ELEGY VIII
He curses a certain procuress, whom he overhears instructing his mistress in the arts of a courtesan.
There is a certain—(whoever wishes to make acquaintance with a procuress, let him listen.)—There is a certain old hag, Dipsas by name. From fact does she derive 094 her name; never in a sober state does she behold the mother of the swarthy Memnon with her horses of roseate hue. She knows well the magic arts, and the charms of Ææa, 095 and by her skill she turns back to its source 096 the flowing stream. She knows right well what the herbs, what the thrums impelled around the whirling spinning-wheel, 097 and what the venomous exudation 098 from the prurient mare can effect. When she wills it, the clouds are overspread throughout all the sky; when she wills it, the day is bright with a clear atmosphere.
I have beheld (if I may be believed) the stars dripping with blood: the face of the moon was empurpled 099 with gore. I believe that she, transformed, 101 was flying amid the shades of night, and that her hag's carcase was covered with feathers. This I believe, and such is the report. A double pupil, too, 102 sparkles in her eyes, and light proceeds from a twofold eyeball. Forth from the ancient sepulchres she calls our great grandsires, and their grandsires 103 as well; and with her long incantations she cleaves the solid ground. She has made it her occupation to violate the chaste bed; and besides, her tongue is not "wanting in guilty advocacy. Chance made me the witness of her language; in such words was she giving her advice; the twofold doors 105 concealed me.
"You understand, my life, how greatly you yesterday pleased a wealthy young man; for he stopped short, and stood gazing for some time on your face. And whom do you not please? Your beauty is inferior to no one's. But woe is me! your person has not a fitting dress. I only wish you were as well off, as you are distinguished for beauty; if you became rich, I should not be poor. The adverse star of Mars in opposition 106 was unfortunate for you; Mars has gone; now Venus is befriending you with her planet. See now how favourable she is on her approach; a rich lover is sighing for you, and he makes it his care 107 what are your requirements. He has good looks, too, that may compare with your own; if he did not wish to have you at a price, he were worthy himself to be purchased."
On this the damsel blushed: 108 "Blushing," said the hag, "suits a faircomplexion indeed; but if you only pretend it, 'tis an advantage; if real, it is wont to be injurious. When, your eyes cast down, 109 you are looking full upon your bosom, each man must only be looked at in the proportion in which he offers. Possibly the sluttish Sabine females, 111 when Tati us was king, were unwilling to be accommodating to more men than one. Now-a-days, Mars employs the bravery of our men in foreign warfare; 112 but Venus holds sway in the City of her own Æneas. Enjoy yourselves, my pretty ones; she is chaste, whom nobody has courted; or else, if coyness does not prevent her, she herself is the wooer. Dispel these frowns 113 as well, which you are carrying upon your lofty brow; with those frowns will numerous failings be removed. Penelope used to try 114 the strength of the young men upon the bow; the bow that tested the strength of their sides, was made of horn. Age glides stealthily on, and beguiles us as it flies; just as the swift river glides onward with its flowing waters. Brass grows bright by use; good clothes require to be worn; uninhabited buildings grow white with nasty mould. Unless you entertain lovers, beauty soon waxes old, with no one to enjoy it; and even one or two lovers are not sufficiently profitable. From many of them, gain is more sure, and not so difficult to be got. An abundant prey falls to the hoary wolves out of a whole flock.
"See now! what does this poet of yours make you a present of besides his last verses? You will read many thousands of them by this new lover. The God himself of poets, graceful in his mantle 116 adorned with gold, strikes the harmonious strings of the gilded lyre. He that shall make you presents, let him be to you greater than great Homer; believe me, it is a noble thing to give. And, if there shall be any one redeemed at a price for his person 117, do not you despise him; the fault of having the foot rubbed with chalk 118 is a mere trifle. Neither let the old-fashioned wax busts about the halls 119 take you in; pack off with your forefathers, you needy lover. Nay more, should 120 one, because he is good-looking, ask for a night without a present; why, let him first solicit his own admirer for something to present to you.
"Be less exacting of presents, while you are laying your nets, for fear lest they should escape you: once caught, tease them at your own pleasure. Pretended affection, too, is not a bad thing; let him fancy he is loved; but have you a care that this affection is not all for nothing. Often refuse your favours; sometimes pretend a head-ache; and sometimes there will be Isis 121 to afford a pretext. But soon admit him again; that he may acquire no habits of endurance, and that his love, so often repulsed, may not begin to flag. Let your door be deaf to him who entreats, open to him who brings. Let the lover that is admitted, hear the remarks of him who is excluded. And, as though you were the first injured, sometimes get in a passion with him when injured by you. His censure, when counterbalanced by your censure, 127 may wear away. But do you never afford a long duration for anger; prolonged anger frequently produces hatred. Moreover, let your eyes learn, at discretion, to shed tears; and let this cause or that cause your cheeks to be wet. And do not, if you deceive any one, hesitate to be guilty of perjury; Venus lends but a deaf hearing 128 to deceived lovers.
"Let a male servant and a crafty handmaid 129 be trained up to their parts; who may instruct him what may be conveniently purchased for you. And let them ask but little for themselves; if they ask a little of many, 130 very soon, great will be the heap from the gleanings. 131 Let your sister, and your mother, and your nurse as well, fleece your admirer. A booty is soon made, that is sought by many hands. When occasions for asking for presents shall fail you, call attention with a cake 132 to your birthday Take care that no one loves you in security, without a rival; love is not very lasting if you remove all rivalry. Let him perceive the traces of another person on the couch; all your neck, too, discoloured by the marks of toying. Especially let him see the presents, which another has sent. If he gives you nothing, the Sacred Street 133 must be talked about. When you have received many things, but yet he has not given you every thing, be continually asking him to lend you something, for you never to return. Let your tongue aid you, and let it conceal your thoughts; 134 caress him, and prove his ruin. 135 Beneath the luscious honey cursed poisons lie concealed. If you observe these precepts, tried by me throughout a long experience; and if the winds and the breezes do not bear away my words; often will you bless me while I live; often will you pray, when I am dead, that in quietude my bones may repose.".
She was in the middle of her speech, when my shadow betrayed me; but my hands with difficulty refrained from tearing her grey scanty locks, and her eyes bleared with wine, and her wrinkled cheeks. May the Gods grant you both no home, 136 and a needy old age; prolonged winters as well, and everlasting thirst.
ELEGY IX
He tells Atticus that like the soldier, the lover ought to be on his guard and that Love is a species of warfare.
Every lover is a soldier, and Cupid has a camp of his own; believe me, Atticus, 138 every lover is a soldier. The age which is fitted for war, is suited to love as well. For an old man to be a soldier, is shocking; amorousness in an old man is shocking. The years which 139 generals require in the valiant soldier, the same does the charming fair require in her husband. Both soldier and lover pass sleepless nights; both rest upon the ground. The one watches at the door of his mistress; but the other at that of his general. 140 Long marches are the duty of the soldier; send the fair far away, and the lover will boldly follow her, without a limit to his endurance. Over opposing mountains will he go, and rivers swollen with rains; the accumulating snows will he pace.
About to plough the waves, he will not reproach the stormy East winds; nor will he watch for Constellations favourable for scudding over the waves. Who, except either the soldier or the lover, will submit to both the chill of the night, and the snows mingled with the heavy showers? The one is sent as a spy against the hostile foe; the other keeps his eye on his rival, as though upon an enemy. The one lays siege to stubborn cities, the other to the threshold of his obdurate mistress: the one bursts open gates, and the other, doors. 142 Full oft has it answered to attack the enemy when buried in sleep; and to slaughter an unarmed multitude with armed hand. Thus did the fierce troops of the Thracian Rhesus 143 fall; and you, captured steeds, forsook your lord. Full oft do lovers take advantage of the sleep of husbands, and brandish their arms against the slumbering foe. To escape the troops of the sentinels, and the bands of the patrol, is the part both of the soldier, and of the lover always in misery. Mars is wayward, and Venus is uncertain; both the conquered rise again, and those fall whom you would say could never possibly be prostrate.
Whoever, then, has pronounced Love mere slothfulness, let him cease to love: 144 to the discerning mind does Love belong. The mighty Achilles is inflamed by the captive Briseis. Trojans, while you may, destroy the Argive resources. Hector used to go to battle fresh from the embraces of Andromache; and it was his wife who placed his helmet on his head. The son of Atreus, the first of all the chiefs, on beholding the daughter of Priam, is said to have been smitten with the dishevelled locks of the raving prophetess. 146 Mars, too, when caught, was sensible of the chains wrought at the forge; 147 there was no story better known than his, in all the heavens.
I myself was of slothful habit, and born for a lazy inactivity; 148 the couch and the shade 149 had enervated my mind. Attentions to the charming fair gave a fillip to me, in my indolence; and Love commanded me to serve 150 in his camp. Hence it is that thou seest me active, and waging the warfare by night. Let him who wishes not to become slothful, fall in love.
ELEGY X
He tells his mistress that she ought not to require presents as a return for her love.
Such as she, who, borne away from the Eurotas, 151 in the Phrygian ships, was the cause of warfare to her two husbands; such as Leda was, whom her crafty paramour, concealed in his white feathers, deceived under the form of a fictitious bird; such as Amymone 152 used to wander in the parched fields of Argos, when the urn was pressing the locks on the top of her head; such were you; and I was in dread of both the eagle and the bull with respect to you, and whatever form besides Love has created of the mighty Jove.
Now, all fears are gone, and the disease of my mind is cured; and now no longer does that form of yours rivet my eyes. Do you inquire why I am changed? It is, because you require presents. This reason does not allow of your pleasing me. So long as you were disinterested, I was in love with your mind together with your person; now, in my estimation your appearance is affected by this blemish on your disposition. Love is both a child and naked; he has years without sordidness, and he wears no clothes, that he may be without concealment. Why do you require the son of Venus to be prostituted at a price? He has no fold in his dress, 153 in which to conceal that price. Neither Venus is suited for cruel arms, nor yet the son of Venus; it befits not such unwarlike Divinities to serve for pay. The courtesan stands for hire to any one at a certain price; and with her submissive body, she seeks for wretched pelf. Still, she curses the tyranny of the avaricious procurer; 154 and she does by compulsion 155 what you are doing of your own free will.
Take, as an example, the cattle, devoid of reason; it were a shocking thing for there to be a finer feeling in the brutes. The mare asks no gift of the horse, nor the cow of the bull; the ram does not woo the ewe, induced by presents. Woman alone takes pleasure in spoils torn from the man; she alone lets out her nights; alone is she on sale, to be hired at a price. She sells, too, joys that delight them both, and which both covet; and she makes it a matter of pay, at what price she herself is to be gratified. Those joys, which are so equally sweet to both, why does the one sell, and why the other buy them? Why must that delight prove a loss to me, to you a gain, for which the female and the male combine with kindred impulse? Witnesses hired dishonestly, 156 sell their perjuries; the chest 157 of the commissioned judge 158 is disgracefully open for the bribe.
'Tis a dishonourable thing to defend the wretched criminals with a tongue that is purchased; 159 'tis a disgrace for a tribunal to make great acquisitions. 'Tis a disgrace for a woman to increase her patrimonial possessions by the profits of her embraces, and to prostitute her beauty for lucre. Thanks are justly due for things obtained without purchase; there are no thanks for an intercourse disgracefully bartered. He who hires, 160 pays all his due; the price once paid, he no longer remains a debtor for your acquiescence. Cease, ye beauties, to bargain for pay for your favours. Sordid gains bring no good results. It was not worth her while to bargain for the Sabine bracelets, 161 in order that the arms should crush the head of the sacred maiden. The son pierced 163 with the sword those entrails from which he had sprung, and a simple necklace 164 was the cause of the punishment.
But yet it is not unbecoming for a present to be asked of the wealthy man; he has something to give to her who does ask for a present. Pluck the grapes that hang from the loaded vines; let the fruitful soil of Alcinous 165 afford the apples. Let the needy man proffer duty, zeal, and fidelity; what each one possesses, let him bestow it all upon his mistress. My endowments, too, are in my lines to shig the praises of those fair who deserve them; she, whom I choose, becomes celebrated through my skill. Vestments will rend, gems and gold will spoil; the fame which poesy confers is everlasting.
Still I do not detest giving and revolt at it, but at being asked for a price. Cease to demand it, and I will give you that which I refuse you while you ask.
ELEGY XI
He begs Nape to deliver his letter to her mistress, and commences by praising her neatness and dexterity, and the interest she has hitherto manifested in his behalf.
Nape, skilled at binding the straggling locks 166 and arranging them in order, and not deserving to be reckoned 167 among the female slaves; known, too, by experience to be successful in the contrivances of the stealthy night, and clever in giving the signals; 168 you who have so oft entreated Corinna, when hesitating, to come to me; who have been found so often faithful by me in my difficulties; take and carry these tablets, 169 so well-filled, 170 this morning to your mistress; and by your diligence dispel all impeding delay. Neither veins of flint, nor hard iron is in your breast, nor have you a simplicity greater than that of your clever class. There is no doubt that you, too, have experienced the bow of Cupid; in my behalf defend the banner of your service. If Corinna asks what I am doing, you will say that I am living in expectation of the night. The wax inscribed with my persuasive hand is carrying the rest.
While I am speaking, time is flying; opportunely give her my tablets, when she is at leisure; but still, make her read them at once. I bid you watch her eyes and her forehead as she reads; from the silent features we may know the future. And be there no delay; when she has read them through, request her to write a long answer; 172 I hate it, when the bleached wax is empty, with a margin on every side. Let her write the lines close as they run, and let the letters traced in the extreme margin long detain my eyes.
But what need is there for wearying her fingers with holding the pen? 175 Let the whole of her letter contain this one word, "Come." Then, I should not delay to crown my victorious tablets with laurel, nor to place them in the midst of the temple of Venus. Beneath them I would inscribe "Naso consecrates these faithful servants of his to Venus; but lately, you were pieces of worthless maple." 176
ELEGY XII
He curses the tablets which he has sent, because his mistress has written an answer on them, in which she refuses to grant his request.
Lament my misfortune; my tablets have returned to me with sad intelligence. Her unlucky letter announces that she cannot be seen to-day. There is something in omens; just now, when she was preparing to go, Napè stopped short, having struck her foot 178 against the threshold. When sent out of doors another time, remember to pass the threshold more carefully, and like a sober woman lift your foot high enough.
Away with you; obdurate tablets, fatal bits of board; and you wax, as well, crammed with the lines of denial. I doubt the Corsican bee 180 has sent you collected from the blossom of the tall hemlock, beneath its abominable honey.
Besides, you were red, as though you had been thoroughly dyed in vermilion; 181 such a colour is exactly that of blood. Useless bits of board, thrown out in the street, there may you lie; and may the weight of the wheel crush you, as it passes along. I could even prove that he who formed you to shape from the tree, had not the hands of innocence. That tree surely has afforded a gibbet for some wretched neck, and has supplied the dreadful crosses 182 for the executioner. It has given a disgusting shelter to the screeching owls; in its branches it has borne the eggs of the vulture and of the screech-owl. 183 In my madness, have I entrusted my courtship to these, and have I given soft words to be thus carried to my mistress?
These tablets would more becomingly hold the prosy summons, 184 which some judge 185 pronounces, with his sour face.
ELEGY XIII
He entreats the morning not to hasten on with its usual speed.
Now over the Ocean does she come from her aged husband Tithonus, who, with her yellow locks, brings on the day with her frosty chariot. Whither, Aurora, art thou hastening? Stay; and then may the yearly bird, with its wonted death, honour the shades 189 of thy Memnon, its parent. Now do I delight to recline in the soft arms of my mistress; now, if ever, is she deliciously united to my side. Now, too, slumbers are sound, and now the moisture is cooling the birds, too, are sweetly waronng with their little throats. Whither art thou hastening, hated by the men, detested by the fair? Check thy dewy reins with thy rosy hand. 190
Before thy rising, the sailor better observes his Constellations; and he wanders not in ignorance, in the midst of the waves. On thy approach, the wayfarer arises, weary though he be; the soldier lays upon his arms the hands used to bear them. Thou art the first to look upon the tillers of the fields laden with the two-pronged fork; thou art the first to summon the lagging oxen to the crooked yoke. 'Tis thou who dost deprive boys of their sleep, and dost hand them over to their masters; 192, that their tender hands may suffer the cruel stripes. 193 'Tis thou, too, who dost send the man before the vestibule of the attorney, 194 when about to become bail; 195 that he may submit to the great risks of a single word.
Thou art no source of pleasure to the pleader, 198 nor yet to the counsel; for fresh combats each is forced to rise. Thou, when the labours of the females might have had a pause, dost recal the hand of the worker in wool to its task.
All this I could endure; but who could allow the fair to arise thus early, except the man who has no mistress of his own? How often have I wished that night would not make way for thee; and that the stars when put to flight would not fly from thy countenance. Many a time have I wished that either the wind would break thy chariot to pieces, or that thy steed would fall, overtaken by some dense cloud. Remorseless one, whither dost thou hasten? Inasmuch as thy son was black, such was the colour of his mother's heart. What if 199 she had not once burned with passion for Cephalus? Or does she fancy that her escapade was not known? I only wish it was allowed Tithonus to tell of thee; there would not be a more coarse tale in all the heavens. While thou art avoiding him, because he is chilled by length of years, thou dost rise early in the morning from the bed of the old man to thy odious chariot. But if thou wast only holding some Cephalus embraced in thy arms; then wouldst thou be crying out, "Run slowly on, ye horses of the night."
Why should I be punished in my affections, if thy husband does decay through length of years? Wast thou married to the old fellow by my contrivance? See how many hours of sleep the Moon gave 201 to the youth beloved by her; and yet her beauty is not inferior to thine. The parent of the Gods himself, that he might not see thee so often, joined two nights together 202 for the attainment of his desires.
I had finished my reproaches; you might be sure she heard them; for she blushed'. However, no later than usual did the day arise.