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? | |