Amores III.8

And does anyone still respect the freeborn arts, or deem tender verse brings any dower? Time was when genius was more precious than gold; but now to have nothing is monstrous barbarism. When my little books have won my lady, where my books could go, I may not go myself; when she has praised me heartily, to him she has praised the door is closed. Disgracefully hither and thither I go, for all my pod's gift.

Look you, a newly-rich, a knight a fed fat on blood, who won his rating by dealing wounds, is preferred to me! A being like that can you, my life, embrace with your beautiful arms? In such a one's embrace, my life, can you let yourself be clasped? If you do not know, that head used to wear a helmet; a sword was girt to the side that now serves you; that left hand, which now the late-gotten gold ring so ill becomes, has carried a shield; that right hand — touch it! — has been stained with blood. The hand by which someone has died — can you touch that right hand? Alas! where is the tenderness of heart you had? Look at those scars, marks of the bygone fight — that man has earned with his body whatever he has. Perhaps he could even tell you how many times he has plunged the steel in a human throat. Do you touch, greedy girl, hands that tell such tales? and do I, the unstained priest of Phoebus and the Muses, sing verses all in vain before your unyielding doors? Ah, ve who are wise, learn not what we know, we sluggards, but to follow battle's alarms and the fierce tented field, and marshall, in place of good verse, the foremost spears! This, Homer, had been thy fortune, didst thou wish.

Jove, knowing well that naught was more potent than gold, himself became the price of a maid's betrayal. So long as there was no gain to get, hard was the father, the maid herself severe, brazen the door, and iron the tower; yet when the astute lover had come in the form of;i price, the maid herself opened her arms and gave her favours at command. But when ancient Saturn had his kingdom in the sky, the deep earth held lucre all in its dark embrace. Copper and silver and gold and heavy iron he had hid away in the lower realms, and there was no massy metal. Yet better were his gifts — increase without the curved share, and fruits and honeys brought to light from the hollow oak. And no one broke the glebe with the strong share, no measurer marked the limit of the soil, they did not sweep the seas, stirring the waters with dipping oar; the shore in those days was the utmost path for man.

Thine own genius, O human kind, hath been thy foe, and thy wit o'er great to thine own undoing. What boots it thee to girdle cities with towered walls? What boots it to place the weapon in hands at strife? What was the sea to thee — with the land thou shouldst have been content! Why dost not aspire to the skies, too, for a third dominion? Where thou mayst, thou dost pretend to the skies as well — Quirinus has his temple, and Liber, and Alcides, and Caesar now. We draw from the earth, instead of increase, the massy gold. The soldier possesses wealth begotten of his blood. The senate is closed to the poor — -'tis rating brings office; 'tis that gives the juror weight, 'tis that makes a pattern of the knight!

Let them have all; let these have Campus and Forum slaves to them, and those rule the issues of peace and bloody war — only let them not in their greed buy away our loves, and let them leave something — 'tis enough — for the poor to win! But now, though she I love match the austere Sabine dames, he who has much to give commands her as if a captive; while I — am denied by her guard; when it comes to me, she fears her husband. If I chance to have given, both guard and husband will leave me the whole house free! O were there only some god to avenge the neglected lover, and change to dust gains so ill-got.

Apollo and the Muse Calliope.