The Cure for Love
Remedia Amoris
Headnote
The Remedia Amoris (The Cure for Love) is Ovid’s sequel and counterweight to the Ars Amatoria: a single book of elegiac couplets, written around AD 1, that undoes with the same straight-faced authority what the earlier poem taught. Where the Ars trained the praeceptor amoris to win love, the Remedia turns the manual against the disease, prescribing a regimen by which a wretched lover may be cured. The conceit is medical from the start — Ovid is at once the poet and the physician, and the work proceeds like a course of treatment, from prophylaxis ("resist at the start") through the harder therapy of the love already entrenched.
The poem opens with a charming frame: Cupid reads the title, takes fright that "war is being readied against him," and is reassured by the poet — no traitor to love, but its old soldier, who will only spare the wretched and leave happy lovers to sail on. The argument then unfolds as a sequence of practical remedies, each pressed home with the heaped mythological exempla that are Ovid’s signature: catch the passion early, before delay roots it deep (Myrrha); if it is too late, wait for the ripe moment, as a physician times his medicine; above all flee idleness, the food of love — fill the day with law, soldiering against the Parthians, farming, hunting, fowling; travel far and do not look back; and put no trust in witchcraft, for not even Circe or Medea, who could change men’s shapes, could change the laws of their own hearts.
Across the rest of the book Ovid moves to the lover still in the City: dwell on the mistress’s faults, catch her undressed and unflattered, take a second love to divide the first, feign a coldness that becomes real, or — the opposite cure — glut yourself with her until weariness does the work; banish jealousy and solitude, avoid her haunts and her household, burn her letters, and shun the tender poets and the theater that rekindle desire. The voice is the knowing, worldly lecturer of the Ars, but now bent to release rather than capture, and the poem ends as it began in the medical key — the harbor reached, the patient bidden to pay his votive thanks to the poet who healed him.
This English is translated from the Latin (The Latin Library text). It renders the whole single book of 814 verses line for verse, preserving the elegiac couplet so that each pentameter still lands its closing turn; the divine and mythological names are kept in their Roman forms, and the heaped exempla — from Phyllis and Circe to Agamemnon, Nauplius, and the Sirens — are left to land in the line, with the glossary, not an inline note, carrying the unpacking.
Love had read the title and the name of this little book:
"War," he said, "I see, war is being readied against me.
Spare your own bard the charge of crime, Cupid —
the soldier who so often bore your standards under your command.
I am no Diomedes, by whom your wounded mother
went back to the clear upper air on the horses of Mars.
Other young men often cool; I have always loved,
and if you ask what I am doing now too — I love.
What is more, I taught the art by which you might be won,
and what is now method was once raw impulse.
I betray neither you, coaxing boy, nor my own arts,
nor does a new Muse unravel the work already done.
If anyone loves what it is a joy to love, let him burn
in happiness and rejoice, and sail on with his own wind.
But if anyone bears badly the rule of an unworthy girl,
let him, that he not perish, feel the help of my art.
Why has some lover, his neck knotted in a noose,
hung from a high beam, a grim dead weight?
Why has another driven the stiff iron through his breast?
You, lover of peace, are charged with that slaughter.
Let the man who, unless he stops, must die of wretched love,
stop; and you will have authored no one’s funeral.
And you are a boy — nothing becomes you but to play:
play; the soft kingdom suits your years.
For you could have used bare arrows for the war,
but your shafts are free of deadly blood.
Let your stepfather fight with swords and the sharp spear,
and go bloodied, a victor, through much slaughter:
you, cultivate your mother’s arts, which we use in safety,
and by whose fault no mother is made childless.
Have a door broken in a brawl at night,
and many a garland cover the decked-out doorposts;
make young men and timid girls meet in secret,
and cheat a wary husband by whatever trick you please:
and now let the shut-out lover speak coaxing words, now reproaches,
to the unbending post, and sing his tearful song.
With these tears you will be content, clear of the charge of death;
your torch does not deserve to feed the greedy pyre."
This I said: golden Love stirred his jeweled wings
and told me, "Finish the work you have begun."
"War," he said, "I see, war is being readied against me.
Spare your own bard the charge of crime, Cupid —
the soldier who so often bore your standards under your command.
I am no Diomedes, by whom your wounded mother
went back to the clear upper air on the horses of Mars.
Other young men often cool; I have always loved,
and if you ask what I am doing now too — I love.
What is more, I taught the art by which you might be won,
and what is now method was once raw impulse.
I betray neither you, coaxing boy, nor my own arts,
nor does a new Muse unravel the work already done.
If anyone loves what it is a joy to love, let him burn
in happiness and rejoice, and sail on with his own wind.
But if anyone bears badly the rule of an unworthy girl,
let him, that he not perish, feel the help of my art.
Why has some lover, his neck knotted in a noose,
hung from a high beam, a grim dead weight?
Why has another driven the stiff iron through his breast?
You, lover of peace, are charged with that slaughter.
Let the man who, unless he stops, must die of wretched love,
stop; and you will have authored no one’s funeral.
And you are a boy — nothing becomes you but to play:
play; the soft kingdom suits your years.
For you could have used bare arrows for the war,
but your shafts are free of deadly blood.
Let your stepfather fight with swords and the sharp spear,
and go bloodied, a victor, through much slaughter:
you, cultivate your mother’s arts, which we use in safety,
and by whose fault no mother is made childless.
Have a door broken in a brawl at night,
and many a garland cover the decked-out doorposts;
make young men and timid girls meet in secret,
and cheat a wary husband by whatever trick you please:
and now let the shut-out lover speak coaxing words, now reproaches,
to the unbending post, and sing his tearful song.
With these tears you will be content, clear of the charge of death;
your torch does not deserve to feed the greedy pyre."
This I said: golden Love stirred his jeweled wings
and told me, "Finish the work you have begun."
Legerat huius Amor titulum nomenque libelli: ’Bella mihi, video, bella parantur’ ait. ’Parce tuum vatem sceleris damnare, Cupido, Tradita qui toties te duce signa tuli. Non ego Tydides, a quo tua saucia mater In liquidum rediit aethera Martis equis. Saepe tepent alii iuvenes: ego semper amavi, Et si, quid faciam, nunc quoque, quaeris, amo. Quin etiam docui, qua posses arte parari, Et quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit. Nec te, blande puer, nec nostras prodimus artes, Nec nova praeteritum Musa retexit opus. Siquis amat quod amare iuvat, feliciter ardens Gaudeat, et vento naviget ille suo. At siquis male fert indignae regna puellae, Ne pereat, nostrae sentiat artis opem. Cur aliquis laqueo collum nodatus amator A trabe sublimi triste pependit onus? Cur aliquis rigido fodit sua pectora ferro? Invidiam caedis, pacis amator, habes. Qui, nisi desierit, misero periturus amore est, Desinat; et nulli funeris auctor eris. Et puer es, nec te quicquam nisi ludere oportet: Lude; decent annos mollia regna tuos. Nam poteras uti nudis ad bella sagittis: Sed tua mortifero sanguine tela carent. Vitricus et gladiis et acuta dimicet hasta, Et victor multa caede cruentus eat: Tu cole maternas, tuto quibus utimur, artes, Et quarum vitio nulla fit orba parens. Effice nocturna frangatur ianua rixa, Et tegat ornatas multa corona fores: Fac coeant furtim iuvenes timidaeque puellae, Verbaque dent cauto qualibet arte viro: Et modo blanditias rigido, modo iurgia posti Dicat et exclusus flebile cantet amans. His lacrimis contentus eris sine crimine mortis; Non tua fax avidos digna subire rogos.’ Haec ego: movit Amor gemmatas aureus alas, Et mihi ’propositum perfice’ dixit ’opus.’
Come to my precepts, deceived young men,
you whom your own love has failed at every turn.
Learn to be healed by him through whom you learned to love:
one hand will bring you the wound and the cure.
The earth feeds healing herbs, and feeds the harmful too,
and often the rose is next neighbor to the nettle;
the Pelian spear that once had made the wound
in Hercules’ foe brought the wound its remedy.
But whatever is said to men, believe it said to you
as well, girls: to opposite sides we hand out arms,
and if any of it does not bear on your own use,
still, by its example, it can teach you much.
The aim is useful — to put out the savage flames,
and not to keep a heart enslaved to its own vice.
Phyllis would have lived, had she taken me for her master,
and gone more often the road she went nine times;
nor, as she died, would Dido from her high citadel
have watched the Trojan sails given to the wind;
nor would grief have armed the mother against her own flesh,
who avenged her husband by the loss of her shared blood.
By my art Tereus, though Philomela pleased him,
would not have earned, through crime, to become a bird.
Give me Pasiphaë: she will lay aside her love of the bull;
give Phaedra: Phaedra’s shameful love will depart.
Trust Paris to me, and Menelaus will keep his Helen,
nor will Troy fall, conquered, by Greek hands.
Had impious Scylla read my little books,
the purple lock would have stayed on your head, Nisus.
Under my guidance, men, hold your ruinous cares in check,
and with its crew let the ship run straight under my guidance.
Naso had to be read back when you were learning to love:
the same Naso will now have to be read by you.
A public champion, I will relieve the hearts
crushed by their mistresses: each of you, favor your own release.
you whom your own love has failed at every turn.
Learn to be healed by him through whom you learned to love:
one hand will bring you the wound and the cure.
The earth feeds healing herbs, and feeds the harmful too,
and often the rose is next neighbor to the nettle;
the Pelian spear that once had made the wound
in Hercules’ foe brought the wound its remedy.
But whatever is said to men, believe it said to you
as well, girls: to opposite sides we hand out arms,
and if any of it does not bear on your own use,
still, by its example, it can teach you much.
The aim is useful — to put out the savage flames,
and not to keep a heart enslaved to its own vice.
Phyllis would have lived, had she taken me for her master,
and gone more often the road she went nine times;
nor, as she died, would Dido from her high citadel
have watched the Trojan sails given to the wind;
nor would grief have armed the mother against her own flesh,
who avenged her husband by the loss of her shared blood.
By my art Tereus, though Philomela pleased him,
would not have earned, through crime, to become a bird.
Give me Pasiphaë: she will lay aside her love of the bull;
give Phaedra: Phaedra’s shameful love will depart.
Trust Paris to me, and Menelaus will keep his Helen,
nor will Troy fall, conquered, by Greek hands.
Had impious Scylla read my little books,
the purple lock would have stayed on your head, Nisus.
Under my guidance, men, hold your ruinous cares in check,
and with its crew let the ship run straight under my guidance.
Naso had to be read back when you were learning to love:
the same Naso will now have to be read by you.
A public champion, I will relieve the hearts
crushed by their mistresses: each of you, favor your own release.
Ad mea, decepti iuvenes, praecepta venite, Quos suus ex omni parte fefellit amor. Discite sanari, per quem didicistis amare: Una manus vobis vulnus opemque feret. Terra salutares herbas, eademque nocentes Nutrit, et urticae proxima saepe rosa est; Vulnus in Herculeo quae quondam fecerat hoste, Vulneris auxilium Pelias hasta tulit. Sed quaecumque viris, vobis quoque dicta, puellae, Credite: diversis partibus arma damus, E quibus ad vestros siquid non pertinet usus, Attamen exemplo multa docere potest. Utile propositum est saevas extinguere flammas, Nec servum vitii pectus habere sui. Vixisset Phyllis, si me foret usa magistro, Et per quod novies, saepius isset iter; Nec moriens Dido summa vidisset ab arce Dardanias vento vela dedisse rates; Nec dolor armasset contra sua viscera matrem, Quae socii damno sanguinis ulta virum est. Arte mea Tereus, quamvis Philomela placeret, Per facinus fieri non meruisset avis. Da mihi Pasiphaen, iam tauri ponet amorem: Da Phaedram, Phaedrae turpis abibit amor. Crede Parim nobis, Helenen Menelaus habebit, Nec manibus Danais Pergama victa cadent. Impia si nostros legisset Scylla libellos, Haesisset capiti purpura, Nise, tuo. Me duce damnosas, homines, conpescite curas, Rectaque cum sociis me duce navis eat. Naso legendus erat tum, cum didicistis amare: Idem nunc vobis Naso legendus erit. Publicus assertor dominis suppressa levabo Pectora: vindictae quisque favete suae.
At my outset I pray you, Phoebus, let your laurel attend us,
discoverer of song and of the healing art alike.
Come to the aid of the bard and the healer equally:
both charges have been put under your protection.
While you may, while only mild stirrings touch the heart,
if it galls you, halt your foot on the first threshold.
Crush, while they are new, the evil seeds of the sudden sickness,
and let your horse, just starting out, refuse to go.
For delay gives strength; delay ripens the tender grapes,
and makes the strong crop out of what was grass.
The tree that offers broad shade to those who stroll
was, at the time it was first set, a slip;
then it could be pulled from the topsoil by hand:
now it stands, grown immense by its own strength.
Look round with a quick mind at what it is you love,
and draw your neck back from the yoke that means to gall it.
Resist at the start; the medicine is brewed too late,
when the malady has gathered force through long delays.
But hurry, and do not put yourself off to the hours to come:
he who is not ready today will be less ready tomorrow.
All love talks its way on, and finds its food in dawdling;
the best day for your release is always the nearest.
You see few rivers risen from great springs:
most are multiplied by the waters they gather.
Had you felt soon how great a sin you were preparing,
you would not have hidden your face in bark, Myrrha.
I have seen a wound that was curable at first
take, once deferred, the losses of long delay.
But because it delights us to pluck the fruit of Venus,
we keep saying, "tomorrow, too, it will be the same."
Meanwhile the silent flames creep into the vitals,
and the evil tree drives its roots deeper down.
discoverer of song and of the healing art alike.
Come to the aid of the bard and the healer equally:
both charges have been put under your protection.
While you may, while only mild stirrings touch the heart,
if it galls you, halt your foot on the first threshold.
Crush, while they are new, the evil seeds of the sudden sickness,
and let your horse, just starting out, refuse to go.
For delay gives strength; delay ripens the tender grapes,
and makes the strong crop out of what was grass.
The tree that offers broad shade to those who stroll
was, at the time it was first set, a slip;
then it could be pulled from the topsoil by hand:
now it stands, grown immense by its own strength.
Look round with a quick mind at what it is you love,
and draw your neck back from the yoke that means to gall it.
Resist at the start; the medicine is brewed too late,
when the malady has gathered force through long delays.
But hurry, and do not put yourself off to the hours to come:
he who is not ready today will be less ready tomorrow.
All love talks its way on, and finds its food in dawdling;
the best day for your release is always the nearest.
You see few rivers risen from great springs:
most are multiplied by the waters they gather.
Had you felt soon how great a sin you were preparing,
you would not have hidden your face in bark, Myrrha.
I have seen a wound that was curable at first
take, once deferred, the losses of long delay.
But because it delights us to pluck the fruit of Venus,
we keep saying, "tomorrow, too, it will be the same."
Meanwhile the silent flames creep into the vitals,
and the evil tree drives its roots deeper down.
Te precor incipiens, adsit tua laurea nobis, Carminis et medicae, Phoebe, repertor opis. Tu pariter vati, pariter succurre medenti: Utraque tutelae subdita cura tua est. Dum licet, et modici tangunt praecordia motus, Si piget, in primo limine siste pedem. Opprime, dum nova sunt, subiti mala semina morbi, Et tuus incipiens ire resistat equus. Nam mora dat vires, teneras mora percoquit uvas, Et validas segetes quae fuit herba, facit. Quae praebet latas arbor spatiantibus umbras, Quo posita est primum tempore virga fuit; Tum poterat manibus summa tellure revelli: Nunc stat in inmensum viribus aucta suis. Quale sit id, quod amas, celeri circumspice mente, Et tua laesuro subtrahe colla iugo. Principiis obsta; sero medicina paratur, Cum mala per longas convaluere moras. Sed propera, nec te venturas differ in horas; Qui non est hodie, cras minus aptus erit: Verba dat omnis amor, reperitque alimenta morando; Optima vindictae proxima quaeque dies. Flumina pauca vides de magnis fontibus orta: Plurima collectis multiplicantur aquis. Si cito sensisses, quantum peccare parares, Non tegeres vultus cortice, Myrrha, tuos. Vidi ego, quod fuerat primo sanabile, vulnus Dilatum longae damna tulisse morae. Sed quia delectat Veneris decerpere fructum, Dicimus adsidue ’cras quoque fiet idem.’ Interea tacitae serpunt in viscera flammae, Et mala radices altius arbor agit.
But if the time for the first cure has perished,
and old love has settled in a captured heart,
a greater task remains; yet I am not, because I am called
later to the sick man, going to abandon him.
The part where he had been wounded, the hero son of Poeas
should have cut away with a sure hand;
yet he, healed after many years, is believed
to have laid the last hand on the war.
I who lately hurried to drive off diseases at their birth
now, slow, bring you tardy aid.
Either try, if you can, to quiet the fires while new,
or wait until they have collapsed of their own force:
while the frenzy is in full course, give way to running frenzy;
every onset has approaches hard to take.
The fool is the swimmer who, when he could come ashore
on the slant, fights to go straight against the water.
The impatient spirit, not yet manageable, spits out
the art, and holds the warner’s words in hatred.
I will make my approach better when he allows his wounds
to be touched at last, and is fit for honest words.
Who but the witless would forbid a mother to weep
at her son’s funeral? She is not to be counseled there.
When she has given her tears and filled her sick heart full,
that grief is then to be measured out with words.
Medicine is largely the art of timing: given in season, wine helps,
and given out of season, wine harms.
Indeed, you would kindle the vices and provoke them by forbidding,
if you did not approach them at their proper times.
and old love has settled in a captured heart,
a greater task remains; yet I am not, because I am called
later to the sick man, going to abandon him.
The part where he had been wounded, the hero son of Poeas
should have cut away with a sure hand;
yet he, healed after many years, is believed
to have laid the last hand on the war.
I who lately hurried to drive off diseases at their birth
now, slow, bring you tardy aid.
Either try, if you can, to quiet the fires while new,
or wait until they have collapsed of their own force:
while the frenzy is in full course, give way to running frenzy;
every onset has approaches hard to take.
The fool is the swimmer who, when he could come ashore
on the slant, fights to go straight against the water.
The impatient spirit, not yet manageable, spits out
the art, and holds the warner’s words in hatred.
I will make my approach better when he allows his wounds
to be touched at last, and is fit for honest words.
Who but the witless would forbid a mother to weep
at her son’s funeral? She is not to be counseled there.
When she has given her tears and filled her sick heart full,
that grief is then to be measured out with words.
Medicine is largely the art of timing: given in season, wine helps,
and given out of season, wine harms.
Indeed, you would kindle the vices and provoke them by forbidding,
if you did not approach them at their proper times.
Si tamen auxilii perierunt tempora primi, Et vetus in capto pectore sedit amor, Maius opus superest: sed non, quia serior aegro Advocor, ille mihi destituendus erit. Quam laesus fuerat, partem Poeantius heros Certa debuerat praesecuisse manu; Post tamen hic multos sanatus creditur annos Supremam bellis imposuisse manum. Qui modo nascentes properabam pellere morbos, Admoveo tardam nunc tibi lentus opem. Aut nova, si possis, sedare incendia temptes, Aut ubi per vires procubuere suas: Dum furor in cursu est, currenti cede furori; Difficiles aditus impetus omnis habet. Stultus, ab obliquo qui cum descendere possit, Pugnat in adversas ire natator aquas. Impatiens animus nec adhuc tractabilis artem Respuit, atque odio verba monentis habet. Adgrediar melius tum, cum sua vulnera tangi Iam sinet, et veris vocibus aptus erit. Quis matrem, nisi mentis inops, in funere nati Flere vetet? non hoc illa monenda loco est. Cum dederit lacrimas animumque impleverit aegrum, Ille dolor verbis emoderandus erit. Temporis ars medicina fere est: data tempore prosunt, Et data non apto tempore vina nocent. Quin etiam accendas vitia inritesque vetando, Temporibus si non adgrediare suis.
So, when you have shown yourself curable by my art,
see that, at my warning, you flee idleness first.
This makes you love; this guards what it has made;
this is the cause and the food of the sweet affliction.
Take away leisure, and Cupid’s bow is broken,
his torches lie scorned and without light.
As much as the plane tree delights in wine, the poplar in water,
and the marsh reed in the muddy ground,
so much does Venus love idleness; you who seek an end to love —
love yields to business: keep busy, and you will be safe.
Languor, and unchecked sleep with no one to call it to account,
and dice, and temples battered with much wine,
steal, without a wound, all the sinews from the spirit:
insidious Love flows in upon the unwary.
That boy is given to following sloth, and hates the busy:
give the empty mind some work to hold it.
There are courts, there are laws, there are friends to defend:
go through the gleaming camp of the city toga.
Or take up the youthful service of bloodstained Mars:
soon your soft delights will turn their backs on you.
Look — the fleeing Parthian, fresh cause of a great triumph,
now sees the arms of Caesar on his own plains:
conquer at one stroke the arrows of Cupid and of Parthia,
and bring back a double trophy to your fathers’ gods.
As soon as Venus was wounded by the Aetolian spear,
she charges her own lover with the wars to be waged.
You ask why Aegisthus became an adulterer?
The cause is ready to hand: he was idle.
The rest were fighting at Ilium in a slow-grinding war:
all Greece had transferred her forces there.
Had he wished to give himself to wars, there were none to wage;
to the courts — Argos was empty of lawsuits.
He did what he could, that nothing be done there: he loved.
So that boy comes, so that boy stays.
see that, at my warning, you flee idleness first.
This makes you love; this guards what it has made;
this is the cause and the food of the sweet affliction.
Take away leisure, and Cupid’s bow is broken,
his torches lie scorned and without light.
As much as the plane tree delights in wine, the poplar in water,
and the marsh reed in the muddy ground,
so much does Venus love idleness; you who seek an end to love —
love yields to business: keep busy, and you will be safe.
Languor, and unchecked sleep with no one to call it to account,
and dice, and temples battered with much wine,
steal, without a wound, all the sinews from the spirit:
insidious Love flows in upon the unwary.
That boy is given to following sloth, and hates the busy:
give the empty mind some work to hold it.
There are courts, there are laws, there are friends to defend:
go through the gleaming camp of the city toga.
Or take up the youthful service of bloodstained Mars:
soon your soft delights will turn their backs on you.
Look — the fleeing Parthian, fresh cause of a great triumph,
now sees the arms of Caesar on his own plains:
conquer at one stroke the arrows of Cupid and of Parthia,
and bring back a double trophy to your fathers’ gods.
As soon as Venus was wounded by the Aetolian spear,
she charges her own lover with the wars to be waged.
You ask why Aegisthus became an adulterer?
The cause is ready to hand: he was idle.
The rest were fighting at Ilium in a slow-grinding war:
all Greece had transferred her forces there.
Had he wished to give himself to wars, there were none to wage;
to the courts — Argos was empty of lawsuits.
He did what he could, that nothing be done there: he loved.
So that boy comes, so that boy stays.
Ergo ubi visus eris nostra medicabilis arte, Fac monitis fugias otia prima meis. Haec, ut ames, faciunt; haec, quod fecere, tuentur; Haec sunt iucundi causa cibusque mali. Otia si tollas, periere Cupidinis arcus, Contemptaeque iacent et sine luce faces. Quam platanus vino gaudet, quam populus unda, Et quam limosa canna palustris humo, Tam Venus otia amat; qui finem quaeris amoris, Cedit amor rebus: res age, tutus eris. Languor, et inmodici sub nullo vindice somni, Aleaque, et multo tempora quassa mero Eripiunt omnes animo sine vulnere nervos: Adfluit incautis insidiosus Amor. Desidiam puer ille sequi solet, odit agentes: Da vacuae menti, quo teneatur, opus. Sunt fora, sunt leges, sunt, quos tuearis, amici: Vade per urbanae splendida castra togae. Vel tu sanguinei iuvenalia munera Martis Suspice: deliciae iam tibi terga dabunt. Ecce, fugax Parthus, magni nova causa triumphi, Iam videt in campis Caesaris arma suis: Vince Cupidineas pariter Parthasque sagittas, Et refer ad patrios bina tropaea deos. Ut semel Aetola Venus est a cuspide laesa, Mandat amatori bella gerenda suo. Quaeritur, Aegisthus quare sit factus adulter? In promptu causa est: desidiosus erat. Pugnabant alii tardis apud Ilion armis: Transtulerat vires Graecia tota suas. Sive operam bellis vellet dare, nulla gerebat: Sive foro, vacuum litibus Argos erat. Quod potuit, ne nil illic ageretur, amavit. Sic venit ille puer, sic puer ille manet.
The country too delights the mind, and the work of tilling:
any care can give way before that care.
Bid the broken oxen put their necks beneath the load,
so the curved share may wound the hard ground;
bury the seed of Ceres in the turned earth,
that the field may pay you back with heavy interest.
Look at the boughs bent down with the weight of fruit,
the tree scarcely bearing the load it has borne;
look at the streams gliding by with pleasant murmur;
look at the sheep cropping the fertile grass.
See — the she-goats make for the crags and the sheer rocks:
soon they will bring full udders back to their kids;
the shepherd shapes a tune on his uneven reed,
and the dogs are not missing, his busy retinue;
in another quarter the deep woods ring with lowing,
and a mother complains that her calf is gone.
What of it, when the swarms flee the smoke set under them,
that the curved wicker of the lifted comb be lightened?
Autumn gives fruit; summer is lovely with harvests;
spring offers flowers; winter is eased by fire.
At set seasons the countryman picks the ripe grape,
and the new must runs beneath his bare foot;
at set seasons he binds the mown grass,
and sweeps the shorn ground with a wide-toothed rake.
You yourself can set a slip in the watered gardens,
you yourself can lead the channels of gentle water.
Let grafting-time come: make branch adopt branch,
and the tree stand clothed in foliage not its own.
Once this pleasure has begun to soothe the mind,
Love goes out, foiled, on feeble wings.
any care can give way before that care.
Bid the broken oxen put their necks beneath the load,
so the curved share may wound the hard ground;
bury the seed of Ceres in the turned earth,
that the field may pay you back with heavy interest.
Look at the boughs bent down with the weight of fruit,
the tree scarcely bearing the load it has borne;
look at the streams gliding by with pleasant murmur;
look at the sheep cropping the fertile grass.
See — the she-goats make for the crags and the sheer rocks:
soon they will bring full udders back to their kids;
the shepherd shapes a tune on his uneven reed,
and the dogs are not missing, his busy retinue;
in another quarter the deep woods ring with lowing,
and a mother complains that her calf is gone.
What of it, when the swarms flee the smoke set under them,
that the curved wicker of the lifted comb be lightened?
Autumn gives fruit; summer is lovely with harvests;
spring offers flowers; winter is eased by fire.
At set seasons the countryman picks the ripe grape,
and the new must runs beneath his bare foot;
at set seasons he binds the mown grass,
and sweeps the shorn ground with a wide-toothed rake.
You yourself can set a slip in the watered gardens,
you yourself can lead the channels of gentle water.
Let grafting-time come: make branch adopt branch,
and the tree stand clothed in foliage not its own.
Once this pleasure has begun to soothe the mind,
Love goes out, foiled, on feeble wings.
Rura quoque oblectant animos studiumque colendi: Quaelibet huic curae cedere cura potest. Colla iube domitos oneri supponere tauros, Sauciet ut duram vomer aduncus humum: Obrue versata Cerialia semina terra, Quae tibi cum multo faenore reddat ager. Aspice curvatos pomorum pondere ramos, Ut sua, quod peperit, vix ferat arbor onus; Aspice labentes iucundo murmure rivos; Aspice tondentes fertile gramen oves. Ecce, petunt rupes praeruptaque saxa capellae: Iam referent haedis ubera plena suis; Pastor inaequali modulatur harundine carmen, Nec desunt comites, sedula turba, canes; Parte sonant alia silvae mugitibus altae, Et queritur vitulum mater abesse suum. Quid, cum suppositos fugiunt examina fumos, Ut relevent dempti vimina curva favi? Poma dat autumnus: formosa est messibus aestas: Ver praebet flores: igne levatur hiems. Temporibus certis maturam rusticus uvam Deligit, et nudo sub pede musta fluunt; Temporibus certis desectas alligat herbas, Et tonsam raro pectine verrit humum. Ipse potes riguis plantam deponere in hortis, Ipse potes rivos ducere lenis aquae. Venerit insitio; fac ramum ramus adoptet, Stetque peregrinis arbor operta comis. Cum semel haec animum coepit mulcere voluptas, Debilibus pinnis inritus exit Amor.
Or cultivate a passion for hunting: often Venus has withdrawn
in disgrace, beaten by Phoebus’s sister.
Now run down the headlong hare with a keen-nosed pup,
now stretch your nets along the leafy ridges,
or terrify the trembling deer with the scarecrow’s many colors,
or let the boar fall, gored on the spear set against him.
At night sleep, not care for a girl, takes you up,
worn out, and eases your limbs with deep repose.
It is a gentler pursuit — a pursuit all the same — to chase
small prizes with a snared bird, with line or reed,
or to hide the curved bronze under little baits
for the greedy fish to gulp, to its cost, with greedy mouth.
By these means or others, until you unlearn how to love,
you must, in secret, be your own deceiver.
in disgrace, beaten by Phoebus’s sister.
Now run down the headlong hare with a keen-nosed pup,
now stretch your nets along the leafy ridges,
or terrify the trembling deer with the scarecrow’s many colors,
or let the boar fall, gored on the spear set against him.
At night sleep, not care for a girl, takes you up,
worn out, and eases your limbs with deep repose.
It is a gentler pursuit — a pursuit all the same — to chase
small prizes with a snared bird, with line or reed,
or to hide the curved bronze under little baits
for the greedy fish to gulp, to its cost, with greedy mouth.
By these means or others, until you unlearn how to love,
you must, in secret, be your own deceiver.
Vel tu venandi studium cole: saepe recessit Turpiter a Phoebi victa sorore Venus. Nunc leporem pronum catulo sectare sagaci, Nunc tua frondosis retia tende iugis, Aut pavidos terre varia formidine cervos, Aut cadat adversa cuspide fossus aper. Nocte fatigatum somnus, non cura puellae, Excipit et pingui membra quiete levat. Lenius est studium, studium tamen, alite capta Aut lino aut calamis praemia parva sequi, Vel, quae piscis edax avido male devoret ore, Abdere sub parvis aera recurva cibis. Aut his aut aliis, donec dediscis amare, Ipse tibi furtim decipiendus eris.
Only do you — though you are held by the firmest of bonds —
go far off, and set out to wear down long roads;
you will weep, and the name of the forsaken girl will meet you,
and often your foot will halt in the middle of the road:
but the less you wish to go, the more remember to go;
endure, and force your unwilling feet to run.
Do not pray for rain, nor let the foreign Sabbath
delay you, nor the Allia notorious for its losses.
Do not ask how many miles you have crossed and how many
are left; nor, to keep close, invent reasons to linger:
do not count the hours, nor look back often at Rome,
but flee: even now the Parthian is safe from his foe by flight.
Someone may call my precepts harsh; harsh I confess
they are; but to be well, you will bear much that pains.
Often, sick, I have drunk bitter draughts against my will,
and the table was denied me though I begged.
To ransom the body you will suffer iron and fire,
and not, though thirsting, ease your dry mouth with water:
to be well in spirit, will you refuse to bear a thing?
But this part holds a prize greater than the body.
Still, the threshold of my art is the grimmest part,
and the one labor is to endure the first days.
Do you see how the first yoke galls the freshly taken bullocks,
and the new girth chafes the swift horse?
Perhaps it will gall you to leave your fathers’ hearth:
but leave you will; then you will wish to return;
yet not your fathers’ hearth, but love of the girl, will call you back,
holding fine words before your fault.
Once you have left, the country and companions and the long road
will give a hundred comforts to your care.
Nor think it enough to depart; stay away, and slowly,
until it loses its force and the ash is without fire.
go far off, and set out to wear down long roads;
you will weep, and the name of the forsaken girl will meet you,
and often your foot will halt in the middle of the road:
but the less you wish to go, the more remember to go;
endure, and force your unwilling feet to run.
Do not pray for rain, nor let the foreign Sabbath
delay you, nor the Allia notorious for its losses.
Do not ask how many miles you have crossed and how many
are left; nor, to keep close, invent reasons to linger:
do not count the hours, nor look back often at Rome,
but flee: even now the Parthian is safe from his foe by flight.
Someone may call my precepts harsh; harsh I confess
they are; but to be well, you will bear much that pains.
Often, sick, I have drunk bitter draughts against my will,
and the table was denied me though I begged.
To ransom the body you will suffer iron and fire,
and not, though thirsting, ease your dry mouth with water:
to be well in spirit, will you refuse to bear a thing?
But this part holds a prize greater than the body.
Still, the threshold of my art is the grimmest part,
and the one labor is to endure the first days.
Do you see how the first yoke galls the freshly taken bullocks,
and the new girth chafes the swift horse?
Perhaps it will gall you to leave your fathers’ hearth:
but leave you will; then you will wish to return;
yet not your fathers’ hearth, but love of the girl, will call you back,
holding fine words before your fault.
Once you have left, the country and companions and the long road
will give a hundred comforts to your care.
Nor think it enough to depart; stay away, and slowly,
until it loses its force and the ash is without fire.
Tu tantum quamvis firmis retinebere vinclis, I procul, et longas carpere perge vias; Flebis, et occurret desertae nomen amicae, Stabit et in media pes tibi saepe via: Sed quanto minus ire voles, magis ire memento; Perfer, et invitos currere coge pedes. Nec pluvias opta, nec te peregrina morentur Sabbata, nec damnis Allia nota suis. Nec quot transieris et quot tibi, quaere, supersint Milia; nec, maneas ut prope, finge moras: Tempora nec numera, nec crebro respice Romam, Sed fuge: tutus adhuc Parthus ab hoste fuga est. Dura aliquis praecepta vocet mea; dura fatemur Esse; sed ut valeas, multa dolenda feres. Saepe bibi sucos, quamvis invitus, amaros Aeger, et oranti mensa negata mihi. Ut corpus redimas, ferrum patieris et ignes, Arida nec sitiens ora levabis aqua: Ut valeas animo, quicquam tolerare negabis? At pretium pars haec corpore maius habet. Sed tamen est artis tristissima ianua nostrae, Et labor est unus tempora prima pati. Aspicis, ut prensos urant iuga prima iuvencos, Et nova velocem cingula laedat equum? Forsitan a laribus patriis exire pigebit: Sed tamen exibis: deinde redire voles; Nec te Lar patrius, sed amor revocabit amicae, Praetendens culpae splendida verba tuae. Cum semel exieris, centum solatia curae Et rus et comites et via longa dabit. Nec satis esse putes discedere; lentus abesto, Dum perdat vires sitque sine igne cinis.
For unless you hurry to return with a steeled mind,
fierce, rebellious Love will bring his arms against you.
However long you have stayed away, you will come back greedy and thirsting,
and all that interval will have gone to your loss.
Let any man beware who thinks the evil fodder of the Thessalian land
and the magic arts can help.
That is the old road of sorcery; my own Apollo
shows a harmless aid in sacred song.
Under my guidance no ghost will be bidden out of the tomb,
no hag will split the ground with her infamous chant;
no crop will cross from other fields into others,
nor will the disc of Phoebus suddenly go pale.
As ever, Tiber will run down into the waves of the sea;
as ever, the Moon will be borne by snow-white horses.
No breast will lay aside its cares by counter-charm,
nor will love, beaten by living sulphur, take flight.
What did the herbs of the Phasian land profit you, Colchian,
when you longed to stay in your father’s house?
What did the herbs of Perseïs profit you, Circe,
when its own wind carried off the ships of Neritos?
You did everything that the cunning guest not depart:
he gave full sails to a fixed flight.
You did everything that the wild fire not burn you:
long did love sit in your unwilling breast.
You could turn men into a thousand shapes,
but you could not turn the statutes of your own mind.
You are even said, when he now wished to leave,
to have held the Dulichian captain back with these words:
"No longer, as at first, I remember, I used to hope —
now I pray only that you would consent to be my husband;
and yet I seemed worthy to be your wife,
because I was a goddess, because I was great Sol’s daughter.
Do not hasten, I beg; I ask a span of time for a gift:
what less could be sought through my prayers?
You see the seas are stirred, and you should fear them:
later the wind will be more useful for your sails.
What is your reason for flight? Here no new Troy rises again,
no second man calls his comrades back to arms.
Here is love and peace, in which I alone am cruelly wounded,
and the land will be safe under your rule."
So she spoke, while Ulysses loosed the ship:
the south winds bore her words off, void, with the sails.
Circe burns, and runs to her accustomed arts,
yet by them her love was not thinned at all.
Therefore whoever you are who ask aid of my art,
strip witchcraft and spells of your trust.
fierce, rebellious Love will bring his arms against you.
However long you have stayed away, you will come back greedy and thirsting,
and all that interval will have gone to your loss.
Let any man beware who thinks the evil fodder of the Thessalian land
and the magic arts can help.
That is the old road of sorcery; my own Apollo
shows a harmless aid in sacred song.
Under my guidance no ghost will be bidden out of the tomb,
no hag will split the ground with her infamous chant;
no crop will cross from other fields into others,
nor will the disc of Phoebus suddenly go pale.
As ever, Tiber will run down into the waves of the sea;
as ever, the Moon will be borne by snow-white horses.
No breast will lay aside its cares by counter-charm,
nor will love, beaten by living sulphur, take flight.
What did the herbs of the Phasian land profit you, Colchian,
when you longed to stay in your father’s house?
What did the herbs of Perseïs profit you, Circe,
when its own wind carried off the ships of Neritos?
You did everything that the cunning guest not depart:
he gave full sails to a fixed flight.
You did everything that the wild fire not burn you:
long did love sit in your unwilling breast.
You could turn men into a thousand shapes,
but you could not turn the statutes of your own mind.
You are even said, when he now wished to leave,
to have held the Dulichian captain back with these words:
"No longer, as at first, I remember, I used to hope —
now I pray only that you would consent to be my husband;
and yet I seemed worthy to be your wife,
because I was a goddess, because I was great Sol’s daughter.
Do not hasten, I beg; I ask a span of time for a gift:
what less could be sought through my prayers?
You see the seas are stirred, and you should fear them:
later the wind will be more useful for your sails.
What is your reason for flight? Here no new Troy rises again,
no second man calls his comrades back to arms.
Here is love and peace, in which I alone am cruelly wounded,
and the land will be safe under your rule."
So she spoke, while Ulysses loosed the ship:
the south winds bore her words off, void, with the sails.
Circe burns, and runs to her accustomed arts,
yet by them her love was not thinned at all.
Therefore whoever you are who ask aid of my art,
strip witchcraft and spells of your trust.
Quod nisi firmata properaris mente reverti, Inferet arma tibi saeva rebellis Amor. Quidquid et afueris, avidus sitiensque redibis, Et spatium damno cesserit omne tuo. Viderit, Haemoniae siquis mala pabula terrae Et magicas artes posse iuvare putat. Ista veneficii vetus est via; noster Apollo Innocuam sacro carmine monstrat opem. Me duce non tumulo prodire iubebitur umbra, Non anus infami carmine rumpet humum; Non seges ex aliis alios transibit in agros, Nec subito Phoebi pallidus orbis erit. Ut solet, aequoreas ibit Tiberinus in undas: Ut solet, in niveis Luna vehetur equis. Nulla recantatas deponent pectora curas, Nec fugiet vivo sulpure victus amor. Quid te Phasiacae iuverunt gramina terrae, Cum cuperes patria, Colchi, manere domo? Quid tibi profuerunt, Circe, Perseides herbae, Cum sua Neritias abstulit aura rates? Omnia fecisti, ne callidus hospes abiret: Ille dedit certae lintea plena fugae. Omnia fecisti, ne te ferus ureret ignis: Longus in invito pectore sedit amor. Vertere tu poteras homines in mille figuras, Non poteras animi vertere iura tui. Diceris his etiam, cum iam discedere vellet, Dulichium verbis detinuisse ducem: ’Non ego, quod primo, memini, sperare solebam, Iam precor, ut coniunx tu meus esse velis; Et tamen, ut coniunx essem tua, digna videbar, Quod dea, quod magni filia Solis eram. Ne properes, oro; spatium pro munere posco: Quid minus optari per mea vota potest? Et freta mota vides, et debes illa timere: Utilior velis postmodo ventus erit. Quae tibi causa fugae? non hic nova Troia resurgit, Non aliquis socios rursus ad arma vocat. Hic amor et pax est, in qua male vulneror una, Tutaque sub regno terra futura tuo est.’ Illa loquebatur, navem solvebat Ulixes: Inrita cum velis verba tulere noti. Ardet et adsuetas Circe decurrit ad artes, Nec tamen est illis adtenuatus amor. Ergo quisquis opem nostra tibi poscis ab arte, Deme veneficiis carminibusque fidem.
If some strong reason — your mistress — keeps you in the City,
take, then, my counsel for what to do in the City.
Best is that man, his own avenger, who has snapped
the bonds that galled his breast, and grieved it out at one stroke.
But him who has such spirit I too shall marvel at,
and say, "this man has no need of my advice."
You — who only with pain unlearn the love you love,
who cannot, yet would wish you could — are the one to be taught.
Often rehearse to yourself the wicked girl’s deeds,
and set before your eyes all your losses.
"This and that she has, nor is she content with that plunder:
greedy, she has posted my whole household up for sale.
So she swore to me, so having sworn she cheated me,
how often she let me lie before her doors!
She loves others; being loved by me she disdains;
a peddler, alas, has the nights she will not give me!"
Let all this turn sour through every one of your senses:
rehearse it; from here seek the seeds of your hatred.
And would that you could even be eloquent on these themes!
only grieve, and unbidden you will be fluent.
Lately my own care had caught upon a certain girl:
she did not suit my temper:
I lay sick, a Podalirius doctored by his own herbs,
and — I confess — a physician shamefully sick.
It helped to dwell unceasingly on my mistress’s faults,
and that, once done, was often my cure.
"How ugly," I would say, "are my girl’s legs!"
and yet, to confess the truth, they were not.
"How unlovely are my girl’s arms!"
and yet, to confess the truth, they were.
"How short she is!" — she was not; "how much she demands of a lover!" —
this came as the greatest cause of my hatred.
take, then, my counsel for what to do in the City.
Best is that man, his own avenger, who has snapped
the bonds that galled his breast, and grieved it out at one stroke.
But him who has such spirit I too shall marvel at,
and say, "this man has no need of my advice."
You — who only with pain unlearn the love you love,
who cannot, yet would wish you could — are the one to be taught.
Often rehearse to yourself the wicked girl’s deeds,
and set before your eyes all your losses.
"This and that she has, nor is she content with that plunder:
greedy, she has posted my whole household up for sale.
So she swore to me, so having sworn she cheated me,
how often she let me lie before her doors!
She loves others; being loved by me she disdains;
a peddler, alas, has the nights she will not give me!"
Let all this turn sour through every one of your senses:
rehearse it; from here seek the seeds of your hatred.
And would that you could even be eloquent on these themes!
only grieve, and unbidden you will be fluent.
Lately my own care had caught upon a certain girl:
she did not suit my temper:
I lay sick, a Podalirius doctored by his own herbs,
and — I confess — a physician shamefully sick.
It helped to dwell unceasingly on my mistress’s faults,
and that, once done, was often my cure.
"How ugly," I would say, "are my girl’s legs!"
and yet, to confess the truth, they were not.
"How unlovely are my girl’s arms!"
and yet, to confess the truth, they were.
"How short she is!" — she was not; "how much she demands of a lover!" —
this came as the greatest cause of my hatred.
Si te causa potens domina retinebit in Urbe, Accipe, consilium quod sit in Urbe meum. Optimus ille sui vindex, laedentia pectus Vincula qui rupit, dedoluitque semel. Sed cui tantum animi est, illum mirabor et ipse, Et dicam ’monitis non eget iste meis.’ Tu mihi, qui, quod amas, aegre dediscis amare, Nec potes, et velles posse, docendus eris. Saepe refer tecum sceleratae facta puellae, Et pone ante oculos omnia damna tuos. ’Illud et illud habet, nec ea contenta rapina est: Sub titulum nostros misit avara lares. Sic mihi iuravit, sic me iurata fefellit, Ante suas quotiens passa iacere fores! Diligit ipsa alios, a me fastidit amari; Institor, heu, noctes, quas mihi non dat, habet!’ Haec tibi per totos inacescant omnia sensus: Haec refer, hinc odii semina quaere tui. Atque utinam possis etiam facundus in illis Esse! dole tantum, sponte disertus eris. Haeserat in quadam nuper mea cura puella: Conveniens animo non erat illa meo: Curabar propriis aeger Podalirius herbis, Et, fateor, medicus turpiter aeger eram. Profuit adsidue vitiis insistere amicae, Idque mihi factum saepe salubre fuit. ’Quam mala’ dicebam ’nostrae sunt crura puellae!’ Nec tamen, ut vere confiteamur, erant. ’Brachia quam non sunt nostrae formosa puellae!’ Et tamen, ut vere confiteamur, erant. ’Quam brevis est!’ nec erat; ’quam multum poscit amantem!’ Haec odio venit maxima causa meo.
And bad things border on good; under that confusion
virtue has often borne the charges meant for vice.
However you can, bend your girl’s endowments to the worse,
and cheat your own judgment by a hair’s breadth.
If she is buxom, call her bloated; if she is dusky, call her black;
in a slender girl leanness can be made the charge.
She can be called brash, if she is not countrified;
and she can be called countrified, if she is decent.
What is more, whatever endowment your woman lacks,
coax her to it, forever pleading in honeyed tones.
Demand that she sing, if she is a girl without a voice;
make her dance, if she cannot move a hand.
Is her speech foreign? make her talk much with you;
has she not learned to touch the strings? call for the lyre.
Does she walk stiffly? make her stroll about; has her whole
bosom nothing but nipple? let no band hide the fault.
If her teeth are bad, tell her something to laugh at;
has she soft eyes? recount something to make her weep.
It will help, too, to have borne your swift steps at dawn,
suddenly, to your mistress, before she has dressed for anyone.
We are carried off by adornment; all is hidden
by gems and gold; the girl herself is the least part of herself.
Often you may ask, amid so much, where the thing you love is;
with this aegis rich Love deceives the eyes.
Come unannounced: safe, you will catch her unarmed;
unlucky, she will fall by her own faults.
Yet it is not safe to trust this precept too far:
for a beauty unaided by art deceives many.
Then too, when she smears her face with compounded poisons,
go (let no shame stop you) to your mistress’s looks.
You will find pots and a thousand colors of things,
and the grease slipping, melted, into her warm bosom.
Those drugs reek, Phineus, of your tables:
more than once from them my stomach has turned.
virtue has often borne the charges meant for vice.
However you can, bend your girl’s endowments to the worse,
and cheat your own judgment by a hair’s breadth.
If she is buxom, call her bloated; if she is dusky, call her black;
in a slender girl leanness can be made the charge.
She can be called brash, if she is not countrified;
and she can be called countrified, if she is decent.
What is more, whatever endowment your woman lacks,
coax her to it, forever pleading in honeyed tones.
Demand that she sing, if she is a girl without a voice;
make her dance, if she cannot move a hand.
Is her speech foreign? make her talk much with you;
has she not learned to touch the strings? call for the lyre.
Does she walk stiffly? make her stroll about; has her whole
bosom nothing but nipple? let no band hide the fault.
If her teeth are bad, tell her something to laugh at;
has she soft eyes? recount something to make her weep.
It will help, too, to have borne your swift steps at dawn,
suddenly, to your mistress, before she has dressed for anyone.
We are carried off by adornment; all is hidden
by gems and gold; the girl herself is the least part of herself.
Often you may ask, amid so much, where the thing you love is;
with this aegis rich Love deceives the eyes.
Come unannounced: safe, you will catch her unarmed;
unlucky, she will fall by her own faults.
Yet it is not safe to trust this precept too far:
for a beauty unaided by art deceives many.
Then too, when she smears her face with compounded poisons,
go (let no shame stop you) to your mistress’s looks.
You will find pots and a thousand colors of things,
and the grease slipping, melted, into her warm bosom.
Those drugs reek, Phineus, of your tables:
more than once from them my stomach has turned.
Et mala sunt vicina bonis; errore sub illo Pro vitio virtus crimina saepe tulit. Qua potes, in peius dotes deflecte puellae, Iudiciumque brevi limite falle tuum. Turgida, si plena est, si fusca est, nigra vocetur: In gracili macies crimen habere potest. Et poterit dici petulans, quae rustica non est: Et poterit dici rustica, siqua proba est. Quin etiam, quacumque caret tua femina dote, Hanc moveat, blandis usque precare sonis. Exige uti cantet, siqua est sine voce puella: Fac saltet, nescit siqua movere manum. Barbara sermone est? fac tecum multa loquatur; Non didicit chordas tangere? posce lyram. Durius incedit? fac inambulet; omne papillae Pectus habent? vitium fascia nulla tegat. Si male dentata est, narra, quod rideat, illi; Mollibus est oculis? quod fleat illa, refer. Proderit et subito, cum se non finxerit ulli, Ad dominam celeres mane tulisse gradus. Auferimur cultu; gemmis auroque teguntur Omnia; pars minima est ipsa puella sui. Saepe ubi sit, quod ames, inter tam multa requiras; Decipit hac oculos aegide dives Amor. Improvisus ades, deprendes tutus inermem: Infelix vitiis excidet illa suis. Non tamen huic nimium praecepto credere tutum est: Fallit enim multos forma sine arte decens. Tum quoque, compositis cum collinet ora venenis, Ad dominae vultus (nec pudor obstet) eas. Pyxidas invenies et rerum mille colores, Et fluere in tepidos oesypa lapsa sinus. Illa tuas redolent, Phineu, medicamina mensas: Non semel hinc stomacho nausea facta meo est.
Now I will tell you what I’d prescribe in the very midst
of love’s act: love must be routed from every side.
Much of it, indeed, shame forbids me to say; but you,
by your wit, conceive more than my words.
For lately certain men have carped at my little books,
whose verdict is that my Muse is wanton.
So long as I please thus, so long as I am sung the whole world over,
let this man and that assail the work as they like.
Envy disparaged great Homer’s genius:
whoever you are, Zoilus, you take your name from him.
And sacrilegious tongues have torn your songs,
you under whose lead Troy brought her conquered gods here.
Envy aims at the heights; the winds blow hardest on the highest;
the heights are the mark of the bolts flung by Jove’s right hand.
But you, whoever you are, whom my license offends,
if you are wise, hold each thing to its own measure.
Brave wars rejoice to be told in the Maeonian foot;
what place can there be for dalliance there?
The tragedians sound grand; wrath befits the tragic buskin:
the comic slipper must be kept for everyday use.
Let the free iamb be drawn against opposing foes,
whether swift, or whether it drag its last foot.
Let coaxing Elegy sing of quivered Loves,
and let the light mistress sport at her own whim.
Achilles is not to be told in Callimachus’s measures;
Cydippe is not for your mouth, Homer.
Who would endure a Thais playing Andromache’s part?
He would err who acts Thais in Andromache.
Thais is in my art; my wantonness is free;
I have nothing to do with the fillet; Thais is in my art.
If my Muse answers to her playful matter,
I have won, and she is acquitted of the false charge.
Burst, gnawing Envy: already I have a great name;
it will be greater, only let it go with the foot it began.
But you hurry too much: only let me live, and you will grieve the more;
and my spirit holds many poems within it.
For glory delights me, and my zeal has grown with the honor;
at the hill’s foot my horse is panting still.
Elegy confesses she owes as much to me
as noble epic owes to Virgil.
Thus far I have answered envy: draw the reins
tighter, poet, and run on your own course.
of love’s act: love must be routed from every side.
Much of it, indeed, shame forbids me to say; but you,
by your wit, conceive more than my words.
For lately certain men have carped at my little books,
whose verdict is that my Muse is wanton.
So long as I please thus, so long as I am sung the whole world over,
let this man and that assail the work as they like.
Envy disparaged great Homer’s genius:
whoever you are, Zoilus, you take your name from him.
And sacrilegious tongues have torn your songs,
you under whose lead Troy brought her conquered gods here.
Envy aims at the heights; the winds blow hardest on the highest;
the heights are the mark of the bolts flung by Jove’s right hand.
But you, whoever you are, whom my license offends,
if you are wise, hold each thing to its own measure.
Brave wars rejoice to be told in the Maeonian foot;
what place can there be for dalliance there?
The tragedians sound grand; wrath befits the tragic buskin:
the comic slipper must be kept for everyday use.
Let the free iamb be drawn against opposing foes,
whether swift, or whether it drag its last foot.
Let coaxing Elegy sing of quivered Loves,
and let the light mistress sport at her own whim.
Achilles is not to be told in Callimachus’s measures;
Cydippe is not for your mouth, Homer.
Who would endure a Thais playing Andromache’s part?
He would err who acts Thais in Andromache.
Thais is in my art; my wantonness is free;
I have nothing to do with the fillet; Thais is in my art.
If my Muse answers to her playful matter,
I have won, and she is acquitted of the false charge.
Burst, gnawing Envy: already I have a great name;
it will be greater, only let it go with the foot it began.
But you hurry too much: only let me live, and you will grieve the more;
and my spirit holds many poems within it.
For glory delights me, and my zeal has grown with the honor;
at the hill’s foot my horse is panting still.
Elegy confesses she owes as much to me
as noble epic owes to Virgil.
Thus far I have answered envy: draw the reins
tighter, poet, and run on your own course.
Nunc tibi, quae medio veneris praestemus in usu, Eloquar: ex omni est parte fugandus amor. Multa quidem ex illis pudor est mihi dicere; sed tu Ingenio verbis concipe plura meis. Nuper enim nostros quidam carpsere libellos, Quorum censura Musa proterva mea est. Dummodo sic placeam, dum toto canter in orbe, Quamlibet impugnent unus et alter opus. Ingenium magni livor detractat Homeri: Quisquis es, ex illo, Zoile, nomen habes. Et tua sacrilegae laniarunt carmina linguae, Pertulit huc victos quo duce Troia deos. Summa petit livor; perflant altissima venti: Summa petunt dextra fulmina missa Iovis. At tu, quicumque es, quem nostra licentia laedit, Si sapis, ad numeros exige quidque suos. Fortia Maeonio gaudent pede bella referri; Deliciis illic quis locus esse potest? Grande sonant tragici; tragicos decet ira cothurnos: Usibus e mediis soccus habendus erit. Liber in adversos hostes stringatur iambus, Seu celer, extremum seu trahat ille pedem. Blanda pharetratos Elegia cantet Amores, Et levis arbitrio ludat amica suo. Callimachi numeris non est dicendus Achilles, Cydippe non est oris, Homere, tui. Quis feret Andromaches peragentem Thaida partes? Peccet, in Andromache Thaida quisquis agat. Thais in arte mea est; lascivia libera nostra est; Nil mihi cum vitta; Thais in arte mea est. Si mea materiae respondet Musa iocosae, Vicimus, et falsi criminis acta rea est. Rumpere, Livor edax: magnum iam nomen habemus; Maius erit, tantum quo pede coepit eat. Sed nimium properas: vivam modo, plura dolebis; Et capiunt animi carmina multa mei. Nam iuvat et studium famae mihi crevit honore; Principio clivi noster anhelat equus. Tantum se nobis elegi debere fatentur, Quantum Vergilio nobile debet epos. Hactenus invidiae respondimus: attrahe lora Fortius, et gyro curre, poeta, tuo.
So when the act of love and youthful work is sought,
and the time of the promised night is near,
lest your mistress’s joys catch you, taken with body full,
I would have you first go in to anyone you like;
find anyone you like, in whom your first pleasure
may spend itself: what comes after the first will be sluggish.
Love deferred is sweetest; in cold the sun,
in sun the shade is welcome; water grows grateful to thirst.
It shames me, yet I will say: join in love too in that posture
by which you think each is least becomingly joined.
Nor is it hard to bring about: few women confess the truth to themselves,
and there is nothing they think has misbecome them.
Then too I bid you throw all the windows open,
and mark the ugly limbs by the let-in day.
But as soon as pleasure, finished, has come to the goal,
and the bodies lie wearied with the whole mind,
while it irks you, and you would you had touched no girl,
and seem to yourself as though you would not touch one for long,
then note in your mind whatever blemish is on her body,
and keep your eyes ever on her flaws.
Perhaps someone (for such there are) will call these things trifling,
but what is no help singly, in numbers helps.
A small viper kills the spacious bull with its bite:
by no large hound is the boar often held.
Only fight with number, and draw the precepts
into one: from many there will be a great heap.
But since there are as many manners as there are postures,
not everything is to be left to my judgments.
By the act in which your heart cannot be offended,
perhaps, before another judge, this will be the crime.
One man, because he had seen the obscene parts on the open body,
his love, that had been in mid-course, stuck fast;
another, because, as the girl rose from love’s business,
he saw the shameful signs on the unclean bed.
You make sport, O you whom such things could move:
only lukewarm torches had breathed upon your breasts.
Let that boy draw his taut bows more strongly:
wounded, you crowd will seek the greater aid.
What of him who hid in secret while the girl relieved herself,
and saw what custom itself forbids to see?
The gods forbid that we should counsel any man such things!
though they help, they are not to be set forth.
and the time of the promised night is near,
lest your mistress’s joys catch you, taken with body full,
I would have you first go in to anyone you like;
find anyone you like, in whom your first pleasure
may spend itself: what comes after the first will be sluggish.
Love deferred is sweetest; in cold the sun,
in sun the shade is welcome; water grows grateful to thirst.
It shames me, yet I will say: join in love too in that posture
by which you think each is least becomingly joined.
Nor is it hard to bring about: few women confess the truth to themselves,
and there is nothing they think has misbecome them.
Then too I bid you throw all the windows open,
and mark the ugly limbs by the let-in day.
But as soon as pleasure, finished, has come to the goal,
and the bodies lie wearied with the whole mind,
while it irks you, and you would you had touched no girl,
and seem to yourself as though you would not touch one for long,
then note in your mind whatever blemish is on her body,
and keep your eyes ever on her flaws.
Perhaps someone (for such there are) will call these things trifling,
but what is no help singly, in numbers helps.
A small viper kills the spacious bull with its bite:
by no large hound is the boar often held.
Only fight with number, and draw the precepts
into one: from many there will be a great heap.
But since there are as many manners as there are postures,
not everything is to be left to my judgments.
By the act in which your heart cannot be offended,
perhaps, before another judge, this will be the crime.
One man, because he had seen the obscene parts on the open body,
his love, that had been in mid-course, stuck fast;
another, because, as the girl rose from love’s business,
he saw the shameful signs on the unclean bed.
You make sport, O you whom such things could move:
only lukewarm torches had breathed upon your breasts.
Let that boy draw his taut bows more strongly:
wounded, you crowd will seek the greater aid.
What of him who hid in secret while the girl relieved herself,
and saw what custom itself forbids to see?
The gods forbid that we should counsel any man such things!
though they help, they are not to be set forth.
Ergo ubi concubitus et opus iuvenale petetur, Et prope promissae tempora noctis erunt, Gaudia ne dominae, pleno si corpore sumes, Te capiant, ineas quamlibet ante velim; Quamlibet invenias, in qua tua prima voluptas Desinat: a prima proxima segnis erit. Sustentata venus gratissima; frigore soles, Sole iuvant umbrae, grata fit unda siti. Et pudet, et dicam: venerem quoque iunge figura, Qua minime iungi quamque decere putas. Nec labor efficere est: rarae sibi vera fatentur, Et nihil est, quod se dedecuisse putent. Tunc etiam iubeo totas aperire fenestras, Turpiaque admisso membra notare die. At simul ad metas venit finita voluptas, Lassaque cum tota corpora mente iacent, Dum piget, et malis nullam tetigisse puellam, Tacturusque tibi non videare diu, Tunc animo signa, quaecumque in corpore menda est, Luminaque in vitiis illius usque tene. Forsitan haec aliquis (nam sunt quoque) parva vocabit, Sed, quae non prosunt singula, multa iuvant. Parva necat morsu spatiosum vipera taurum: A cane non magno saepe tenetur aper. Tu tantum numero pugna, praeceptaque in unum Contrahe: de multis grandis acervus erit. Sed quoniam totidem mores totidemque figurae, Non sunt iudiciis omnia danda meis. Quo tua non possunt offendi pectora facto, Forsitan hoc alio iudice crimen erit. Ille quod obscenas in aperto corpore partes Viderat, in cursu qui fuit, haesit amor: Ille quod a Veneris rebus surgente puella Vidit in inmundo signa pudenda toro. Luditis, o siquos potuerunt ista movere: Adflarant tepidae pectora vestra faces. Adtrahat ille puer contentos fortius arcus: Saucia maiorem turba petetis opem. Quid, qui clam latuit reddente obscena puella, Et vidit, quae mos ipse videre vetat? Di melius, quam nos moneamus talia quemquam! Ut prosint, non sunt expedienda tamen.
I urge too that you keep two mistresses at once
(he is stronger, if a man can keep more):
when the mind, cut in two, runs both ways at once,
one love subtracts the other’s strength.
Great rivers are thinned out through many channels,
and the fierce flame dies when the log is split apart.
One anchor does not hold the waxed ships enough,
nor is a single hook enough in the clear waters:
he who long since has prepared himself a double solace
has long since stood victor on the topmost height.
But you, who were ill entrusted to one mistress,
must now at least find a new love.
Minos lost his fires for Pasiphaë in Procris:
beaten, the first wife yielded to the bride of Ida.
Amphilochus’s brother, lest he love Phegeus’s daughter forever,
Callirhoë saw to, once she had shared his bed.
And Oenone would have held Paris to his last years,
had she not been wronged by the Oebalian rival.
The wife’s beauty would have pleased the Odrysian tyrant:
but better was the beauty of the imprisoned sister.
Why do I linger on examples, whose crowd wearies me?
every love is conquered by a new successor.
More bravely does a mother long for one of many sons
than the one she weeps and cries over, "you alone were mine."
And lest perhaps you think I am framing new laws for you
(and would that the glory of the finding were mine!),
the son of Atreus saw — for what would he not see,
in whose judgment all Greece lay? —
he saw Chryseïs, taken by his own war, and loved her, the victor:
but the old father wept foolishly everywhere.
Why weep, hateful old man? they agree well together:
by your dutifulness, fool, you wrong your daughter.
When Calchas, made safe by Achilles’s aid, had ordered
her given back, and she was received in her father’s house,
"There is," says Atreus’s son, "one whose beauty comes next to hers,
and, if the first syllable allow, the same name:
let Achilles, if he is wise, of his own will yield her to me;
if not, let him feel my command.
And if any of you blames this deed, Achaeans,
it is something to hold the scepter with a strong hand.
For if I am king, and no woman sleep with me,
let Thersites, if he likes, go into my kingdom."
He spoke, and held her as a great solace for the former,
and care was laid down, care driven out by new care.
So, with Agamemnon for your warrant, take up new fires,
that your love may be held apart at the fork of two roads.
You ask where you may find them? read through my arts:
your ship will soon be full of girls.
(he is stronger, if a man can keep more):
when the mind, cut in two, runs both ways at once,
one love subtracts the other’s strength.
Great rivers are thinned out through many channels,
and the fierce flame dies when the log is split apart.
One anchor does not hold the waxed ships enough,
nor is a single hook enough in the clear waters:
he who long since has prepared himself a double solace
has long since stood victor on the topmost height.
But you, who were ill entrusted to one mistress,
must now at least find a new love.
Minos lost his fires for Pasiphaë in Procris:
beaten, the first wife yielded to the bride of Ida.
Amphilochus’s brother, lest he love Phegeus’s daughter forever,
Callirhoë saw to, once she had shared his bed.
And Oenone would have held Paris to his last years,
had she not been wronged by the Oebalian rival.
The wife’s beauty would have pleased the Odrysian tyrant:
but better was the beauty of the imprisoned sister.
Why do I linger on examples, whose crowd wearies me?
every love is conquered by a new successor.
More bravely does a mother long for one of many sons
than the one she weeps and cries over, "you alone were mine."
And lest perhaps you think I am framing new laws for you
(and would that the glory of the finding were mine!),
the son of Atreus saw — for what would he not see,
in whose judgment all Greece lay? —
he saw Chryseïs, taken by his own war, and loved her, the victor:
but the old father wept foolishly everywhere.
Why weep, hateful old man? they agree well together:
by your dutifulness, fool, you wrong your daughter.
When Calchas, made safe by Achilles’s aid, had ordered
her given back, and she was received in her father’s house,
"There is," says Atreus’s son, "one whose beauty comes next to hers,
and, if the first syllable allow, the same name:
let Achilles, if he is wise, of his own will yield her to me;
if not, let him feel my command.
And if any of you blames this deed, Achaeans,
it is something to hold the scepter with a strong hand.
For if I am king, and no woman sleep with me,
let Thersites, if he likes, go into my kingdom."
He spoke, and held her as a great solace for the former,
and care was laid down, care driven out by new care.
So, with Agamemnon for your warrant, take up new fires,
that your love may be held apart at the fork of two roads.
You ask where you may find them? read through my arts:
your ship will soon be full of girls.
Hortor et, ut pariter binas habeatis amicas (Fortior est, plures siquis habere potest): Secta bipertito cum mens discurrit utroque, Alterius vires subtrahit alter amor. Grandia per multos tenuantur flumina rivos, Saevaque diducto stipite flamma perit. Non satis una tenet ceratas ancora puppes, Nec satis est liquidis unicus hamus aquis: Qui sibi iam pridem solacia bina paravit, Iam pridem summa victor in arce fuit. At tibi, qui fueris dominae male creditus uni, Nunc saltem novus est inveniendus amor. Pasiphaes Minos in Procride perdidit ignes: Cessit ab Idaea coniuge victa prior. Amphilochi frater ne Phegida semper amaret, Calliroe fecit parte recepta tori. Et Parin Oenone summos tenuisset ad annos, Si non Oebalia paelice laesa foret. Coniugis Odrysio placuisset forma tyranno: Sed melior clausae forma sororis erat. Quid moror exemplis, quorum me turba fatigat? Successore novo vincitur omnis amor. Fortius e multis mater desiderat unum, Quam quem flens clamat ’tu mihi solus eras.’ Ac ne forte putes nova me tibi condere iura (Atque utinam inventi gloria nostra foret!), Vidit ut Atrides (quid enim non ille videret, Cuius in arbitrio Graecia tota fuit?) Marte suo captam Chryseida, victor amabat: At senior stulte flebat ubique pater. Quid lacrimas, odiose senex? bene convenit illis: Officio natam laedis, inepte, tuo. Quam postquam reddi Calchas, ope tutus Achillis, Iusserat, et patria est illa recepta domo, ’Est’ ait Atrides ’illius proxima forma, Et, si prima sinat syllaba, nomen idem: Hanc mihi, si sapiat, per se concedat Achilles: Si minus, imperium sentiat ille meum. Quod siquis vestrum factum hoc incusat, Achivi, Est aliquid valida sceptra tenere manu. Nam si rex ego sum, nec mecum dormiat ulla, In mea Thersites regna, licebit, eat.’ Dixit, et hanc habuit solacia magna prioris, Et posita est cura cura repulsa nova. Ergo adsume novas auctore Agamemnone flammas, Ut tuus in bivio distineatur amor. Quaeris, ubi invenias? artes tu perlege nostras: Plena puellarum iam tibi navis erit.
So if my precepts have any force, if Apollo
teaches mortals anything useful through my mouth,
though, luckless, you burn in the midst of Etna,
make yourself seem colder than ice to your girl:
and feign whole, lest, if you happen to grieve,
she sense it; and laugh, when you ought to be weeping.
I do not bid you break off your cares in mid-course:
mine is no command of orders so savage.
Feign what you are not, and mimic passions laid aside:
so you will truly do what you will have rehearsed.
Often, to keep from drinking, I have wished to seem to sleep:
while I seemed it, I gave my eyes, conquered, to sleep.
I have laughed at the man cheated, who had feigned to love,
and, a fowler, had fallen into his own snares.
Love enters the mind by habit, by habit is unlearned:
he who can counterfeit whole will be whole.
Say she has bidden you come: come on the night agreed;
you have come, and the door is shut: bear it.
Speak no flatteries, do no railing at the doorpost,
nor lay your side on the hard threshold.
Next day’s light will come: let your words be free of complaints,
and bear on your face no signs of one grieving.
Soon she will lay aside her disdain, when she sees you flagging:
this gift too you will win from my art.
Yet deceive yourself as well, and let no end of loving
be set before you: the horse often fights the rein.
Let the advantage lie hidden; what you do not avow will come to pass:
the nets that show too plainly the bird avoids.
Let her not be so pleased with herself, nor be able to scorn you;
take heart, that she may yield to your spirit.
Does the door chance to stand open? though you are called back, pass on.
Is a night given? doubt whether to come on the given night.
It is easy to be able to endure, when, if endurance fails,
one may straightway, from the easy course, take one’s joys.
And can anyone call my precepts harsh?
Look — I even play the reconciler’s part.
teaches mortals anything useful through my mouth,
though, luckless, you burn in the midst of Etna,
make yourself seem colder than ice to your girl:
and feign whole, lest, if you happen to grieve,
she sense it; and laugh, when you ought to be weeping.
I do not bid you break off your cares in mid-course:
mine is no command of orders so savage.
Feign what you are not, and mimic passions laid aside:
so you will truly do what you will have rehearsed.
Often, to keep from drinking, I have wished to seem to sleep:
while I seemed it, I gave my eyes, conquered, to sleep.
I have laughed at the man cheated, who had feigned to love,
and, a fowler, had fallen into his own snares.
Love enters the mind by habit, by habit is unlearned:
he who can counterfeit whole will be whole.
Say she has bidden you come: come on the night agreed;
you have come, and the door is shut: bear it.
Speak no flatteries, do no railing at the doorpost,
nor lay your side on the hard threshold.
Next day’s light will come: let your words be free of complaints,
and bear on your face no signs of one grieving.
Soon she will lay aside her disdain, when she sees you flagging:
this gift too you will win from my art.
Yet deceive yourself as well, and let no end of loving
be set before you: the horse often fights the rein.
Let the advantage lie hidden; what you do not avow will come to pass:
the nets that show too plainly the bird avoids.
Let her not be so pleased with herself, nor be able to scorn you;
take heart, that she may yield to your spirit.
Does the door chance to stand open? though you are called back, pass on.
Is a night given? doubt whether to come on the given night.
It is easy to be able to endure, when, if endurance fails,
one may straightway, from the easy course, take one’s joys.
And can anyone call my precepts harsh?
Look — I even play the reconciler’s part.
Quod siquid praecepta valent mea, siquid Apollo Utile mortales perdocet ore meo, Quamvis infelix media torreberis Aetna, Frigidior glacie fac videare tuae: Et sanum simula, ne, siquid forte dolebis, Sentiat; et ride, cum tibi flendus eris. Non ego te iubeo medias abrumpere curas: Non sunt imperii tam fera iussa mei. Quod non es, simula, positosque imitare furores: Sic facies vere, quod meditatus eris. Saepe ego, ne biberem, volui dormire videri: Dum videor, somno lumina victa dedi: Deceptum risi, qui se simularat amare, In laqueos auceps decideratque suos. Intrat amor mentes usu, dediscitur usu: Qui poterit sanum fingere, sanus erit. Dixerit, ut venias: pacta tibi nocte venito; Veneris, et fuerit ianua clausa: feres. Nec dic blanditias, nec fac convicia posti, Nec latus in duro limine pone tuum. Postera lux aderit: careant tua verba querellis, Et nulla in vultu signa dolentis habe. Iam ponet fastus, cum te languere videbit: Hoc etiam nostra munus ab arte feres. Te quoque falle tamen, nec sit tibi finis amandi Propositus: frenis saepe repugnat equus. Utilitas lateat; quod non profitebere, fiet: Quae nimis apparent retia, vitat avis. Nec sibi tam placeat, nec te contemnere possit; Sume animos, animis cedat ut illa tuis. Ianua forte patet? quamvis revocabere, transi. Est data nox? dubita nocte venire data. Posse pati facile est, ubi, si patientia desit, Protinus ex facili gaudia ferre licet. Et quisquam praecepta potest mea dura vocare? En, etiam partes conciliantis ago.
For since dispositions vary, I will vary the arts;
there will be a thousand forms of the disease, a thousand of cure.
Some bodies are scarcely healed by the keen iron:
for many the help has been a juice and an herb.
Are you too soft, and cannot go, and are held bound,
and does savage Love press your neck beneath his foot?
Stop struggling: let the winds bring back your sails,
and where the waves call, there let your oar go.
That thirst must be slaked for you, with which, ruined, you burn;
I yield; now you may drink from the middle of the stream:
but drink even more than your heart demands,
make the water you have taken brim over from a full throat.
Go, enjoy your girl without cease, none forbidding:
let her steal your nights, let her your days.
Seek a surfeit of the ill: surfeit too makes an end.
Even now, when you believe you can do without, stay on,
until you have heaped yourself full and plenty kills the love,
and it pleases you not to be in the house you are sick of.
Long, too, grows the love that distrust feeds:
if you would lay this aside, lay aside fear.
He who fears, that she be his, lest someone take her from him,
will scarcely be made whole by Machaon’s aid.
A mother loves more, of two sons, the common way,
the one for whose return — because he bears arms — she fears.
there will be a thousand forms of the disease, a thousand of cure.
Some bodies are scarcely healed by the keen iron:
for many the help has been a juice and an herb.
Are you too soft, and cannot go, and are held bound,
and does savage Love press your neck beneath his foot?
Stop struggling: let the winds bring back your sails,
and where the waves call, there let your oar go.
That thirst must be slaked for you, with which, ruined, you burn;
I yield; now you may drink from the middle of the stream:
but drink even more than your heart demands,
make the water you have taken brim over from a full throat.
Go, enjoy your girl without cease, none forbidding:
let her steal your nights, let her your days.
Seek a surfeit of the ill: surfeit too makes an end.
Even now, when you believe you can do without, stay on,
until you have heaped yourself full and plenty kills the love,
and it pleases you not to be in the house you are sick of.
Long, too, grows the love that distrust feeds:
if you would lay this aside, lay aside fear.
He who fears, that she be his, lest someone take her from him,
will scarcely be made whole by Machaon’s aid.
A mother loves more, of two sons, the common way,
the one for whose return — because he bears arms — she fears.
Nam quoniam variant animi, variabimus artes; Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt. Corpora vix ferro quaedam sanantur acuto: Auxilium multis sucus et herba fuit. Mollior es, neque abire potes, vinctusque teneris, Et tua saevus Amor sub pede colla premit? Desine luctari: referant tua carbasa venti, Quaque vocant fluctus, hac tibi remus eat. Explenda est sitis ista tibi, quo perditus ardes; Cedimus; e medio iam licet amne bibas: Sed bibe plus etiam, quam quod praecordia poscunt, Gutture fac pleno sumpta redundet aqua. I, fruere usque tua, nullo prohibente, puella: Illa tibi noctes auferat, illa dies. Taedia quaere mali: faciunt et taedia finem. Iam quoque, cum credes posse carere, mane, Dum bene te cumules et copia tollat amorem, Et fastidita non iuvet esse domo. Fit quoque longus amor, quem diffidentia nutrit: Hunc tu si quaeres ponere, pone metum. Qui timet, ut sua sit, ne quis sibi detrahat illam, Ille Machaonia vix ope sanus erit. Plus amat e natis mater plerumque duobus, Pro cuius reditu, quod gerit arma, timet.
Near the Colline Gate there is a venerable temple;
lofty Eryx gave the temple its name:
there is Lethaean Love, who heals the heart,
and adds cold water to his own torches.
There the young men ask oblivion by their vows,
and any girl taken by a hard man.
He spoke to me thus (I doubt whether it was the true Cupid,
or a dream: but I think it was a dream)
"O you who now give, now take away, troubling loves,
add this too, Naso, to your precepts.
Let each man turn his mind to his own troubles, and he will lay love aside;
to all of them the god has given them, more or less.
Let the man who fears the Puteal and Janus and the swift Kalends
be racked by the borrowed sum of his debt;
he whose father is harsh — though all else yield to his prayer —
must keep his harsh father before his eyes;
this one lives poor with an ill-dowered wife:
let him believe his wife thwarts his fortune.
Have you, on good land, a vineyard fertile in noble grapes?
fear lest the budding grape be scorched.
That man has a ship on its homeward voyage: let him think
the sea forever cruel, and the shores foul with his loss.
Let a soldier son gall this man, a marriageable daughter you;
and who has not a thousand causes of grief?
That you might hate your own, Paris, you should have set
your brothers’ funerals before your eyes."
He spoke on: the boyish phantom forsook
my peaceful sleep, if it was sleep at all.
What am I to do? In mid-wave Palinurus
deserts the ship; I am forced to enter unknown ways.
lofty Eryx gave the temple its name:
there is Lethaean Love, who heals the heart,
and adds cold water to his own torches.
There the young men ask oblivion by their vows,
and any girl taken by a hard man.
He spoke to me thus (I doubt whether it was the true Cupid,
or a dream: but I think it was a dream)
"O you who now give, now take away, troubling loves,
add this too, Naso, to your precepts.
Let each man turn his mind to his own troubles, and he will lay love aside;
to all of them the god has given them, more or less.
Let the man who fears the Puteal and Janus and the swift Kalends
be racked by the borrowed sum of his debt;
he whose father is harsh — though all else yield to his prayer —
must keep his harsh father before his eyes;
this one lives poor with an ill-dowered wife:
let him believe his wife thwarts his fortune.
Have you, on good land, a vineyard fertile in noble grapes?
fear lest the budding grape be scorched.
That man has a ship on its homeward voyage: let him think
the sea forever cruel, and the shores foul with his loss.
Let a soldier son gall this man, a marriageable daughter you;
and who has not a thousand causes of grief?
That you might hate your own, Paris, you should have set
your brothers’ funerals before your eyes."
He spoke on: the boyish phantom forsook
my peaceful sleep, if it was sleep at all.
What am I to do? In mid-wave Palinurus
deserts the ship; I am forced to enter unknown ways.
Est prope Collinam templum venerabile portam; Inposuit templo nomina celsus Eryx: Est illic Lethaeus Amor, qui pectora sanat, Inque suas gelidam lampadas addit aquam. Illic et iuvenes votis oblivia poscunt, Et siqua est duro capta puella viro. Is mihi sic dixit (dubito, verusne Cupido, An somnus fuerit: sed puto, somnus erat) ’O qui sollicitos modo das, modo demis amores, Adice praeceptis hoc quoque, Naso, tuis. Ad mala quisque animum referat sua, ponet amorem; Omnibus illa deus plusve minusve dedit. Qui Puteal Ianumque timet celeresque Kalendas, Torqueat hunc aeris mutua summa sui; Cui durus pater est, ut voto cetera cedant, Huic pater ante oculos durus habendus erit; Hic male dotata pauper cum coniuge vivit, Uxorem fato credat obesse suo. Est tibi rure bono generosae fertilis uvae Vinea? ne nascens usta sit uva, time. Ille habet in reditu navim: mare semper iniquum Cogitet et damno litora foeda suo. Filius hunc miles, te filia nubilis angat; Et quis non causas mille doloris habet? Ut posses odisse tuam, Pari, funera fratrum Debueras oculis substituisse tuis.’ Plura loquebatur: placidum puerilis imago Destituit somnum, si modo somnus erat. Quid faciam? media navem Palinurus in unda Deserit; ignotas cogor inire vias.
Whoever you love, lonely places harm; beware lonely places!
Where do you flee? in a crowd you can be safer.
You have no need of solitude (solitude swells the frenzies):
a throng will be your help.
You will be sad, if you are alone, and the face of the forsaken
mistress will stand before your eyes, as if herself.
For that reason night is sadder than the hours of Phoebus;
the company of comrades, that would lighten grief, is gone.
Do not flee talk, nor let your door be shut,
nor hide your weeping face in the dark.
Always keep some Pylades, to tend an Orestes:
this too will be no light use of friendship.
What but the lonely woods undid Phyllis?
the cause of her death is sure: she was unaccompanied.
She went as a barbarian throng, with streaming hair, is wont
to go, keeping the triennial rites to Edonian Bacchus,
and now, as far as she could, gazed out on the long sea,
now lay wearied on the sandy ground.
"Faithless Demophoön!" she cried to the deaf waves,
and her words, as she spoke, were broken by sobbing.
There was a narrow path, dim with long shadow,
by which she often bore her feet down to the sea.
The ninth journey was being trodden by the wretched woman: "Let him see to it!"
she said, and, gone pale, looks at her girdle,
looks too at the boughs; she hesitates, and flees what she dares
and fears, and lifts her fingers to her own throat.
Sithonian girl, then surely I would you had not been alone:
the woods would not have wept for Phyllis with their leaves laid down.
By Phyllis’s example fear too much solitude,
man wronged by your mistress, girl wronged by your man.
Where do you flee? in a crowd you can be safer.
You have no need of solitude (solitude swells the frenzies):
a throng will be your help.
You will be sad, if you are alone, and the face of the forsaken
mistress will stand before your eyes, as if herself.
For that reason night is sadder than the hours of Phoebus;
the company of comrades, that would lighten grief, is gone.
Do not flee talk, nor let your door be shut,
nor hide your weeping face in the dark.
Always keep some Pylades, to tend an Orestes:
this too will be no light use of friendship.
What but the lonely woods undid Phyllis?
the cause of her death is sure: she was unaccompanied.
She went as a barbarian throng, with streaming hair, is wont
to go, keeping the triennial rites to Edonian Bacchus,
and now, as far as she could, gazed out on the long sea,
now lay wearied on the sandy ground.
"Faithless Demophoön!" she cried to the deaf waves,
and her words, as she spoke, were broken by sobbing.
There was a narrow path, dim with long shadow,
by which she often bore her feet down to the sea.
The ninth journey was being trodden by the wretched woman: "Let him see to it!"
she said, and, gone pale, looks at her girdle,
looks too at the boughs; she hesitates, and flees what she dares
and fears, and lifts her fingers to her own throat.
Sithonian girl, then surely I would you had not been alone:
the woods would not have wept for Phyllis with their leaves laid down.
By Phyllis’s example fear too much solitude,
man wronged by your mistress, girl wronged by your man.
Quisquis amas, loca sola nocent, loca sola caveto! Quo fugis? in populo tutior esse potes. Non tibi secretis (augent secreta furores) Est opus: auxilio turba futura tibi est. Tristis eris, si solus eris, dominaeque relictae Ante oculos facies stabit, ut ipsa, tuos. Tristior idcirco nox est quam tempora Phoebi; Quae relevet luctus, turba sodalis abest. Nec fuge conloquium, nec sit tibi ianua clausa, Nec tenebris vultus flebilis abde tuos. Semper habe Pyladen aliquem, qui curet Oresten: Hic quoque amicitiae non levis usus erit. Quid, nisi secretae laeserunt Phyllida silvae? Certa necis causa est: incomitata fuit. Ibat, ut Edono referens trieterica Baccho Ire solet fusis barbara turba comis, Et modo, qua poterat, longum spectabat in aequor, Nunc in harenosa lassa iacebat humo. ’Perfide Demophoon!’ surdas clamabat ad undas, Ruptaque singultu verba loquentis erant. Limes erat tenuis longa subnubilus umbra, Quo tulit illa suos ad mare saepe pedes. Nona terebatur miserae via: ’viderit!’ inquit, Et spectat zonam pallida facta suam, Aspicit et ramos; dubitat, refugitque quod audet Et timet, et digitos ad sua colla refert. Sithoni, tum certe vellem non sola fuisses: Non flesset positis Phyllida silva comis. Phyllidis exemplo nimium secreta timete, Laese vir a domina, laesa puella viro.
A young man had performed whatever my Muse bade,
and was almost in the harbor of his own deliverance:
he relapsed, when he came among eager lovers,
and Love took up again the weapons he had stored away.
If you love, and would not, see that you shun contagion;
these things often harm the cattle too.
While the eyes watch the hurt, they themselves are hurt,
and many ills harm bodies by transit.
Sometimes into places parched with dry clods
water seeps from a stream running close by:
love seeps in unseen, if you do not withdraw from the lover;
in this we are all of us an ingenious crowd.
Another, likewise, was already whole; nearness undid him:
he could not endure the encounter with his mistress.
The scar, ill-firmed, returned to the old wound,
and my arts had no success.
Hardly is the fire next door fended off;
it is useful to keep clear of neighboring places.
Nor let the colonnade that is wont to bear her strolling
bear you, nor let the same court be paid.
What good is it for a lukewarm mind to heat up again at the reminder?
Another world, if you can, must be had.
Not easily, hungering, will you be held back from a laid table,
and the leaping water provokes much thirst.
Not easily is the bull held back at sight of the heifer,
the brave horse always neighs at sight of the mare.
When you have done these things, that you may touch shore at last,
it is not enough for you to have left the girl herself.
Let her sister and mother and the knowing nurse fare well,
and whoever will be any part of your mistress.
Let no slave come, nor weeping little maid say,
suppliant, a feigned "good day!" in her mistress’s name.
Nor, even if you would know what she is doing, will you ask of her;
hold out! a tongue held back will be to your gain.
You too, who give the reason for a love now ended,
and report much to be lamented of your mistress,
spare your complaints; better thus to avenge yourself by silence,
that she may flow out from your longings.
And I would rather you be silent than say you have left off:
he who too much, to too many, says "I do not love," loves.
and was almost in the harbor of his own deliverance:
he relapsed, when he came among eager lovers,
and Love took up again the weapons he had stored away.
If you love, and would not, see that you shun contagion;
these things often harm the cattle too.
While the eyes watch the hurt, they themselves are hurt,
and many ills harm bodies by transit.
Sometimes into places parched with dry clods
water seeps from a stream running close by:
love seeps in unseen, if you do not withdraw from the lover;
in this we are all of us an ingenious crowd.
Another, likewise, was already whole; nearness undid him:
he could not endure the encounter with his mistress.
The scar, ill-firmed, returned to the old wound,
and my arts had no success.
Hardly is the fire next door fended off;
it is useful to keep clear of neighboring places.
Nor let the colonnade that is wont to bear her strolling
bear you, nor let the same court be paid.
What good is it for a lukewarm mind to heat up again at the reminder?
Another world, if you can, must be had.
Not easily, hungering, will you be held back from a laid table,
and the leaping water provokes much thirst.
Not easily is the bull held back at sight of the heifer,
the brave horse always neighs at sight of the mare.
When you have done these things, that you may touch shore at last,
it is not enough for you to have left the girl herself.
Let her sister and mother and the knowing nurse fare well,
and whoever will be any part of your mistress.
Let no slave come, nor weeping little maid say,
suppliant, a feigned "good day!" in her mistress’s name.
Nor, even if you would know what she is doing, will you ask of her;
hold out! a tongue held back will be to your gain.
You too, who give the reason for a love now ended,
and report much to be lamented of your mistress,
spare your complaints; better thus to avenge yourself by silence,
that she may flow out from your longings.
And I would rather you be silent than say you have left off:
he who too much, to too many, says "I do not love," loves.
Praestiterat iuvenis quidquid mea Musa iubebat, Inque suae portu paene salutis erat: Reccidit, ut cupidos inter devenit amantes, Et, quae condiderat, tela resumpsit Amor. Siquis amas, nec vis, facito contagia vites; Haec etiam pecori saepe nocere solent. Dum spectant laesos oculi, laeduntur et ipsi, Multaque corporibus transitione nocent. In loca nonnumquam siccis arentia glebis De prope currenti flumine manat aqua: Manat amor tectus, si non ab amante recedas; Turbaque in hoc omnes ingeniosa sumus. Alter item iam sanus erat; vicinia laesit: Occursum dominae non tulit ille suae. Vulnus in antiquum rediit male firma cicatrix, Successumque artes non habuere meae. Proximus a tectis ignis defenditur aegre; Utile finitimis abstinuisse locis. Nec quae ferre solet spatiantem porticus illam, Te ferat, officium neve colatur idem. Quid iuvat admonitu tepidam recalescere mentem? Alter, si possis, orbis habendus erit. Non facile esuriens posita retinebere mensa, Et multam saliens incitat unda sitim. Non facile est taurum visa retinere iuvenca, Fortis equus visae semper adhinnit equae. Haec ubi praestiteris, ut tandem litora tangas, Non ipsam satis est deseruisse tibi. Et soror et mater valeant et conscia nutrix, Et quisquis dominae pars erit ulla tuae. Nec veniat servus, nec flens ancillula fictum Suppliciter dominae nomine dicat ’ave!’ Nec si scire voles, quid agat, tamen, illa, rogabis; Perfer! erit lucro lingua retenta tuo. Tu quoque, qui causam finiti reddis amoris, Deque tua domina multa querenda refers, Parce queri; melius sic ulciscere tacendo, Ut desideriis effluat illa tuis. Et malim taceas quam te desisse loquaris: Qui nimium multis ’non amo’ dicit, amat.
But with better faith the fire is quenched little by little
than all at once; leave off slowly, and you will be safe.
The torrent is wont to run higher than the unbroken river:
yet this water is brief, that one perennial.
Let love steal away, and slip out, vanishing, into thin air,
and by gentle degrees die down.
But it is a crime to hate the girl you lately loved:
that ending suits savage natures.
Not to care is enough: he who ends love in hatred
either loves, or will hardly cease to be wretched.
Shameful — man and woman, lately joined, at once foes;
not even the Appias herself approves such suits.
Often they accuse, and love; where no quarrel
has fallen, love drifts free of the reminder.
By chance I was beside a young man; a litter held his mistress:
all his words bristled with savage threats.
And, about to summon her to court, "let the litter come forth," he says;
it had come forth: at sight of his lady he was mute.
Both his hands, and the double tablets, fell from his hands,
he came into her embrace, and "so you win," he says.
It is safer and more fitting to part in peace,
and not to seek the quarrelsome courts from the bedchamber.
The gifts you had given, let her keep without suit, so order:
losses are wont to be small beside a great good.
than all at once; leave off slowly, and you will be safe.
The torrent is wont to run higher than the unbroken river:
yet this water is brief, that one perennial.
Let love steal away, and slip out, vanishing, into thin air,
and by gentle degrees die down.
But it is a crime to hate the girl you lately loved:
that ending suits savage natures.
Not to care is enough: he who ends love in hatred
either loves, or will hardly cease to be wretched.
Shameful — man and woman, lately joined, at once foes;
not even the Appias herself approves such suits.
Often they accuse, and love; where no quarrel
has fallen, love drifts free of the reminder.
By chance I was beside a young man; a litter held his mistress:
all his words bristled with savage threats.
And, about to summon her to court, "let the litter come forth," he says;
it had come forth: at sight of his lady he was mute.
Both his hands, and the double tablets, fell from his hands,
he came into her embrace, and "so you win," he says.
It is safer and more fitting to part in peace,
and not to seek the quarrelsome courts from the bedchamber.
The gifts you had given, let her keep without suit, so order:
losses are wont to be small beside a great good.
Sed meliore fide paulatim extinguitur ignis Quam subito; lente desine, tutus eris. Flumine perpetuo torrens solet altior ire: Sed tamen haec brevis est, illa perennis aqua. Fallat, et in tenues evanidus exeat auras, Perque gradus molles emoriatur amor. Sed modo dilectam scelus est odisse puellam: Exitus ingeniis convenit iste feris. Non curare sat est: odio qui finit amorem, Aut amat, aut aegre desinet esse miser. Turpe vir et mulier, iuncti modo, protinus hostes; Non illas lites Appias ipsa probat. Saepe reas faciunt, et amant; ubi nulla simultas Incidit, admonitu liber aberrat amor. Forte aderam iuveni; dominam lectica tenebat: Horrebant saevis omnia verba minis. Iamque vadaturus ’lectica prodeat’ inquit; Prodierat: visa coniuge mutus erat. Et manus et manibus duplices cecidere tabellae, Venit in amplexus, atque ’ita vincis’ ait. Tutius est aptumque magis discedere pace, Nec petere a thalamis litigiosa fora. Munera quae dederas, habeat sine lite, iubeto: Esse solent magno damna minora bono.
But if some chance shall bring you two together,
keep in your whole mind the arms I give.
Now there is need of arms; here, O bravest, fight:
Penthesilea must be conquered by your spear.
Now let the rival, now the hard threshold, recur to the lover,
now the vain words sworn by the gods between.
Do not arrange your hair because you are going to her,
nor let your toga be conspicuous in a loose fold.
Let there be no care to please a girl now another’s;
make her by now one of many to you.
But what especially blocks our efforts
I will tell, each man teaching by his own case.
We leave off late, because we hope to be loved:
while each is pleased with himself, we are a credulous crowd.
But trust neither their words (for what is more deceitful than these?)
nor the everlasting gods to carry weight.
And beware of being moved by girls’ tears:
they have trained their eyes to weep.
By arts past counting the lover’s mind is besieged,
as a rock is beaten on all sides by the waters of the sea.
Do not lay bare your reasons, why you prefer to part:
do not say what grieves you; yet grieve in secret all the while.
Do not recount her faults, lest she clear them: you yourself will favor her,
so that her case be the better case.
He who is silent is firm; he who tells the girl many
reproaches asks to be given satisfaction.
I would not dare, in the Dulichian manner, to steal arrows,
nor to quench the snatched torches in a stream:
nor will I cut the purple wings of the boy,
nor shall the sacred bow be slacker by my art.
It is counsel, whatever I sing: obey the singer,
and you, favoring my undertakings, healing Phoebus, be here.
Phoebus is here: the lyres have sounded, the quivers have sounded;
I know the god by his own signs: Phoebus is here.
keep in your whole mind the arms I give.
Now there is need of arms; here, O bravest, fight:
Penthesilea must be conquered by your spear.
Now let the rival, now the hard threshold, recur to the lover,
now the vain words sworn by the gods between.
Do not arrange your hair because you are going to her,
nor let your toga be conspicuous in a loose fold.
Let there be no care to please a girl now another’s;
make her by now one of many to you.
But what especially blocks our efforts
I will tell, each man teaching by his own case.
We leave off late, because we hope to be loved:
while each is pleased with himself, we are a credulous crowd.
But trust neither their words (for what is more deceitful than these?)
nor the everlasting gods to carry weight.
And beware of being moved by girls’ tears:
they have trained their eyes to weep.
By arts past counting the lover’s mind is besieged,
as a rock is beaten on all sides by the waters of the sea.
Do not lay bare your reasons, why you prefer to part:
do not say what grieves you; yet grieve in secret all the while.
Do not recount her faults, lest she clear them: you yourself will favor her,
so that her case be the better case.
He who is silent is firm; he who tells the girl many
reproaches asks to be given satisfaction.
I would not dare, in the Dulichian manner, to steal arrows,
nor to quench the snatched torches in a stream:
nor will I cut the purple wings of the boy,
nor shall the sacred bow be slacker by my art.
It is counsel, whatever I sing: obey the singer,
and you, favoring my undertakings, healing Phoebus, be here.
Phoebus is here: the lyres have sounded, the quivers have sounded;
I know the god by his own signs: Phoebus is here.
Quod si vos aliquis casus conducet in unum, Mente memor tota quae damus arma, tene. Nunc opus est armis; hic, o fortissime, pugna: Vincenda est telo Penthesilea tuo. Nunc tibi rivalis, nunc durum limen amanti, Nunc subeant mediis inrita verba deis. Nec compone comas, quia sis venturus ad illam, Nec toga sit laxo conspicienda sinu. Nulla sit, ut placeas alienae cura puellae; Iam facito e multis una sit illa tibi. Sed quid praecipue nostris conatibus obstet Eloquar, exemplo quemque docente suo. Desinimus tarde, quia nos speramus amari: Dum sibi quisque placet, credula turba sumus. At tu nec voces (quid enim fallacius illis?) Crede, nec aeternos pondus habere deos. Neve puellarum lacrimis moveare, caveto: Ut flerent, oculos erudiere suos. Artibus innumeris mens oppugnatur amantum, Ut lapis aequoreis undique pulsus aquis. Nec causas aperi, quare divortia malis: Nec dic, quid doleas: clam tamen usque dole. Nec peccata refer, ne diluat: ipse favebis, Ut melior causa causa sit illa tua. Qui silet, est firmus; qui dicit multa puellae Probra, satisfieri postulat ille sibi. Non ego Dulichio furari more sagittas, Nec raptas ausim tinguere in amne faces: Nec nos purpureas pueri resecabimus alas, Nec sacer arte mea laxior arcus erit. Consilium est, quodcumque cano: parete canenti, Tuque, favens coeptis, Phoebe saluber, ades. Phoebus adest: sonuere lyrae, sonuere pharetrae; Signa deum nosco per sua: Phoebus adest.
Set the fleece dyed in Amyclaean cauldrons
against Tyrian purple; that one will be the meaner:
you too, set your girls against the beautiful;
each will begin to be ashamed of his mistress:
both could seem fair to Paris,
but Venus, set against each, beat them both.
And not the face alone — compare manners too, and arts:
only let not your love stand in your judgment’s way.
It is a small thing I shall sing next; yet that small thing
has helped many: among whom I was one myself.
Beware of rereading the kept letters of the coaxing girl:
letters reread move steadfast minds.
Put them all (you will, unwilling) into the savage fire,
and say, "let this be the pyre of my passion."
Thestius’s daughter burned her absent son with a brand:
will you, faint-hearted, give the faithless words to the flame?
If you can, take the wax images too away: why are you torn
by a mute likeness? thus Laodamia perished.
Places too often harm; flee the places privy
to your couplings; they hold causes of grief.
"Here she was, here she lay; in that chamber we slept:
here she gave me wanton joys in the night."
Love is rubbed raw at the reminder, and the renewed wound
splits open: on the infirm a tiny fault tells.
As, if you touch nearly-dead ash with sulphur,
it will live, and from the least there will be a greatest fire,
so, unless you avoid whatever will renew the love,
the flame will blaze again that just now was nothing.
The Argive ships would have wished to flee Caphereus,
and you, old man, who avenged your grief with fires.
The wary sailor rejoices to have passed by Nisus’s daughter:
you, shun the places that were too welcome.
Let these be your Syrtes: shun these Acroceraunia:
here dire Charybdis vomits the waters she has drained.
against Tyrian purple; that one will be the meaner:
you too, set your girls against the beautiful;
each will begin to be ashamed of his mistress:
both could seem fair to Paris,
but Venus, set against each, beat them both.
And not the face alone — compare manners too, and arts:
only let not your love stand in your judgment’s way.
It is a small thing I shall sing next; yet that small thing
has helped many: among whom I was one myself.
Beware of rereading the kept letters of the coaxing girl:
letters reread move steadfast minds.
Put them all (you will, unwilling) into the savage fire,
and say, "let this be the pyre of my passion."
Thestius’s daughter burned her absent son with a brand:
will you, faint-hearted, give the faithless words to the flame?
If you can, take the wax images too away: why are you torn
by a mute likeness? thus Laodamia perished.
Places too often harm; flee the places privy
to your couplings; they hold causes of grief.
"Here she was, here she lay; in that chamber we slept:
here she gave me wanton joys in the night."
Love is rubbed raw at the reminder, and the renewed wound
splits open: on the infirm a tiny fault tells.
As, if you touch nearly-dead ash with sulphur,
it will live, and from the least there will be a greatest fire,
so, unless you avoid whatever will renew the love,
the flame will blaze again that just now was nothing.
The Argive ships would have wished to flee Caphereus,
and you, old man, who avenged your grief with fires.
The wary sailor rejoices to have passed by Nisus’s daughter:
you, shun the places that were too welcome.
Let these be your Syrtes: shun these Acroceraunia:
here dire Charybdis vomits the waters she has drained.
Confer Amyclaeis medicatum vellus aenis Murice cum Tyrio; turpius illud erit: Vos quoque formosis vestras conferte puellas; Incipiet dominae quemque pudere suae: Utraque formosae Paridi potuere videri, Sed sibi conlatam vicit utramque Venus. Nec solam faciem, mores quoque confer et artes: Tantum iudicio ne tuus obsit amor. Exiguum est, quod deinde canam; sed profuit illud Exiguum multis: in quibus ipse fui. Scripta cave relegas blandae servata puellae: Constantes animos scripta relecta movent. Omnia pone feros (pones invitus) in ignes, Et dic ’ardoris sit rogus iste mei.’ Thestias absentem succendit stipite natum: Tu timide flammae perfida verba dabis? Si potes, et ceras remove: quid imagine muta Carperis? hoc periit Laodamia modo. Et loca saepe nocent; fugito loca conscia vestri Concubitus; causas illa doloris habent. ’Hic fuit, hic cubuit; thalamo dormivimus illo: Hic mihi lasciva gaudia nocte dedit.’ Admonitu refricatur amor, vulnusque novatum Scinditur: infirmis culpa pusilla nocet. Ut, paene extinctum cinerem si sulpure tangas, Vivet et e minimo maximus ignis erit, Sic, nisi vitaris quidquid renovabit amorem, Flamma redardescet, quae modo nulla fuit. Argolides cuperent fugisse Capherea puppes, Teque, senex, luctus ignibus ulte tuos. Praeterita cautus Niseide navita gaudet: Tu loca, quae nimium grata fuere, cave. Haec tibi sint Syrtes: haec Acroceraunia vita: Hic vomit epotas dira Charybdis aquas.
There are things that cannot be ordered at anyone’s compulsion,
yet often, done by chance, they are wont to help.
Let Phaedra lose her wealth, and you, Neptune, will spare your grandson,
nor will the grandsire’s bull make the horses afraid.
Had you made the Cnossian girl poor, she would have loved wisely:
by riches luxurious love is fed.
Why is there no one to take Hecale, no woman to take Irus?
Surely because the one was needy, the other poor.
Poverty has not the means to feed its love:
yet this is not worth so much, that you should wish to be poor.
But let it be worth so much to you not to indulge the theatres,
until love withdraws clean from an emptied heart.
Cithara and flute and lyre unman the spirit,
and the voice, and arms moved to their measures.
There, ceaselessly, feigned lovers are danced:
the actor, by his art, teaches what to beware — and how it pleases.
I will speak it unwilling: do not touch the tender poets!
impious, I myself remove my own endowments.
Shun Callimachus: he is no enemy to Love:
and with Callimachus, you too, man of Cos, do harm.
Sappho, surely, made me kinder to my mistress,
nor did the Teian Muse give me rigid manners.
Who could safely have read the songs of Tibullus,
or yours, whose whole work was Cynthia alone?
Who will be able, hard, to leave off when Gallus is read?
And my songs sound something of the same.
But unless Apollo, the work’s leader, deceives his bard,
a rival is the greatest cause of our hurt:
yet do not imagine for yourself any rival,
and believe she lies alone in her own bed.
yet often, done by chance, they are wont to help.
Let Phaedra lose her wealth, and you, Neptune, will spare your grandson,
nor will the grandsire’s bull make the horses afraid.
Had you made the Cnossian girl poor, she would have loved wisely:
by riches luxurious love is fed.
Why is there no one to take Hecale, no woman to take Irus?
Surely because the one was needy, the other poor.
Poverty has not the means to feed its love:
yet this is not worth so much, that you should wish to be poor.
But let it be worth so much to you not to indulge the theatres,
until love withdraws clean from an emptied heart.
Cithara and flute and lyre unman the spirit,
and the voice, and arms moved to their measures.
There, ceaselessly, feigned lovers are danced:
the actor, by his art, teaches what to beware — and how it pleases.
I will speak it unwilling: do not touch the tender poets!
impious, I myself remove my own endowments.
Shun Callimachus: he is no enemy to Love:
and with Callimachus, you too, man of Cos, do harm.
Sappho, surely, made me kinder to my mistress,
nor did the Teian Muse give me rigid manners.
Who could safely have read the songs of Tibullus,
or yours, whose whole work was Cynthia alone?
Who will be able, hard, to leave off when Gallus is read?
And my songs sound something of the same.
But unless Apollo, the work’s leader, deceives his bard,
a rival is the greatest cause of our hurt:
yet do not imagine for yourself any rival,
and believe she lies alone in her own bed.
Sunt quae non possunt aliquo cogente iuberi, Saepe tamen casu facta iuvare solent. Perdat opes Phaedra, parces, Neptune, nepoti, Nec faciet pavidos taurus avitus equos. Cnosida fecisses inopem, sapienter amasset: Divitiis alitur luxuriosus amor. Cur nemo est, Hecalen, nulla est, quae ceperit Iron? Nempe quod alter egens, altera pauper erat. Non habet, unde suum paupertas pascat amorem: Non tamen hoc tanti est, pauper ut esse velis. At tanti tibi sit non indulgere theatris, Dum bene de vacuo pectore cedat amor. Enervant animos citharae lotosque lyraeque Et vox et numeris brachia mota suis. Illic adsidue ficti saltantur amantes: Quod caveas, actor, quam iuvet, arte docet. Eloquar invitus: teneros ne tange poetas! Summoveo dotes impius ipse meas. Callimachum fugito: non est inimicus Amori: Et cum Callimacho tu quoque, Coe, noces. Me certe Sappho meliorem fecit amicae, Nec rigidos mores Teia Musa dedit. Carmina quis potuit tuto legisse Tibulli, Vel tua, cuius opus Cynthia sola fuit? Quis poterit lecto durus discedere Gallo? Et mea nescio quid carmina tale sonant. Quod nisi dux operis vatem frustratur Apollo, Aemulus est nostri maxima causa mali: At tu rivalem noli tibi fingere quemquam, Inque suo solam crede iacere toro.
More keenly did Orestes love Hermione for this,
that she had begun to be another man’s.
Why grieve, Menelaus? you were going to Crete without your wife,
and could be away, unhurried, from your bride.
Once Paris stole her, now at last you cannot
do without your wife: another’s love has made yours grow.
This too Achilles wept over Briseïs taken away,
that she brought her joys to the Plisthenian man;
nor did he weep in vain, believe me: Atreus’s son did
what, had he not done it, would shamefully have been spiritless.
Surely I would have done it, and I am no wiser than he:
that was the greatest profit of his spite.
For in that he swears by his scepter he never touched Briseïs,
he reckons the scepter not to be the gods.
May the gods grant you can pass the threshold
of your forsaken mistress, and that your feet hold to your purpose.
And you can; only keep willing it: now to go bravely,
now there is need to set spur to the swift horse.
Think the Lotus-eaters, think the Sirens are in that cave;
add sails to your oars.
This man too, over whom once, as rival, you grieved too much,
I would you would cease to hold in an enemy’s place.
But at least, though hatred remain, give greeting;
when you can give kisses now, you will be whole.
that she had begun to be another man’s.
Why grieve, Menelaus? you were going to Crete without your wife,
and could be away, unhurried, from your bride.
Once Paris stole her, now at last you cannot
do without your wife: another’s love has made yours grow.
This too Achilles wept over Briseïs taken away,
that she brought her joys to the Plisthenian man;
nor did he weep in vain, believe me: Atreus’s son did
what, had he not done it, would shamefully have been spiritless.
Surely I would have done it, and I am no wiser than he:
that was the greatest profit of his spite.
For in that he swears by his scepter he never touched Briseïs,
he reckons the scepter not to be the gods.
May the gods grant you can pass the threshold
of your forsaken mistress, and that your feet hold to your purpose.
And you can; only keep willing it: now to go bravely,
now there is need to set spur to the swift horse.
Think the Lotus-eaters, think the Sirens are in that cave;
add sails to your oars.
This man too, over whom once, as rival, you grieved too much,
I would you would cease to hold in an enemy’s place.
But at least, though hatred remain, give greeting;
when you can give kisses now, you will be whole.
Acrius Hermionen ideo dilexit Orestes, Esse quod alterius coeperat illa viri. Quid, Menelae, doles? ibas sine coniuge Creten, Et poteras nupta lentus abesse tua. Ut Paris hanc rapuit, nunc demum uxore carere Non potes: alterius crevit amore tuus. Hoc et in abducta Briseide flebat Achilles, Illam Plisthenio gaudia ferre viro; Nec frustra flebat, mihi credite: fecit Atrides, Quod si non faceret, turpiter esset iners. Certe ego fecissem, nec sum sapientior illo: Invidiae fructus maximus ille fuit. Nam sibi quod numquam tactam Briseida iurat Per sceptrum, sceptrum non putat esse deos. Di faciant, possis dominae transire relictae Limina, proposito sufficiantque pedes. Et poteris; modo velle tene: nunc fortiter ire, Nunc opus est celeri subdere calcar equo. Illo Lotophagos, illo Sirenas in antro Esse puta; remis adice vela tuis. Hunc quoque, quo quondam nimium rivale dolebas, Vellem desineres hostis habere loco. At certe, quamvis odio remanente, saluta; Oscula cum poteris iam dare, sanus eris.
See, foods too — that I may fulfill every office
of medicine — I will give, which to flee and which to follow.
The Daunian bulb, or the one sent you from Libyan shores,
or that which comes from Megara, all will be harmful.
No less fitting is it to shun lustful rocket,
and whatever readies our bodies for Venus.
More usefully you would take rue, that sharpens the sight,
and whatever denies our bodies to Venus.
You ask what I would prescribe of Bacchus’s gift?
sooner than you hope you will be quit of it by my counsels.
Wines ready the spirit for Venus, unless you take very much
and the heart, buried in deep wine, lies stupefied.
By wind fire is fed, by wind it is quenched:
a gentle breeze feeds the flames, a greater kills them.
Either let there be no drunkenness, or so much that it snatches
your cares away; whatever is between the two does harm.
This work I have finished: give garlands to the weary keel;
we have reached the harbor where my course was set.
Hereafter you will pay your pious vows to the sacred poet,
man and woman healed by my song.
of medicine — I will give, which to flee and which to follow.
The Daunian bulb, or the one sent you from Libyan shores,
or that which comes from Megara, all will be harmful.
No less fitting is it to shun lustful rocket,
and whatever readies our bodies for Venus.
More usefully you would take rue, that sharpens the sight,
and whatever denies our bodies to Venus.
You ask what I would prescribe of Bacchus’s gift?
sooner than you hope you will be quit of it by my counsels.
Wines ready the spirit for Venus, unless you take very much
and the heart, buried in deep wine, lies stupefied.
By wind fire is fed, by wind it is quenched:
a gentle breeze feeds the flames, a greater kills them.
Either let there be no drunkenness, or so much that it snatches
your cares away; whatever is between the two does harm.
This work I have finished: give garlands to the weary keel;
we have reached the harbor where my course was set.
Hereafter you will pay your pious vows to the sacred poet,
man and woman healed by my song.
Ecce, cibos etiam, medicinae fungar ut omni Munere, quos fugias quosque sequare, dabo. Daunius, an Libycis bulbus tibi missus ab oris, An veniat Megaris, noxius omnis erit. Nec minus erucas aptum vitare salaces, Et quicquid Veneri corpora nostra parat. Utilius sumas acuentes lumina rutas, Et quidquid Veneri corpora nostra negat. Quid tibi praecipiam de Bacchi munere, quaeris? Spe brevius monitis expediere meis. Vina parant animum Veneri, nisi plurima sumas Et stupeant multo corda sepulta mero. Nutritur vento, vento restinguitur ignis: Lenis alit flammas, grandior aura necat. Aut nulla ebrietas, aut tanta sit, ut tibi curas Eripiat; siqua est inter utrumque, nocet. Hoc opus exegi: fessae date serta carinae; Contigimus portus, quo mihi cursus erat. Postmodo reddetis sacro pia vota poetae, Carmine sanati femina virque meo.