Book III, Elegy 6

Tell me truly what thou thinkest of my love: so, Lygdamus, be the yoke of thy mistress taken from thy neck. Dost thou cheat me and make me swell with baseless joy, telling me such news as thou thinkst I would fain believe? Every messenger should be blameless of lying, and a slave should be all the truer by reason of his fear. Now set forth thy tale to me from the first beginning, if thou rememberest aught; I will listen with eager ears.

Did her tears rain even so when thou beheldest her weep with hair dishevelled? Didst thou see no mirror, Lygdamus, on her couch? Did no jewelled ring adorn her snowy hands? Didst thou see a sad-hued robe hang from her soft arms, and did her toilet caskets lie closed at the bed's foot? Was the house sad, and sad her handmaids as they plied their tasks, and was she knitting in their midst? Did she press the wool to her eyes to dry their moisture, and repeat my chidings with plaintive tone? "Is this the reward he promised me in thy hearing, Lygdamus? Perjury may be punished, though the witness be but a slave. Can he leave me thus to weep with never an act of love, and keep in his house one such as I would not name? He rejoices that I pine forlorn in my empty bed. If it please him, Lygdamus, let him mock me even in death! 'Twas by no winning ways, but by magic herbs, that she, the wretch, hath conquered me: he is led captive by the magic wheel whirled on its string. He is drawn to her by the monstrous charms of the swelling bramble-toad and by the bones she has gathered from dried serpents, by the owl-feathers found on low-lying tombs, and the woollen fillet bound about the doomed man. I call thee to witness, Lygdamus; if my dreams lie not, he shall yield me vengeance, late, yet ample, as he grovels at my feet. The spider shall weave her mouldering threads about his empty couch, and Venus herself shall slumber on the night of their embrace."

If my love spake these words with truth in her soul, run back, Lygdamus, by the way thou camest. Bear back this message from me with many tears, that my passion may have stooped to anger, but never to guile, that I am tormented by like flame to hers: I will swear that for twice six days I have known no woman. Then if blest peace shall spring from such fierce war, as far as I may serve thee, Lygdamus, thou art free!