Epistulae

that your father might choose a daughter-in-law from some city of Greece. I feared the Greeks, but suffer from a barbarian harlot, and am wounded by an unexpected hand. She has not charmed you by her beauty, or won you by her accomplishments. She holds you by her enchantments, and cuts the baneful herbs with a magic sickle. She endeavours to charm the reluctant moon from her orb, and involve the chariot of the sun in darkness. She bridles the waves, stops the winding currents, and removes from their seats the woods and banging rocks. She wanders through the tombs with her hair disheveled, and collects bones from the yet smoking pyres. Her witchcraft affects even the absent; she moulds the images of wax, and gores the wretched liver with torturing needles. Add a multiplicity of other magic artifices, which I am better unacquainted with. Love should be gained by merit and beauty, not by berbs and philtres. How can you receive her into your embraces, or quietly trust yourself in her treacherous arms? As formerly the bulls, so has she forced you also to submit to the yoke, and bound you with the same fetters wherewith she