the foam, upheld with her dripping hands.
Why, since they pleased thee not, dost thou lament the ruin of thy tresses? Wherefore, stupid one, dost thou thrust aside so mournfully thy mirror? No longer doth it please thee, remembering what thou wast, to gaze therein.
Howbeit ’tis not to magic herbs culled by a jealous rival, nor to water drawn by some treacherous witch from Hæmonian springs, that their fall is due. ’Tis not the effect of some dire malady (the gods keep thee from that), no, nor a rival’s jealous tongue, envious of their beauty. No, thine is the crime, and thine own the hand that wrought the loss thou mournest; thine own the hand that poured the poison on thy head. Now Germany will send you some slave-girl’s hair; a vanquished nation shall furnish thy adornments. Alas, how oft, when thou shalt hear men praise the beauty of thy hair, wilt thou tell thyself with a blush, “’Tis purchased merchandise that makes me comely in their sight to-day; of some unknown Sygambrian girl my friends the praises sing. Yet I remember the day when that glory was my own.”
Heavens, what have I said? See, she can scarce restrain her tears. She buries her face in her hands, and look how she is blushing. She steals a glance at one of her fallen tresses lying in her lap, a treasure, alas I not fitted for that place. Nay, come then, soothe thy heart and clear thy brow. The loss is not irreparable. Ere long with thine own hair, thou wilt be beauteous as of yore.
ELEGY XV. THE POETS ALONE ARE IMMORTAL.
Wherefore dost thou blame me, gnawing Envy, for consuming my days in slothfulness; wherefore callest thou my verses the employment of an idle mind? Why dost thou reproach me for not following in the footsteps of my forefathers, for not seeking, while vigorous youth permits, to crown my brows with the dusty laurels of war, for not studying the jargon of the law, or for not prostituting my words in a dingy court of justice? Mortal are the works whereof thou pratest; my aim is glory that shall not perish, so that in every time and in every place I may be celebrated throughout the world. Mæonides shall live so long as Tenedos and Ida shall endure, so long as Simois shall roll his hurrying waters to the sea. The Ascræan bard, too, shall live while the grape ripens on the vine, while the corn shall fall beneath the sickle’s curving blade. The song of Battus shall be sung throughout the world, albeit his art, rather than his genius, is his title deed to fame. The tragic buskin of Sophocles shall never grow old. So long as the sun and the moon shall shine, Aratus will live on. So long as slaves are rogues, as fathers storm, as pimps deceive and strumpets wheedle, Menander will not die. Ennius, for all his artlessness, and Accius, with his lusty speech, possess a name that Time shall not lay low. When shall there dawn an age that shall know not Varro, or the first ship to sail the seas, or the Golden Fleece brought home by Æson’s son? When the world perisheth, then, and not till then, shall the works of the high-souled Lucretius perish too. Tityrus and the garnered crops, Æneas and his doughty deeds, will be read so long as Rome shall wield her sceptre o’er the conquered world. So long as Cupid wields his fires and bends his bow, thy numbers, skilled Tibullus, will remembered be. In the West and in the East the name of Gallus shall be known to fame, and because of Gallus, the name of Lycoris shall live on. What though devouring time wear down the flint, and blunt the share of the enduring plough, yet poetry shall never die. Let kings, then, and all their train of conquests, yield to poetry, to poetry let the happy shores of the golden Tagus give place. Let the vulgar herd set their hearts on dross if they will. For myself, let Apollo bestow on me cups overflowing with the waters of Castaly; let the myrtle that dreads the cold adorn my brow and let my verses ever be scanned by the eager lover. While we live we serve as food for Envy; when we are dead we rest within the aureole of the glory we have earned. So, when the funeral fires have consumed me, I shall live on, and the better part of me will have triumphed over death.
BOOK II
ELEGY I. HE TELLS WHEREFORE, INSTEAD OF THE WARS OF THE GIANTS, WHICH HE HAD COMMENCED, HE IS CONSTRAINED TO SING OF LOVE.
Behold here another work of Ovid, who was born in the moist land of the Peligni, of Ovid who singeth to the world of his own follies. This time, again, ’twas Love that willed it. Hence! Avaunt! ye prim and prudish ones. No fitting audience, ye, to strains that sing of tender love. I would be read of none save the maiden that grows warm when she beholds her lover, and of the boy till now unvisited by Love. I pray, too, that some young man, wounded by an arrow sped from the same bow that hath stricken me, may recognise in my verse the image of the flames whereby he is consumed. Long may he marvel, and then at last exclaim, “How comes it that this poet singeth the very story of my love? Who is it hath informed him?”
I was, I remember, making bold to sing of the Wars of Heaven and Gyges of the hundred hands, and verily I was well equipped for that great argument. I was about to sin the fell revenge of Tellus and the fall of Pelion with Ossa crashing down from high Olympus whereon they were empiled. In my hands I held the clouds, Jove and his thunderbolts, wherewith he would not have failed to defend his heavenly realms. And then my mistress slammed her door against me. Forthwith I dropped Jupiter and his lightnings; aye, Jupiter himself clean vanished from my mind. Forgive me, Jupiter thy weapons were of no avail to me. That close-shut door moved me more than all thy thunderbolts. Back to my love songs and my gentle elegies went I; those are the arms for me, and ere long my gentle plaint moved to compassion the unfeeling doors. Poetry hath power to bring the blood-red moon to earth; poetry stayeth in mid-career the snow-white coursers of the sun. Poetry robbeth the serpent of his poisoned fang, and maketh the rivers to flow backward to their sources. Poetry hath battered down doors, it hath forced back locks, how tight soever they were welded to the massy oak. What had it booted me to sing Achilles fleet of foot; what would the sons of Atreus have done for me, or he who waged fierce war for ten long years and then wandered ten more upon his homeward way; or hapless Hector, dragged by the Hæmonian steeds across the dusty plain? But as soon as ever I pipe the praises of a sweet young girl, she cometh in person to pay the singer for his song. And that, methinks, is no small recompense. So farewell, ye heroes with illustrious names; not yours to bestow, the favours that I crave. But as for you, my charmers, look sweetly on the songs which rosy Cupid singeth in mine ear.
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