Book IV, Elegy 8

Learn what this night struck panic through the watery Esquiline, when all the neighbours ran headlong through the New Fields.

Lanuvium is from of old under the guard of an ancient serpent; thou shalt not count it wasted time if thou give an hour to so wondrous a visit. Here down a dark chasm plunges a sacred path, where penetrates the offering of the hungry snake — beware, O maid, of all such paths as this! — when he demands his yearly tribute of food and sends forth loud hisses from the depths of earth. Maids that are sent down to rites such as this turn pale when their hand is rashly trusted in the serpent's mouth. He seizes the morsels that the virgin holds toward him: even the baskets tremble in the virgin's hands. If they have been chaste, they return to embrace their parents, and farmers cry: "'Twill be a fertile year."

Hither was my Cynthia drawn by close-clipped ponies. She pleaded Juno's worship; more truly had she pleaded rites of Venus. Tell forth, prithee, thou Appian Way, what a triumphal journey she made before thine eyes, as her wheels whirled madly over thy paving-stones, [when a noisy brawl broke out in a secret tavern and brought shame on my fair name, though I was not there]. She was a sight to see as she sat there bending over the pole's end and daring to drive amain through rough places. For I say naught of the silk-hung chariot of the close-shaven fop, nor of the dogs with rich collars about their Molossian necks; some day he will sell his doomed body to feed on the foul fare of a gladiator, when the beard whereof he is now ashamed shall master those close-shaven cheeks.

Since so oft she wronged our bed, I resolved to change my couch and pitch my camp elsewhere. There is a certain Phyllis, that dwells nigh Diana on the Aventine. Sober she pleases me little; when she drinks all is charm. Another there is, one Teia, that dwells 'twixt the Tarpeian groves; fair is she, but when the wine is on her, one lover will be all too few. These two I resolved to summon to make night pass less sadly, and to renew my amorous adventures with love still strange to me. One little couch there was for three on a secret lawn. Dost ask how we lay? I was between the two. Lygdamus had charge of our cups; we had a service of glass to suit the summer with Greek wine that smacked of Methymna. Thou, Nile, didst provide us with a piper, while Phyllis played the castanets, and, fair in her artless beauty, was right content to be pelted with roses. Magnus himself, with short and shrunken limbs, clapped his deformed hands to the sound of the hollow boxwood flute. But, though their bowls were full, the lamp-flames flickered, and the table's top fell upside down on the feet that had supported it. And as for me, while I sought for sixes from the favouring dice, ever the ruinous aces leapt to light. They sang to me, but I was deaf. They bared their bosoms, but I was blind. Alas! I stood alone at Lanuvium's gates.

And lo! of a sudden the door-posts groaned harsh with turning hinge, and a light sound was heard at the entrance of the house. Straightway Cynthia hurled back the folding portals, Cynthia with hair disordered, yet lovely in her fury. My fingers loosed their grasp and dropped the cup; my lips turned pale though drunken with wine. Her eyes flashed fire: she raged with all a woman's fury. The sight was fearful as a city's sack. She dashed her angry nails in Phyllis' face: Teia calls out in terror on all the watery neighbourhood. The brandished lights awakened the slumbering citizens, and all the street rang loud with the madness of the night. The girls fled with dishevelled raiment and tresses torn, and the first tavern in the street received them.

Cynthia rejoiced in her spoils and hastened back to me victorious, and bruised my face with cruel hands, and marked my neck with her teeth, till her bite drew blood, and above all smote mine eyes that had deserved her blows. Then when her arms were tired with beating me she routed forth Lygdamus, who lay hid on our left crouched beneath the couch's head at its very feet. Dragged forth to light, he implored protection from my guardian spirit. Lygdamus, I was powerless; I was thy fellow-captive.

At last I yielded to her terms, my hands outstretched in suppliant wise; but scarce would she let me so much as touch her feet, and said: "If thou wouldst have me pardon the sin thou hast done, hear the conditions of the law that I impose. Never shalt thou walk abroad in rich attire in the shade of Pompey's colonnade, nor when the sand is strewn in the wanton Forum. Beware that thou bend not thy neck awry to gaze at the theatre's topmost ring; let never a litter yield itself uncurtained to thy loitering gaze. And above all let Lygdamus, chief cause of my complaint, be sold and trail double shackles on his feet."

Such were the terms she imposed. I replied: "I accept the terms." She laughed, exulting in the dominion I had given her over me. Then she purified with fire each place that the foreign girls had touched, and cleansed the threshold with pure water; she bade me change all my raiment anew, and thrice touched my head with burning sulphur. Then when every covering of the bed had been changed, I bowed to her will and we made up our quarrel on the couch we knew so well.