Part 4

I do not come as the instructor of the wealthy in Love; he who makes presents has no need of my experience. He who says, whenever he pleases, "Accept this," has a genius of his own. To him do I yield: he has greater attractions than have any discoveries of mine. I am the instructor of the poor, because, as a poor man, I have been in love. When I could not give presents, I gave verses. Let the poor man love with caution, let the poor man stand in fear of bad language, and let him put up with many a thing, not to be endured by the rich.

I remember that once, when in a rage, I disarranged the hair of my mistress; of how many a day did that anger deprive me! I do not think I did, and I did not see that I had, torn her tunic, but she said so, and at my cost it was replaced. But you who are wise, avoid the errors of your instructor; and stand in awe of the punishment of my transgressions.

Let battles be with the Parthians, but be there peace with your refined mistress; mirth too, and whatever besides contains a reason for love. If she is not sufficiently kind or affable to you her lover; have patience, and bear it; after a time she will be softened. By giving way the supple branch is bent from the tree; if you make trial of your strength, you break it. By giving way the waves are swam across; but you cannot overcome the stream if you swim against the flood which the tide carries down. 'Tis yielding that subdues the tigers and the Numidian lions. By degrees only does the bull submit to the rustic plough. What was there more coy than Atalanta of Nonacris? Yet, untamed as she was, she yielded to the deserving qualities of a man. They say that many a time, beneath the trees, Milanion wept at his mishaps, and the unkind conduct of the fair one. Full oft on his neck, as ordered, did he bear the treacherous toils; full oft with his cruel spear did he transfix the savage boars. Wounded, too, he experienced the stretched bow of Hylæus; but yet there was another bow still more felt than this.

I do not bid you, in arms, to climb the woods of Mænalus, and I do not bid you to carry the toils upon your neck. Nor yet do I bid you to expose your breast to the discharged arrows. The requirements of my skill will be but light to the careful man. Yield to her when opposing; by yielding, you will come off victorious. Only take care to perform the part which she shall bid you. What she blames, do you blame; whatever she approves, do you approve; what she says, do you say; what she denies, do you deny. Does she smile, do you smile; if she weeps, do you remember to weep. Let her prescribe the law for the regulation of your features. If she plays, and throws the ivory cubes with her hand, do you throw unsuccessfully, do you make bad moves to the throws; or if you are throwing the dice, let not the penalty attend upon her losing; take care that losing throws often befall yourself, if your piece is moving at the game that imitates the tactics of war, take care that your man falls before his enemy of glass. Do you yourself hold the screen stretched out by its ribs; do you make room in the crowd the way that she is going. And do not delay to place the footstool before the tasteful, couch; and take off or put on the sandals for her delicate feet. Often, too, must the hand of your mistress, when cold, be made warm in your bosom, though you yourself should shiver in consequence. And think it no disgrace (although it should be a disgrace to you, still it will give pleasure), to hold the looking-glass with the hand of a free-born man.

He who, by killing the monsters of his wearied step-mother, earned those heavens which before he had supported, is believed, amid the Ionian girls, to have held the work-basket, and to have wrought the rough wool. The Tirynthian hero was obedient to the commands of his mistress. Go then, and hesitate to endure what he submitted to. When bidden to come to the Forum, take care always to be there before the appointed time; and do not go away until a late hour. Does she appoint to meet you at any place; put off everything else: run quickly, and let not the crowd stop your purposed route. Is she returning home at night, after having been at a feast; then, too, if she calls, come to her as though a servant. If you are in the country and she says, "Come," (love hates the tardy) if a vehicle is not at hand, go your journey on foot. Let neither bad weather nor the parching Dog-star detain you, nor the road made white with the snow that lies there.

Love is a kind of warfare; cowards, avaunt! These are not the standards to be defended by timid men. In this tender warfare, night, and wintry storms, and long journies, and cruel pain, and every kind of toil, have their part. Many a time will you have to endure the rain pouring from the clouds of heaven; cold and on the bare ground full oft will you lie. Cynthius said to have fed the cows of Admetus of Pheræ, and to have lived in an humble cottage. What was becoming to Phoebus, to whom is it not becoming? Away with all conceit, whoever you are, who have a care for a lasting passion. If access is denied you by a safe and smooth path; and if her door shall be fastened by the bar put up; then, do you slip straight down through the open roof let the high window, too, present a secret passage. She will be pleased when she knows that she has proved the cause of risk to you. This will be to your mistress a pledge of your unvarying love. Full oft, Leander, couldst thou have done without thy mistress; that she might know thy passion, thou didst swim across.

And be not ashamed to make her handmaids, as each one is superior in rank, nor yet her male servants, entirely your own. Salute them each by name, there will be nothing thrown away: press their humble hands, proud lover, with your own. Moreover, (the expense is but trifling) give to the servant who asks, some little present from your means. Make a present, too, to the handmaid, on the day on which the Gallic army, deceived by the garments of the matrons, received retribution. Follow my advice, and make the lower classes your own; in that number let there always be the porter, and him who lies before the door of her chamber. And I do not bid you present to your mistress any costly gift; give her moderate ones, but, in your discrimination, well selected from those that are moderate. While the country is abundantly rich in produce, while the branches are bending beneath their load, let the boy bring your gifts from the country in his basket. You may say that they have been sent by you from your suburban retreat, although they may have been bought even in the Sacred Street. Let him carry either grapes, or what Amaryllis was so fond of; but, at the present day, she is fond of chesnuts no longer. And, besides, both with a thrush and a pigeon, sent as a present, you may show how attentive you are to your mistress. By these means are the expectations of death, and solitary old age, disgracefully made matter of purchase. Oh! may they perish through whom gifts promote criminal objects!

Why should I recommend you to send tender lines as well? Alas! poetry does not gain much honour. Verses are praised: but 'tis costly gifts that are sought. If he is only rich, a very barbarian is pleasing. Truly is this the golden age; the greatest honours accrue through gold; love is purchased with gold. Though thou thyself, Homer, shouldst come, attended by the Muses; if thou shouldst bring nothing with thee, thou wouldst be turned out of doors.

And yet there are the learned fair, a very limited number; another set are not learned, but they wish to be so. Both kinds may be praised in verse; the reader may set off the lines of whatever quality by a melodious voice. Indeed, a poem, carefully composed in their honour, will be to these or to those, as good, perhaps, as a little present. But take care that whatever you are about to do of your own accord and consider convenient, your mistress shall always first ask that of you. Has freedom been promised to any one of your slaves; still cause him to make a request for it of your mistress. If you forgive punishment and cruel fetters to your slave, let her be indebted to you for what you were about to do. Let the advantage be your own; let the credit be given to your mistress. Suffer no loss yourself, and let her act the part of the person in power.

But whosoever you are who have a care to retain the fair, cause her to believe that you are enchanted with her beauty. If she is in Tyrian costume, praise the dress of Tyrian hue; if she is in that of Cos, consider the Coan habit as becoming. Is she arrayed in gold, let her be more precious in your eyes than gold itself: if she wears a dress of felt, praise the felt dress that she wears. Does she stand before you in her tunic, exclaim, "You are setting me on fire;" but entreat her, with a voice of anxiety, to beware of the cold. Is the parting of her hair nicely arranged; praise the parting of it; has she curled her hair by aid of the fire: curled locks, do you prove the attraction. As she dances, admire her arms, her voice as she sings; and use the words of one complaining because she has left off. Her very embraces you may commend, on the points that please yourself; and with murmuring accents you may signify your delight. Though she be more fierce than the grim Medusa; to her lover she will become gentle and kind.

Only, take you care that you be not discovered to be a deceiver in these expressions; and by your looks do not contradict your words. If devices are concealed, they are of use; when discovered, they cause shame, and deservedly remove confidence for all future time. Often, at the approach of autumn (when the year is most beauteous, and the filled grape is growing red with its purple juice; at the time when at one moment we are chilled with cold, at another we are melted with heat), through the varying temperature a languor takes possession of the body. She, indeed, may be in good health; but if, through illness she keeps her bed, and, ailing, feels the bad effects of the weather, then let your love and affection be proved to the fair; then sow, that hereafter with the sickle of abundance you may reap. Let no disgust at her malady, that renders her so cross, come upon you: by your hands too, let whatever she will permit, be done. And let her see you as you weep; and be not tired of giving her kisses; and with her parched lips let her dry up your tears. Make many a vow for her cure, but all before her: and as often as she will permit, be seeing pleasant visions to tell her of. Let the old woman come, too, to purify her couch and chamber; and in her palsied hand let her carry before her the sulphur and the eggs. In all these things there will be traces of a pleasing attention; for many a one has this road proved a path to another man's will. But still, let not loathing on the part of the sick fair be the result of your officiousness; let there be certain limits shown in your careful attentiveness. Do not you forbid her food, nor administer the cups with the bitter draught; let your rival mingle those.

But when you have gained the open sea, you must not use the breeze to which you set your sails from off the shore. While Love is wandering in his youth, let him gain strength by habit; if you nurse him well, in time he will be strong. Him that you fear as a bull, as a calf you were wont to pat; the tree under which you are now reclining, was once a twig. A river at its rise is small, but it acquires strength in its course; and where it runs, it now receives many a stream. Make her become used to you; there is nothing more powerful than habit. While you are courting her, avoid no amount of trouble. Let her be always seeing you; let her be always lending ear to you; let both night and day show your countenance. When you have a greater confidence that you may be missed; then, destined to be her care when absent, go away to a distance. Give yourself some repose; the land that has lain fallow, gives back in abundance what has been entrusted to it; and the dry ground sucks up the water of the heavens. Demophoôn, when present, inflamed Phyllis in a less degree; when he had set sail, more violently did she burn. The crafty Ulysses, by his absence, tortured Penelope: far away, tearful Laodamia, was thy hero of Phylace.

But a short respite alone is safe; in time, cares become modified, and the absent love decays and a new one makes its entrance. While Menelaus was absent, Helen, that she might not lie alone, was received at night into the warm bosom of his guest. What meant, Menelaus, this stupidity of thine? Thou didst go away alone; under the same roof were both the stranger and thy wife. And dost thou entrust, madman, the timid doves to the hawk? Dost thou entrust the well-filled sheep-fold to the mountain wolf? Helen commits no sin; this paramour of hers does no wrong; he does what thou, what any one, would do. Thou dost persuade them to adultery, by giving both time and opportunity. What advice, but thine own, has the fair made use of? What is she to do? Her husband is away, and a guest, no repulsive person, is present, and she is afraid to sleep alone in an empty couch. Let the son of Atreus think better of it: I acquit Helen of criminality; she made use of the opportunity given by an easy husband.

But neither is the tawny boar so fierce in the midst of his rage, when he hurls the furious dogs with the lightning shock of his tusks; nor the lioness, when she is giving the breast to her sucking whelps; nor the little viper, when inhired by the heedless foot; as the woman, who is furious on detecting the rival of her nuptial couch, and bears on her features the proofs of her feelings. To the sword and to flames does she resort; and, shame laid aside, onward she is impelled, as though struck by the horns of the Aonian God. The barbarian fair one of Phasis avenged the fault of her husband, and the violated rights of a wife, by the death of her sons. See, how another cruel parent ('tis the swallow that you behold) has her breast stained with blood. 'Tis this breaks those attachments that are firmly united, this, those of long duration; these faults must then be guarded against by cautious men.

But still, my judgment does not condemn you to one fair alone. The Gods forbid! hardly can the married woman adhere to this. Disport yourself; but let your faultiness be concealed by a decent stealthiness. No glory must be sought in one's own delinquency. And do you give no present of which the other may know; nor be there any stated times for your intriguing. And, lest the fair one should catch you in the retreat so well known to her, all must not be met in the same place of rendezvous. And, as often as you shall be writing, do you first examine the whole of the tablet; many a woman reads more than what has been sent to her. A slighted passion brandishes the arms of retribution, and hurls back the weapon, and causes yourself to complain of that of which it complained so lately.

So long as the son of Atreus was content with one woman, she, too, was chaste; through the fault of her husband did she become culpable. She had heard how that Chryses, bearing in his hand the laurel and the fillets, had not prevailed in behalf of his daughter. She had heard, too, ravished one of Lyrnesus, of thy sorrows; and how the warfare had been protracted through disgraceful delays. Still, these things she had only heard of; the daughter of Priam, herself, she had seen. Thou, the conqueror, wast the disgraced captive of thy own captive. Then did she receive the son of Thyestes, both into her chamber and her affections; and the daughter of Tyndarus avenged herself on a husband so deeply criminal.

Your actions, which you have studiously concealed, if perchance any of them are discovered, although they should be notorious, still do you always deny them. On such occasions, do you neither be subdued, nor more kind than usual. That bears the marks of a mind that has too deeply offended. Still, spare not any endearments on your side; peace is entirely centred in caresses alone; by these must the former intrigue be disavowed. There are some who would recommend you to use injurious herbs, such as savory; in my opinion they are so many poisons. Or else, they mingle pepper with the seed of the stinging nettle; and the yellow camomile pounded in old wine. But the Goddess, whom the lofty Eryx receives beneath his shady hill, does not allow us to be impelled in such manner to her delights. The white onion which is sent from the Pelasgian city of Alcathoiis, and the salacious herbs which come out of the gardens, and eggs may be eaten; the honey of Hymettus may be eaten, and the nuts which the pine-tree with its sharp leaves produces.

Why, learned Erato, art thou thus diverging into the medical art? The inner side of the turning-place must be grazed by my chariot. You, who just now were, by my recommendation, to conceal your delinquencies, change your course, and, by my advice, disclose your intrigues. Nor yet is any inconsistency of mine to be censured; the curving ship does not always carry those on board with the same breezes. For sometimes we run with the Thracian Boreas, sometimes with the East wind; full aft does the canvass swell with the Zephyrs, with the South wind full aft. See how, in the chariot, the driver, at one moment, gives the flowing rein, at another, skilfully checks the horses in full career. There are some, with whom an anxious obsequiousness is ruinous, and if there is no rival existing, then their passion waxes faint. The feelings often run riot amid prosperity; and to bear good fortune with equanimity is no easy task. As the declining fire, its strength consuming by degrees, itself lies concealed, and the ashes become white over the surface of the fire; but still, when sulphur is applied, it finds the flames that were extinguished, and the light returns which existed before; so, when the feelings, sluggish through repose, and free from care, become torpid, by sharp stimulants must love be aroused. Make her to be jealous on your account, and rekindle her deadened feelings; let her turn pale at the proof of your inconstancy.

Oh four times blest, and so oft, that it is not possible to limit it to numbers, is that man, on whose account the slighted fair is in grief! who, soon as the charge has reached her unwilling ears, faints away: and both her voice and colour leave the sorrowing fair. Would that I were he, whose locks she tears in her fury; would that I were he, whose tender cheeks she tears with her nails; whom she looks upon bursting into tears; whom she beholds with scowling eyes; without whom she cannot exist; but still wishes that she could. If you enquire as to its duration: let the time be short for her to complain of her injuries, lest her anger may acquire strength in the slowly passing lapse of time.