Amores II.17

If there be one who thinks it base to be a slave to woman, before his judgment seat shall I be proved guilty of being base! Yet let me lose my name, so she consume me with milder fires who is queen of Paphos and wave-beaten Cythera. Ah, would I had fallen prey to a merciful mistress, too, since I must fall prey to a beauteous one! Beauty breeds arrogance. 'Tis Corinna's fair face makes her hard with me O wretched me! why does she know herself so well? Surely, 'tis from her image in the glass she gets her haughtiness and she never sees her image before her toilet is made!

Not even if your charms do give you pride and promise of empire — () charms born to captivate my eyes! — should vou therefore scorn me when compared with yourself; lesser things may be fitted to the great. We are told that even the nymph Calypso was smit with love for a mortal, and kept him for her mate against his will. 'Tis believed that Nereus sea-born daughter was wed to the Phthian king, and Egeria to Numa skilled in law; that Vulcan was wed by Venus, though when he leaves the forge he limps with wretched sidelong gait. This very kind of verse is unequal; and yet the heroic line is fitly joined to the shorter. Do you, too, C) light of mine, take me — on whatever terms you please; let it suit you dictate law to me as if in the midst of the forum.

I shall not cause you to complain, nor will you be glad to see me go; this will be no love we shall need to disavow. Felicitous song, instead of great possession, is mine, and many a fair one wishes for glory through me; I know one who bruits it about she is Corinna. To have it so, what would she not have given? But neither do the cold Eurotas and poplar-fringed Po, far-separated, glide between the same banks, nor shall any but you be sung in my little books; the spur to my genius you alone shall be.