Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD
If she’s not charming or courteous enough, at your loving,
endure it and persist: she’ll soon be kinder.
You can get a curved branch to bend on the tree by patience:
you’ll break it, if you try out your full strength.
With patience you can cross the water: you’ll not
conquer the river by sailing against the flow.
Patience tames tigers and Numidian lions:
the farmer in time bows the ox to the plough.
Who was fiercer than Arcadian Atalanta?
Wild as she was she still surrendered to male kindness.
Often Milanion wept among the trees
at his plight and at the girl’s harsh acts:
often at her orders his shoulders carried the nets,
often he pierced wild boars with his deadly spear:
and he felt the pain of Hylaeus’s tense bow:
but that of another bow was still more familiar.
I don’t order you to climb in Maenalian woods,
holding a weapon, or carrying nets on your back:
I don’t order you to bare your chest to flying darts:
the tender commands of my arts are safe.
Yield to opposition: by yielding you’ll end as victor:
Only play the part she commands you to.
Condemn what she condemns: what she approves, approve:
say what she says: deny what she denies.
She laughs, you laugh: remember to cry, if she cries:
she’ll set the rules according to your expression.
If she plays, tossing the ivory dice in her hand,
throw them wrong, and concede on your bad throw:
If you play knucklebones, no prize if you win,
make out that often the ruinous low Dogs fell to you.
And if it’s draughts, the draughtsmen mercenaries,
let your champion be swept away by your glass foe.
Yourself, hold your girl’s sunshade outspread,
yourself, make a place for her in the crowd.
Quickly bring up a footstool to her elegant couch,
and slip the sandal on or off her sweet foot.
Often, even though you’re shivering yourself,
her hand must be warmed at your neglected breast.
Don’t think it shameful (though it’s shameful, you’ll like it),
to hold the mirror for her in your noble hands.
When his stepmother, Juno, was tired of sending him monsters,
Hercules, it’s said, who reached the heavens he’d shouldered,
held a basket, among the Lydian girls, and spun raw wool.
The hero of Tiryns complied with his girl’s orders:
go now, and endure the misgivings he endured.
Ordered to appear in town, make sure you arrive
before time, and don’t leave unless it’s late.
She tells you to be elsewhere: drop everything, run,
don’t let the crowd in the way stop you trying.
She’s returning home from another party at night:
when she calls for her slave you come too.
She’s in the country, says: ‘come’: Love hates a laggard:
if you’ve no wheels, travel the road on foot.
Don’t let bad weather, or parching Dog-days, stall you,
or the roads whitened by falling snow.
Translated by A. S. Kline © Copyright 2001 All Rights Reserved
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