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. Who knows when joy or anguish thou wilt bring?
  2. Yet at thy mother's and thy slave's request,
  3. Fix an eternal empire in my breast;
  4. And let th' inconstant charming sex,
  5. Whose wilful scorn does lovers vex,
  6. Submit their hearts before thy throne;
  7. The vassal world is then thy own.
  1. What you affirm'd, my friend, is prov'd untrue,
  2. That none at once could madly dote on two.
  3. Deceiv'd, unarm'd, we Cupid soon o'ercame,
  4. And I glow shameless with a double flame.
  5. They both are fair, both dress'd so nicely well,
  6. That the pre-eminence is hard to tell.
  7. Sometimes for this, sometimes for that I burn,
  8. And each more beauteous sparkles in her turn.
  9. Each claims my passion, and my heart divides
  10. As to and fro the doubtful galliot rides.
  11. Here driven by winds, and there redriven by tides.
  12. Why doubly chain'd ? was not a single fair
  13. Enough to load me with perpetual care?