Book II, Elegy 26

In my dreams I saw thee, light of my life, shipwrecked strike out with weary hands through the Ionian waves. I saw thee confess all thy falsehood toward me and sink, unable to lift thine hair weighed down with brine, like Helle tossed upon the purple waves, whom once the sheep of gold bore on its soft back. How I feared, lest perchance that sea should take thy name, and the mariner might weep for thee as he sailed thy waves! What vows to Neptune did I then make, what vows to Castor and his brother and thee, Leucothoe, once mortal, now a goddess! But thou, scarce raising thy finger-tips over the surface of the deep, didst oft, as one that soon must perish, call upon my name.

But if perchance Glaucus had espied thine eyes, thou hadst become a maid of the Ionian sea, and the Nereids would have chidden thee for envy, white Nesaee and azure Cymothoe. But I saw a dolphin hasten to thine aid, the same methinks that once bore Arion's lyre. I was even then striving to cast myself from the rocky height when terror dispelled the vision.

Now let men wonder that so fair a maid is my slave, and that all the city tells of my power! Though a Cambyses should return and the rivers of Croesus, never would she say, "Rise, poet, from my bed." For when she repeats my verse, she says that she hates wealthy suitors; no other maid does such reverent honour unto song. Fidelity in love is of much avail, of much avail is constancy; he that can make many a gift can have full many a love.

Does my love think of sailing long leagues of sea, I will follow her. One breeze shall waft us on, a faithful pair, one shore shall give us rest when we sink in slumber, one tree overshadow us, and oft shall we drink from the selfsame spring. One plank shall yield a couch to lovers twain, whether my bed be strewn by prow or stern. I will endure all things, though the wild East Wind drive our bark and the South's chill blast sweep our sails, whither we know not; though all ye winds should blow that once tormented the hapless Ulysses and wrecked the thousand ships of Greece on Euboea's shore, and ye also that parted the two shores, when the dove was sent to Argus to guide his bark over an unknown sea. If only she be never absent from my sight, let Jove himself fire our ship! For surely our naked corpses will be cast together upon the same shore; let the wave sweep me away, if only thou find burial in earth.

But Neptune frowns not on love strong as ours; Neptune was Jove his brother's equal in the field of love. Witness Amymone, that in the meadows yielded to his embrace, that so she might find the fountain; witness Lerna's marsh smitten by the trident. Then did the god redeem his promise at the price of his embrace, and straightway for her an urn of gold poured forth a stream divine. Orithyia also denied that Boreas, the ravisher, was cruel; this god tames both earth and the deeps of ocean. Believe me, Scylla will grow kind for us, and wild Charybdis also, that ceases never from her ebb and flow. Nor shall any darkness obscure the stars. Clear shall Orion be, and clear the Kid. Nay, what if I should breathe my last upon thy body! No dishonour will be mine in such an end as this.