Book II, Elegy 13

Not with so many Persian shafts is Erythra armed as the darts that Love hath planted in my breast. 'Twas he forbade me to despise the trivial Muse and commanded me to dwell in the grove of Ascra; not in such wise that the Pierian oaks should follow my words, or that I should lead the wild beasts after me down Ismarus' vale, but rather that Cynthia should marvel at my verse. Thus should I win more fame than Inachian Linus.

I marvel not only at comeliness of form, nor if a woman boasts glorious ancestry. Be it rather my joy to have read my verse as I lay in the arms of a learned maid and to have pleased her pure ears with what I write. When such bliss hath fallen to my lot, farewell the confused talk of the people; I will rest secure in the judgment of my mistress. If only she chance to turn her thoughts toward peace and hear me kindly, though Jove be angry, I can bear his wrath.

Wherefore, Cynthia, when at last death shall seal my eyes, hear thou the order of my funeral. For me let no procession walk with long array of masks, let no trumpet make vain wailing for my end. Let no last bed on posts of ivory be strewn for me, let not my dead body lie on a couch of cloth-of-gold; no line of attendants with sweet-scented platters for me, only the humble obsequies that mark a poor man's death.

Costly enough shall be my funeral train if three little books go with me to the grave, that I may bear them to Persephone as my most precious offering. And thou shalt follow, thy breast all bare and torn, nor shalt thou weary of calling upon my name, but shalt imprint the last kiss upon my clay-cold lips, when the casket of onyx with its gift of Syrian nard is bestowed upon me. Then when the fire beneath hath burned me to an ash, let a tiny earthen urn receive my ghost, and over my little tomb let a laurel be planted to o'ershade the spot, where the fire of death hath ceased to burn; and thereon be these two verses: HE THAT NOW LIES NAUGHT BUT UNLOVELY DUST, ONCE SERVED ONE LOVE AND ONE LOVE ONLY.

So shall the fame of my sepulchre be blazoned abroad no less than the bloody tomb of the Phthian hero. And whene'er thou too shalt come to thy death, do thou come gray-haired by the old path to the stones that guard my memory. Meanwhile see thou despise me not in my tomb. Not all unconscious and witless of the truth are the ashes of man.

And ah! would that any one of the three Sisters had ordained that I should die, while yet I lay in the cradle. For to what end is man's breath kept whole in him, breath that any moment may cease to be? Not till three generations of men had past away were Nestor's ashes seen: yet had some Phrygian warrior from the ramparts of Troy cut short the long-drawn doom of his old age, he ne'er had seen the body of Antilochus laid in earth, nor cried aloud: "O death! why tarriest thou so late e'er thou come to me?" Yet thou, when thou hast lost thy friend, wilt sometimes weep for him; undying love is the due of the loved and lost. Witness the cruel boar that struck snow-white Adonis as he hunted on the Idalian peak. There in the marsh, 'tis said, he lay in his beauty; thither, 'tis said, thou wentest, Venus, thy tresses unbound. But in vain, Cynthia, shalt thou recall my voiceless shade to life; for what answer shall my crumbled bones have strength to make?