Book III, Elegy 12

Postumus, hadst thou the heart to leave Galla weeping and to follow the gallant standards of Augustus to the wars? Was any glory from Parthia's spoils worth aught to thee, when thy Galla oft prayed thee not to go? If it be lawful, may all ye that are greedy for gold perish alike, and with you the man that loves arms more than a faithful bride!

Yet thou, madman, with thy cloak cast about thee for covering shalt drink the water of Araxes from thy helmet when thou art weary; and she meanwhile will pine at each idle rumour, for fear lest thy valour cost thee dear, or lest the Median arrows rejoice in thy death or the mailed soldier on his gilded steed; or lest some scanty relics of thee be brought home in an urn for her to weep; thus they return that perish in those lands.

Thrice and four times blest, O Postumus, art thou in Galla's chastity! With a heart like thine thou wast worthy of a different spouse! What will a woman do with no fear for safeguard, when there is Rome to teach its luxury? But go without fear; no gifts shall conquer Galla and she will not remember Calpe, thy cruelty. For whensoe'er fate sends thee home in safety, chaste Galla shall hang about thy neck. Postumus shall be another Ulysses with a wife to wake men's wonder: no hurt did Ulysses suffer from his long tarrying, no hurt from the ten years' leaguer, from Ismara the Ciconians' mount, from Calpe, and thereafter the burning of thine eye, O Polyphemus; no hurt from the guile of Circe, the lotos with its binding spell, nor from Scylla and Charybdis, cloven with alternate ebb and flow, nor when Lampetie's oxen bellowed on the Ithacan spits (Lampetie, Phoebus' daughter, had pastured them for her sire), nor when he fled from the couch of Aeaea's weeping queen, or swam the deep so many nights and days, entered the dark halls of the silent ghosts, and with his rowers drew nigh the Siren's pools, revived his ancient bow with the suitors' slaughter, and thus set a term to his wanderings. And not in vain, for his wife had remained true to him at home. Aelia Galla shall surpass Penelope's fidelity.