T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
From Elegies: Book II. Elegia IV.
By Ovid (43 B.C.–18 A.D.)(Translated by Christopher Marlowe) Quod amet mulieres, cujuscunque formæ sint. I MEAN not to defend the scapes of any, | |
| Or justify my vices being many; | |
| For I confess, if that might merit favour, | |
| Here I display my lewd and loose behaviour. | |
| I loathe, yet after that I loathe, I run: | 5 |
| Oh, how the burthen irks, that we should shun. | |
| I cannot rule myself but where Love please; | |
| Am driven like a ship upon rough seas. | |
| No one face likes me best, all faces move, | |
| A hundred reasons make me ever love. | 10 |
| If any eye me with a modest look, | |
| I blush, and by that blushful glance am took; | |
| And she that’s coy I like, for being no clown, | |
| Methinks she would be nimble when she’s down. | |
| Though her sour looks a Sabine’s brow resemble, | 15 |
| I think she’ll do, but deeply can dissemble. | |
| If she be learned, then for her skill I crave her; | |
| If not, because she’s simple I would have her. | |
| Before Callimachus one prefers me far; | |
| Seeing she likes my books, why should we jar? | 20 |
| Another rails at me, and that I write, | |
| Yet would I lie with her, if that I might: | |
| Trips she, it likes me well; plods she, what then? | |
| She would be nimbler lying with a man. | |
| And when one sweetly sings, then straight I long, | 25 |
| To quaver on her lips even in her song; | |
| Or if one touch the lute with art and cunning, | |
| Who would not love those hands for their swift running? | |
| And her I like that with a majesty, | |
| Folds up her arms, and makes low courtesy. | 30 |
| To leave myself, that am in love with all, | |
| Some one of these might make the chastest fall. | |
| If she be tall, she’s like an Amazon, | |
| And therefore fills the bed she lies upon: | |
| If short, she lies the rounder: to speak troth, | 35 |
| Both short and long please me, for I love both. | |
| I think what one undecked would be, being drest; | |
| Is she attired? then show her graces best. | |
| A white wench thralls me, so doth golden yellow: | |
| And nut-brown girls in doing have no fellow. | 40 |
| If her white neck be shadowed with brown hair, | |
| Why so was Leda’s, yet was Leda fair. | |
| Amber-tress’d is she? Then on the morn think I: | |
| My love alludes to every history: | |
| A young wench pleaseth, and an old is good, | 45 |
| This for her looks, that for her womanhood: | |
| Nay what is she, that any Roman loves, | |
| But my ambitious ranging mind approves? | |