Book III, Elegy 21

I am constrained to set forth on a mighty journey to learned Athens, that long travel may free me from the burden of love. For my passion for my mistress grows with gazing on her: love itself is love's chief nourishment. I have tried all means whereby Love may be put to flight: but the god afflicts me from every side. Yet scarce ever, or only once and again, will she admit me, while oft she says me nay: or if she comes to me, she sleeps fully clad on the bed's edge. There is no help but this: if I seek another land, love will fly as far from my soul as Cynthia from mine eyes. Come now, my comrades, launch forth our ship to sea and draw lots in couples for your turn at the oar. Hoist the fair-omened sails to the mast's top; now the breeze forwards the mariner's course across the wave. Ye towers of Rome and ye my friends, farewell, and thou, my love, whate'er thou hast been for me, farewell!

Now therefore I shall be borne away, the Adriatic's unfamiliar guest, and now perforce approach with prayer gods of the roaring wave. Then when my bark has crossed the Ionian sea and lulled its sails in the calm waters of Lechaeum, for what remains of the journey hasten, my feet, to endure the toil where Isthmos with its fields beats back either sea. Then when the shores of Piraeus haven shall receive me I will climb the long arms of Theseus' road. There I will begin to clear my soul of error in Plato's Academe, or in thy gardens, learned Epicurus; or I will pursue the study of eloquence, the weapon of Demosthenes, and will cull the wit of thy books, learned Menander; or else bright pictures shall delight my eyes, or masterpieces wrought in ivory or bronze.

Either length of years or the wide-sundering spaces of the deep shall heal the wounds hidden in my silent breast, or, if I die, it shall be fate, not dishonouring love, shall lay me low; and the day of my death shall bring me no disgrace.