The Love Books of Ovid. Ovid
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with our hands beneath our sheltering raiment, have forestalled the sweet moment of delight. Thus thou shalt not do, but so thou mayest free me from the merest shadow of misgiving, lay bare thy shoulders from the mantle that enshrouds them. Cease not to bid thy husband drink; but add no kisses to thy prayers; and so long as he shall be able to swallow, stint not secretly to fill his cup with strong wine. When he is overcome by sleep and liquor, we ourselves will do what the place and the circumstances permit.
When thou risest up to return home, all the company will rise with thee; remember then to place thyself in the midst of the throng. There shalt thou find me, or I thee, and then whatsoever part of me thou canst touch, lay thy hand upon it.
Ay me! These my behests can serve but for an hour or two. The imperious night is at hand that severs me from my mistress. Her husband will have her in keep and hold till the day cometh, and I, weeping sad tears, can but follow her to that cruel door. He will taste her lips, and anon far more than her lips. What thou grantest me in secret, he will demand as his right. But this, at least, give him with reluctance, thus much thou canst do, and as one yielding to superior force. Silent be thy caresses and let Venus be niggard with him. If thou fulfillest my behests, he will taste no delight, and thou at least will feel none in his arms. Howbeit, whatsoever may betide to-night, assure me on the morrow that he hath had no joy of thee.
ELEGY V. HIS DELIGHT AT HAVING OBTAINED CORINNA’S FAVOURS.
’Twas summer, and already past the hour of noon. I flung myself on my couch to rest my limbs. My windows were but half open. The light of my chamber was like the light of the woods, or like the glow which follows after sunset; or father, like the twilight that comes between departing night and dawning day. Such is the light that is befitting for young women of reserve; in its mystery their timid modesty may find concealment.
Behold Corinna cometh, her shift ungirdled, her tresses hanging loose on either side her snowy neck. In such guise did the fair Semiramis offer herself to the caresses of her spouse, and thus did Lais give welcome to her many lovers. I raised her shift, which withal was of so fine a texture that it was but a flimsy obstacle. Howbeit Corinna was not willing to be deprived of her raiment. She strove, but not as one whose will it is to conquer. Soon she gave up the struggle and consented to be conquered.
When, her apparel laid aside, she stood naked before mine eyes, not a blemish was to be seen on her whole body. What shoulders, what arms it was my privilege to behold and to touch. What bliss to press a bosom shaped so perfectly for such caresses. How soft and smooth her skin beneath her lovely breasts, how divine her figure, how firm and plump her thighs. But wherefore should I here tell o’er the number of her charms? Nought did I see that was not perfect, nor was there aught, how thin soe’er, between her lovely body and my own. Need I tell the rest? Wearied, we rested from our toil. May many an afternoon be thus sped by.
ELEGY VI. HE CONJURES THE PORTER TO OPEN THE DOOR OF HIS MISTRESS’S HOUSE.
Hapless porter, laden with unmerited fetters, push me back this cruel door upon its hinges. ’Tis little enough I ask of thee. No, do but open it a little, just enough for me to pass in sideways. I have long been a lover and it has so reduced my body and my limbs that such a thing were easy. ’Tis Love that tells me how to creep in softly in the midst of the guards. ’Tis he that guides me and safeguards my steps.
Time was when I dreaded the night and its empty shadows. I marvelled how anyone could fare forth in the darkness. But Cupid laughed in my face with his gentle mother, and whispered in my ear, “Thou too shalt grow a mettlesome fellow.” Love’s hour has come; I fear not the mazy shadows of the night, nor weapons uplifted against me. I only fear the slowness of thy movements; thee alone do I cajole; in thy hands thou hold’st the weapon that can undo me. See—and that thou may be the more surely convinced, take down awhile these cruel bars—see how this door is moistened with my tears. This is I, thou knowest it well enough, who seeing that thwackings were about to rain down on thy naked shoulders, interceded for thee with thy mistress. How now! Shall my supplications, which erstwhile proved so powerful in thy behalf, to-day—oh shame!—prove powerless in my own? Come, pay back what thou owest; now mayest thou show thy gratitude to the top of thy bent. The night is passing—slide back the bolts. Open the door, and so may thou be freed for ever from thy long chain and from thy water-drinking serfdom.
Vain are my prayers, O man implacable; harder than iron is thy heart. Thou hearest me and yet thy door of oak is barred against me. That a beleaguered town should need unyielding gates, ’tis well; but in the heyday of peace, what fear hast thou of arms? How wouldst thou treat a foe, if thou repel a lover thus? The night speeds on; slide back the bolts.
I come not as a warrior attended by henchmen. I should be alone, were not cruel Love beside me. Him, even if I desired it, I could not send away. ’Twere easier to sunder my soul from my body. Love, a little a wine in my head, a chaplet slipping from my perfumed hair, these are the things I bring. Who could be scared at them? Who would be daunted by such foes? The night speeds on; slide back the bolts.
Is it thy slowness, is it sleep that is no friend to Love, that makes thee heedless of my prayers and flings them to the winds? Yet, if my memory deceive me not, when, once on a time, I sought to evade thee, I found thee astir in the middle of the night. Peradventure at this moment thine own belovèd is reposing at thy side. If this be so, how preferable is thy lot to mine. If it be so, pass on to me, ye cruel chains! The night speeds on; slide back the bolts.
Do I dream? Did not the door swing upon its hinges? Did it not grunt its signal for me to enter? Alas, I was deceived! ’Twas but an unruly gust of wind that made it creak. Ah, hapless me! How far away that gust doth bear my hopes. If, O Boreas, thou dost bethink thee of the ravished Orithya, come swiftly hither and, with thy blast, beat down this heedless door. All is quiet in the city. Moist with diamond dew, the night speeds on; slide back the bolts.
Open, I say, open, or I, better prepared than thou, with my sword and with the fire I bear within my torch, will break into this disdainful house. Night, Love and Wine counsel no half-hearted measures. Night knoweth not shame. Love and Wine know not fear. Everything, prayers, threats have I essayed, but all in vain, nought could avail to move thee, O man more deaf than the door thou guardest! Thou wast not made to guard a lovely woman’s door. Thy office should be to keep the key of a loathsome dungeon. But see, the morning star is risen, and the cock’s shrill trumpet calls the labourer to his task. And, flowery wreath, which from my brows sadly I disengage, lie there upon this heartless threshold through the night. When on the morrow my mistress shall descry thee trailing there, tell her the hours that, sick at heart, I wasted at her door. Farewell, porter; in spite of all, I say to thee, farewell. Mayest thou thyself suffer the agony of unrequited love. Muddy-mettled villain, who wouldst not give admittance to a lover, fare thee well. And ye too, ye cruel doors with your pitiless hinges, and threshold more slavish than the churl that guards thee, to all I say farewell.
ELEGY VII. HE CURSES HIMSELF FOR HAVING MALTREATED HIS MISTRESS.
Load my guilty hands with fetters, if thou be my friend, now that my anger has departed. Rage it was, look you, that made me raise my hand against my mistress. O madman that I was I To think it was my hand that made her weep! At that moment I would have struck my father and mother; nay, I would have rained blows upon the gods themselves.
But say. Did not Ajax, armed with his sevenfold shield, slaughter the flocks that he seized in the broad meads? And the ill-fated Orestes who, in his mother, wrought vengeance on his father, did he not take arms against the Dark Sisters? And could I, I of all men, dishevel her rangéd tresses? And did this mar my mistress’s beauty? Not so, she only looked the lovelier. In such guise they say the daughter of Schœneus, armed with her bow, pursued the beasts on Mænalus. In such a plight did Ariadne mourn, when she beheld the swift south winds bearing away both the sails and the promises of her perjured Theseus. Thus too, O chaste Minerva, but for the sacred fillets that bound her head, Cassandra had lain upon thy temple’s floor.
Who would not have called me a madman? Who would not have called me a barbarian? But never a word said she. Her tongue was paralysed with fear. Howbeit I read the mute reproach upon her face, and, though