Book II, Elegy 17

To make a false tryst for a night, to beguile a lover with promises, why, 'tis to have his blood upon thy hands. These sorrows do I sing, as oft as I pass lonely nights of bitterness, anguished to think of how thou liest, and how I.

Be thou smitten with compassion for the fate of Tantalus at the waterside, when thou seest how the water sinks from his parched mouth and mocks his thirst; or marvel at the toil of Sisyphus, how he rolls his stubborn burden up all the mountain slope; yet know that there is naught on earth more suffering than a lover, nor aught a wise man would less wish to be. I who was once accounted happy, I whom men envied and admired, I now have entry scarce every tenth day. Now gladly, impious maid, would I cast myself from some hard rock or take distilled poison into my hands. No more can I lie in the streets beneath the cold, clear moon nor cry my words through the chinks of thy door!

Yet though these things be so, I will have a care not to change my mistress; then will she weep, when she feels that I am true.