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But ne'er frequent the wanton theatre,
Where vain desires in all their pomp appear;
From music, dancing, and an am'rous part,1
Perform'd to th' life, how can you guard your heart?
Against myself I frank confession make;
Into your hands no am'rous poet take,2
Whose Syren muses draw the list'ning throng,
And charm them into ruin by their song.
Callimachus first from your sight remove.
Banish Philetas next; they're friends to love.
How oft have Sappho's odes set me one fire!
Who can contain, that hears Anacreon's lyre?
Who reads Tibullus must his passion feel;
Propertius can dissolve a heart of steel:
Nor Gallus fails the coldest breast to warm;
And e'en my muse has found the art to charm.
But if Apollo, who conducts my song,
Secure me in this point from guessing wrong,
The pain with which most sensibly you're griev'd,
Is on th' account of jealousy conceiv'd.
No fear of rivals must your heart torment:
For true, or false, yet for your own content,
At least persuade yourself that you have none,
And that the harmless creature sleeps alone.
Orestes ne'er could find his nymph had charms,
Till he beheld her in another's arms.
Why, Menelaus, dost thou now take on?
In Crete you long could sauntering stay alone;
Your Helen's absence ne'er disturb'd your rest:
No sooner fled she with her Trojan guest,
The royal cuckold raves, and he must make
A ten years' war, to fetch the harlot back.
'Twas on this score the fierce Achilles wept;
With Agamemnon his Briseis slept.3
Good cause to weep, the maiden toy was got,
Or great Alcides was a sov'reign sot.
His game of love were Ovid to have play'd,
The poet had the better hero made.
At last, with gifts he did the loss restore,
And that she was untouch'd profoundly swore,
Swore by his sceptre; — nor can that seem odd;
He knew his sceptre but a wooden god.4

1 Meaning that of the Mimes, where the postures were very much debauched, and the sight of them dangerous to manners.

2 Soft poems, elegies of love, and pleasant songs, revive amorous fancies. and should be avoided. Ovid names the very poets whom he advised the lovers to read in his Art of Love, as Callimachus, Philetas, Tibullus, Propertius, and Gallus; and for the same season that they were good then, are bad now. The moderns may be allowed to read them, as there are several historical events to be met with in them, but not to learn their sentiments.

3 Ovid calls him the son of Plisthenes; but indeed, neither Agamemnon nor Menelaus were the sons of Atreus, though they are so often called Atrides; both being begot by Plisthenes, brother of Atreus and Thyestes, who dying before his two elder brothers, left his two sons in charge with Atreus, who bred them up as carefully as if they had been his own children; for which reason, as Micyllus observees, they always passed for such.

4 He means that of Agamemnon which was made by Vulcan, who presented it to Jupiter, and he gave it to Mercury, Mercury to Pelops, and he to Atreus, who left it at his death to Thyestes, and Thyestes gave it to Agamemnon, to show his royal power in Argos.

P. Ovidius Naso. Ovid's Art of Love (in three Books), the Remedy of Love, the Art of Beauty, the Court of Love, the History of Love, and Amours. Anne Mahoney. edited for Perseus. New York. Calvin Blanchard. 1855.

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