Book I, Elegy 9: To Marathus (Postgate)

Why, if thou wast to wrong my helpless love, didst thou pledge thy faith to me before the gods but to break it privily? Unhappy! even if at first we hide the perjury, yet in the end comes Punishment on noiseless feet. Still spare him, powers above. 'Tis not unjust if for one sin against your godhead beauty should pay no forfeit.

'Tis in quest of gain the countryman yokes his bulls to his good plough and plies his hard work on the land ; it is gain that the SAvaying ships pursue when the sure stars guide them through seas that the winds control. And by gifts has my lad been captured. But may God turn them to ashes and running water.

Ere long he will make me full amends; his comeliness will be lost amid the dust and the winds that roughen his hair ; his face, his curls will be burned by the sun, and long travel will disable his tender feet.

How many times have I warned him: " Let not gold sully beauty ; under gold there often lurks a multitude of ills. Whosoever has let wealth tempt him to outrage love, with him is Venus fierce and obdurate. Rather burn my head with fire, stab my body with steel, and cut my back with the twisted scourge. And have no hope of concealment when thou art planning wrong. God knows of it, and lets no treachery stay hid. God himself has set [wine] within the reach of a tongue-tied servant, that with much strong drink his speech might How free.

Heaven itself has bidden the lips that slumber had sealed to open and to speak unwillingly of deeds that should have lain in the dark."

So used I to say to thee. Now I am ashamed that I wept as I spoke, that I fell at thy tender feet. Then thou wouldst swear to me that for no weight of precious gold or for pearls wouldst thou sell thy faith, nay, not if Campania's land were given thee as the price, or Falernum's fields that Bacchus tends. Such words could have robbed me of my certainty that stars shine in skies and that rivers run downward. Nay, more, thou wouldst weep ; but I unversed in deceit would ever fondly wipe the water from thy cheeks.

What should I have done hadst thou not thyself been in love with a maid ? May she be fickle — fickle, I pray, taking pattern by thee. Oh, how oft in the late night, that none should be privy to thy wooing, did I myself attend thee with the light in my hand ! Often, when thou didst not hope for her, she came through my good offices, and stood hid, a veiled figure, behind the fast shut door. Then, poor wretch, was my undoing; I fondly trusted to Love : I might have been warier of thy snares. Nay, in my craze of mind I made verses in thy honour; but now I am ashamed for myself and the Muses. May the Fire-god shrivel those verses with devouring flame, or the river wash them out in its running waters. Go thou far hence whose aim is to sell thy beauty and to return with a great wage filling thy hand.

And thou who durst corrupt the hoy with thy gifts, may thy wife unpunished make a constant jest of thee by her intrigues; and when the gallant is spent with hev furtive dalliance, let her lie by thee lax with the coverlet between. Let there be always stranger tracks upon thy bed, and thy house be always free and open to the amorous. Nor let it be said that her wanton sister can drain more cups or exhaust more gallants. She, folk say, prolongs her wine-bibbing revels till the wheels of the Light-bringer rise to summon forth the day. Than she could none lay out the night hours better, or arrange the different modes of love.

But thy spouse has learned it all, and yet thou, poor fool, dost notice naught when she moves her limbs with an unaccustomed art. Dost thou think that it is for thee that she arranges her hair and through her fine tresses passes the close-toothed comb ? Is it thy beauty prompts her to clasp gold on her arms and come forth arrayed in Tyrian drapery? Not thee, but a certain youth would she have find her charming. For him she would consign to ruin thee and all thy house. Nor does she this out of depravity; but the dainty girl shrinks from limbs that gout disfigures and an old man's arms.

Yet by him has my own lad lain. I could believe that he would mate with a savage beast. Didst thou dare, mad youth, to sell caresses that belonged to me and to take to others the kisses that were mine ? Thou wilt weep, then, when another lad has made me his captive and shall proudly reign in thy realm.

In that hour of thy punishment I shall rejoice, and a golden palm-branch shall be put up to Venus for her goodness, with this record of my fortunes :

THOU DIDST UNBIND OFFERS THEE THIS AND BEGS THEE KEEP FOR HIM A