him go and beg some money for thee from his own admirer.
“Be not over-exacting whilst thou art spreading thy nets, for fear lest the prey should escape thee; but once he is in thy power, fleece him as thou wilt. Simulated love is often no bad thing. Let him think thou lovest. But see thou love not for nothing. Sometimes withhold thy favours. As for a pretext, why, maybe thy head doth ache, or else the festival of Isis compels thee to abstain; but hold not thyself too long aloof, lest he grow used to the lack of thee, or lest love, by dint of being rebuffed, at length grow cold. Let thy door, closed to the needy, be open to the rich. Let the laments of the rejected reach the ears of the favoured lover. If thou woundest thy lover, be wroth with him as if he had hurt thee first. Forestall his upbraidings with thine own; but indulge not over-long thine anger. Anger too far prolonged hath oft engendered hate. Let thine eyes learn the secret of shedding tears at will and moistening thy cheek. If thou wouldst deceive, fear not to forswear thyself. Venus makes the gods deaf to the plaints of the deceived lover. Take into thy service a clever man and maid who may indicate what presents you would welcome. Let them also beg a few things for themselves. If they ask a little of many, each separate ear of corn will soon make up a rick. Let thy sister and thy mother and thy nurse lay thy lover under contribution. There will soon be a goodly heap of booty, when several hands labour at the task. Thou lackest a pretext for soliciting a present? Show him a cake and say it is thy birthday.
“Above all, never let thy lover think that he hath no rival; love, without rivalry, endureth not. Let him see upon thy bed the traces of another possessor of thy charms, and on thy neck the marks of his lascivious embraces; and above all, let him behold the gifts his rival hath bestowed on thee. If he brings nought with him, tell him of the novelties they are showing in the Via Sacra. When thou hast dragged from him a goodly tale of presents, bid him not despoil himself entirely, but ask him for a loan—that thou wilt ne’er repay. Let thy tongue beguile him, to conceal thy scheming; caress him, the more surely to lure him to his doom. Sweet honey hides the subtlest poison. If thou followest my lesson, which long experience has taught me, if thou tossest not my words to the winds, how oft, when I am dead, wilt thou pray the gods to let the earth lie lightly upon me.”
Thus she was speaking, when my shadow betrayed me. ’Twas with difficulty I kept myself from tearing her last grey hairs, her eyes that were shedding drunken tears, and her cheeks furrowed all over with wrinkles. “May the gods,” I said, “reject thee, and send thee a miserable old age, endless winters and an everlasting thirst.”
ELEGY IX. HE COMPARETH LOVE WITH WAR.
Thy lover is a soldier, and Cupid hath his camp. Aye, believe me, Atticus, every lover is a soldier. The age which suiteth war is also favourable to Venus. A fig for an elderly soldier! A fig for an elderly lover! The age which generals demand in a brave soldier is the age which a fair young woman demands in the possessor of her charms. Soldier and lover have, each, their vigil to keep; both couch upon the hard ground; both have their watch to keep, the one at the door of his mistress, the other at the door of his general. What a weary way the soldier hath to march! And the lover, when his mistress is exiled, will follow her, with a stout heart, to the uttermost limits of the world. He will fare over the loftiest mountains and over rivers swollen with rains; he will cleave his way through the snowdrifts. Is he compelled to cross the seas? He will not plead that the tempests are let loose; nor will he wait till the weather be propitious for setting sail. Who but a soldier or a lover will brave the chill nights and the torrents of mingled snow and rain? The one is sent forward as a scout towards the enemy; the other keepeth watch upon his rival as upon a foe. The one lays siege to warlike cities, the other to the dwelling of his inexorable mistress. One beats down gates, the other doors.
Oftentimes it hath brought victory to catch the foe asleep, and to slaughter, sword in hand, an unarmed host. Thus did the fierce battalions of Thracian Rhesus fall and you, ye captured steeds, forsook your lord. So, too, a lover oft is able to profit by the husband’s slumbers and to turn his arms against the sleeping foe. To elude the vigilance of watchmen and sentinels is ever the perilous task alike of the soldier and the lover.
Mars is uncertain and in Venus there is nothing sure. The conquered rise up again, and those you would deem could never be o’erthrown, fall in their turn. No longer then let love be held a little thing. Love demandeth a resourceful mind. Achilles burns for Briseis torn from his embraces. Trojans, while his grief allows, smite ye the Grecian host. Fresh from Andromache’s embraces, Hector went forth to battle. ’Twas his spouse who placed his helmet on his head. When he beheld the daughter of Priam, her tresses floating in the wind, the son of Atreus, the first of all the Grecian chiefs, stood, they say, lost in admiration. Mars himself was caught in the chains which Vulcan had forged. No tale made a greater stir in heaven than this. I myself was slothful and not born for work. My bed and sleep had softened my spirit. But love for a comely young woman set a term to my indolence. She enjoined me to make my first campaign in her service. Since then, thou seest. me ever active and always busy with some nocturnal adventure. Thou wouldst not be a sluggard? Well then, love a woman.
ELEGY X. HE ENDEAVOURS TO DISSUADE HIS MISTRESS FROM BECOMING A COURTESAN.
Such as she who, snatched away from the banks of the Eurotas in the Phrygian ships, was for her two husbands the cause of so long a war; such as was Leda when cunning Jupiter, hidden beneath the deceptive disguise of a white-plumed swan, seduced her and made her his paramour; such as Amymone wandering in the parched fields of Argos, her urn upon her head; such wast thou in my eyes. I feared for thee the divers wiles that Love suggested to almighty Jove, I feared for thee the metamorphosis of the Eagle and the Bull. But now I fear no more. I am cured of my malady, no more mine eyes are blinded by thy loveliness. How came this change, thou askest? Why, ’tis that thou settest a price upon thy favours. This is the reason why thou pleasest me no more. So long as thou wast art less and free from guile I loved thee body and soul; but now this blemish on thy soul hath robbed thy body of its charms. Love is a child and Love is naked. The years have not corrupted him and he wears no clothes, that he may be without guile, Wherefore dost thou ask the child of Venus to sell his favours at a price? He wears no robe wherein to put the coin. The hard calling of a soldier suits neither Venus nor her son; how befits it, then, that divinities so unused to war should serve for pay?
“A courtesan selleth herself for a given price to the first customer; by yielding her body she gaineth her miserable pay. Yet withal she curseth the tyranny of the greedy whoremaster, and what thou doest for thy pleasure, she doth because she must.
Take, for an example, the beasts devoid of reason. Thou wilt blush to find the brutes possessed of finer feelings than thyself. The mare asks no gift of the stallion, nor the heifer of the bull; the ram payeth not the ewe on whom he wreaks his passion. Woman alone loves to flaunt the spoils she wrests from man. She alone setteth a price upon her favours; she alone offereth herself for hire. She selleth a pleasure that bringeth delight to both, a pleasure which both have longed for, and she maketh him pay for the bliss he giveth her. When love hath equal charms for both, wherefore should one sell it and the other buy? Wherefore should I lose, and thou win at a game wherein we both minister to our mutual bliss?
A witness may not sell his testimony for money; nor must a judge take bribes. It is a disgrace for an advocate to sell his services to a pauper or for a tribunal to grow fat on the proceeds of justice. So, too, it is shameful for a woman to augment her patrimony by bartering her charms and by selling her body to the highest bidder. Gratitude we owe for a favour freely given, but none for the sordid hiring of a woman and a bed. Once thou hast received thy pay, thy, hire—love and gratitude are at an end.
Ah, dear women, never set a price on the favours ye bestow. Ill-gotten gains will never prosper. Of what value were the bracelets of the Sabines to the young vestal who was crushed beneath the weight of their armour? A son plunged his sword into the loins that bore him; a necklace lured him to his crime.
Not that thou shouldst refrain from asking presents
