Ovid: Tristia
Book Two
‘laeta fere laetus cecini, cano tristia tristis:
happy, I once sang happy things, sad
things
I sing in sadness:’
Ex Ponto III:IX:35
Translated by A. S. Kline © 2003 All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.
Contents
Book TII:1-43 His Plea: His Poetry
Book TII:43-76 His
Plea: His Loyalty
Book TII:77-120
His Plea: His ‘Fault’
Book TII:120-154
His Plea: The Sentence
Book TII:155-206
His Plea: His Prayer
Book TII:207-252
His Plea: ‘Carmen et Error’
Book TII:253-312
His Plea: His Defence
Book TII:313-360
His Plea: His Character
Book TII:361-420
His Plea: Greek Precedents
Book TII:421-470
His Plea: Roman Precedents
Book TII:471-496
His Plea: Dubious Entertainments
Book TII:497-546
His Plea: The Other Arts
Book TII:547-578
His Plea: Last Defence and Prayer
What
are you to me, my books, unhappy labour,
me,
a wretch, ruined by my own talent?
Why
return to the newly condemned Muses,
my reproach?
Isn’t
one well-deserved punishment enough?
Poetry
made men and women want to know me,
but
that was no happy omen for me.
Poetry
made Caesar condemn me, and my
ways,
through
my Ars Amatoria: only now is it banned.
Take
my work away, and you take the accusation
against
me away, also: I charge the verse
with guilt.
Here’s
the reward for my care, and my sleepless toil,
a
punishment’s been devised for my wit.
Were
I wise I’d rightly hate the learned Sisters,
goddesses
ruinous to their own devotee.
But
now – madness is such a friend of my disease –
I’m
turning my sad feet to those heights again:
as
the defeated gladiator seeks out the arena,
and
the beached ship returns to the surging sea.
Perhaps,
like Telephus who ruled the
Teuthrantian land,
the
same weapon will both wound and cure me,
and
the Muse who stirred the anger also
calm it:
song
often influences the great gods. Caesar
himself
ordered
the mothers and daughters of Italy
to
chant the hymns to turreted Ops.
He
did the same for Apollo at the Secular Games
those
that each age sees only once.
Merciful
Caesar, I plead these as my
precedents:
let
my skill soften your anger.
It’s
justified indeed: I don’t deny I deserve it –
shame
hasn’t completely fled my cheeks –
But
unless I’ve sinned, how can you forgive?
My
fate has given you the chance for mercy.
If
Jupiter hurled his lightning,
every time men sinned,
it
wouldn’t be long before he was weapon-less.
When
he’s thundered, and scared the world with noise,
he
scatters the rain-clouds and clears the air.
So
it’s right to call him the father and ruler of the gods,
it’s
right the wide world owns nothing greater than Jove.
You also, since you’re called father
and ruler of the land,
should
follow the ways of the god with the same title.
And
you do: no one has ever been able to hold
the
reins of power with greater moderation.
You’ve
often granted mercy to a defeated enemy
that
he’d not have granted to you if he’d been victor.
I’ve
often seen those you’ve enriched by wealth
or
honours take up weapons against you:
the
day that ends the war ends its anger, for you,
and
both sides bring their gifts to the temple together:
even
as your soldiers rejoice at beating the enemy,
the
enemy’s a reason to rejoice at his own defeat.
My
case is stronger: no one says I’ve followed
weapons
or hostile forces opposed to you.
By
earth, by sea, by heaven’s third power, I swear,
and
by you, a present and a visible god,
this
heart supported you, greatest of men,
and
what I could be alone, I was: yours in spirit.
I
prayed you might seek the celestial stars, but not soon:
was
a humble member of a crowd that wished the same:
and
piously offered incense for you, and one with the rest
aided
the common prayers with mine as well.
Do
I need to say that even the books that accuse me
are
filled with your name in a thousand places?
Examine
the major work, that’s still left
unfinished,
of
bodies changed in unimaginable ways:
you’ll
come upon praise of your name there,
you’ll
find many pledges of my feeling.
Your
glory’s not increased by poetry, nor has it
any
means of growing to make it greater.
Jove
has fame in excess: still he enjoys his deeds
being
retold, and for himself to be the theme of verse,
and
when the battles are sung, of his war
with the Giants,
it
may well be he’s happy with his praise.
Others
celebrate you, as you should be sung,
and
sing your praise with richer wit than mine:
but
as a god’s won by red blood of a hundred bulls,
so
he’s won by the smallest offering of incense.
Ah!
He was fiercest, cruellest, of all my enemies,
who
read my witticisms aloud to you,
so
that the verse that honours you in my books
could
not be judged more justly.
Who
could be my friend if you were angry?
I
was scarcely less than an enemy to myself.
When
a shattered house begins to settle,
the
whole weight falls on the parts that lean,
and
when chance forms a crack, it all gapes open,
and
dragged down by its mass, falls to ruin.
So
my poetry has earned people’s dislike,
as
is right, the crowd copied your views.
Yet,
I recall, you approved me, and my ways,
when
I paraded before you, on the horse
you gave.
If
that’s no use, and no glory follows the honour
at
least I suffered no accusation.
Nor
was the fate of those on trial wrongly granted
to
my care, nor the cases examined by
the centumvirs.
I
also settled private issues, without criticism, as arbiter,
and
even the losers admitted my good faith.
Ah
me! If I’d not been damaged by recent events,
I’d
be many times secure in your judgement.
These
last events destroy me: one storm blast drowns
the
ship, so many times unharmed, in the ocean depths.
It’s
no small weight of water that harms me,
but
all the ocean flood falls on my head.
Why
did I see anything? Why make my eyes
guilty?
Why
was a mischief, unwittingly, known to me?
Actaeon, unaware, saw Diana unclothed:
none
the less he became his own hounds’ prey.
Even
fate must be atoned for, among the powers that be,
to
a wounded god chance is no excuse.
On
that day, when my unlucky error misled me,
my
house, humble, without stain, was destroyed.
humble,
yet they say, in our ancestors’ time
distinguished,
inferior in excellence to none,
and
noted neither for wealth nor poverty,
so
its knights are not conspicuous either way.
But
even if my house is lowly in means and origin,
at
least my genius renders it not unknown:
though
my practice might have seemed too impetuous,
still
my name is great throughout the world,
and
the cultured crowd know Ovid well,
and
dare count him one not to be despised.
So
my house, though pleasing to the Muses,
has fallen,
sunk
by a single charge though no small one:
yet
its fall is such that it can rise again,
if
only time will mellow Caesar’s anger,
whose
mercy in punishing me is such
that
the outcome’s better than I feared.
My
life was spared, your anger stopped short of death,
O
Prince, how sparingly you used your powers!
Then,
as if life were too slight a gift, added,
since
you didn’t subtract it, my family wealth.
You
didn’t condemn my action by Senate decree,
nor
was my banishment ordered by special court.
With
stern invective – worthy of a prince –
you
yourself, as is right, avenged the offence.
More,
the edict, though harsh and
threatening,
was
still mild when naming my sentence:
since
in it I’m called relegatus and not exile,
and
special words cover my possessions.
There’s
no punishment worse to anyone
in
his right senses, than a great man’s displeasure,
but
a god’s sometimes known to be appeased:
it’s
known for clouds to scatter, the day grow bright.
I’ve
seen an elm weighed down with vine leaves,
that’s
been struck by savage Jupiter’s
lightning.
Though
you yourself forbid hope, I’ll still hope:
that’s
one thing can be done that you deny me.
Great
hope fills me, gazing at you, most merciful prince,
and
fails me when I gaze at what I’ve done.
As
there’s no steady rage, no constant fury,
in
the winds that agitate the air,
but
they subside to intermittent silence,
and
you’d think they’d set aside their power:
so
my fears vanish, change, return,
give,
or deny me hope of pleasing you.
So
by the gods, who grant and will grant you long life,
if
only they love the name of Roman,
by
our country, of which I was just now part,
one
of the crowd safe and secure in your care –
so
I pray, by a grateful city, may the debt of love
be
paid you that your acts and spirit constantly deserve,
may
Livia, joined with you, complete her
years,
worthy
of no other husband but you,
if
not for her meant for unmarried life,
there
was no other you could have married:
may
your son, Tiberius, be safe,
with you in safety,
and
rule this Empire when old, with one older,
and
may Germanicus and Drusus, your grandsons,
glory
of youth, emulate your and your father’s deeds,
may
Victory, always accustomed to
your camp,
be
present now, seeking the familiar standards,
wings
hovering as ever over the Italian leader,
setting
the laurel on the shining hair of him
in
whose person you battle and wage war,
to
whom you entrust the high auspices and the gods,
and
so are half-present, watching over the city,
and
also far-off conducting savage war:
nay
he return to you victor over a defeated enemy,
shine
out high on his wreathed chariot –
spare
me, I pray, hide your lightning bolt, cruel weapon,
a
weapon, ah, too well known to wretched me!
Spare
me, father of the country, don’t take away
all
hope of placating you, forgetful of my name!
I
don’t beg to return, though we believe the great gods
have
often granted more than that prayer.
If
you granted me a milder, closer place of exile
a
large part of my punishment would be eased.
Thrust
among enemies, patiently I suffer the extremes,
no
exile’s more distant from his native land.
I’m
the only one sent to seven-mouthed Hister’s
delta,
I’m
crushed beneath virgin Callisto’s
icy pole –
the
Ciziges, the Colchi, the hordes of Teretei and Getae,
are
barely held back by the deep flood of the Danube –
and
while others have been banished with greater cause,
no
one’s assigned a remoter place than mine.
There’s
nothing further than this, except frost and foes,
and
the sea closed by the binding cold.
So
far north Rome extends, west of
the Euxine Sea:
the
Basternae and the Sarmatians hold the nearby
region.
This
is the furthest land subject to Italian law,
barely
clinging to the edges of your Empire.
So,
a suppliant, I beg you to banish me somewhere safe,
so
that peace as well as my home aren’t taken from me,
so
as not to fear the tribes the Danube scarcely checks,
so
your subject can’t be captured by the enemy.
Justice
forbids any man of Roman blood
to
suffer barbarian chains while Caesars live.
Though
two charges, carmen et error, a poem and an error,
ruined
me, I must be silent about the second fault:
I’m
not important enough to re-open your wound, Caesar,
it’s
more than sufficient you should be troubled once.
The
first, then: that I’m accused of
being a teacher
of
obscene adultery, by means of a vile poem.
So,
it’s possible somehow for divine minds to be wrong,
indeed
there are many things beneath their notice.
As
Jove, who watches over the gods, as well as
the
high heavens, hasn’t time to notice lesser things,
so
as you gaze round the world that depends on you,
inferior
matters escape your care.
Should
you, the Empire’s prince, leave your post
and
read poetry I’ve set going on limping feet?
The
weight of Rome’s name is not so light,
pressing
its burden on your shoulders,
that
you can turn your power to foolish games,
examining
my idle things with your own eyes.
Now
Pannonia, now the Illyrian coast’s to be subdued,
now
Raetia and the war in Thrace concerns you,
now
Armenia seeks peace, now the Parthian
Horse
with
timid hand offer their bows and captured standards,
now
Germany, through Tiberius,
feels your vigour,
and
a Caesar wages war for a mighty Caesar.
Truly
there’s no weak part in the body of Empire
though
nothing so vast has ever existed.
The
city and the guardianship of your laws, also,
wearies
you, and morality you desire to be as yours.
Nor
is that peace yours, that you grant the nations,
since
you wage many restless wars.
So,
should I wonder if, weighed down by so many things,
you’ve
never unrolled my witticisms?
Yet
if, by chance, as I wish, you’d had the time
you’d
have read nothing criminal in my ‘Art’.
I
confess the poem was written without a serious
face,
unworthy of being read by so great a prince:
but
that doesn’t render it contrary to established law,
or
destined to teach the daughters of Rome.
And
so you can’t doubt whom I wrote it for,
one
of the three books has these four
lines:
‘Far
away from here, you badges of modesty,
the
thin headband, the ankle-covering dress.
I
sing what is lawful, permissible intrigue,
and
there’ll be nothing sinful in my song.’
Haven’t
I rigidly excluded from this ‘Art’
all
whom the wife’s headband and dress deny?
‘But,’
you may say, ‘the wife can use others’ art,
have
what she takes from it, without being taught.’
Let
a wife read nothing then, since she can learn
about
how to do wrong from every poem.
If
she’s partial to what’s perverse, then she’ll equip
her
character for sin, whatever she touches.
Let
her take the Annals –
nothing’s coarser than them –
she’ll
surely read who made Ilia
pregnant.
Let
her take Lucretius, she’ll ask
straight away
by
whom kindly Venus became Aeneas’s mother.
If
I’m allowed to present it in order, I’ll show, below,
the
mind can be harmed by every sort of poem.
Yet
every book’s not guilty because of it:
nothing’s
useful, that can’t also wound.
What’s
more useful than fire? Yet whoever sets out
to
commit arson, arms his bold hands with fire.
Medicine
sometimes grants health, sometimes destroy it,
showing
which plants are helpful, which do harm.
The
robber and cautious traveller both wear a sword:
one
for ambush, the other for defence.
Eloquence
is learnt to plead just causes:
it
protects the guilty, crushes the innocent.
So
with verse, read with a virtuous mind
it’ll
be established nothing of mine will harm.
But
I ‘corrupt some’? Whoever thinks so, errs,
and
claims too much for my writings.
Even
if I’d confessed it, the games also sow
seeds
of iniquity: order the theatres closed!
Many
have often found an excuse for sin
when
the hard earth’s covered with Mars’s sand!
Close
the Circus! The Circus’s freedom isn’t safe:
here
a girl sits close to an unknown man.
Why’s
any portico open, since certain girls
stroll
there, to meet a lover in the place?
What
location’s more ‘august’ than a temple?
She’s
to avoid them too, if she’s clever in sinning.
When
she stands in Jove’s shrine,
it’ll come to her,
shrined,
how many mothers that god has made:
as
she enters Juno’s temple in
adoration,
how
many rivals caused the goddess pain.
Seeing
Pallas she’ll ask why the
virgin
raised
Ericthonius, the child of
sin.
If
she enters your gift, the temple of Mars,
Venus
stands
joined to the Avenger, the husband’s outside the door.
Sitting
in Isis’s shrine, she’ll ask why Juno drove her
over
the Ionian Sea and the Bosphorus.
It’ll
be Anchises reminds her of Venus,
Endymion of Luna, Iasion of Ceres.
Anything
can corrupt a perverted mind:
everything’s
harmless in its proper place.
The
first page of my ‘Art’, a book written
only
for
courtesans, warns noblewomen’s hands away.
Any
woman who bursts in, where a priest forbids,
taking
his guilt away, is herself the sinner.
Yet
it’s no crime to unroll sweet verse: the chaste
read
many things they shouldn’t be doing.
Often
grave-browed women consider
naked
girls positioned for every kind of lust.
And
Vestals’ eyes see prostitutes’ bodies:
that’s
no reason for punishing their owners.
But
why is my Muse so wildly wanton,
why
does my book tempt one to love?
Nothing
for it but to confess my sin and my
open
fault: I’m sorry for my wit and taste.
Why
didn’t I attack Troy again in my
poems,
that
fell before the power of the Greeks?
Why
silent on Thebes, Eteocles, Polynices,
mutual
wounds, heroes at the seven gates?
Warring
Rome didn’t deny me matter,
it’s
virtuous work to tell one’s country’s tale.
Lastly,
since you’ve filled the world with deeds,
some
part of it all was mine to sing,
as
the sun’s radiant light attracts the eye
so
your exploits should have drawn my spirit.
I’m
undeservedly blamed. Narrow the furrow I plough:
while
that was a great and fertile theme.
A
little boat shouldn’t trust itself to the waves
because
it dares to fool about in a tiny pond.
Perhaps
– and I should even question this – I’m fit
for
lighter verse, adequate for humble music:
but
if you order me to sing of the Giants,
beaten
by
Jove’s lightning, the weight
will cripple me if I try.
It’s
a rich mind can tell of Caesar’s mighty deeds,
if
the content’s not to overpower the work.
Still
I was daring: but I thought I
detracted from it,
and
what was worse, it harmed your authority.
I
returned to my light labours, the songs of youth,
stirring
my feelings with imaginary desires.
I
wish I hadn’t. But destiny drew me on,
and
my cleverness punished me.
Ah,
that I ever studied! Why did my parents
educate
me, or letters entertain my eyes?
This
lewdness made you hate me, for the arts,
you
were sure, troubled sacred marriage-beds.
But
no bride learned deception from my teaching,
no
one can teach what he scarcely knows.
I
made sweet pleasurable songs in such a way
that
no scandal ever touched my name.
There’s
no husband even in the lower ranks,
who
doubts his paternity through my offence.
Believe
me, my character’s other than my verse –
my
life is modest, my Muse is playful –
and
most of my work, deceptive and fictitious,
is
more permissive than its author.
A
book’s not evidence of a life, but a true impulse
bringing
many things to delight the ear.
Or
Accius would be cruel, Terence a reveller,
and
those who sing of war belligerent.
I’m
not alone in having sung tender love-songs:
but
I’m the one punished for singing of love.
What
did old Anacreon’s lyric Muse teach
but
a mixture of love and plenty of wine?
What
did Sappho, the Lesbian, teach the girls, but love?
Yet
Sappho was acceptable, and so was he.
It
didn’t harm you, Callimachus,
who often confessed
your
pleasures to the reader, in poetry.
No
plot of playful Menander’s is
free of love,
yet
he’s commonly read by boys and girls.
The
Iliad itself, what’s that
but an adulteress
over
whom a husband and a lover fought?
What’s
first in it but a passion for Briseis,
and
how her abduction made the leaders quarrel?
What’s
the Odyssey but Penelope wooed by many suitors
while
her husband’s away, for the sake of love?
Who
but Homer tells of Mars and Venus
their
bodies snared in a flagrant act?
On
whose evidence but great Homer’s
do we know
of
Calypso and Circe, goddesses burning for a guest?
All
forms of writing are surpassed in seriousness by tragedy,
yet
this too always deals with matters of love.
What’s
in the Hippolytus but
Phaedra’s blind passion?
Canace’s famed for love of her brother.
Again,
didn’t ivory-shouldered Pelops,
with Phrygian steeds
abduct
the Pisan girl, while Cupid drove?
Medea, who dipped her sword in her
children’s blood,
was
roused to do it by the pain of slighted love.
Passion
suddenly changed King Tereus, Philomela,
and
Procne, the mother still
mourning her Itys, to birds.
If
Thyestes, her wicked brother,
hadn’t loved Aerope
we’d
not read about the swerving horses of the Sun.
Impious
Scylla would never have
touched tragedy
if
she hadn’t shorn her father’s hair, through love.
Who
reads of Electra and maddened Orestes,
reads
of Aegisthus’s and Clytemnestra’s crime.
Why
tell of Bellerephon, who
defeated the Chimaera,
whom
a deceitful woman brought near to death?
Why
speak of Hermione, or you,
virgin Atalanta,
or
you Cassandra, Apollo’s priestess, loved by Agamemnon?
Or
of Danae, Andromeda, of Semele mother of Bacchus,
of
Haemon, or Alcmena for whom two nights were one?
Why
tell of Admetus, Theseus, Protesilaus
first
of the Greeks to touch the
Trojan shore?
Add
Iole, and Deidamia, Deianira Hercules’s wife,
Hylas and Ganymede the Trojan boy.
Time
will fade if I repeat all the passions of tragedy,
and
my book will scarcely hold the naked names.
There’s
‘tragedy’ too, involving obscene laughter,
with
many exceedingly shameful words:
it
didn’t harm one author to show an effeminate
Achilles, belittling brave actions
with his verse.
Aristides associated himself
with Milesian vice,
but
Aristides wasn’t driven from his city.
Eubius wasn’t exiled, writer of a
vile story,
who
described the abortion of an embryo,
nor
Hemitheon who’s just written Sybaritica,
nor
those who’ve not concealed their adventures.
These
things are shelved with records of learned men,
and
are open to the public through our leaders’
gifts.
I’ll
not defend myself with so many foreign weapons,
Roman
books too have plenty of frivolous matter.
Though
Ennius sang of war, with grave
speech –
Ennius
great in talent, primitive in his art –
though
Lucretius explains the cause of
impetuous fire,
and
predicts the triple death of earth, water, air,
yet
wanton Catullus often sang of his
girl,
she
whom, deceptively, he called Lesbia:
not
content with her, he broadcast many love poems,
in
which he confessed to his own affairs.
Equal
and similar licence from little Calvus
who
revealed his intrigues in various metres.
Why
speak of Ticidas’ or Memmius’ verse
in
which things are named, and shameful things?
Cinna belongs with them, Anser bolder than Cinna,
and
the light things of Cornificus
and Cato,
and
others, in whose books she who was disguised
as
Perilla is now called
by your name, Metella.
Varro, too, who guided Argo to the waves of Phasis,
couldn’t
keep silent about his own affairs.
Hortensius’ and Servius’ poems are no less
perverse.
Who’d
hesitate to follow such great names?
Sisenna did Aristides and wasn’t harmed
for
weaving vile jokes into the tale.
It
was no disgrace to Gallus that
he wrote about Lycoris,
that
came from his indulgence in too much wine.
Tibullus thinks it’s hard to
believe his girl’s denials,
when
she swears the same about him, to her husband.
He
also admits to teaching her how to cheat her guards,
saying,
the wretch, that he’s checked by his own arts.
Often
he recalls how he touched her hand
as
if appraising the gem in his girl’s ring:
and
tells how he often signalled by nods, or fingers,
and
traced silent letters on the table’s surface:
and
he teaches what juices erase the bruise
that
the imprint of a love-bite often makes:
finally
he begs her more than careless husband
to
keep watch too, so she’ll sin a little less.
He
knows who’s barked at, when someone prowls
outside,
why there’s so much coughing by the door.
He
teaches many maxims for such affairs,
and
by what arts a wife can cheat her spouse.
It
didn’t do him harm, Tibullus is read and pleases,
and
he was known when you were first
called prince.
You’ll
find the same maxims in charming Propertius:
yet
he’s not censured in the slightest way.
I
succeeded them, since honesty forbids me
to
reveal the names of well-known living men.
I
confess I’d no fear that where so many sailed,
one
would be wrecked, and all the rest unharmed.
Others
have written about the art of playing dice –
to
our ancestors that was no light sin –
how
to tally the bones, what throw scores the most,
and
how to avoid the ruinous ‘dogs’:
how
the dice count, when a side is challenged
how
one should throw, and move given the throw:
how
a multi-coloured piece attacks in a straight line,
when
a piece between two enemy pieces is lost,
how
to pursue with force, and then recall
the
piece in front, and retreat again safely, in company:
how
a small board’s set with three ‘stones’ a side,
and
winning rests in keeping them together:
and
those other games – I’ll not describe them all
that
tend to waste that precious thing, our time.
Look,
this man tells of various kinds of ball-game,
that
one teaches swimming, this, bowling hoops.
others
have written works on painting with cosmetics:
that
one the etiquette for dinner-parties:
another
shows the clay from which pots are moulded,
or
teaches what storage jar’s best for clear wine.
Such
things are toyed with, in December’s smoky month,
but
nobody was damned for writing them.
Misled
by these I made poems, without gravity,
but
a grave punishment has followed my jests.
In
the end I’ve not seen one of all those many writers
who’s
been ruined by his Muse – they
picked on me.
What
if I’d written lewd and obscene mimes,
that
always show the sin of forbidden love,
in
which a smart seducer constantly appears,
and
the skilful wife cons her stupid husband?
They’re
seen by nubile girls, wives, husbands,
sons,
indeed most of the Senate attend.
It’s
not enough your ears are burned by sinful words:
your
eyes get used to many shameful things:
and
when the lover’s newly tricked the husband,
he’s
applauded, given a prize, to vast acclaim:
because
it’s common, theatre’s profitable for poets,
and
the praetor pays for sin at no small price.
Check
the cost of your own games, Augustus,
you’ll
scan many pricey items like these.
You’ve
seen them yourself and often shown them others –
your
greatness is so generous everywhere –
and
with your eyes, that the whole world employs,
you’ve
calmly watched these staged adulteries.
If
it’s right to scribble mimes that copy vice,
a
smaller punishment is due my matter.
Or
is this kind of writing safe on stage, where
it’s
allowed, and theatre grants licence to the mime?
Well
my poems have often been danced to, publicly,
often
they’ve even detained your eyes.
As
images of the bodies of ancient heroes,
some
hand has painted, glow in our houses,
so
isn’t there a little painting too in some place
showing
the various forms and acts of love.
Not
only does Ajax sit there, his look
betraying wrath,
and
savage Medea, a mother with sin in
her face,
but
Venus, damp, too, wringing wet
hair in her fingers,
rising,
scarce decent, from her natal waves.
Some
sing the noise of war, its blood-stained weapons,
some
of your actions, some of your ancestors’.
Nature,
grudgingly, shut me in a narrow space,
gave
my ingenuity slender powers.
Yet
Virgil, the happy author of
your Aeneid,
brought
the man and his arms to a Tyrian
bed,
and
no part of the whole work’s more read
than
that love joined in an improper union.
Before,
in youthful pastoral music, the same poet
played
out the passions of Phyllis
and sweet Amaryllis.
I too, long ago, sinned with that kin