est, cum libera dantur Otia, furtivum nec timor urget opus. Cum mora non tuta est, totis incumbere remis Utile, et admisso subdere calcar equo.
The end is at hand for the work: grant me the palm, grateful youth, and bring garlands of myrtle for my fragrant hair. As great as Podalirius among the Greeks in the healing art, the grandson of Aeacus in his right hand, Nestor in counsel, as great as Calchas in the entrails, the son of Telamon in arms, Automedon at the car — so great a lover am I. Celebrate me as your bard, men, speak my praises, let my name be sung in all the world. I have given you arms: Vulcan had given them to Achilles; conquer with the gifts given, as he conquered. But whoever overcomes an Amazon with my sword, let him write on the spoils ’Naso was my master.’ Look — the tender girls ask me to give them precepts too: you will be the next care of my page!
Finis adest operi: palmam date, grata iuventus, Sertaque odoratae myrtea ferte comae. Quantus apud Danaos Podalirius arte medendi, Aeacides dextra, pectore Nestor erat, Quantus erat Calchas extis, Telamonius armis, Automedon curru, tantus amator ego. Me vatem celebrate, viri, mihi dicite laudes, Cantetur toto nomen in orbe meum. Arma dedi vobis: dederat Vulcanus Achilli; Vincite muneribus, vicit ut ille, datis. Sed quicumque meo superarit Amazona ferro, Inscribat spoliis ’Naso magister erat.’ Ecce, rogant tenerae, sibi dem praecepta, puellae: Vos eritis chartae proxima cura meae!
I have given arms to the Greeks against the Amazons; arms remain that I must give to you, Penthesilea, and to your squadron. Go into the wars matched; let those win whom kindly Dione favors, and the boy who flies over all the world. It was not fair that the unarmed should clash with the armed; to win so would be base for you too, men. Someone out of the crowd will say, ’why add venom to the snakes, and hand the sheepfold over to the rabid she-wolf?’ Forbear to spread the crime of a few onto all; let each girl be weighed by her own deserts. Though the younger son of Atreus has a charge to press Helen with, and the elder son of Atreus one to press Helen’s sister, though by the crime of Oeclides’ son, Eriphyle of Talaus’ line, he came alive, on living horses, down to the Styx, yet Penelope was faithful while for ten years her lord went wandering, and for ten more waged war. Look at the Phylacian’s wife, who is said to have gone as her husband’s companion, and to have died before her years. The Pagasaean wife redeemed the fate of Pheres’ son: in place of her husband, a wife was carried to her husband’s pyre. ’Take me, Capaneus! we will mingle our ashes,’ cried the daughter of Iphis, and leaped into the midst of the flames. Virtue herself is a woman, in dress and in name: no wonder if she pleases her own people. Yet such spirits are not what my art demands: smaller sails suit my little boat.
Arma dedi Danais in Amazonas; arma supersunt, Quae tibi dem et turmae, Penthesilea, tuae. Ite in bella pares; vincant, quibus alma Dione Faverit et toto qui volat orbe puer. Non erat armatis aequum concurrere nudas; Sic etiam vobis vincere turpe, viri. Dixerit e multis aliquis ’quid virus in angues Adicis, et rabidae tradis ovile lupae?’ Parcite paucarum diffundere crimen in omnes; Spectetur meritis quaeque puella suis. Si minor Atrides Helenen, Helenesque sororem Quo premat Atrides crimine maior habet, Si scelere Oeclides Talaioniae Eriphylae Vivus et in vivis ad Styga venit equis, Est pia Penelope lustris errante duobus Et totidem lustris bella gerente viro. Respice Phylaciden et quae comes isse marito Fertur et ante annos occubuisse suos. Fata Pheretiadae coniunx Pagasaea redemit: Proque viro est uxor funere lata viri. ’Accipe me, Capaneu! cineres miscebimus’ inquit Iphias, in medios desiluitque rogos. Ipsa quoque et cultu est et nomine femina Virtus: Non mirum, populo si placet illa suo. Nec tamen hae mentes nostra poscuntur ab arte: Conveniunt cumbae vela minora meae.
Nothing but wanton loves are learned through me; I shall teach in what way a woman is to be loved. A woman flings out neither flames nor cruel bows; I see these weapons harm men more rarely. Often men deceive: tender girls not often, and, if you inquire, they have few charges of fraud. False Jason cast off the Phasian woman, already a mother: another bride came to the embrace of Aeson’s son. How far, Theseus, did Ariadne, left alone in an unknown place, feed the seabirds — and all through your doing! Ask why one road is called the Nine Ways, and hear how the woods, shedding their leaves, wept for Phyllis. And though he has a name for piety, your guest, Elissa, gave both the sword and the cause of your death. Shall I tell you what ruined you? You did not know how to love: art was wanting to you; by art love endures.
Nil nisi lascivi per me discuntur amores; Femina praecipiam quo sit amanda modo. Femina nec flammas nec saevos excutit arcus; Parcius haec video tela nocere viris. Saepe viri fallunt: tenerae non saepe puellae, Paucaque, si quaeras, crimina fraudis habent. Phasida iam matrem fallax dimisit Iason: Venit in Aesonios altera nupta sinus. Quantum in te, Theseu, volucres Ariadna marinas Pavit, in ignoto sola relicta loco! Quaere, novem cur una viae dicantur, et audi Depositis silvas Phyllida flesse comis. Et famam pietatis habet, tamen hospes et ensem Praebuit et causam mortis, Elissa, tuae. Quid vos perdiderit, dicam? nescistis amare: Defuit ars vobis; arte perennat amor.
Even now they would not know: but Cytherea bade me teach them, and she herself stood before my eyes. Then she said to me, ’What have the poor girls deserved? A defenceless throng is handed over to armed men. Two little books made those men expert: this side too must be schooled by your instruction. He who once had spoken reproaches of the Therapnaean wife soon sang her praises on a luckier lyre. If I know you well (do no harm to the girls you cultivate!), this favor you must seek as long as you live.’ She spoke, and from her myrtle (for she had stood with her hair bound in myrtle) gave me a leaf and a few berries; I felt her godhead, too, as I took them: a purer sky shone, and the weight withdrew from all my breast. While she gives my genius its power, seek your precepts here, girls, such as modesty and the laws and your own rights allow.
Nunc quoque nescirent: sed me Cytherea docere Iussit, et ante oculos constitit ipsa meos. Tum mihi ’Quid miserae’ dixit ’meruere puellae? Traditur armatis vulgus inerme viris. Illos artifices gemini fecere libelli: Haec quoque pars monitis erudienda tuis. Probra Therapnaeae qui dixerat ante maritae, Mox cecinit laudes prosperiore lyra. Si bene te novi (cultas ne laede puellas!) Gratia, dum vives, ista petenda tibi est.’ Dixit, et e myrto (myrto nam vincta capillos Constiterat) folium granaque pauca dedit; Sensimus acceptis numen quoque: purior aether Fulsit, et e toto pectore cessit onus. Dum facit ingenium, petite hinc praecepta, puellae, Quas pudor et leges et sua iura sinunt.
Be mindful, even now, of the old age that is coming: so no span of time will slip from you in idleness. While it is allowed, and you still draw the years of spring, have your sport: the years go by like flowing water; the wave that has passed will not be called back again, nor can the hour that has passed return. Your time must be used: with swift foot the years glide away, and what follows is never as good as what came first. These thickets that now grow grey I saw as beds of violets: from this thornbush a welcome garland was given to me. The time will come when you, who now shut out your lovers, will lie a cold old woman through the lonely night, and your door will not be broken in a nighttime brawl, nor will you find your threshold strewn with roses at morning. How quickly (alas for me!) the body slackens into wrinkles, and the color that was in the bright face perishes. And the white hairs you swear you have had from girlhood will suddenly be scattered all over your head. Snakes slough off their age with their thin skin, nor does the shed antler make stags grow old: our goods flee with no help for it; pluck the flower which, unless it is plucked, will shamefully fall of itself.
Venturae memores iam nunc estote senectae: Sic nullum vobis tempus abibit iners. Dum licet, et vernos etiamnum educitis annos, Ludite: eunt anni more fluentis aquae; Nec quae praeteriit, iterum revocabitur unda, Nec quae praeteriit, hora redire potest. Utendum est aetate: cito pede labitur aetas, Nec bona tam sequitur, quam bona prima fuit. Hos ego, qui canent, frutices violaria vidi: Hac mihi de spina grata corona data est. Tempus erit, quo tu, quae nunc excludis amantes, Frigida deserta nocte iacebis anus, Nec tua frangetur nocturna ianua rixa, Sparsa nec invenies limina mane rosa. Quam cito (me miserum!) laxantur corpora rugis, Et perit in nitido qui fuit ore color. Quasque fuisse tibi canas a virgine iuras, Spargentur subito per caput omne comae. Anguibus exuitur tenui cum pelle vetustas, Nec faciunt cervos cornua iacta senes: Nostra sine auxilio fugiunt bona; carpite florem, Qui, nisi carptus erit, turpiter ipse cadet.
Add that childbearing, too, makes the seasons of youth shorter: a field grows old with continual harvest. Latmian Endymion is no blush to you, Moon, nor was Cephalus a shameful prey for the rosy goddess. Grant that Adonis is given to Venus, whom she mourns still: from where else does she have her Aeneas and Harmonia? Go, O mortal kind, by the example of the goddesses, and do not deny your joys to eager men. Even suppose they deceive you, what do you lose? All stays whole; though a thousand take of it, nothing is lost thereby. Iron is worn away, flints are thinned by use: that part suffices, and is free from the fear of loss. Who would forbid a light to be taken from a light set near? or who would keep the vast waters in the hollow sea? And yet any woman says to a man, ’it doesn’t pay’? What, tell me, do you lose but the water you’ll take up? My words do not prostitute you, but forbid you to fear empty losses: your gifts are free of any loss. But, as I am about to go before a greater wind’s blasts, while we are in port, let a light breeze carry me on.
Adde, quod et partus faciunt breviora iuventae Tempora: continua messe senescit ager. Latmius Endymion non est tibi, Luna, rubori, Nec Cephalus roseae praeda pudenda deae. Ut Veneri, quem luget adhuc, donetur Adonis: Unde habet Aenean Harmoniamque suos? Ite per exemplum, genus o mortale, dearum, Gaudia nec cupidis vestra negate viris. Ut iam decipiant, quid perditis? omnia constant; Mille licet sumant, deperit inde nihil. Conteritur ferrum, silices tenuantur ab usu: Sufficit et damni pars caret illa metu. Quis vetet adposito lumen de lumine sumi? Quisve cavo vastas in mare servet aquas? Et tamen ulla viro mulier ’non expedit’ inquit? Quid, nisi quam sumes, dic mihi, perdis aquam? Nec vos prostituit mea vox, sed vana timere Damna vetat: damnis munera vestra carent. Sed me flaminibus venti maioris iturum, Dum sumus in portu, provehat aura levis.
I begin with grooming; from well-tended vines comes good wine, and on well-tended soil the corn stands high. Beauty is a gift of the gods: how few are proud of beauty? A great part of you lack such a gift. Care will make a face; a face neglected will perish, though it were like the Idalian goddess’s own. If the women of old did not so tend their bodies, neither did the men of old keep themselves so trim; if Andromache was clad in stout tunics, what wonder? she was a rough soldier’s wife. Would you come adorned, forsooth, as Ajax’s wife, whose covering was seven hides of oxen? Rude plainness was here before: now Rome is golden, and holds the great wealth of the conquered world. Look at the Capitol as it is now, and as it was: you’d say it belonged to a different Jupiter. The Senate-house, now so worthy of so great a council, was of straw when Tatius held the kingship. The Palatine that now gleams beneath Phoebus and the leaders — what was it but pasture for the ploughing oxen? Let old things please others: I congratulate myself on being born only now: this age suits my ways. Not because the stubborn gold is now drawn out of the earth, and the choice shell comes from a far-off shore: nor because the mountains shrink as the marble is dug out, nor because the blue waters are driven back by the mole: but because refinement is here, and there has not lasted into our years the rusticity that outlived our ancient forebears.
Ordior a cultu; cultis bene Liber ab uvis Provenit, et culto stat seges alta solo. Forma dei munus: forma quota quaeque superbit? Pars vestrum tali munere magna caret. Cura dabit faciem; facies neglecta peribit, Idaliae similis sit licet illa deae. Corpora si veteres non sic coluere puellae, Nec veteres cultos sic habuere viros; Si fuit Andromache tunicas induta valentes, Quid mirum? duri militis uxor erat. Scilicet Aiaci coniunx ornata venires, Cui tegumen septem terga fuere boum? Simplicitas rudis ante fuit: nunc aurea Roma est, Et domiti magnas possidet orbis opes. Aspice quae nunc sunt Capitolia, quaeque fuerunt: Alterius dices illa fuisse Iovis. Curia, concilio quae nunc dignissima tanto, De stipula Tatio regna tenente fuit. Quae nunc sub Phoebo ducibusque Palatia fulgent, Quid nisi araturis pascua bubus erant? Prisca iuvent alios: ego me nunc denique natum Gratulor: haec aetas moribus apta meis. Non quia nunc terrae lentum subducitur aurum, Lectaque diverso litore concha venit: Nec quia decrescunt effosso marmore montes, Nec quia caeruleae mole fugantur aquae: Sed quia cultus adest, nec nostros mansit in annos Rusticitas, priscis illa superstes avis.
You too — do not load your ears with costly stones, which the dusky Indian gathers in the green water, nor go out heavy with gold sewn into your dresses: the wealth by which you court us often drives us off. By neatness we are caught: let the hair not be lawless: hands laid to it grant beauty and deny it. Nor is there one kind of styling: let each choose what will become her, and consult her mirror first. A long face approves a parting on the bare crown: so Laodamia wore her hair arranged. Round faces want a little knot left on the top of the brow, so that the ears show. Let one girl’s hair be tossed over either shoulder: such are you, tuneful Phoebus, when you take up the lyre. Let another be bound up in the manner of girt Diana, as she is wont, when she hunts the startled beasts. This one it suits to have her hair loosely full; that one must be bound up with the locks drawn tight; this one it pleases to be adorned with the Cyllenian shell; that one should carry waves that mimic the sea. But you will no more count the acorns on the branching oak, nor how many the bees of Hybla, nor the beasts on the Alp,
Vos quoque nec caris aures onerate lapillis, Quos legit in viridi decolor Indus aqua, Nec prodite graves insuto vestibus auro, Per quas nos petitis, saepe fugatis, opes. Munditiis capimur: non sint sine lege capilli: Admotae formam dantque negantque manus. Nec genus ornatus unum est: quod quamque decebit Eligat, et speculum consulate ante suum. Longa probat facies capitis discrimina puri: Sic erat ornatis Laodamia comis. Exiguum summa nodum sibi fronte relinqui, Ut pateant aures, ora rotunda volunt. Alterius crines umero iactentur utroque: Talis es adsumpta, Phoebe canore, lyra. Altera succinctae religetur more Dianae, Ut solet, attonitas cum petit illa feras. Huic decet inflatos laxe iacuisse capillos: Illa sit adstrictis impedienda comis; Hanc placet ornari testudine Cyllenea: Sustineat similes fluctibus illa sinus. Sed neque ramosa numerabis in ilice glandes, Nec quot apes Hyblae, nec quot in Alpe ferae,
nor is it right for me to take in the count so many fashions: each new day adds another adornment. Neglected hair, too, becomes many: often you’d think it had lain since yesterday; it has just been combed afresh. Art counterfeits chance; so, when he saw Iole in the captured city, Alcides said, ’this is the one I love.’ Such, abandoned of Cnossos, were you when Bacchus, his Satyrs shouting euhoe, lifted you to his car. O how much nature indulges your beauty, whose losses can be made good in so many ways! We are ill exposed, and our hair, ravished by age, falls, as the leaves when Boreas shakes them off. A woman dyes her grey with German herbs, and by art seeks a color better than the true: a woman comes forth thick with bought hair, and for cash makes another’s hair her own. Nor is there any blush in buying it: we see it sold openly before the eyes of Hercules and the maiden choir.
Nec mihi tot positus numero conprendere fas est: Adicit ornatus proxima quaeque dies. Et neglecta decet multas coma; saepe iacere Hesternam credas; illa repexa modo est. Ars casum simulat; sic capta vidit ut urbe Alcides Iolen, ’hanc ego’ dixit ’amo.’ Talem te Bacchus Satyris clamantibus euhoe Sustulit in currus, Cnosi relicta, suos. O quantum indulget vestro natura decori, Quarum sunt multis damna pianda modis! Nos male detegimur, raptique aetate capilli, Ut Borea frondes excutiente, cadunt. Femina canitiem Germanis inficit herbis, Et melior vero quaeritur arte color: Femina procedit densissima crinibus emptis, Proque suis alios efficit aere suos. Nec rubor est emisse; palam venire videmus Herculis ante oculos virgineumque chorum.
What shall I say of dress? I have no need of you, flounces, nor of you, wool, that blush with Tyrian dye. When so many colors have come out at a lighter price, what madness it is to carry one’s whole fortune on the body! Look — the color of the sky, when the air is cloudless, and no warm south wind stirs up the rains: look — the one like you, who once, they say, snatched Phrixus and Helle from Ino’s wiles; this one mimics the waves, and takes its name from the waves too: I could believe the nymphs are clothed in this hue. That one apes the saffron: in a saffron mantle is veiled the dewy goddess, when she yokes her light-bringing steeds: this, the Paphian myrtle; this, the purple amethyst, or the whitening rose, or the Thracian crane; nor are your acorns wanting, Amaryllis, nor the almonds; and wax has given its own name to fleeces. As many flowers as the new earth bears, when in the warming spring the vine puts out its buds and sluggish winter flees, so many tints, or more, the wool drinks in; choose sure ones: for not every one will suit every woman. Dark grey becomes the snow-white: dark grey became Briseis: when she was carried off, she was then too in dark grey. White becomes the dark: in white, daughter of Cepheus, you pleased: so clad, by you was Seriphos trodden.
Quid de veste loquar? Nec vos, segmenta, requiro Nec te, quae Tyrio murice, lana, rubes. Cum tot prodierint pretio leviore colores, Quis furor est census corpore ferre suos! Aeris, ecce, color, tum cum sine nubibus aer, Nec tepidus pluvias concitat auster aquas: Ecce, tibi similis, quae quondam Phrixon et Hellen Diceris Inois eripuisse dolis; Hic undas imitatur, habet quoque nomen ab undis: Crediderim nymphas hac ego veste tegi. Ille crocum simulat: croceo velatur amictu, Roscida luciferos cum dea iungit equos: Hic Paphias myrtos, hic purpureas amethystos, Albentesve rosas, Threiciamve gruem; Nec glandes, Amarylli, tuae, nec amygdala desunt; Et sua velleribus nomina cera dedit. Quot nova terra parit flores, cum vere tepenti Vitis agit gemmas pigraque fugit hiemps, Lana tot aut plures sucos bibit; elige certos: Nam non conveniens omnibus omnis erit. Pulla decent niveas: Briseida pulla decebant: Cum rapta est, pulla tum quoque veste fuit. Alba decent fuscas: albis, Cephei, placebas: Sic tibi vestitae pressa Seriphos erat.
How nearly I warned you that no rank goat should get into the armpits, and that the legs should not be rough with stiff hairs! But I am not teaching girls from a Caucasian cliff, nor such as drink your waters, Mysian Caicus. Why, then, should I bid you not let neglect darken the teeth, and that the mouth be washed each morning with fresh water? You know, too, how to seek a whiteness with applied chalk: she who does not blush with true blood blushes by art. By art you fill in the bare edges of the eyebrow, and a little patch of skin veils the natural cheeks. Nor is there shame in marking the eyes with fine ash, or with saffron born near you, gleaming Cydnus. I have a little book, a small work but great in its care, in which I told the cosmetics for your beauty; seek from there too a defence for a damaged figure; my art is not idle on your behalf. Yet let no lover come upon the boxes set out on the table: art helps the face when it is concealed.
Quam paene admonui, ne trux caper iret in alas, Neve forent duris aspera crura pilis! Sed non Caucasea doceo de rupe puellas, Quaeque bibant undas, Myse Caice, tuas. Quid si praecipiam ne fuscet inertia dentes, Oraque suscepta mane laventur aqua? Scitis et inducta candorem quaerere creta: Sanguine quae vero non rubet, arte rubet. Arte supercilii confinia nuda repletis, Parvaque sinceras velat aluta genas. Nec pudor est oculos tenui signare favilla, Vel prope te nato, lucide Cydne, croco. Est mihi, quo dixi vestrae medicamina formae, Parvus, sed cura grande, libellus, opus; Hinc quoque praesidium laesae petitote figurae; Non est pro vestris ars mea rebus iners. Non tamen expositas mensa deprendat amator Pyxidas: ars faciem dissimulata iuvat.
Whom would the lees not offend, smeared over the whole face, when, slipping by their weight, they run down onto the warm breast? How the oesypum reeks! though it is sent from Athens, the grease drawn from the unclean fleece of a sheep. Nor would I approve taking deer’s marrow in his presence, nor in his presence scrubbing the teeth; those things will give you beauty, but will be unsightly to look on: and many things, ugly in the making, please when done; the statues that now bear the name of laborious Myron were once a dead weight and a hard mass; to make a ring, the gold is first hammered; the clothes you wear were once filthy wool; while it was in the making it was rough stone: now, a noble statue, the naked Venus wrings out her hair, drenched with the spray. You too, while you are being groomed, let us think you sleep; you’ll be seen more fittingly with the last touch given. Why should the cause of the whiteness in your face be known to me? Shut the chamber door! Why show the work half-done? It becomes men not to know many things; the greatest part of matters would offend, did you not hide what is within. The gilded statues that gleam in the decorated theatre — look closely, you’ll despise them: gold-leaf covers the wood; but the people may not come to them till they are finished, nor should beauty be got ready except with the men removed.
Quem non offendat toto faex inlita vultu, Cum fluit in tepidos pondere lapsa sinus? Oesypa quid redolent? quamvis mittatur Athenis Demptus ab inmundo vellere sucus ovis. Nec coram mixtas cervae sumpsisse medullas, Nec coram dentes defricuisse probem; Ista dabunt formam, sed erunt deformia visu: Multaque, dum fiunt, turpia, facta placent; Quae nunc nomen habent operosi signa Myronis Pondus iners quondam duraque massa fuit; Anulus ut fiat, primo conliditur aurum; Quas geritis vestis, sordida lana fuit; Cum fieret, lapis asper erat: nunc, nobile signum, Nuda Venus madidas exprimit imbre comas. Tu quoque dum coleris, nos te dormire putemus; Aptius a summa conspiciere manu. Cur mihi nota tuo causa est candoris in ore? Claude forem thalami! quid rude prodis opus? Multa viros nescire decet; pars maxima rerum Offendat, si non interiora tegas. Aurea quae splendent ornato signa theatro, Inspice, contemnes: brattea ligna tegit; Sed neque ad illa licet populo, nisi facta, venire, Nec nisi summotis forma paranda viris.
But I do not forbid your hair to be offered for combing in his sight, so that it lies poured out down your back. Only beware of being peevish at that time, and do not keep undoing the fallen tresses. Let the hairdresser be safe; I hate the woman who claws a face with her nails, and stabs the snatched-up pin into an arm. She curses, as she touches it, her mistress’s head, and at once weeps, all bloody, over the hated hair. She who is ill-haired, let her post a guard at her threshold, or be dressed always in the temple of the Good Goddess. I was once announced, unexpectedly, as come to a certain girl: in her flurry she put on her hair the wrong way round. May such a cause of shameful disgrace befall my enemies, and may that dishonor go upon the Parthian brides. Ugly is a beast with cropped horns, ugly a field without grass, and a bush without leaf, and a head without hair.
At non pectendos coram praebere capillos, Ut iaceant fusi per tua terga, veto. Illo praecipue ne sis morosa caveto Tempore, nec lapsas saepe resolve comas. Tuta sit ornatrix; odi, quae sauciat ora Unguibus et rapta brachia figit acu. Devovet, ut tangit, dominae caput illa, simulque Plorat in invisas sanguinolenta comas. Quae male crinita est, custodem in limine ponat, Orneturve Bonae semper in aede deae. Dictus eram subito cuidam venisse puellae: Turbida perversas induit illa comas. Hostibus eveniat tam foedi causa pudoris, Inque nurus Parthas dedecus illud eat. Turpe pecus mutilum, turpis sine gramine campus, Et sine fronde frutex, et sine crine caput.
You have not come to me to be taught, Semele or Leda, nor you, Sidonian, carried over the strait on the false bull, nor Helen, whom not foolishly, Menelaus, you ask back, and whom not foolishly you, Trojan ravisher, keep. A crowd comes to be taught, pretty girls and plain: and the worse are always more than the good. The beautiful seek no help of art, no precepts: they have their own dowry, beauty potent without art; when the sea is calm, the sailor rests untroubled: when it swells, he keeps close to his own resources. Yet rare is the face that lacks a flaw: hide your flaws, and, as best you can, conceal the fault of your body. If you are short, sit, lest standing you seem to be sitting: and lie on your couch, little though you are; here too, lest a measure be taken of you as you lie, see that your feet are hidden by a thrown-over robe. She who is too thin, let her take garments of full thread, and let the mantle hang loose from her shoulders. Let the pale girl sprinkle her body with purple stripes, the darker — flee to the help of the Pharian fish.
Non mihi venistis, Semele Ledeve, docendae, Perque fretum falso, Sidoni, vecta bove, Aut Helene, quam non stulte, Menelae, reposcis, Tu quoque non stulte, Troice raptor, habes. Turba docenda venit, pulchrae turpesque puellae: Pluraque sunt semper deteriora bonis. Formosae non artis opem praeceptaque quaerunt: Est illis sua dos, forma sine arte potens; Cum mare compositum est, securus navita cessat: Cum tumet, auxiliis adsidet ille suis. Rara tamen mendo facies caret: occule mendas, Quaque potes vitium corporis abde tui. Si brevis es, sedeas, ne stans videare sedere: Inque tuo iaceas quantulacumque toro; Hic quoque, ne possit fieri mensura cubantis, Iniecta lateant fac tibi veste pedes. Quae nimium gracilis, pleno velamina filo Sumat, et ex umeris laxus amictus eat. Pallida purpureis spargat sua corpora virgis, Nigrior ad Pharii confuge piscis opem.
Let a bad foot always be hidden in a snow-white shoe: and do not loosen the thin legs from their lacings. For high shoulder-blades thin pads are fitting: let a band go round a narrow chest. Let her mark whatever she says with a slight gesture, who has plump fingers and a rough nail. She whose breath is heavy should never speak fasting, and should always stand at a distance from a man’s face. If your tooth is black, or large, or not grown in its row, you’ll suffer the greatest loss by laughing. Who would believe it? Girls even learn to laugh, and a charm is sought by them in this part too. Let the mouth open but moderately, with small dimples on each side, and let the bottom of the lip cover the top of the teeth. And let them not strain their sides with continual laughter, but ring out something light and womanly. There is one who twists her mouth awry with an ugly guffaw: another is shaken with laughter — you’d think she wept. That one sounds something harsh and laughs unlovably, as the ugly she-ass brays at the rough mill.
Pes malus in nivea semper celetur aluta: Arida nec vinclis crura resolve suis. Conveniunt tenues scapulis analemptrides altis: Angustum circa fascia pectus eat. Exiguo signet gestu, quodcumque loquetur, Cui digiti pingues et scaber unguis erit. Cui gravis oris odor numquam ieiuna loquatur, Et semper spatio distet ab ore viri. Si niger aut ingens aut non erit ordine natus Dens tibi, ridendo maxima damna feres. Quis credat? discunt etiam ridere puellae, Quaeritur aque illis hac quoque parte decor. Sint modici rictus, parvaeque utrimque lacunae, Et summos dentes ima labella tegant. Nec sua perpetuo contendant ilia risu, Sed leve nescio quid femineumque sonent. Est, quae perverso distorqueat ora cachinno: Risu concussa est altera, flere putes. Illa sonat raucum quiddam atque inamabile ridet, Ut rudit a scabra turpis asella mola.
Where does art not reach? They learn to weep becomingly, and cry at what time they wish, and in what manner. What of it, when a letter is cheated of its rightful sound, and the tongue, forced, is made to lisp at a bidden noise? There is a charm in the fault: they take pains to say words badly; they learn to be able to talk less than they could. On all these, since they profit, spend your care: learn to carry the body with a womanly step. There is a charm not to be despised in the gait, too: it allures men who don’t know you, and drives them off. This one moves her flank with art, and in her flowing tunic catches the breezes, and proudly sets her measured feet: that one walks like the red-faced wife of an Umbrian husband, straddling, and takes huge strides. But let there be a measure here too, as in many things: the one motion is boorish, the other will be softer than is allowed. Yet let the lowest part of your shoulder, the top of the arm, be bare, to be seen on the left side. This becomes you above all, snow-white ones: when I see this, I long to give kisses to the shoulder, as far as it shows.
Quo non ars penetrat? discunt lacrimare decenter, Quoque volunt plorant tempore, quoque modo. Quid, cum legitima fraudatur littera voce, Blaesaque fit iusso lingua coacta sono? In vitio decor est: quaerunt male reddere verba; Discunt posse minus, quam potuere, loqui. Omnibus his, quoniam prosunt, inpendite curam: Discite femineo corpora ferre gradu. Est et in incessu pars non temnenda decoris: Allicit ignotos ille fugatque viros. Haec movet arte latus, tunicisque fluentibus auras Accipit, expensos fertque superba pedes: Illa velut coniunx Umbri rubicunda mariti Ambulat, ingentes varica fertque gradus. Sed sit, ut in multis, modus hic quoque: rusticus alter Motus, concesso mollior alter erit. Pars umeri tamen ima tui, pars summa lacerti Nuda sit, a laeva conspicienda manu. Hoc vos praecipue, niveae, decet: hoc ubi vidi, Oscula ferre umero, qua patet usque, libet.
Monsters of the sea were the Sirens, who with their tuneful voice held back the ships, however fast they sped. Hearing them, the son of Sisyphus almost loosed himself from his bonds, for his comrades’ ears were stopped with wax. A coaxing thing is song: let girls learn to sing: for many a voice has been a pander in place of a face. And let them now repeat what they have heard in the marble theatres, now the songs played in Nile-born measures. Nor should a woman skilled by my judgment fail to hold the plectrum in her right hand, the lyre in her left. Rhodopeian Orpheus moved rocks and beasts with his lyre, and the lakes of Tartarus and the three-headed dog. At your singing, most just avenger of your mother, the obedient stones made new walls. Though it was dumb, a fish is thought to have favored the voice — the famous story of Arion’s lyre. Learn, too, to sweep the festive harp with both hands: it suits sweet merriment.
Monstra maris Sirenes erant, quae voce canora Quamlibet admissas detinuere rates. His sua Sisyphides auditis paene resolvit Corpora, nam sociis inlita cera fuit. Res est blanda canor: discant cantare puellae: Pro facie multis vox sua lena fuit. Et modo marmoreis referant audita theatris, Et modo Niliacis carmina lusa modis. Nec plectrum dextra, citharam tenuisse sinistra Nesciat arbitrio femina docta meo. Saxa ferasque lyra movit Rhodopeius Orpheus, Tartareosque lacus tergeminumque canem. Saxa tuo cantu, vindex iustissime matris, Fecerunt muros officiosa novos. Quamvis mutus erat, voci favisse putatur Piscis, Arioniae fabula nota lyrae. Disce etiam duplici genialia nablia palma Verrere: conveniunt dulcibus illa iocis.
Let Callimachus be known to you, let the Coan poet, let too the Teian Muse of the wine-loving old man; let Sappho be known (for what is more wanton than she?), or the one whose father is duped by the cunning Geta’s art. And you might read tender Propertius’s song, or something of Gallus, or, Tibullus, your own: and the fleeces marked with tawny wool, sung of by Varro, to be lamented, Phrixus, by your sister: and the exiled Aeneas, the beginnings of lofty Rome, than which no more glorious work exists in Latium. Perhaps my name too will be mingled with those, and my writings will not be given to Lethe’s waters: and someone will say, ’read the polished songs of our master, in which he schools the two sides: or from the three books that the title of "Loves" marks, choose what you may read tenderly with a teachable voice: or let a "Letter" be recited by you in well-set tones: this work, unknown to others, he made new.’ O may you so will it, Phoebus! so you, holy powers of bards, horn-crowned Bacchus, and you, nine goddesses!
Sit tibi Callimachi, sit Coi nota poetae, Sit quoque vinosi Teia Musa senis; Nota sit et Sappho (quid enim lascivius illa?), Cuive pater vafri luditur arte Getae. Et teneri possis carmen legisse Properti, Sive aliquid Galli, sive, Tibulle, tuum: Dictaque Varroni fulvis insignia villis Vellera, germanae, Phrixe, querenda tuae: Et profugum Aenean, altae primordia Romae, Quo nullum Latio clarius extat opus. Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis, Nec mea Lethaeis scripta dabuntur aquis: Atque aliquis dicet ’nostri lege culta magistri Carmina, quis partes instruit ille duas: Deve tribus libris, titulus quos signat Amorum, Elige, quod docili molliter ore legas: Vel tibi composita cantetur Epistola voce: Ignotum hoc aliis ille novavit opus.’ O ita, Phoebe, velis! ita vos, pia numina vatum, Insignis cornu Bacche, novemque deae!
Who would doubt that I’d have a girl know how to dance, so that she may move her arms at the bidding, the wine set down? The artists of the stage, the shows of the theatre, are loved: so much charm is in that nimbleness. I’m ashamed to advise small things — that she should know the throws of the knucklebones, and your forces, cast die: let her now throw three numbers, now shrewdly consider which side to enter aptly, and which to call. And let her play warily, not foolishly, the battles of the brigands, where one piece perishes caught between a double foe, and the warrior, taken without his mate, fights on, and the rival often retraces the path he had begun. Let the smooth balls be poured out into the open net, nor must any ball be moved but the one you’ll lift. There is a game cut down by a slender plan into as many lines as the slippery year has months: a little board holds three pebbles on each side, in which to have won is to have kept yours in an unbroken row. Get up a thousand games; it is base for a girl not to know how to play: in playing, love is often prepared. But it is the smallest labor to use the throws wisely: a greater task is to compose one’s own conduct. Then we are off our guard, and lay ourselves open in the zeal itself, and our naked breasts through the games lie bare; anger creeps in, an ugly evil, and the lust of gain, and wranglings and brawls and anxious grief: charges are flung, the sky rings with shouts, and each one calls the angry gods to his side: no faith, and fresh accounts are demanded by prayer; and I have often seen the cheeks wet with tears. May Jupiter drive such ugly charges from you, in whom there is any care to please a man.
Quis dubitet, quin scire velim saltare puellam, Ut moveat posito brachia iussa mero? Artifices lateris, scenae spectacula, amantur: Tantum mobilitas illa decoris habet. Parva monere pudet, talorum dicere iactus Ut sciat, et vires, tessera missa, tuas: Et modo tres iactet numeros, modo cogitet, apte Quam subeat partem callida, quamque vocet. Cautaque non stulte latronum proelia ludat, Unus cum gemino calculus hoste perit, Bellatorque sua prensus sine compare bellat, Aemulus et coeptum saepe recurrit iter. Reticuloque pilae leves fundantur aperto, Nec, nisi quam tolles, ulla movenda pila est. Est genus, in totidem tenui ratione redactum Scriptula, quot menses lubricus annus habet: Parva tabella capit ternos utrimque lapillos, In qua vicisse est continuasse suos. Mille facesse iocos; turpe est nescire puellam Ludere: ludendo saepe paratur amor. Sed minimus labor est sapienter iactibus uti: Maius opus mores composuisse suos. Tum sumus incauti, studioque aperimur in ipso, Nudaque per lusus pectora nostra patent; Ira subit, deforme malum, lucrique cupido, Iurgiaque et rixae sollicitusque dolor: Crimina dicuntur, resonat clamoribus aether, Invocat iratos et sibi quisque deos: Nulla fides, tabulaeque novae per vota petuntur; Et lacrimis vidi saepe madere genas. Iuppiter a vobis tam turpia crimina pellat, In quibus est ulli cura placere viro.
These idle sports nature has given to girls; men play with richer material. Theirs are the swift balls and the javelin and the hoops and arms and the horse forced to go in circles. The Campus does not hold you, nor the chilliest Aqua Virgo, nor does the Tuscan river bear you down on its placid water. But it is allowed, and it profits, to go through Pompey’s shade, when the head of the sun burns with the heavenly horses; visit the Palatine, sacred to laurel-bearing Phoebus: it was he who sank the Paraetonian ships in the deep; and the monuments the leader’s sister and wife built, and his son-in-law, his head girt with naval honor; visit the incense-burning altars of the Memphian heifer, visit the three theatres in their conspicuous places; let the sands flecked with warm blood be watched, and the turning-post to be rounded by the glowing wheel.
Hos ignava iocos tribuit natura puellis; Materia ludunt uberiore viri. Sunt illis celeresque pilae iaculumque trochique Armaque et in gyros ire coactus equus. Nec vos Campus habet, nec vos gelidissima Virgo, Nec Tuscus placida devehit amnis aqua. At licet et prodest Pompeias ire per umbras, Virginis aetheriis cum caput ardet equis; Visite laurigero sacrata Palatia Phoebo: Ille Paraetonicas mersit in alta rates; Quaeque soror coniunxque ducis monimenta pararunt, Navalique gener cinctus honore caput; Visite turicremas vaccae Memphitidos aras, Visite conspicuis terna theatra locis; Spectentur tepido maculosae sanguine harenae, Metaque ferventi circueunda rota.
What is hidden is unknown: of the unknown there is no desire: the fruit is lost, when a fair face lacks a witness. Though you should surpass both Thamyras and Amoebeus in song, there will be no great favor for an unknown lyre. If Coan Apelles had nowhere set up his Venus, she would lie sunk and hidden beneath the waters of the sea. What is sought by the holy poets but fame alone? This vow holds the sum of all our labor. Poets were once the care of gods and of kings: and the ancient choirs bore off great rewards. A holy majesty and a name to revere belonged to the bards, and lavish wealth was often given them. Ennius, born in the Calabrian hills, earned the right to be set, great Scipio, next to you. Now the ivy lies without honor, and the wakeful care spent on the learned Muses bears the name of idleness. But it pays to be wakeful for fame: who would know Homer, if the Iliad, that eternal work, had stayed hidden? Who would know Danae, if she had been kept shut up forever, and had lingered to old age in her tower? A crowd is useful to you, beautiful girls. Often carry your wandering feet past the threshold. The she-wolf makes for many sheep, to prey on one, and the bird of Jove swoops down on many fowl.
Quod latet, ignotum est: ignoti nulla cupido: Fructus abest, facies cum bona teste caret. Tu licet et Thamyram superes et Amoebea cantu, Non erit ignotae gratia magna lyrae. Si Venerem Cous nusquam posuisset Apelles, Mersa sub aequoreis illa lateret aquis. Quid petitur sacris, nisi tantum fama, poetis? Hoc votum nostri summa laboris habet. Cura deum fuerant olim regumque poetae: Praemiaque antiqui magna tulere chori. Sanctaque maiestas et erat venerabile nomen Vatibus, et largae saepe dabantur opes. Ennius emeruit, Calabris in montibus ortus, Contiguus poni, Scipio magne, tibi. Nunc ederae sine honore iacent, operataque doctis Cura vigil Musis nomen inertis habet. Sed famae vigilare iuvat: quis nosset Homerum, Ilias aeternum si latuisset opus? Quis Danaen nosset, si semper clusa fuisset, Inque sua turri perlatuisset anus? Utilis est vobis, formosae, turba, puellae. Saepe vagos ultra limina ferte pedes. Ad multas lupa tendit oves, praedetur ut unam, Et Iovis in multas devolat ales aves.
Let the showy woman give herself, too, to the crowd to be seen: out of many there will perhaps be one she draws. Let her stay in all places, eager to please, and ply the care of her beauty with all her mind. Chance prevails everywhere; let your hook always hang ready: in the pool you least expect, there will be a fish. Often the hounds roam in vain on the wooded hills, and the stag comes into the net with no one driving it. What less could the bound Andromeda have hoped than that her tears could please anyone? Often at a husband’s funeral a husband is sought; to go with loosened hair, and not to hold back one’s weeping, becomes you. But avoid the men who make a profession of grooming and good looks, and who set their hair in proper station. What they say to you, they’ve said to a thousand girls: their love wanders and stays in no fixed seat. What is a woman to do, when the man is lighter than she herself, and perhaps can have several men as well?
Se quoque det populo mulier speciosa videndam: Quem trahat, e multis forsitan unus erit. Omnibus illa locis maneat studiosa placendi, Et curam tota mente decoris agat. Casus ubique valet; semper tibi pendeat hamus: Quo minime credas gurgite, piscis erit. Saepe canes frustra nemorosis montibus errant, Inque plagam nullo cervus agente venit. Quid minus Andromedae fuerat sperare revinctae, Quam lacrimas ulli posse placere suas? Funere saepe viri vir quaeritur; ire solutis Crinibus et fletus non tenuisse decet. Sed vitate viros cultum formamque professos, Quique suas ponunt in statione comas. Quae vobis dicunt, dixerunt mille puellis: Errat et in nulla sede moratur amor. Femina quid faciat, cum sit vir levior ipsa, Forsitan et plures possit habere viros?
You’ll scarcely believe me, but believe: Troy would still stand, had it used the precepts of the daughter born to Priam. There are those who go about with a lying show of love, and through such approaches seek a shameful gain. Let not the hair, most glossy with liquid nard, deceive you, nor the short tongue of the shoe pressed into its folds: let not the toga of finest thread mislead you, nor if there’ll be ring upon ring on the fingers. Perhaps out of their number the most elegant of them is a thief, and burns with love of your dress. ’Give me back mine!’ the robbed girls often cry, ’Give me back mine!’ with a voice booming through the whole forum. These lawsuits, Venus, from your temples gleaming with much gold, you and your Appiades watch unmoved. There are also certain names of no doubtful repute, but ill: many bear the charge of having deceived a lover. Learn from another’s complaints to fear for yourselves; let your door not be open to a deceiving man. Daughters of Cecrops, forbear to trust the swearing Theseus: the gods he makes his witnesses, he has made before.
Vix mihi credetis, sed credite: Troia maneret, Praeceptis Priamo si foret usa satae. Sunt qui mendaci specie grassentur amoris, Perque aditus talis lucra pudenda petant. Nec coma vos fallat liquido nitidissima nardo, Nec brevis in rugas lingula pressa suas: Nec toga decipiat filo tenuissima, nec si Anulus in digitis alter et alter erit. Forsitan ex horum numero cultissimus ille Fur sit, et uratur vestis amore tuae. ’Redde meum!’ clamant spoliatae saepe puellae, ’Redde meum!’ toto voce boante foro. Has, Venus, e templis multo radiantibus auro Lenta vides lites Appiadesque tuae. Sunt quoque non dubia quaedam mala nomina fama: Deceptae multi crimen amantis habent. Discite ab alterius vestras timuisse querellis; Ianua fallaci ne sit aperta viro. Parcite, Cecropides, iuranti credere Theseo: Quos faciet testes, fecit et ante, deos.
And to you, Demophoon, heir of Theseus’s crime, no faith is left, now Phyllis has been deceived. If they promise fairly, promise in as many words: if they give, then you too give the agreed-on joys. She could put out the wakeful flames of Vesta, and snatch the holy things from your temples, daughter of Inachus, and give her man aconite mixed with ground hemlock, whoever, when the gift is taken, then refuses love. My spirit bids me draw nearer: rein in, my Muse, lest you be flung from the loosed wheels.
Et tibi, Demophoon, Thesei criminis heres, Phyllide decepta nulla relicta fides. Si bene promittent, totidem promittite verbis: Si dederint, et vos gaudia pacta date. Illa potest vigiles flammas extinguere Vestae, Et rapere e templis, Inachi, sacra tuis, Et dare mixta viro tritis aconita cicutis, Accepto venerem munere siqua negat. Fert animus propius consistere: supprime habenas, Musa, nec admissis excutiare rotis.
Let words written on fir tablets sound out the ford: let a fit handmaid receive the dispatched notes. Examine it: and from the very words gather what you read, whether he is feigning, or asks anxiously, from the heart. And write back after a brief delay: delay always spurs lovers on, if only it lasts a little time. But neither promise yourself easily to the young man’s asking, nor yet harshly deny what he seeks. Make him fear and hope at once, and, as often as you put him off, let surer hope come and lesser fear. Write, girls, words neat but common, drawn from the middle: the ordinary form of speech is what pleases; ah, how often a wavering lover has caught fire from what was written, and a barbarous tongue has harmed a good face! But since, though you lack the honor of the fillet, you have a care to deceive your own men, write over the tablets by the hand of a maid or boy, and don’t trust your love-tokens to a new lover. I have seen girls go pale with that terror, suffering, poor things, slavery for all time. Treacherous indeed is he who keeps such tokens, yet they have the force of Etna’s thunderbolt. With me for judge, it is allowed for fraud to repel fraud, and the laws permit taking up arms against the armed. Let one hand get used to forming many scripts, (ah, perish those through whom I must warn of this!), nor is it safe to write again except on erased wax, lest one tablet hold two hands. Let the lover always be spoken of as a woman by the one who writes: let ’she’ be in your notes, where ’he’ was.
Verba vadum temptent abiegnis scripta tabellis: Accipiat missas apta ministra notas. Inspice: quodque leges, ex ipsis collige verbis, Fingat, an ex animo sollicitusque roget. Postque brevem rescribe moram: mora semper amantes Incitat, exiguum si modo tempus habet. Sed neque te facilem iuveni promitte roganti, Nec tamen e duro quod petit ille nega. Fac timeat speretque simul, quotiensque remittes, Spesque magis veniat certa minorque metus. Munda, sed e medio consuetaque verba, puellae, Scribite: sermonis publica forma placet; A! quotiens dubius scriptis exarsit amator, Et nocuit formae barbara lingua bonae! Sed quoniam, quamvis vittae careatis honore, Est vobis vestros fallere cura viros, Ancillae puerique manu perarate tabellas, Pignora nec iuveni credite vestra novo. Perfidus ille quidem, qui talia pignora servat, Sed tamen Aetnaei fulminis instar habent. Vidi ego pallentes isto terrore puellas Servitium miseras tempus in omne pati. Iudice me fraus est concessa repellere fraudem, Armaque in armatos sumere iura sinunt. Ducere consuescat multas manus una figuras, (A! pereant, per quos ista monenda mihi) Nec nisi deletis tutum rescribere ceris, Ne teneat geminas una tabella manus. Femina dicatur scribenti semper amator: Illa sit in vestris, qui fuit ille, notis.
If I may carry the mind from small things to greater, and spread full sails on the bellying canvas, it bears on beauty to curb your raging moods: fair peace becomes mankind, grim anger the beasts. The face swells with anger: the veins blacken with blood: the eyes flash more fiercely than Gorgon’s fire. ’Be gone from here,’ said Pallas, ’you are not worth so much to me, flute,’ when she saw her face in the stream. You too, if you should look in the mirror in mid-anger, scarcely any would know her own face well enough. No less ruinous is pride in your looks: love must be allured with kindly eyes. We hate excessive disdain (believe one who has tried it): often a silent face holds the seeds of hatred. Look at one who looks at you, smile softly at one who smiles: he nods to you — you too return the notes you’ve taken. So, when the boy has skirmished thus, the blunt foils set aside, he draws the sharp arrows from his quiver. We hate the gloomy, too: let Ajax love Tecmessa; us, a cheerful folk, a glad woman captures. Never would I ask you, Andromache, nor you, Tecmessa, that either of you should be my mistress. I can scarcely believe — though childbirth forces me to believe — that you ever lay with your own husbands. Did that most mournful woman really say to Ajax ’my light,’ and the words that are wont to please men?
Si licet a parvis animum ad maiora referre, Plenaque curvato pandere vela sinu, Pertinet ad faciem rabidos compescere mores: Candida pax homines, trux decet ira feras. Ora tument ira: nigrescunt sanguine venae: Lumina Gorgoneo saevius igne micant. ’I procul hinc,’ dixit ’non es mihi, tibia, tanti,’ Ut vidit vultus Pallas in amne suos. Vos quoque si media speculum spectetis in ira, Cognoscat faciem vix satis ulla suam. Nec minus in vultu damnosa superbia vestro: Comibus est oculis alliciendus amor. Odimus inmodicos (experto credite) fastus: Saepe tacens odii semina vultus habet. Spectantem specta, ridenti mollia ride: Innuet, acceptas tu quoque redde notas. Sic ubi prolusit, rudibus puer ille relictis Spicula de pharetra promit acuta sua. Odimus et maestas: Tecmessam diligat Aiax; Nos hilarem populum femina laeta capit. Numquam ego te, Andromache, nec te, Tecmessa, rogarem, Ut mea de vobis altera amica foret. Credere vix videor, cum cogar credere partu, Vos ego cum vestris concubuisse viris. Scilicet Aiaci mulier maestissima dixit ’Lux mea’ quaeque solent verba iuvare viros?
Who forbids taking examples from great things to small, and not dreading the name of a general? A good general gives this man a hundred to rule with the vine-staff, this one the cavalry, that one the standards to guard: you too, look us over — for what use each will be fit — and set each in his sure place. Let the rich man give gifts: let him who professes the law attend: let the eloquent often plead a client’s cause: we who make songs, let us send only songs: this band, before the rest, are apt to love. We spread far the praises of a beauty that pleases us: Nemesis has a name, Cynthia has a name: the west and the eastern lands have come to know Lycoris: and many ask who my Corinna is. Add that treachery is far from the holy bards, and our art, too, shapes our characters to its own. Neither ambition touches us, nor the love of getting: the couch and the shade are courted, the forum scorned. But we cling readily, and burn with a strong heat, and know how to love with too constant a faith. No doubt our genius is softened by the gentle art, and our ways go to match our study. Be kind to the Aonian bards, girls: a godhead is in them, and the Pierides favor them. There is a god in us, and we have dealings with heaven: that spirit comes from the seats of the upper air.
Quis vetat a magnis ad res exempla minores Sumere, nec nomen pertimuisse ducis? Dux bonus huic centum commisit vite regendos, Huic equites, illi signa tuenda dedit: Vos quoque, de nobis quem quisque erit aptus ad usum, Inspicite, et certo ponite quemque loco. Munera det dives: ius qui profitebitur, adsit: Facundus causam saepe clientis agat: Carmina qui facimus, mittamus carmina tantum: Hic chorus ante alios aptus amare sumus. Nos facimus placitae late praeconia formae: Nomen habet Nemesis, Cynthia nomen habet: Vesper et Eoae novere Lycorida terrae: Et multi, quae sit nostra Corinna, rogant. Adde, quod insidiae sacris a vatibus absunt, Et facit ad mores ars quoque nostra suos. Nec nos ambitio, nec amor nos tangit habendi: Contempto colitur lectus et umbra foro. Sed facile haeremus, validoque perurimur aestu, Et nimium certa scimus amare fide. Scilicet ingenium placida mollitur ab arte, Et studio mores convenienter eunt. Vatibus Aoniis faciles estote, puellae: Numen inest illis, Pieridesque favent. Est deus in nobis, et sunt commercia caeli: Sedibus aetheriis spiritus ille venit.
It is a crime to hope for a price from the learned poets; alas for me! no girl fears this crime. Yet dissemble, and do not at first sight be rapacious: a new lover will balk at the sight of the net. But the rider will not govern with even reins a horse that has lately felt them, and one already trained the same way, nor, to win steady hearts and green youth, will the same track have to be driven. This raw one, now first known to the camp of Love, who has reached your chamber, a fresh-caught prey, let him know you alone, let him cling always to you only: that crop must be hedged with high fences. Flee a rival: you’ll win while you hold him alone; kingship and Venus do not abide well with partners. That old soldier will love by degrees and wisely, and will bear much that a recruit could not endure: he’ll not break the doorposts, nor burn with savage fires, nor go at his mistress’s tender cheeks with his nail, nor tear his own tunics or the girl’s, nor will torn hair be a cause for weeping.
A doctis pretium scelus est sperare poetis; Me miserum! scelus hoc nulla puella timet. Dissimulate tamen, nec prima fronte rapaces Este: novus viso casse resistet amans. Sed neque vector equum, qui nuper sensit habenas, Comparibus frenis artificemque reget, Nec stabiles animos annis viridemque iuventam Ut capias, idem limes agendus erit. Hic rudis et castris nunc primum notus Amoris, Qui tetigit thalamos praeda novella tuos, Te solam norit, tibi semper inhaereat uni: Cingenda est altis saepibus ista seges. Effuge rivalem: vinces, dum sola tenebis; Non bene cum sociis regna Venusque manent. Ille vetus miles sensim et sapienter amabit, Multaque tironi non patienda feret: Nec franget postes, nec saevis ignibus uret, Nec dominae teneras adpetet ungue genas, Nec scindet tunicasve suas tunicasve puellae, Nec raptus flendi causa capillus erit.
Those things suit boys, hot in their age and their love; this man will bear fierce wounds with a settled mind. He’ll burn, alas, with slow fires, like damp hay, like a wood just cut down on the mountain ridges. This love is surer: the other brief and more fruitful; pluck with a quick hand the fruits that flee. Let all be handed over: we have unbarred the gates to the foe; and let there be faith in faithless betrayal. What is given easily ill-nourishes a lasting love: a rare rebuff must be mixed with the glad sport. Let him lie before the doors, let him say ’cruel door!’, and do much in submission, much in threat. We cannot bear sweets: let us be renewed with a bitter juice; often a boat goes down, overwhelmed by its own winds; this it is that keeps wives from being loved: their husbands come to them when they have wished. Add a door, and let a porter say to you with a hard mouth ’you cannot,’ and love, shut out, will touch you too. Now lay down the blunt swords: let the fight be with sharp ones; nor do I doubt that I’ll be attacked by my own weapons.
Ista decent pueros aetate et amore calentes; Hic fera composita vulnera mente feret. Ignibus heu lentis uretur, ut umida faena, Ut modo montanis silva recisa iugis. Certior hic amor est: brevis et fecundior ille; Quae fugiunt, celeri carpite poma manu. Omnia tradantur: portas reseravimus hosti; Et sit in infida proditione fides. Quod datur ex facili, longum male nutrit amorem: Miscenda est laetis rara repulsa iocis. Ante fores iaceat, ’crudelis ianua!’ dicat, Multaque summisse, multa minanter agat. Dulcia non ferimus: suco renovemur amaro; Saepe perit ventis obruta cumba suis; Hoc est, uxores quod non patiatur amari: Conveniunt illas, cum voluere, viri; Adde forem, et duro dicat tibi ianitor ore ’Non potes,’ exclusum te quoque tanget amor. Ponite iam gladios hebetes: pugnetur acutis; Nec dubito, telis quin petar ipse meis.
While the new-caught lover, too, is falling into the toils, let him hope he alone has your chamber. Afterwards let him feel a rival, and a covenant of the bed shared out: take away these arts, and love grows old. Then the strong horse runs well, the barrier unbarred, when it has some to pass and some to chase. However dead, injury rouses the fires again: look — I (I confess it!) love only when wronged. Yet let the cause of grief not be too plain, and let him, in his anxiety, suppose more than he shall know. The gloomy watch of a feigned slave goads him on, too, and the troublesome care of a too-harsh husband. Pleasure that comes from safety is less welcome: though you be freer than Thais, feign your fears. Though you could let him in better by the door, let him in by the window, and wear on your face the signs of one afraid. Let a clever maid leap out and cry ’we’re done for!’, and you hide the trembling youth in any place. Yet safe love must be mingled with the fear, lest he think your nights are not worth so much.
Dum cadit in laqueos captus quoque nuper amator, Solum se thalamos speret habere tuos. Postmodo rivalem partitaque foedera lecti Sentiat: has artes tolle, senescet amor. Tum bene fortis equus reserato carcere currit, Cum quos praetereat quosque sequatur habet. Quamlibet extinctos iniuria suscitat ignes: En, ego (confiteor!) non nisi laesus amo. Causa tamen nimium non sit manifesta doloris, Pluraque sollicitus, quam sciet, esse putet. Incitat et ficti tristis custodia servi, Et nimium duri cura molesta viri. Quae venit ex tuto, minus est accepta voluptas: Ut sis liberior Thaide, finge metus. Cum melius foribus possis, admitte fenestra, Inque tuo vultu signa timentis habe. Callida prosiliat dicatque ancilla ’perimus!’ Tu iuvenem trepidum quolibet abde loco. Admiscenda tamen venus est secura timori, Ne tanti noctes non putet esse tuas.
By what method a cunning husband may be eluded, and a wakeful guard, I was about to pass over. Let the wife fear her man: let the watch over a wife be fixed; this is fitting, this the laws and right and modesty enjoin. But that you too should be guarded, whom the rod just now set free — who could bear it? Come to my rites, to learn deceiving! Let as many watch as there were eyes in Argus (only let the will be firm), and you will cheat them all. Shall a guard prevent you, forsooth, from writing, when you’re given time for taking your bath? when a confidante can carry the written tablets, which a broad band may hide in her warm bosom? when she can hide the sheets, bound, in her calf, and bear the coaxing notes beneath her laced foot? Should the guard beware of these, let the confidante offer her back for paper, and carry the words on her own body. A letter, too, is safe and cheats the eyes when made of fresh milk: touch it with the dust of coal, and you’ll read it. That will cheat, too, which is made with the point of moistened flax, so that the clean tablet bears the hidden notes.
Qua vafer eludi possit ratione maritus, Quaque vigil custos, praeteriturus eram. Nupta virum timeat: rata sit custodia nuptae; Hoc decet, hoc leges iusque pudorque iubent. Te quoque servari, modo quam vindicta redemit, Quis ferat? Ut fallas, ad mea sacra veni! Tot licet observent (adsit modo certa voluntas), Quot fuerant Argo lumina, verba dabis. Scilicet obstabit custos, ne scribere possis, Sumendae detur cum tibi tempus aquae? Conscia cum possit scriptas portare tabellas, Quas tegat in tepido fascia lata sinu? Cum possit sura chartas celare ligatas, Et vincto blandas sub pede ferre notas? Caverit haec custos, pro charta conscia tergum Praebeat, inque suo corpore verba ferat. Tuta quoque est fallitque oculos e lacte recenti Littera: carbonis pulvere tange, leges. Fallet et umiduli quae fiet acumine lini, Ut ferat occultas pura tabella notas.
A care to guard his girl was at Acrisius’s side: yet she made him a grandfather, for all that, by her crime. What can a guard do, when there are so many theatres in the city, when she gladly watches the yoked horses, when she sits busied with the rattles of the Pharian heifer, and goes where her companions are forbidden to go, when the Good Goddess drives the eyes of men from her temples, except for any whom she herself bids come? When, while the guard outside keeps the girl’s clothes, many a bath conceals its stealthy sport, when, as often as need be, the cunning mistress falls sick, and yields up her bed, however ill, for him, when the adulterous key teaches by its very name what we are to do, and not the door alone gives the ways you seek? The guard’s vigilance is cheated, too, with much wine of Lyaeus, though the grape were gathered on a Spanish hill; there are drugs, too, that bring on deep slumbers, and press the eyes down, mastered by a Lethean night; nor unfittingly does the confidante detain the tiresome man with slow delights, and join herself to him in long delay. What use to bring forward roundabout ways and petty precepts, when a guard can be bought with the smallest gift? Gifts, believe me, take men and gods: Jupiter himself is appeased by gifts when given. What will the wise man do, when the fool too rejoices in a gift? He himself, the gift once taken, will hold his tongue. But the guard must be bought once for a long age: he’ll often lend a hand, who once has lent it.
Adfuit Acrisio servandae cura puellae: Hunc tamen illa suo crimine fecit avum. Quid faciat custos, cum sint tot in urbe theatra, Cum spectet iunctos illa libenter equos, Cum sedeat Phariae sistris operata iuvencae, Quoque sui comites ire vetantur, eat, Cum fuget a templis oculos Bona Diva virorum, Praeterquam siquos illa venire iubet? Cum, custode foris tunicas servante puellae, Celent furtivos balnea multa iocos, Cum, quotiens opus est, fallax aegrotet amica, Et cedat lecto quamlibet aegra suo, Nomine cum doceat, quid agamus, adultera clavis, Quasque petas non det ianua sola vias? Fallitur et multo custodis cura Lyaeo, Illa vel Hispano lecta sit uva iugo; Sunt quoque, quae faciant altos medicamina somnos, Victaque Lethaea lumina nocte premant; Nec male deliciis odiosum conscia tardis Detinet, et longa iungitur ipsa mora. Quid iuvat ambages praeceptaque parva movere, Cum minimo custos munere possit emi? Munera, crede mihi, capiunt hominesque deosque: Placatur donis Iuppiter ipse datis. Quid sapiens faciet, stultus cum munere gaudet? Ipse quoque accepto munere mutus erit. Sed semel est custos longum redimendus in aevum: Saepe dabit, dederit quas semel ille manus.
I had complained, I remember, that one’s comrades are to be feared: that complaint does not touch men alone. If you are too trusting, other women will pluck your joys, and this hare will be coursed by others. This woman, too, who eagerly offers the bed and the place — believe me, more than once she has been with me. Nor let too pretty a maid wait on you: often she has served me in her mistress’s stead. Where am I borne, madman? Why do I rush at the foe with breast bared, and betray myself by my own informing? The bird does not show the fowlers from what side to be struck: the hind does not teach the hostile hounds to run. Let advantage look to itself: I’ll deliver faithfully what I’ve begun: I’ll give the Lemnian women swords for my own undoing. Bring it about (and it is easy) that we believe ourselves loved: belief comes readily to those who long for their own wishes. Let a woman look more lovingly on the youth, sigh from deep within, and ask why he comes so late: let tears come, and a grief feigned over a rival, and let her tear his face with her nails: he’ll be long since persuaded; of his own accord he’ll pity her, and say, ’she is consumed with care for me.’ Especially if he is well-groomed and pleases himself in the mirror, he’ll believe that goddesses could be touched with love of him.
Questus eram, memini, metuendos esse sodales: Non tangit solos ista querella viros. Credula si fueris, aliae tua gaudia carpent, Et lepus hic aliis exagitatus erit. Haec quoque, quae praebet lectum studiosa locumque Crede mihi, mecum non semel illa fuit. Nec nimium vobis formosa ancilla ministret: Saepe vicem dominae praebuit illa mihi. Quo feror insanus? quid aperto pectore in hostem Mittor, et indicio prodor ab ipse meo? Non avis aucupibus monstrat, qua parte petatur: Non docet infestos currere cerva canes. Viderit utilitas: ego coepta fideliter edam: Lemniasin gladios in mea fata dabo. Efficite (et facile est), ut nos credamus amari: Prona venit cupidis in sua vota fides. Spectet amabilius iuvenem, suspiret ab imo Femina, tam sero cur veniatque roget: Accedant lacrimae, dolor et de paelice fictus, Et laniet digitis illius ora suis: Iamdudum persuasus erit; miserebitur ultro, Et dicet ’cura carpitur ista mei.’ Praecipue si cultus erit speculoque placebit, Posse suo tangi credet amore deas.
But let injury, whatever it is, disturb you in measure, nor be out of your wits at hearing of a rival. And do not believe too quickly: how much it hurts to believe too quickly, Procris will be to you no slight example. Near the purple hills of flowering Hymettus there is a sacred spring, and ground soft with green turf: a wood, not tall, makes a grove; the arbutus shades the grass, rosemary and laurel and dark myrtle breathe their scent: nor is the box, thick with leaves, wanting, nor the brittle tamarisks, nor the slender clover and the cultivated pine. Stirred by the gentle zephyrs and the wholesome breeze, the leaves of so many kinds and the tops of the grass quiver. Welcome rest to Cephalus: leaving servants and hounds behind, the youth, weary, often sat down on this ground, and used to sing, ’Come, moving breeze, to be received in my bosom, you that may soothe my heat.’ Some too-officious person carried to the wife’s anxious ears, with a remembering mouth, the sounds he had heard; when Procris took the name of ’Aura’ as a rival’s, she fainted, and was suddenly dumb with grief; she went pale, as the late leaves grow pale when the clusters are picked from the vine, which the early winter has nipped, and as the ripe quinces that bend down their own boughs, and the cornel-berries, not yet fit enough for our food. When her senses returned, she tears the thin robes from her breast, and wounds her undeserving cheeks with her nail; and without delay, with hair streaming, she rushes out, frantic, through the middle of the roads, like a Bacchant stirred by the thyrsus.
Sed te, quaecumque est, moderate iniuria turbet, Nec sis audita paelice mentis inops. Nec cito credideris: quantum cito credere laedat, Exemplum vobis non leve Procris erit. Est prope purpureos colles florentis Hymetti Fons sacer et viridi caespite mollis humus: Silva nemus non alta facit; tegit arbutus herbam, Ros maris et lauri nigraque myrtus olent: Nec densum foliis buxum fragilesque myricae, Nec tenues cytisi cultaque pinus abest. Lenibus inpulsae zephyris auraque salubri Tot generum frondes herbaque summa tremit. Grata quies Cephalo: famulis canibusque relictis Lassus in hac iuvenis saepe resedit humo, ’Quae’ que ’meos releves aestus,’ cantare solebat ’Accipienda sinu, mobilis aura, veni.’ Coniugis ad timidas aliquis male sedulus aures Auditos memori detulit ore sonos; Procris ut accepit nomen, quasi paelicis, Aurae, Excidit, et subito muta dolore fuit; Palluit, ut serae lectis de vite racemis Pallescunt frondes, quas nova laesit hiemps, Quaeque suos curvant matura cydonia ramos, Cornaque adhuc nostris non satis apta cibis. Ut rediit animus, tenues a pectore vestes Rumpit, et indignas sauciat ungue genas; Nec mora, per medias passis furibunda capillis Evolat, ut thyrso concita Baccha, vias.
When she had nearly come, she leaves her companions in the valley, and herself, brave, enters the grove with stealthy, silent foot. What was in your mind, Procris, when so out of your senses you hid? What was the burning of your stricken heart? Now, now you thought that ’Aura,’ whoever she was, would come, and the outrage was to be seen before your eyes. Now you’re sorry to have come (for you would not wish to catch him), now you’re glad: a wavering love turns your heart this way and that. The place and the name and the informer bid her believe, and the mind always thinks the thing it fears is so. When she saw the prints of a body in the pressed grass, her trembling breast is beaten by a fluttering heart. And now midday had drawn the thin shadows in, and evening and sunrise were at equal distance: behold, Cephalus, the Cyllenian offspring, returns from the woods, and splashes his burning face with the spring’s water. Anxious, Procris, you lie hid: he lies along the wonted grass, and said, ’soft zephyrs and breeze, come to me!’ When the happy error of the name showed plain to the wretched woman, both her senses and the true color returned to her face. She rises, and with her stirring body moved the leaves before her, a wife about to go into her husband’s embrace: he, thinking a beast had moved, in youthful haste snatches up his limbs — the weapons were in his right hand. What are you doing, unhappy man? It is no beast, hold the weapons! Alas for me! the girl is pierced by your javelin. ’Ah me!’ she cries aloud, ’you have pierced the breast that loved you. This place has always had wounds from Cephalus. I die before my day, but wronged by no rival: this will make the earth lie light on me, laid to rest. Now my spirit goes out on the breeze I suspected by name: I faint, I go — close my dear eyes with your hand!’ He holds the dying body of his mistress on his grieving breast, and washes the cruel wounds with his tears: the spirit goes out, and, slipping little by little from her heedless breast, is caught on the mouth of her wretched husband.
Ut prope perventum, comites in valle relinquit, Ipsa nemus tacito clam pede fortis init. Quid tibi mentis erat, cum sic male sana lateres, Procri? quis adtoniti pectoris ardor erat? Iam iam venturam, quaecumque erat Aura, putabas Scilicet, atque oculis probra videnda tuis. Nunc venisse piget (neque enim deprendere velles), Nunc iuvat: incertus pectora versat amor. Credere quae iubeant, locus est et nomen et index, Et quia mens semper quod timet, esse putat. Vidit ut oppressa vestigia corporis herba, Pulsantur trepidi corde micante sinus. Iamque dies medius tenues contraxerat umbras, Inque pari spatio vesper et ortus erant: Ecce, redit Cephalus silvis, Cyllenia proles, Oraque fontana fervida pulsat aqua. Anxia, Procri, lates: solitas iacet ille per herbas, Et ’zephyri molles auraque’ dixit ’ades!’ Ut patuit miserae iucundus nominis error, Et mens et rediit verus in ora color. Surgit, et oppositas agitato corpore frondes Movit, in amplexus uxor itura viri: Ille feram movisse ratus, iuvenaliter artus Corripit, in dextra tela fuere manu. Quid facis, infelix? non est fera, supprime tela! Me miserum! iaculo fixa puella tuo est. ’Ei mihi!’ conclamat ’fixisti pectus amicum. Hic locus a Cephalo vulnera semper habet. Ante diem morior, sed nulla paelice laesa: Hoc faciet positae te mihi, terra, levem. Nomine suspectas iam spiritus exit in auras: Labor, eo, cara lumina conde manu!’ Ille sinu dominae morientia corpora maesto Sustinet, et lacrimis vulnera saeva lavat: Exit, et incauto paulatim pectore lapsus Excipitur miseri spiritus ore viri.
But let us take up the work again: I must go with the matter bare, that the weary keel may touch its harbor. You anxiously wait for me to lead you to the banquets, and seek my counsel on this side too. Come late, and enter gracefully when the lamp is set out: delay will make you welcome; delay is the greatest bawd. Even if you are plain, you’ll seem fair to the drinkers, and the night itself will give your faults their hiding-places. Take your food with your fingers: there’s a manner in eating: and don’t smear the whole face with a dirty hand. And don’t take your meal beforehand at home, but stop short of what you can hold; eat a little less than you are able; if Priam’s son saw Helen eating greedily, he’d hate her, and say, ’my prize is a foolish theft.’ It is more fitting, and becomes girls more, to drink: you go not ill, Bacchus, with the boy of Venus. This too, as far as the head can bear it, and mind and feet stand firm: and do not see two things where there is one. Ugly is a woman lying soaked with much Lyaeus: she deserves to suffer whatever couplings come. Nor is it safe to give way to sleep at the laid table: through sleep many shameful things are wont to happen.
Sed repetamus opus: mihi nudis rebus eundum est, Ut tangat portus fessa carina suos. Sollicite expectas, dum te in convivia ducam, Et quaeris monitus hac quoque parte meos. Sera veni, positaque decens incede lucerna: Grata mora venies; maxima lena mora est. Etsi turpis eris, formosa videbere potis, Et latebras vitiis nox dabit ipsa tuis. Carpe cibos digitis: est quiddam gestus edendi: Ora nec immunda tota perungue manu. Neve domi praesume dapes, sed desine citra Quam capis; es paulo quam potes esse minus; Priamides Helenen avide si spectet edentem, Oderit, et dicat ’stulta rapina mea est.’ Aptius est, deceatque magis potare puellas: Cum Veneris puero non male, Bacche, facis. Hoc quoque, qua patiens caput est, animusque pedesque Constant: nec, quae sunt singula, bina vide. Turpe iacens mulier multo madefacta Lyaeo: Digna est concubitus quoslibet illa pati. Nec somnis posita tutum succumbere mensa: Per somnos fieri multa pudenda solent.
I am ashamed to teach what lies beyond: but kindly Dione says, ’what brings shame is especially my work.’ Let each be known to herself: take sure ways from your own body: one posture does not become all. She who is notable in face, let her lie on her back: let those be seen from behind whose backs please them. Milanion bore Atalanta’s legs on his shoulders: if they are good, that is the way to take them. Let the small woman be carried like a horse: because she was very tall, the Theban bride never sat astride Hector’s steed. Let the woman to be admired down her long flank press the couch with her knees, her neck a little bent back. She whose thigh is youthful, whose breast too is without flaw, let the man stand, and let her lie aslant on the couch. Nor think it shameful to loose your hair, like the Phyllean mother, and, with locks flowing, bend your neck back. You too, whose womb Lucina has marked with wrinkles, use the backward horses, like the swift Parthian. A thousand are the ways of love; one simple and of least labor, when she lies half-supine on her right side.
Ulteriora pudet docuisse: sed alma Dione ’Praecipue nostrum est, quod pudet’ inquit ’opus.’ Nota sibi sit quaeque: modos a corpore certos Sumite: non omnes una figura decet. Quae facie praesignis erit, resupina iaceto: Spectentur tergo, quis sua terga placent. Milanion umeris Atalantes crura ferebat: Si bona sunt, hoc sunt accipienda modo. Parva vehatur equo: quod erat longissima, numquam Thebais Hectoreo nupta resedit equo. Strata premat genibus, paulum cervice reflexa, Femina per longum conspicienda latus. Cui femur est iuvenale, carent quoque pectora menda, Stet vir, in obliquo fusa sit ipsa toro. Nec tibi turpe puta crinem, ut Phylleia mater, Solvere, et effusis colla reflecte comis. Tu quoque, cui rugis uterum Lucina notavit, Ut celer aversis utere Parthus equis. Mille modi veneris; simplex minimique laboris, Cum iacet in dextrum semisupina latus.
But neither Phoebus’s tripods nor horned Ammon will sing you truer things than my Muse: if there is any trust in the art I have made by long practice, believe: my songs will make their pledge good. Let the woman feel love, melted from her inmost marrow, and let the act delight the two alike. Let the coaxing voices and the pleasant murmurs not cease, nor let the naughty words be silent in the midst of the play. You too, to whom nature has denied the sense of love, counterfeit the sweet joys with a lying sound. Unhappy the girl in whom that place lies dull and numb, where woman and man ought equally to take their pleasure. Only, when you feign, beware of being obvious: make it believed by your movement and your very eyes. Let your voice and the panting of your mouth show how it delights you; ah, for shame — that part has its secret signs. She who, after the joys of Venus, asks her lover for a gift, will not want her prayers to carry any weight. And do not let the light into your chamber by all the windows: much in your body is more fittingly hidden. The game has its end: it is time to step down from the swans, who have drawn our yoke upon their necks. As once the young men, so now, my throng, let the girls inscribe upon the spoils, ’Naso was my master.’
Sed neque Phoebei tripodes nec corniger Ammon Vera magis vobis, quam mea Musa, canet: Siqua fides arti, quam longo fecimus usu, Credite: praestabunt carmina nostra fidem. Sentiat ex imis venerem resoluta medullis Femina, et ex aequo res iuvet illa duos. Nec blandae voces iucundaque murmura cessent, Nec taceant mediis improba verba iocis. Tu quoque, cui veneris sensum natura negavit, Dulcia mendaci gaudia finge sono. Infelix, cui torpet hebes locus ille, puella, Quo pariter debent femina virque frui. Tantum, cum finges, ne sis manifesta, caveto: Effice per motum luminaque ipsa fidem. Quam iuvet, et voces et anhelitus arguat oris; A! pudet, arcanas pars habet ista notas. Gaudia post Veneris quae poscet munus amantem, Illa suas nolet pondus habere preces. Nec lucem in thalamos totis admitte fenestris; Aptius in vestro corpore multa latent. Lusus habet finem: cygnis descendere tempus, Duxerunt collo qui iuga nostra suo. Ut quondam iuvenes, ita nunc, mea turba, puellae Inscribant spoliis ’Naso magister erat.’