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. And comb and curl it with a gentle hand:
  2. Oft have I seen it on your shoulders play
  3. Uncomb'd, as on your purple bed you lay.
  4. Your artless tresses with more charms appear,
  5. Than when adorn'd with all your cost and care.
  6. When on the grass the Thracian nymphs recline,
  7. Of Bacchus full, and weary of their wine,
  8. Less lovely are their locks, than yours, less fair
  9. The ringlets of their soft dishevell'd hair:
  10. Softer was thine, like fleecy down it felt,
  11. And to the finger did as freely yield,
  12. How didst thou torture it, the curls to turn,
  13. Now with hot irons at thy toilet burn?
  14. This rack, with what obedience did it bear?
  15. "Ah spare," I cried, "thy patient tresses spare!
  16. To hurt them is a sin: this needless toil
  17. Forbear, and do not, what adorns thee, spoil.
  18. 'Tis now too late to give your labour o'er,
  19. Those tortur'd ringlets are, alas ! no more.
  20. Ah, cease the cruel thought, and cease to pass