should desire it, I can never send away; first should I be even severed from my limbs. Love then, and a little wine about my temples, 069 are with me, and the chaplet falling from off my anointed hair. Who is to dread arms such as these? Who may not go out to face them? The hours of the night pass on; from the door-post strike away the bar.
Are you delaying? or does sleep (who but ill befriends the lover) give to the winds my words, as they are repelled from your ear? But, I remember, when formerly I used to avoid you, you were awake, with the stars of the midnight. Perhaps, too, your own mistress is now asleep with you; alas! how much superior then is your fate to my own! And since 'tis so, pass on to me, ye cruel chains. The hours of the night pass on; from the door-post strike away the bar.
Am I mistaken? Or did the door-posts creak with the turning hinge, and did the shaken door give the jarring signal? Yes, I am mistaken; the door was shaken by the boisterous wind. Ah me! how far away has that gust borne my hopes! Boreas, if well thou dost keep in mind the ravished Orithyia, come hither, and with thy blast beat open this relentless door. 'Tis silence throughout all the City; damp with the glassy dew, the hours of the night pass on; from the door-post strike away the bar.
Otherwise I, myself, 073 now better prepared than you, with my sword, and with the fire which I am holding in my torch, 074 will scale this arrogant abode. Night, and lore, and wine, 075 are persuasive of no moderation; the first is without shame, Bacchus and Love are without fear.
I have expended every method; neither by entreaties nor by threats have I moved you, O man, even more deaf yourself than your door. It becomes you not to watch the threshold of the beauteous fair; of the anxieties of the prison, 076 are you more deserving. And now Lucifer is moving his wheels beset with rime; and the bird is arousing 077 wretched mortals to their work. But, chaplet taken from my locks joyous no longer, be you the livelong night upon this obdurate threshold. You, when in the morning she shall see you thus exposed, will be a witness of my time thus thrown away. Porter, whatever your disposition, good bye, and one day experience the pangs of him who is now departing; sluggish one, and worthless in not admitting the lover, fare you well. And you, ye cruel door-posts, with your stubborn threshold; and you, ye doors, equally slaves, 078 hard-hearted blocks of wood, farewell.
ELEGY VII.
He has beaten his mistress, and endeavours to regain her favour.
Put my hands in manacles (they are deserving of chains), if any friend of mine is present, until all my frenzy has departed. For frenzy has raised my rash arms against my mistress; hurt by my frantic hand, the fair is weeping. In such case could I have done an injury even to my dear parents, or have given unmerciful blows to even the hallowed Gods. Why; did not Ajax, too, 080 the owner of the sevenfold shield, slaughter the flocks that he had caught along the extended plains? And did Orestes, the guilty avenger of his father, the punisher of his mother, dare to ask for weapons against the mystic Goddesses? 081
And could I then tear her tresses so well arranged; and were not her displaced locks unbecoming to my mistress? Even thus was she beauteous; in such guise they say that the daughter of Schoeneus 082 pursued the wild beasts of Mænalus with her bow. 'Twere more fitting for her face to be pale from the impress of kisses, and for her neck to bear the marks of the toying teeth.
In such guise did the Cretan damsel 083 weep, that the South winds, in their headlong flight, had borne away both the promises and the sails of the forsworn Theseus. Thus, too, chaste Minerva, did Cassandra 084 fall in thy temple, except that her locks were bound with the fillet.
Who did not say to me, "You madman!" who did not say to me, "You barbarian!" She herself said not a word; her tongue was restrained by timid apprehensions. But still her silent features pronounced my censure; by her tears and by her silent lips did she convict me.
First could I wish that my arms had fallen from off my shoulders; to better purpose could I have parted with a portion of myself. To my own disadvantage had I the strength of a madman; and for my own punishment did I stoutly exert my strength. What do I want with you, ye ministers of death and criminality? Impious hands, submit to the chains, your due. Should I not have been punished had I struck the humblest Roman 085 of the multitude? And shall I have a greater privilege against my mistress? The son of Tydeus has left the worst instance of crime: he was the first to strike a Goddess, 086 I, the second. But less guilty was he; by me, she, whom I asserted to be loved by me, was injured; against an enemy the son of Tydeus was infuriate.
Come now, conqueror, prepare your boastful triumphs; bind your locks with laurel, and pay your vows to Jove, and let the multitude, the train, that escorts your chariot, shout aloud, "Io triumphe! by this valiant man has the fair been conquered!" Let the captive, in her sadness, go before with dishevelled locks, pale all over, if her hurt cheeks 087 may allow.
In short, if, after the manner of a swelling torrent, I was impelled, and if impetuous anger did make me its prey; would it not have been enough to have shouted aloud at the trembling girl, and not to have thundered out my threats far too severe? Or else, to my own disgrace, to have torn her tunic from its upper edge down to the middle? Her girdle should, at the middle 089 have come to its aid. But now, in the hardness of my heart, I could dare, seizing her hair on her forehead, to mark her free-born cheeks 090 with my nails. There she stood, amazed, with her features pale and bloodless, just as the marble is cut in the Parian mountains. 091 I saw her fainting limbs, and her palpitating members; just as when the breeze waves the foliage of the poplars; just as the slender reed quivers with the gentle Zephyr; or, as when the surface of the waves is skimmed by the warm South wind. Her tears, too, so long repressed, flowed down her face, just as the water flows from the snow when heaped up.
Then, for the first time, did I begin to be sensible that I was guilty; the tears which she was shedding were as my own blood. Yet, thrice was I ready, suppliantly to throw myself before her feet; thrice did she repel my dreaded hands. But, dearest, do not you hesitate, (for revenge will lessen your grief) at once to attack my face with your nails. Spare not my eyes, nor yet my hair; let anger nerve your hands, weak though they may be.
And that tokens so shocking of my criminality may no longer exist, put your locks, arranged anew, in their proper order. 092
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