Carmen LV (Cornish)

I beg you, if I may without offence, show me where is your dark corner. I have looked for you in the lesser Campus, in the Circus, in all the booksellers' shops, in the hallowed temple of great Jove. And when I was in Pompey's portico, I stopped all the women there, my friend, who, however, faced me with untroubled look. You it was that I kept asking them for: " Give me my Camerius, you wicked girls!" One of them, baring her naked bosom, says, " Look here, he is hiding between my rosy breasts." Well, to bear with you is now a labour of Hercules. Not though I should be moulded in brass like the fabled warder of Crete, not though I were to soar aloft like flying Pegasus, not if I were Ladas or wing-iooted Perseus, not if I were the swift snow-white pair of Rhesus could I overtake you: add to these the feather-footed gods and the winged, and with them call for the swiftness of the winds:—though you should harness all these, Camerius, and press them into my service, yet I should be tired out to my very marrow, and worn away with frequent faintness, my friend, while searching for you. Do you deny yourself so haughtily, my friend? Tell us where you are likely to be, out with it boldly, trust me with it, give it to the light. Do the milk-white maids detain you? If you keep your tongue shut up within your mouth, you will waste all the gains of love; Venus loves an utterance full of words. However, if you will, you may lock up your lips, so long as you let me be a sharer in your love.