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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  To Pyrrha

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

To Pyrrha

By Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 B.C.)
 
(Ode V. Book I; translated by Sir Theodore Martin, 1881)

PYRRHA, what slender boy, in perfume steeped,
  Doth in the shade of some delightful grot
Caress thee now on couch with roses heaped?
  For whom dost thou thine amber tresses knot
 
With all thy seeming-artless grace? Ah me,        5
  How oft will he thy perfidy bewail,
And joys all flown, and shudder at the sea
  Rough with the chafing of the blust’rous gale,
 
Who now, fond dreamer, revels in thy charms;
  Who, all unweeting how the breezes veer,        10
Hopes still to find a welcome in thine arms
  As warm as now, and thee as loving-dear!
 
Ah, woe for those on whom thy spell is flung!
  My votive tablet, in the temple set,
Proclaims that I to ocean’s god have hung        15
  The vestments in my shipwreck smirched and wet.