TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS.


Grieve not too much, my Albius, thoughtful of cruel Glycera; nor chant
your mournful elegies, because, as her faith being broken, a younger man
is more agreeable, than you in her eyes. A love for Cyrus inflames
Lycoris, distinguished for her little forehead: Cyrus follows the rough
Pholoe; but she-goats shall sooner be united to the Apulian wolves, than
Pholoe shall commit a crime with a base adulterer. Such is the will of
Venus, who delights in cruel sport, to subject to her brazen yokes
persons and tempers ill suited to each other. As for myself, the
slave-born Myrtale, more untractable than the Adriatic Sea that forms
the Calabrian gulfs, entangled me in a pleasing chain, at the very time
that a more eligible love courted my embraces.

* * * * *



ODE XXXIV.

AGAINST THE EPICURIANS.


A remiss and irregular worshiper of the gods, while I professed the
errors of a senseless philosophy, I am now obliged to set sail back
again, and to renew the course that I had deserted. For Jupiter, who
usually cleaves the clouds with his gleaming lightning, lately drove
his thundering horses and rapid chariot through the clear serene; which