The Remedies of Love (Mozley)

Love read the name and title of this book : “Wars,” said he, “wars are in store for me, I perceive. “Ah, Cupid, hold me not guilty of a crime, who am thy poet, and have so often under thy command borne the standards thou didst give me. I am not Tydeus’ son, from Whom thy mother bed back wounded on Mars’ chariot to the pure air of heaven. Other youths are ofttimes cool; I have ever been a lover, and, shouldst thou ask what I am doing now, I love. Nay too, I have taught by what skill thou mightest be gained, and what was impulse then is science now. Neither thee do I betray, O winsome boy, nor mine own craft, nor does the new Muse unravel the old work. If any lover has delight in his love, blest is his passion : let him rejoice and sail on with favouring wind. But if any endures the tyranny of an unworthy mistress, let him not perish, but learn the help my art can give. Why has some lover cast the noose about his neck, and hung, a sad burden, from a lofty beam ? Why has one pierced his breast with the unyielding sword Lover of peace, thou bearest the reproach of that murder. He who, unless he give o’er, will die of hapless love, — let him give o’er ; and thou shalt be the death of none. Thou art a boy, nor does aught save play become thee : play then ; a tender rule becomes thy years. For thou couldst have used naked arrows for thy wars : yet thy darts are free from deadly blood. Let thy step-father fight with sword and sharp spear, and go triumphant stained with much shedding of blood ; do thou practise thy mother’s art, which it is safe to use, and by whose fault no parent is bereaved. Make the door be broken in the nightly brawl, and the gates be hid ’neath the decking of many a garland : make youths and timid girls keep secret tryst, and by whatever art deceive the cautious husband : but let the excluded lover utter now blandishments, now reproaches to the unyielding door-post, and sing in doleful strain. Those tears will content thee without the crime of death ; thy torch deserves not to be set to greedy pyres.” Thus I, and Love all golden moved his jewelled wings, and, “Finish,” said he, “thy purposed task.”

Come, hearken to my precepts, slighted youths, ye whom your own love has utterly betrayed. Learn healing from him through whom ye learnt to love : one hand alike will wound and succour. The same earth fosters healing herbs and noxious, and oft is the nettle nearest to the rose ; the Pelian spear which wounded once its Herculean foe, bore relief also to the wound. But whatever is said to men, deem also said to you, ye women : we give arms to the opposing sides, and if aught thereof concerns not your needs, yet by example it can teach much. A profitable aim it is to extinguish savage flames, and have a heart not enslaved to its own frailty. Phyllis would have lived, had she used my counsels, and taken more often the path she took nine times ; nor would dying Dido have seen from her citadel’s height the Dardan vessels spread their sails to the wind ; nor would anger have armed against her own offspring the mother who took vengeance on her husband with the loss of kindred blood. By my art Tereus, though Philomel found favour, had not deserved by crime to become a bird. Give me Pasiphae ; soon will she love the bull no more ; give me Phaedra ; Phaedra’s shameful love will disappear. Give Paris to me : Menelaus will keep Helen, nor will vanquished Pergamum fall by Danaan hands. Had impious Scylla read my verse, the purple had stayed on thy head, O Nisus. Under my guidance, ye men, control your ruinous passions, and under my guidance let ship and crew run straight. You should have read Naso then when you learnt to love : you should read the same Naso now. A public champion, I shall relieve hearts that groan beneath their lords ; welcome each of you the rod that liberates. Thee I beseech at the outset, let thy laurel be nigh to aid me, O Phoebus, inventor of song and of the healing art ! Succour alike the poet and alike the healer ; the labours of both are under thy patronage.

While it may be, and but moderate feeling moves your heart, if you dislike it, stay your foot on the first threshold. Crush, while yet they are new, the baneful seeds of sudden disease, and let your steed at the outset check his pace. For delay gives strength, delay matures the tender grapes, and makes what is grass into lusty crops. The tree that gives broad shade to strollers, when first it was planted, was a tender shoot, then it could be pulled by the hand from the surface earth : now it stands firm, grown by its own strength to unmeasured height. Consider in swift thought what kind of thing it is you love, and withdraw your neck from a yoke that may one day gall. Resist beginnings; too late is the medicine prepared, when the disease has gained strength by long delay. Ay, and make haste, nor wait on the coming hours ; he who is not ready to-day will be less so to-morrow : all love deceives and finds sustenance in delaying ; next day is ever the best for your deliverance. Few rivers do you see that are born of mighty springs : most are increased by gathered waters. Hadst thou been quick to know how great a crime thou Wert devising, thou hadst not, Myrrha, hid thy face in bark. I have seen a Wound, that at first was healable, by tarrying suffer the penalty of long delay. But because We delight to pluck the blooms of Venus, ever we repeat, “Tomorrow it will be the same.” Meanwhile secret flames creep into our inmost being, and the evil tree drives its roots deeper down. Yet if the time for early succour is lost, and an old love is seated in the captured heart, a heavier task remains : but, because I am called late to the patient’s side, I must not leave him to his fate. The Poeantian hero should have cut away with unfaltering hand that part where he had been hurt; yet was he healed, we believe, after many years, and dealt the blow that ended all the war. I who of late was hastening to nip an ailment in the bud now cautiously apply to you my tardy aid. Either when ’’tis new try, if you can, to assuage a fire, or when by its own force it has collapsed : when its fury is at full speed, give way to its furious speeding ; hard to face is ever the first onset. Foolish is the swimmer who though he can pass down it in a slanting course struggles to go against the stream. The impatient spirit, as yet intractable to skill rejects and holds in abhorrence words of counsel. More wisely shall I then approach when he suffers at last his wounds to be touched, and is fit for true admonishment. Who save a fool would forbid a mother to weep o’er the body of her son ? not then must she be counselled. When she has shed tears and fulfilled her mind’s distress, then may words set a limit to that grief. The art of being timely is almost a medicine : wine timely given helps, untimely, harms. Nay, you would inflame the malady, and by forbidding irritate it, should you attack it at an unfitting time.

When therefore I shall find you amenable to my skill, obey my counsels and first of all shun leisure. That makes you love; that guards what it has done ; that is the cause and sustenance of the pleasant evil. Take away leisure and Cupid’s bow is broken, and his torch lies extinguished and despised. As the plane rejoices in wine, or the poplar in water, or the reed of the mere in marshy ground, so does Venus delight in leisure; you who seek an end of love, love yields to business; be busy, and you will be safe. Listlessness, and too much sleep with none to check you, and dicing, and fuddling the temples with much wine, without a wound rob the spirit of all its strength : insidious Love glides into defenceless hearts. Where sloth is, that Boy is wont to follow ; he hates the busy : give the empty mind some business to occupy it. There are the courts, there are the laws, there are friends for you to protect : frequent the camps that gleam with the city gown. Or undertake the manly task of blood-stained Mars ; you will soon be routing your pleasures. Lo ! the fugitive Parthian, fresh cause of glorious triumph, already beholds the arms of Caesar on his plains : defeat alike Cupid’s and the Parthian’s arrows, and bring home to your country’s gods a double trophy. No sooner was Venus hurt by the Aetolian spear than she bids her lover wage her wars. Do you ask why Aegisthus became an adulterer? the reason is near at hand : he was a sluggard. Others were fighting in the lagging war by Ilium : Greece had sent thither all her might. Did he wish to engage in warfare, Argos was waging none : or to the courts ? Argos was free from legal strife. All he could do, he did ; that he might not there do naught, he fell in love. So comes that Boy, so does that Boy remain.

The country also delights the mind, and the pursuit of husbandry ; no care is there but must yield to this. Bid the tamed bulls bow their necks to the burden, that the curved share may wound the stubborn ground ; bury the seeds of Ceres in the upturned soil, that the earth may restore them to you with lavish usury. Watch your boughs bent with the weight of apples, so that the tree scarce sustains the burden of its produce ; watch the streams gliding with cheerful sound; watch the sheep cropping the fertile grass. Lo ! the goats make for the rocks and precipitous cliffs : soon they will bring back full udders to their kids ; the shepherd plays a ditty on his unequal pipes, nor lacks the company of his faithful dogs ; elsewhere the deep glades resound with lowings, and a mother complains that her calf is lost. What of the swarms that flee from the yew-torches set beneath them, that the taking of the combs may unburden the rounded osiers ? Autumn brings fruit : summer is fair with harvest : spring gives flowers : winter is relieved by fire. At fixed seasons the countryman picks the ripened grapes, and the vintage flows beneath his naked foot ; at fixed seasons he cuts and binds the grasses, and harrows the shaven earth with wide-toothed comb. You yourself can plant a shoot in a well-watered garden, you yourself can guide the runnels of gentle water. The time of grafting has come : see that bough adopts bough, and that the tree stands covered with leaves that are not its own. When once this pleasure begins to charm the mind, on maimed wings Love flutters hopelessly away. Or cultivate the pleasures of the chase : ofttimes has Venus, vanquished by Phoebus’ sister, beaten a base retreat. Now pursue with cunning hound the forward-straining hare, now stretch your nets on leafy ridges ; either with varied panic alarm the timid deer, or meet the boar and fell him with your spear-thrust. Tired out, at nightfall sleep, not thoughts of a girl, will await you, and refresh your limbs with healthy repose. ’Tis a milder pleasure (yet a pleasure it is) to seek a humble prize by snaring birds with net or reed, or to hide in the suspended bait the brazen hook, which the greedy fish may swallow to his hurt with ravening mouth. By these or other pursuits, until you unlearn your love, you must craftily deceive yourself. Only go away, though strong be the bonds that hold you, go far, and make a lengthy voyage ; you will weep, and the name of your deserted mistress will haunt your mind ; and oft will your foot halt in mid-journey : yet the less you wish to go, the more be sure of going ; persist, and compel your unwilling feet to run. Hope not for rain, nor let foreign sabbaths stay you, nor Allia well-known for its ill-luck. Ask not how many miles you have covered, nor how many more remain ; nor feign delays that you may tarry near at hand. Count not the days, nor be ever looking back at Rome ; but flee ; by flight the Parthian is still safe from his foe.

Some may call my counsels cruel : cruel I confess they are ; but, to recover health, you are willing to bear much pain. Often when ill have I drunk, though unwilling, bitter juices, and the feast was denied to my prayers. To redeem your body you will suffer steel and fire, nor, though thirsty, refresh your parched mouth with water ; to be whole in mind, is there aught you will refuse to bear ? Ah, but this part of you is costlier than the body. Yet the gateway of my art is the severest trial, and your only labour will be to endure the first beginning. Do you see how the first yoke chafes the captured bullocks, how the new saddle hurts the flying steed? Perchance ’twill irk you to leave your home and country ; yet leave it you will : and then you will wish to return ; but it will not be your home and country, but the love of your mistress that calls you back, cloaking your weakness in grand words. Once you have gone forth, a hundred cares will bring you solace, the country scenes, your comrades, the long road. Nor think it enough to depart ; be absent long, till the fuel lose its force and the flame be spent. If you haste to return save with well-steeled mind, Love will renew the fight, and wage fierce war against you. For all your absence you will come back greedy and athirst, and all that time will but have done you harm.

If anyone thinks that the baneful herbs of Haemonia and arts of magic can avail, let him take his own risk. That is the old way of witchcraft ; my patron Apollo gives harmless aid in sacred song. Under my guidance no spirit will be bidden issue from the tomb, no witch will cleave the ground with hideous spell ; no crops will pass from field to field, nor Phoebus’ orb grow suddenly pale. As of wont will Tiber flow to the sea’s waters ; as of wont will the Moon ride in her snow-white car. No hearts will lay aside their passion by enchantment, nor love flee vanquished by strong sulphur. What availed thee the grasses of thy Phasian land, O Colchian maid, when thou wert fain to stay in thy native home ? What did Persean herbs profit thee O Circe, when a breeze that favoured them bore the Neritian barks away? Thou didst all, that the cunning stranger should not leave thee : yet he spread full canvas in unhindered flight. Thou didst all, that the fierce fire should not burn thee ; yet long abode the passion in thy unwilling breast. Thou wert able to change men into a thousand shapes, yet wert unable to change the laws of thine own soul. In these words even, when already he was eager to depart, art thou said to have detained the Dulichian chief: “I pray not now, what first, I remember, I was wont to hope, that thou wouldst wish to be my husband ; and yet methought I was worthy to be thy wife, in that I was a goddess, daughter of the mighty Sun. I beseech thee not to haste ; I crave the boon of time : what less could my vows pray for? Thou seest the waters roused, and shouldst fear them : presently the wind will be more useful to thy sails. What cause hast thou for flight ? no new Troy rises here again, none calls his mates to arms once more. Love is here, and peace, wherein I alone am wounded sore, and the land will be all beneath thy sway.” She was yet speaking : Ulysses loosed his ship ; with the sails the winds bore away her unavailing words. Circe aflame has recourse to her wonted arts, yet not by them is her passion calmed.

Therefore, whoever you are that seek aid in my skill, have no faith in spells and witchcraft. If some powerful cause keeps you in imperial Rome, hear what my counsel is in Rome. He best wins freedom for himself who has burst the bonds that hurt his soul, and once for all o’ercome the smart. If any has such fortitude, I, even I, will marvel at him, and say, “ That man needs not my precepts. But you who love and with pain unlearn your loving, who cannot and yet wish you could, you must be taught by me. Bring often to your mind what your cursed mistress has done, and set all your loss before your eyes. “ This has she, and that, nor is content with so much plunder : the greedy wretch has brought all my house beneath the hammer Thus did she swear to me, and swearing played me false ; how often did she suffer me to lie before her door ! She cares for others herself, but scorns my love ; a pedlar (curse him !) enjoys the nights she refuses to me ! ’ Let all this steep your feelings in gall ; remember that, seek there the seeds of hatred. And would that you could be eloquent too therein ! well, only suffer, and eloquence will come. Lately my passion clung to a certain girl ; that passion did not suit my mind : a sick Podalirius, I treated myself with my own herbs, and, I confess, I was a shamefully sick physician. It helped me to harp continually on my mistress’ faults, and that, when I did it, often brought me relief. “ How ugly, would I say, are my girl’s legs ! ” and yet they were not, to say the truth. “ How far from comely are my girl’s arms ! ” yet comely they were, to say the truth. “ How short she is ! ” though she was not ; “ how much she asks of her lover!” that proved my chiefest cause of hate. Faults too lie near to charms ; by that error virtues oft were blamed for vices. Where you can, turn to the worse your girl’s attractions, and by a narrow margin criticise amiss. Call her fat, if she is full-breasted, black, if dark-complexioned in a slender woman leanness can be made a reproach. If she is not simple, she can be called pert: if she is honest, she can be called simple. Nay more, whatever gift your mistress lacks, ever with coaxing words pray her to employ it. Insist that she sing, if she be without a voice ; make her dance, if she know not how to move her arms. Has her speech an accent? make her talk much with you; she has never learnt to touch the strings? call for the lyre. Her gait is awkward? take her for a walk ; her breast is all swelling paps ? let no bands conceal the fault. If her teeth are ugly, tell her something to make her laugh; are her eyes weak ? recount a tearful tale. It will profit, too, of a sudden, when she has not prepared herself for anyone, to speed of a morning to your mistress. We are won by dress; all is concealed by gems and gold ; a woman is the least part of herself. Often may you ask, where is there aught to love amid so much ; with this aegis wealthy Love deceives the eye. Arrive unexpectedly: safe yourself, you will catch her unarmed ; she will fall, hapless woman, by her own defects. Yet ’’tis not safe to trust this precept overmuch, for artless beauty deceives many a lover. Then too when she is painting her cheeks with concoctions of dyes, go (let not shame hinder you) and see your mistress’ face. Boxes you will find, and a thousand colours, and juices that melt and drip into her warm bosom. Such drugs smell of your table, Phineus; not once only has my stomach grown queasy at them.

Now I will tell you what I recommend in the midst of the practice of love ; passion must be repelled on every side. Much of this indeed I am ashamed to speak ; but do you by your wit imagine more than my words say. For certain folk of late have found fault with my writings, and brand my Muse as a wanton. Yet so long as I please thereby, so long as I am sung in all the world, let this man or that attack me as he will. Envy disparages great Homer’s genius ; whoever you are, Zoilus, you get your fame from him. You too, under whose guidance Troy brought hither her vanquished gods — your poems too irreverent tongues have wounded. What is highest is Envy’s mark ; winds sweep the summits, and thunderbolts sped by Jove’s right hand seek out the heights. But you, whoever you are whom my freedom hurts, suit each theme, if you are wise, to its proper numbers. Valiant wars rejoice to be sung in Maeonian metre ; what place can be found there for lovers’ tales ? Tragedians sound a noble strain ; anger becomes the tragic buskin ; the sock must be used for common scenes. Let the free iambus be drawn against the opposing foe, whether it rapidly advance, or drag its final foot. Let winsome Elegy sing of quivered Loves, and lightly sport in kindly mood at her own pleasure. Achilles must not be told of in the numbers of Callimachus ; Cydippe suits not thy utterance, Homer. Who could endure Thais playing Andromache’s part? she errs, who in Andromache plays the part of Thais. Thais is the subject of my art ; unfettered is my love-making : naught have I to do with fillets ; Thais is the subject of my art. If my Muse meets the charge of mirthful themes, I have won, and she is accused on a false charge. Burst thyself, greedy Envy! my fame is great already ; it will be greater still, so it keep its first good fortune. But you haste overmuch ; if I but live, you will grieve the more ; many a song in store has my genius yet. For the desire of fame delights me, and has grown with my renown ; my steed pants but at the beginning of the slope. Elegy admits it owes as much to me as the noble Epic owes to Virgil.

So far I have but made answer to reproach : pull the rein more strongly, and run, poet, in thy proper track. When therefore union is sought and the work of lusty youth, and the time of the promised night draws nigh, lest your pleasure in your mistress enthral you, if you take it with full vigour, I would have you be with someone first ; find someone in whom the first bliss may spend itself: that which follows will be slow to come. Pleasure deferred is keenest : in cold we enjoy the sun, in sunshine shade, in thirst water is welcome. I am ashamed, yet I will say it ; choose also a posture for your union that you think least helpful and least becoming. Nor is that hard to manage : few women admit the truth, nor is there anything they will think has not become them. Then too I bid you open all the windows and by the admitted light observe unseemly limbs. But as soon as pleasure has reached its goal and is spent, and bodies and minds are utterly weary, while boredom is on you and you wish you had never touched a woman, and you think you will not touch one again for long, then mark well in your mind every blemish her body has, and keep your eye ever on her faults. Someone perchance will call them small (for so they are), but things that avail not singly help when they are many. The tiny viper’s bite slays the spacious bull : the boar is often held by a small hound. Only fight with the aid of numbers, and gather my precepts all together ; many will make a mighty heap. But since there are so many fashions and so many postures, trust not wholly to my counsels. What cannot offend your feelings, perhaps will be a reproach to another’s judgment. One passion was checked, because the lover, in full train, saw the obscene parts exposed ; another, because, when the woman arose from the business of love, the couch was seen to be soiled by shameful marks. You are not in earnest, if any there be whom such things have power to influence : your hearts were kindled by feeble fires. More strongly will that Boy bend his taut bow-string ; a wounded crowd, you will seek more potent aid. What of him who lurked in hiding while the girl performed her obscenities, and saw what even Custom forbids to see ? Heaven forfend I should give anyone such counsel ! though it may help, ’twere better not to use it. This I do advise, have two mistresses at once ; he is yet stronger who can have more ; when the attention, parted in twain, shifts from this one to that, one passion saps the other’s force. Great rivers are diminished by much channelling, and a fierce flame dies when the fuel is divided. One anchor holds not sufficiently the wax-smeared prows, one hook is not enough in running streams : he who long since procured two consolations for himself, long since was victor in the high citadel. But you, who have wrongly given yourself to one mistress, now at least must find a second love. In Procris Minos lost his passion for Pasiphae ; before Idaea, the first wife, vanquished, gave way. Callirhoe, who shared his couch, was the cause that the brother of Amphilochus did not for ever love Phegeus’ daughter. Oenone had kept Paris till life was o’er, had she not been harmed by her Oebalian rival. His wife’s beauty had pleased the Odrysian tyrant, but superior was the beauty of her imprisoned sister. Why do I waste time on cases whose number wearies me ? all love is vanquished by a succeeding love. With better heart does a mother mourn one son out of many than she who cries in tears “ thou wert my only one.” And lest you think I am giving you new laws (and would that the glory of the discovery were mine), when Atrides saw (for what could he not see, in whose power all Greece lay .) Chryseis the prisoner of his army, he, the conqueror, loved her : but everywhere her old sire wept stupid tears. Why do you weep, hateful old man? it is well with them; you are hurting your daughter, you fool, by your officiousness. And when Calchas safe ’neath Achilles’ protection had ordered her to be restored, and she was taken back by her father’s house, “ There is one,” said Atrides, “ whose beauty is next to hers, and, but for the first syllable, the name is just the same. Her, were he wise, Achilles would freely yield me ; otherwise let him feel my power. If any of you, Achaeans, blames this deed, it is something to hold a sceptre in strong grasp. For if I am king, and no maiden sleep with me, Thersites may sit upon my throne.” He spoke, and took her as ample solace for his former love ; his passion was allayed, for the new drove out the old. Learn therefore from Agamemnon, and take another flame, that your love may be sundered at the parting of the ways. Do you ask where you may find one ? go, read my precepts, your ship will soon be full of women.

But if my counsels avail aught, if Apollo by my mouth teaches men aught useful, though you are miserably scorched in Aetna’s midst, yet make yourself seem colder than ice to your mistress ; and feign to be heart-whole, lest, if perchance you show your anguish, she notice it ; and laugh, when you would mourn your plight. ’Tis not that I bid you break off your passion in mid-career : such cruel commands belong not to my rule. Feign what you are not, and counterfeit an assuaged frenzy ; so will you do in fact what you have practised doing. Often have I wished to seem to sleep, that I might not drink ; and, while seeming, I have surrendered vanquished eyes to slumber : I have laughed at one deceived, who feigned to love, and fell like a bird-catcher into his own snare.

By wont love comes into the mind, by wont is love unlearnt : he who can counterfeit sanity will be sane. She has bidden you come : come on the night arranged for you ; you have come, and the door is shut : you must bear it. Neither utter endearments nor hurl abuse at the door, nor lay your side on the hard threshold. The next day dawns : let there be no complaining in your words, no sign of grief upon your face. Soon will she drop her pride, when she sees your ardour fail : this profit too will you win from my art. Yet deceive yourself also, nor think to make an end of loving : the steed often resists the reins. Conceal your gain ; what you do not proclaim will come about : the bird avoids the nets that show too plainly. Let her not please herself so well, nor be able to despise you : take courage, that to your courage she ma! yield. Her door maybe is open ? pass it by, though she call you back. She has granted a night? hesitate to come on the night she grants you. To be able to endure is easy, when, should endurance fail, you can at once win the favours of some easy mistress.

And can anyone call my precepts hard ? lo ! I even play the reconciler. For since natures vary, I will vary my arts ; the disease has a thousand forms, I have a thousand remedies. Some bodies even sharp steel will scarcely heal ; to many juices and herbs give aid. You are too soft-hearted, and cannot tear yourself away, but are held fast-bound, and cruel Love has set his foot upon your neck ? Cease to struggle : let the winds bear your canvas backwards ; where the waves invite you, there let your oar be plied. You must sate that thirst wherewith you despairingly burn ; I give way ; now you may drink from mid-stream : but drink even more than your heart craves for ; see that the water you quaff overflows from your full throat. Continue, unchecked, to enjoy your mistress ; let hers be your nights, and hers your days. Seek to be sated with your complaint ; satiety too can make an end. Still remain, even when you think you could do without, until you have all your fill, and plenty destroys passion, and her house, grown distasteful, causes you no delight.

That passion also lingers long that diffidence fosters ; if you would be rid of this, be rid of fear. He who fears lest she be his no more, lest someone take her from him, will scarce be healed by Machaon’s art. A mother of two sons usually loves that one more for whose return from the wars she is afraid. Near the Colline Gate there is a venerable shrine; lofty Eryx has set his name thereon; Lethaean Love is there, who makes hearts whole, and pours cool water upon his torch. There youths seek oblivion for their vows, and maidens under the spell of a heartless lover. Thus did he speak to me (I know not whether it was very Cupid, or a dream : a dream, I fancy) ; “ O thou who now givest, now takest away heart-troubling passion, add this too, O Naso, to thy precepts. Let each give his mind to his own malady : he will be rid of his love ; to all has heaven assigned it, more or less. Let him who fears the Puteal and Janus and the swift Kalends be tortured by his sum of debt; he who has a cruel sire, though all else be granted to his prayer, must keep that cruel sire before his eyes ; here lives a poor man with an ill-dowered wife : let him think his wife stands in the way of his destiny. You have a fruitful estate and a vineyard abundant in fine grapes? fear lest the ripening grapes be scorched. Another has a ship returning home ; let him fancy the sea is ever stormy, and the coasts befouled with his fortune’s wreck. Let one be distressed for a soldier son, another for a daughter of ripe years ; and who has not a thousand causes of worry ? To be able to hate your mistress, Paris, you should have placed your brothers’ deaths before your eyes.” More was he speaking : the boyish image fled from my tranquil sleep, if sleep it was. What ani I to do ? in mid-waters Palinurus deserts his ship ; I am forced to travel ways I know not.

Whoever you are that love, solitary places are dangerous, beware of solitudes. ‘Whither do you flee? you will be safer in a crowd. You have no need for secrecy (secrecy adds to passion) ; a crowd will give you succour. If alone, you will be sad, and the shape of your deserted mistress will stand, as if herself, before your eyes. Hence night is sadder than the hours of Phoebus; the companions, who might relieve your gloom, are absent. And fly not intercourse, nor let your door be closed, nor hide your tearful countenance in darkness. Ever have some Pylades to care for his Orestes : this too will prove no easy task of friendship. What, save the secret woods, were Phyllis’ bane ? the cause of her death is sure: she had no companion. She was going, as the barbarian throng is wont to go, when it keeps the triennial feast of Edonian Bacchus, with hair dishevelled, and now, where she could, she gazed on the far-flung sea, now weary lay on the sandy ground. “ Faithless Demophoon ! she cried to the deaf waves, and her sobbing broke the words she uttered. There was a narrow way o’er-cast by the long shadows, by which she oft betook herself to the sea. For the ninth time she trod her hapless path : “ Let him see to it ! she cries, and turning pale looks at her girdle she looks at the branches also ; she hesitates, and shrinks from what she ventures, and is afraid, and sets her fingers at her neck. Then truly, Sithonian maid, could I wish thou hadst not been alone : the wood had not shed its leaves and wept for Phyllis. By example of Phyllis fear too much secrecy, O lover pained by thy mistress, O girl pained by thy lover !

A youth had performed whate’er my Muse commanded, and was nearly within the haven of his safety; he fell back, when he came among eager lovers, and Love resumed the arms he had put away. If you love, nor wish to love, see that you shun contagion ; even beasts are hurt thereby. The eyes, in beholding the afflicted, themselves suffer affliction, and many things harm our bodies through chance encounter. Sometimes water steals from a river running near into dry and parching soil : Love steals in all unseen, if you go not from your lover ; in this we are all cunning folk. Another like you was already cured : neighbourhood proved his bane : meeting his mistress was too much for him. The scar ill-healed relapsed to the old wound, and my arts sustained defeat. A fire next door is ill repulsed ; ’’tis best to avoid the neighbourhood. And frequent not the colonnade that she frequents when walking, nor cultivate the same society. What boots it by remembrance to heat once more a cooling passion? If you can, you must live in another world. With difficulty will you be kept, when hungry, from the appointed feast, and springing water provokes a raging thirst. ’Tis hard to hold the bull when he spies the heifer, the lusty steed ever whinnies at the sight of the mare. When this is done, in order at last to gain the shore, it is not enough to leave her alone behind. Bid farewell to mother and sister, and to the nurse her confidant, and to whoever will be any part of your mistress. Nor let her slave come, nor her handmaid with feigned tears greet you imploringly in her mistress’ name. Nor must you ask how she fares, though you wish to know ; endure ! you will gain by being tongue-tied. You too who relate the cause of ended love, and recount your many complaints against your mistress, cease to complain ; thus by silence will you win better revenge, so that she fades away from your regrets. And I would rather you were silent than say you had ceased to love ; he who says o’er much I love not is in love. But with better surety is the fire gradually extinguished than on a sudden ; leave off slowly, and you will be safe. A torrent is wont to flow more fiercely than an unbroken stream ; but that is short-lived, this goes on for ever. Let love fail, and vanish into tenuous air, and die by slow degrees. But to hate a woman once loved is a crime : that is an end fitting to savage minds. It is enough to be indifferent : he who ends love by hating, either loves still, or will find it hard to end his misery. Shameful is it that a man and woman lately at one should be foes forthwith ; the Appian herself approves not such strife as that. Men often put women in the dock, and love them : where no quarrel comes love unremembered slips away. I happened to be in the company of a youth ; his lady was in her litter : all his speech bristled with savage threats. On the point of summoning her on bail, “ Let her come forth from the litter,” he cried ; forth she came : when he saw his wife, he was dumb. His hands dropped, and from his hands the double tablet ; he rushed into her arms, and cried, “Thus thou dost conquer.” It is safer and more fitting to separate in peace, nor to hurry from marriage chamber to contentious courts. Bid her keep unchallenged the gifts you gave : the loss will be outweighed by the greatness of your gain. But if some chance brings you together, use all your memory and wit to wield the arms I give you. Now have you need of arms; here, brave warrior, must you fight : Penthesilea must fall before your steel. Remember now your rival, the threshold so hard to the lover, the fruitless prayers to witnessing gods. Do not arrange your hair because you are meeting her, nor let your toga’s loose folds attract remark. Take no trouble to please a woman now estranged ; see that she now is one out of many to you.

But what particularly hinders our endeavours ? I will speak, though each may learn from his own case. We are slow in breaking off, because we hope that we are loved : while each of us flatters himself, we are a believing crew. But believe them not that words (what can be more deceiving?) or the eternal gods have weight. And take care not to be moved by women’s tears : they have taught their eyes to weep. By innumerable arts are lovers’ feelings assailed, as the rock is beaten by waves on every side. Reveal not the reasons why you prefer to separate, nor say what your grievance is : yet, to yourself, keep up the grievance. Nor mention her shortcomings, lest she remove them ; yourself will be her advocate, so that her cause will be better than yours. Silence is strength ; to reproach a woman often is to ask to be satisfied. I would not dare to pilfer arrows in Dulichian wise, nor to drench in water the stolen torch ; I shall not clip the Boy’s bright wings, nor by my art unstring the sacred bow. Whate’er I sing is wisdom ; obey my song, and thou, healthbringing Phoebus, aid, as thou dost, my enterprise. Phoebus is nigh to aid ; his lyres and quivers have resounded ; I recognise the god by his own signs : Phoebus is nigh to aid. Compare a fleece that Amyclae’s vats have dyed, with Tyrian purple ; ’twill be of baser hue : do you too compare your girls with beauties ; each will begin to be ashamed of his own mistress ; each rival might have seemed fair to Paris, but each rival compared with Venus suffered defeat. Nor compare looks alone, but character and accomplishments as well ; only let not your love impede your judgment. My next point is a small one ; but, small as it is, it has profited many; and among these was I. Beware of reading again the treasured letters of an alluring mistress ; letters read over again move even constant minds. Consign them all, though unwillingly, to the fierce flames, and say, “ Let that be my passion’s funeral pyre.” Thestias burnt in the brand her absent son : will you be cowardly in burning-treacherous words? If you can, get rid of her pictures also : why does a mute image affect you ? in this way Laodamia perished. Mute places too are harmful; avoid places that know the secret of your unions ; they hold the seeds of sorrow. “ Here was she, here she lay ; in that chamber did we sleep ; here did she give me wanton joys at night.” Love brought to mind is stung to life, and the wound is rent anew : to the weak the smallest error is hurtful. Just as a cinder nearly spent will live, if you touch it with sulphur, and from a small become a mighty fire, so, save you shun whate’er may renew your passion, the flame that was lately naught will glow once more. Fain would the Argive vessels have shunned Caphareus and thee, old man, who with fires avenged thy grief. The cautious mariner is glad when Nisus’ daughter is passed do you beware of spots that once were all too pleasant. Let these be your Syrtes : avoid this Acroceraunia : here dire Charybdis spews forth the water she has swallowed.

Some things there are that no order can compel, yet happening by chance they often help. Let Phaedra lose her wealth : Neptune, you will spare your grandson, nor will his grandsire’s bull alarm the steeds. Hadst thou made the Gnosian poor, she had loved wisely : wanton love is fed on riches. Why has no man taken Hecale, no woman Irus ? surely, because she was poor, and he a beggar. Poverty has no means to feed its passion ; yet it is not worth while to wish to be poor for that. But let it be worth while to abstain from theatres, until love ebb quite away from your empty heart. Zithers and flutes and lyres enervate the mind, and voices, and arms that move to their own rhythm. There constantly in the dance are lovers played : the actor’s art teaches what you must shun and what delights you. Unwillingly I speak : touch not the poets of love ; with my own hand I take my own gifts from you. Avoid Callimachus : he is no enemy to love ; thou, too, O Coan, with Callimachus dost harm. Me certainly did Sappho make more welcome to my mistress, nor did the Muse of Teos teach me strictness. Who could have read unscathed the songs of Tibullus, or thine whose work was Cynthia alone Who after reading Gallus could go away hard-hearted? My poems too sound somewhat in that strain. Yet unless Apollo, prince of the craft, deceives the bard, a rival is the chief cause of our malady ; but picture no rival to yourself, and think she lies on her couch alone. The more ardently did Orestes love Hermione, that she had begun to be another’s. Why grievest thou, Menelaus? thou wentest to Crete without a consort, and wert able to be long absent from thy bride. Only when Paris bore her off art thou unable to be without a wife : ’twas another’s love that fired thine own. This too did Achilles bewail in the loss of Briseis, that she should give joy to the Plisthenian couch; nor bewailed he without cause, believe me : Atrides did what he had been a shameful sluggard not to do. Certainly I would have done it, nor am I wiser than he ; that was the choicest fruit of their quarrel. For that he swears by his sceptre that Briseis ne’er was touched, he deems not his sceptre to be heaven. May the gods grant you to be able to pass by the threshold of a deserted mistress, and may your feet avail for your purpose! Yes, you will be able; only let your will not fail : now must your course be courageous, now spur your flying steed. Think that in this cave there are Lotophagi, in that Sirens; let sails assist your oars. Him too Whose rivalry once pained you I would have you cease to look on as a foe. But be sure to greet him though hatred linger yet ; as soon as you can embrace him, you are healed.

And then there is diet too ; that I may perform all a physician’s task, I will tell you what to take and what to shun. Onions, be they Daunian or sent from Libyan shores or come they from Megara, all are harmful. Nor less should you avoid salacious rocket, and whatever sets our bodies in trim for Venus. More usefully may you eat rue that sharpens the eyesight, and whatever sets our bodies out of trim for Venus. You ask what is my counsel concerning Bacchus’ gift ? sooner than you expect will you be quit of my counselling. Wine prepares the heart for love, unless you take o’ermuch and your spirits are dulled and drowned by too much liquor. By wind is a fire fostered, and by wind extinguished ; a gentle breeze fans the flame, a strong breeze kills it. Either no drunkenness, or so much as to banish care : aught between these two is harmful.

I have finished my task ; hang garlands on the weary vessel ; the haven whither my course was set is reached. Soon will you pay your dutiful vows to the inspired poet, made whole, both man and woman, by my song.