Book II, Elegy 22

Thou knowst that yesterday many a beauty pleased my impartial eyes; thou knowst, Demophoon, that thence springs many an ill for me. No street is there that my feet range in vain. Alas! the theatre was made too oft to be my doom, whether some beauty spreads out white arms with voluptuous motion, or pours from her lips a varied strain of song. And all the while mine eyes seek their own hurt, if some fair one sits with breast unveiled, or if her wandering locks stray o'er a snowy brow, clasped at the crown with an Indian gem. And if perchance by her look she said me nay in aught, cold streams of sweat streamed from all my brow.

Dost thou ask, Demophoon, why my heart is so tender to one and all? Love knows not the meaning of thy question "Why?" Why do some gash their arms with sacred knives, and cut their limbs to the sound of the Phrygian pipe? To each at birth nature allotted a vice; to me fortune allotted the doom that I should ever be in love. Though the fate of Thamyras the singer come upon me, never, my grudging friend, will I be blind to beauty.

But if to thee my limbs seem shrunk and thin, thou errest; it has ne'er been a hardship to me to serve Venus. 'Tis a lawful question; often a girl has found my passion could outlast the hours of night. Jove for Alcmena's sake made the stars of the Bear to slumber two nights long, and heaven twice was kingless through the dark; yet he was not therefore faint when he returned to the thunderbolt. Never doth love exhaust its own strength. What befell when Achilles came from Briseis' embrace? Did the Phrygians fly the less from the Thessalian's shafts? When fierce Hector rose from Andromache's bed, did not Mycenae's fleet tremble at the battle? Either hero could overthrow or ships or walls; I will be Achilles, or fierce Hector in the strife of love.

See how 'tis now the moon and now the sun that serve the sky! Even so for me one love will not suffice. If one receive me not, let another hold me and cherish me in passionate embrace; or if she be angered with my service of her, let her know that there is another who will gladly be mine. For a ship is safer when two cables hold it, and an anxious mother, if she rear twins, has less to dread.

Say "No!" if thou art unkind; or, if kind thou art, then come! But why take delight in waste of random words? This grief alone of all doth rack the lover's heart, if his mistress fails his hopes and comes not to the tryst. What sighs shake his frame as he tosses o'er all his couch, when the thought that now some unknown lover is admitted torments him even to death! Again and again he wearies his slave by asking, what he has heard already, and bidding him seek news of the fate he dreads to learn.