Amores I.14

I used to say: "Stop drugging that hair of yours!" Now you have no locks to dye! Yet, had you suffered it, what were more abundant than they? They had come to touch your side even to its lowest part. Yes, and they were fine in texture, so fine that you feared to dress them; they were like the gauzy coverings the dark-skinned Seres wear, or the thread drawn out by the slender foot of the spider when he weaves his delicate work beneath the deserted beam. And yet their colour was not black, nor yet was it golden, but, although neither, a mingling of both hues — such as in the dewy vales of precipitous Ida belongs to the lofty cedar stripped of its bark.

Add that they were both docile and suited to a hundred ways of winding, and never caused you whit of pain. The needle did not tear them, nor the palisade of the comb. The hair-dresser's person was ever safe; oft has my love's toilet been made before my eyes, and she never snatched up hairpin to wound her servant's arms. Often, too, in early morning when her hair was not yet dressed, she has lain half supine on her purple couch. Even then, in her neglect, she was comely, like a Thracian Bacchante lying careless and wearied on the green turf.

And yet, seeing they were delicate and like to down, alas, what woes were theirs, and what tortures they endured! With what patience did they yield themselves to iron and fire to form the close-curling ringlet with its winding orb! I kept crying out : " 'T is crime, 't is crime to burn those tresses! They are beautiful of themselves; spare your own head, O iron-hearted girl! Away from there with force! That is no hair should feel the fire; your curls themselves can school the irons you apply! "

The beautiful tresses are no more — such as Apollo could desire, such as Bacchus could desire, for their own heads! I could compare with them the tresses which nude Dione is painted holding up of yore with dripping fingers. Why do you lament the ruin of your ill-ordered hair? why lay aside your mirror with sorrowing hand, silly girl? You are gazed upon by yourself with eyes not well accustomed to the sight; to find pleasure there, you must forget your old-time self. No rival's enchanted herbs have wrought you ill, no treacherous grandam has laved your hair with water from Haemonian land; nor has violent illness harmed — far from us be the omen! — nor envious tongue diminished your dense locks. The loss you feel was wrought you by your own hand and fault; yourself applied the mingled poison to your head.

Now Germany will send you tresses from captive women; you will be adorned by the bounty of the race we lead in triumph. O how oft, when someone looks at your hair, will you redden, and say : " The ware I have bought is what brings me favour now. 'T is some Sygambrian woman that yonder one is praising now, instead of me. Yet I remember when that glory was my own."

Ah, wretched me! Scarce keeping back her tears, with her right hand she covers her face, her generous cheeks o'er painted with blushing. The hair of yore she holds in her lap and gazes upon — alas, me! a gift unworthy of that place.

Calm your heart, and stop your tears! Your loss is one may be repaired. Not long, and you will be admired for locks your very own.