Book II, Elegy 30

Hard-hearted, dost thou now make ready to cross the Phrygian waves, and on shipboard seek the shores of the Hyrcanian sea? [to sprinkle our common household gods with mutual slaughter and bring dread prizes to the home of thy fathers?] Whither fliest thou, mad heart? There is no escape. Fly as far as Tanais; Love will hunt thee down. Thou shalt not escape, though thou be borne aloft on the back of Pegasus, nor though the pinions of Perseus wing thy feet. Or should the cloven breezes sweep thee along on feathered sandals, yet will the lofty path of Mercury avail thee naught. Love swoops ever above thy head; Love swoops down upon the lover, and sits a heavy burden on the neck that once was free. He is a watcher that slumbers not nor sleeps, nor ever will he suffer thee to raise thine eyes from off the ground when once he has enslaved them; and yet shouldst thou go astray, he is a god whom prayers may appease, if he but see that they are prompt to rise. Let stern old men denounce those revels of love; only let us, my life, pursue our chosen path. Their ears are burdened with the precepts of antiquity; but this is the place where thou, skilled pipe, shouldst sound, thou that of old didst float along Maeander's shallows, where unjustly thou wast cast when thou didst swell the cheeks of Pallas and mar the fairness of her face.

Shall I feel shame to live content in the service of one mistress? If this be a crime, to Love's door shall the crime be laid; let no one charge me therewith! And, Cynthia, be it thy joy to dwell with me in dewy grottoes on the mossy hills. There shalt thou see the Sisters clinging to the crags, while they chant the sweet loves of Jove in olden time, how he was consumed with fire for Semele, how madly he loved Io, and then how in likeness of a bird he flew to the abodes of Troy. (But if none hath e'er had strength to o'ercome the might of the winged one, why am I alone accused of the crime that all must share?) Nor shalt thou, Cynthia, grieve the demure faces of the Holy Maids; even their choir knows what it is to love, if it be true that for all their chastity a certain Muse lay upon the rocks of Bistonia locked in the arms of one that seemed Oeagrus. And there, when they shall place thee in the foremost rank of their dance, and Bacchus stands in the midst with his wand of skill, then will I suffer the holy ivy berries to hang about my head; for without thee my wit availeth naught.