Translations from Lucretius (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: But the excluded lover many a time With flowers and garlands covers tearfully The threshold, and anoints the haughty posts With oil of marjoram, and imprints, poor man, Kisses upon the doors. Yet when at last He has been admitted, if but a single breath Should meet him as he enters, he would seek Specious excuses to be gone, and so The long-studied, deep-drawn complaint would fall To the ground, and he would then convict himself Of folly, now he sees he had attributed More to her than is right to grant a mortal. Nor to our Venuses is this unknown: Wherefore the more are they at pains to hide All that takes place behind the scenes of life From those they would keep fettered in love's chains; But all in vain, since in imagination You yet may draw forth all these things to light, Discovering every cause for ridicule: And if she be of a mind that still can charm, And not malicious, you may in your turn Overlook faults and pardon human frailty. Nor always with feigned love does the woman sigh, When with her own uniting the man's body She holds him clasped, with moistened kisses sucking His lips into her lips. Nay, from the heart She often does it, and seeking mutual joys Woos him to run to the utmost goal of love. And nowise else could birds, cattle, wild beasts, And sheep and mares submit to males, except That their exuberant nature is in heat, And burning draws towards them joyously The lust of the covering mates. See you not also That those whom mutual pleasure has enchained Are often tormented in their common chains ? How often on the highroads dogs desiring To separate, will strain in opposite ways Eagerly with all their might, yet the whole time They are held fast ...