I HAVE had a lot to put up with, and I've put up with it a great deal too long. I am completely out of patience with you. My heart is tired out. Away with you, base Love! My slavery is over; I have escaped my fetters, and what I bore without shame, it now shames me to have borne at all. I've won the day; Love is vanquished. I trample it beneath my feet. True, I've been a long time plucking up courage. Fight on, my soul, and faint not. It is a wrench, indeed, but some day you'll be glad you bore this present pain. A bitter potion has oftentimes brought succour to the sick.

How could I have sunk so low, after so many rebuffs, as to he down on the hard ground outside your door? Could I for some other lover you had with you there, act the slave and play the watchman outside the door that was shut against me? I have seen him coming away from your house, looking a very worn-out warrior indeed. Seeing him was not so bad as being seen by him, all the same. May such a disgrace befall my enemies.

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[paragraph continues] Tell me when I have ever failed to be at your side, your escort, your lover, and your friend. You owe your popularity to going about with me. It's because I loved you that you got so many lovers. What's the use of my telling you about your lying tongue, and all the solemn oaths you've broken to deceive me? What's the good of referring to the ogling and winking that went on at dinner between you and your young admirers, and the code words employed to conceal the true sense of what you were saying. One day they told me she was ill. I nearly had a fit, and off I rushed. I get there and find-well, that she isn't too ill to entertain my rival.

There! there are plenty of other instances I could give, but that's the sort of thing I've had to put up with. Look and see if you can find another man who would stand what I have stood. Already I can hear the water rippling behind my vessel's stern, hung with the votive wreath. Farewell. No, I don't want any more kisses; and it's no good talking like that any more; it's waste of time; your words don't move me now. I'm not the madman I used to be.-Yet oh, this wavering heart of mine! How it is torn this way and that, wrung simultaneously by love and hate; and love, I think, is winning the day. I will hate, if I am able; if not, I will love, but not willingly. The ox, too, loves not the yoke. He hates it; but still he bears it. Even as I fly your perfidy, your beauty draws me back. I hate the depravity of your soul; I love your body. Thus I can live neither with you nor without you, and I know not what I want myself I would that you were less fair or less wicked. Such loveliness goes ill with such evil ways. Your conduct bids me hate; your beauty bids me love. Hapless indeed am I; her charms outweigh the evil deeds of their possessor.

Forgive me, I beseech you, by the laws of our mutual love; forgive me by all the gods who lend themselves so often to thy false oaths; by that face that seems to me a

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thing divine, and by thine eyes which have made captives of mine. Whatever you may be, you ever will be mine. Thine it is to say whether you would have me a willing or unwilling lover. Ah, let us spread our sails and profit by the prospering gales, that, though against my will, I shall yet be forced to love.

XIa

Multa diuque tuli; vitiis patientia victa est;
    cede fatigato pectore, turpis amor!
scilicet adserui iam me fugique catenas,
    et quae non puduit ferre, tulisse pudet.
vicimus et domitum pedibus calcamus amorem;
    venerunt capiti cornua sera meo.
perfer et obdura! dolor hic tibi proderit olim;
    saepe tulit lassis sucus amarus opem.
Ergo ego sustinui, foribus tam saepe repulsus,
    ingenuum dura ponere corpus humo?
ergo ego nescio cui, quem tu conplexa tenebas,
    excubui clausam servus ut ante domum?
vidi, cum foribus lassus prodiret amator,
    invalidum referens emeritumque latus;
hoc tamen est levius, quam quod sum visus ab illo--
    eveniat nostris hostibus ille pudor!
Quando ego non fixus lateri patienter adhaesi,
    ipse tuus custos, ipse vir, ipse comes?
scilicet et populo per me comitata placebas;
    causa fuit multis noster amoris amor.
turpia quid referam vanae mendacia linguae
    et periuratos in mea damna deos?
quid iuvenum tacitos inter convivia nutus
    verbaque conpositis dissimulata notis?
dicta erat aegra mihi--praeceps amensque cucurri;
    veni, et rivali non erat aegra meo!
His et quae taceo duravi saepe ferendis;
    quaere alium pro me, qui queat ista pati.
iam mea votiva puppis redimita corona
    lenta tumescentes aequoris audit aquas.
desine blanditias et verba, potentia quondam,
    perdere--non ego nunc stultus, ut ante fui!

XIb

Luctantur pectusque leve in contraria tendunt
    hac amor hac odium, sed, puto, vincit amor.
odero, si potero; si non, invitus amabo.
    nec iuga taurus amat; quae tamen odit, habet.
nequitiam fugio--fugientem forma reducit;
    aversor morum crimina--corpus amo.
sic ego nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum,
    et videor voti nescius esse mei.
aut formosa fores minus, aut minus inproba, vellem;
    non facit ad mores tam bona forma malos.
facta merent odium, facies exorat amorem--
    me miserum, vitiis plus valet illa suis!
Parce, per o lecti socialia iura, per omnis
    qui dant fallendos se tibi saepe deos,
perque tuam faciem, magni mihi numinis instar,
    perque tuos oculos, qui rapuere meos!
quidquid eris, mea semper eris; tu selige tantum,
    me quoque velle velis, anne coactus amem!
lintea dem potius ventisque ferentibus utar,
    ut, quam, si nolim, cogar amare, velim.