Amores

Ovid

Ovid. Ovid's Art of Love (in three Books), the Remedy of Love, the Art of Beauty, the Court of Love, the History of Love, and Amours. Dryden, John, et al., translator. New York: Calvin Blanchard, 1855.

  1. Above the rudeness of thy low degree;
  2. A softer turn, to pity more inclined,
  3. Than vulgar souls, a more complacent mind;
  4. Thou feel'st, if I can guess, an equal flame,
  5. And thine and my distemper is the same.
  6. If how I do, she asks, do thou reply,
  7. For the dear night, and night's dear joys, I die.
  8. Tell her the letter will the rest explain,
  9. And does my soul, and all its hopes contain.
  10. But time, while I am speaking, flies: be sure
  11. To give the billet in a leisure hour:
  12. Don't be content with her imperfect view,
  13. But make her, when she has it, read it through.
  14. I charge thee, as she reads, observe her eyes,
  15. Catch, if thou canst, her gentle looks and sighs;
  16. As these are sure presages of my joy,
  17. So frowns and low'rs my flattering hopes destroy.
  18. Pray her, when she has read it, to indite
  19. An answer, and a long epistle write.
  20. I hate a billet, where at once I view
  21. A page all empty, but a line or two.
  22. Let her without a margin fill it up,
  23. And crowd it from the bottom to the top.
  24. But why should I her pretty fingers tire?
  25. A word's enough, and all that I desire.
  26. Ah, Nape, let her only bid me come;
  27. The page is large, which for that word has room.
  28. Her letter, like a conqu'ror's, shall be bound
  29. With bays, for it with conquests shall be crown'd.
  1. Ah, pity me, my friends! the cruel fair
  2. Will neither read my just complaint, nor hear.
  3. The billet-doux I sent her she return'd,
  4. And e'en to ope the tender letter scorn'd
  5. Ill was the omen, for the slave I sent
  6. Trip'd at the sill as out of doors he went.
  7. If e'er you on an errand go for me,
  8. More careful, sirrah! how you stumble, be;
  9. Step soberly, and warily along;
  10. The end's ne'er right if the beginning's wrong.
  11. Sinee thus in vain her pity I implore,