You ask where the passion comes from I write so much about, and this book, so gentle on the tongue. Neither Apollo nor Calliope sang them to me. The girl herself fires my wit.

If you would have her move in a gleam of Cos, this whole book will be Coan silk: if ever I saw straying hair cloud her forehead, she joys to walk, pride in her worshipped tresses: or if ivory fingers draw songs from the lyre, I marvel what fingering sweeps the strings: or if she closes eyelids, calling on sleep, I come to a thousand reasons for verse: or if naked she wrestles me, free of our clothes, then in truth we make whole Iliads: whatever she does or says, a great tale’s born from nothing.

Maecenas, even if fate had given me the strength to lead crowds of heroes to war, I’d not sing Titans; Ossa on Olympus, with Pelion a road to Heaven; or ancient Thebes; or Troy that made Homer’s name; or split seas meeting at Xerxes’s order; Remus’s first kingdom, or the spirit of proud Carthage, or the German threat and Marius’s service. I’d remember the wars of your Caesar, his doings, and you, under mighty Caesar, my next concern.

As often as I sang Mutina; Philippi, the citizens graveyard; the sea-fights in that Sicilian rout; the ruined Etruscan fires of the former race; Ptolemy’s Pharos, its captive shore; or sang of Egypt and Nile, when crippled, in mourning, he ran through the city, with seven imprisoned streams; or the necks of kings hung round with golden chains; or Actium’s prows on the Sacred Way; my Muse would always weave you into those wars, mind loyal at making or breaking peace.

Achilles gave witness of a friend’s love to the gods, Theseus to the shades, one that of Patroclus, son of Menoetius, the other of Pirithous, Ixion’s son. But Callimachus’s frail chest could not thunder out Jupiter’s struggle with the giant Enceladus, over the Phlegrean Plain, nor have I the strength of mind to carve Caesar’s line, back to Phrygian forebears, in hard enough verse.

The sailor talks of breezes: the ploughman, of oxen: the soldier counts wounds, the shepherd counts his sheep: I in my turn count sinuous flailings in narrowest beds: let every man spend the day where he can, in his art. Glorious to die in love: a further glory, if it’s given, to us, to love only once: O may I enjoy my love alone!

If I’m right, she finds fault with dubious women, and disapproves of the whole Iliad because of Helen.

Though it be for me to taste Phaedra’s chalice, from which Hippolytus took no harm; or for me to die of Circe’s herbs; or for Medea to heat the Colchian cauldron over Iolcus’s fire; yet since one woman alone has stolen my senses, it’s from her house my funeral cortege shall go.

Medicine cures all human sorrows: only love likes no doctor for its disease. Machaon healed Philoctetes’ limping feet; Chiron, Phillyra’s son, the eyes of Phoenix; Asclepius, the Epidaurian god, returned Androgeon to his father’s hearth, by means of Cretan herbs, and Telephus, the Mysian warrior, from Achilles’s Haemonian spear by which he had his wound, by that self-same spear, knew relief.

If any one can take away my illness, he alone can put apples in Tantalus’s hand: he’ll fill urns from the virgin Danaids’ jars, lest their tender necks grow heavy with unloosed water; he’ll free Prometheus’s arms from Caucasian cliffs, and drive the vulture from his heart.

So, whenever the Fates demand my life, and I end as a brief name in slight marble, Maecenas, the hope and envy of our youth, true glory of my death or life, if by chance your road takes you by my tomb, halt your British chariot with chased yoke, and as you weep, pen these words in the silent dust: ‘A hard mistress was this wretch’s fate.’

Book II.2:1-16 Her beauty

I was free, and thought to enjoy an empty bed: but though I arranged my peace, Amor betrayed me. Why does such human beauty linger on Earth? Jupiter I forgive you your rapes of old. Yellow her hair, and slender her hands, her figure all sublime, and her walk as noble as Jupiter’s sister, or Pallas Athene, going to Dulichian altars, her breasts covered by the Gorgon’s snaky locks.

She is lovely as Ischomache, the Lapith’s demi-goddess, sweet plunder for the Centaurs at the marriage feast, or Hecate by the sacred waters of Boebeis, resting, a virgin goddess, it is said, by Mercury’s side. And you Goddesses yield whom shepherd Paris once saw, when you laid your clothes aside for him on Ida’s mountain slopes! I wish that the years might never touch that beauty, yet she outlast the ages of the Sibyl of Cumae.

Book II.3:1-54 Her qualities and graces.

You who said that nothing could touch you now, you’re caught: that pride of yours is fallen! You can hardly find rest for a single month, poor thing, and now there’ll be another disgraceful book about you.

I tried whether a fish could live on dry sand it has never known before, or a savage wild boar in the sea, or whether I could keep stern studies’ watch by night: love is deferred but never destroyed.

It was not her face, bright as it is, that won me (lilies are not more white than my lady; as if Maeotic snows contended with the reds of Spain, or rose-petals swam in purest milk) nor her hair, ordered, flowing down her smooth neck, nor her eyes, twin fires, that are my starlight, nor the girl shining in Arabian silk (I am no lover flattering for nothing): but how beautifully she dances when the wine is set aside, like Ariadne taking the lead among the ecstatic cries of the Maenads, and how when she sets herself to sing in the Sapphic style, she plays with the skill of Aganippe’s lyre, and joins her verse to that of ancient Corinna, and thinks Erinna’s songs inferior to her own.

When you were born, mea vita, did Love, dressed in white, not sneeze a clear omen for you, in your first hours of daylight? The gods granted you these heavenly gifts: in case you think your mother gave them to you: such gifts beyond the human are not inborn: these graces were not a nine-month creation. You are born to be the unique glory of Roman girls: you’ll be the first Roman girl to sleep with Jove, and never visit mortal beds amongst us. The beauty of Helen returns a second time to Earth.

Why should I marvel now that our youths are on fire with her? It would have been more glorious for you, Troy, to have perished because of this. I used to marvel a girl could have caused so mighty a war, Asia versus Europe at Pergama. But Paris, and Menelaus, you were wise, Menelaus demanding her return, Paris slow to reply. That face was something: that even Achilles died for: even to Priam a proven cause for war. If any man wants to outdo the fame of ancient paintings, let him take my lady as model for his art: If he shows her to the East, to the West, he’ll inflame the West, and inflame the East.

At least let me keep within bounds! Or if it should be a further love comes to me, let it be fiercer and let me die. Just as the ox at first rejects the plough, but later accepts the yoke and goes quiet to the fields, so spirited youth frets at first, in love, but takes the rough with the smooth later, tamed. Melampus the prophet, accepted shame in chains, convicted of stealing Iphiclus’s cattle, but Pero’s great beauty drove him not profit, she his bride to be in Amythaons’ house.

Book II.4:1-22 His mistress’s harshness.

First you must often grieve, at your mistress’s wrongs towards you, often requesting something, often being rejected. And often chew your helpless fingernails between your teeth, and tap the ground nervously with your foot, in anger!

My hair was drenched with scent: no use: nor my departing feet, delaying, with measured step. Magic roots are worth nothing here, nor Colchian witch of night, nor herbs distilled by Perimede’s hand, since we see no cause or visible blow anywhere: still, it’s a dark path such evils come by.

The patient needs no doctor, no soft bed: it’s not the wind or weather hurts him. He walks about – yet suddenly his funeral startles his friends. Whatever love is, it’s unforeseen like this. What deceitful fortune-teller have I not been victim of, what old woman has not pondered my dreams ten times?

If anyone wants to be my enemy, let him desire girls: yet delight in boys if he wants to be my friend. You slide down the tranquil stream in a boat in safety: how can such tiny waves from the bank hurt you? Often his mood alters with a single word: she will scarcely be satisfied with your blood.

Book II.5:1-30 Sinful Cynthia

Is it true all Rome is talking of you, Cynthia, and you live in unveiled wantonness? Did I expect or deserve this? I’ll deal punishment, faithless girl, and my breeze will blow somewhere else. I’ll find one of all those deceitful women who want to be made famous by my songs, one who won’t taunt me with such harsh ways: she’ll insult you: ah, so long loved, you’ll weep, yet it’s too late.

Now my anger’s fresh, now’s the time to go: if pain returns, believe me, love will too. The Carpathian waves don’t change in the northerlies as swiftly, nor the black cloud in a shifting southwest gale, as lovers’ anger alters at a word. While you can, take your neck from the unjust yoke. Then you won’t grieve at all, except for the very first night. All love’s evils are slight, if you are patient.

But, by the gentle laws of our lady Juno, mea vita, stop hurting yourself on purpose. It’s not just the bull that strikes with a curving horn at its aggressor, even a sheep, it’s true, opposes the foe. I won’t rip the clothes off your lying flesh, or break open your closed doors, or tear your plaited hair in anger, or dare to bruise you with my hard fists. Let some ignoramus look for quarrels as shabby as these, a man whose head no ivy ever encircled. I’ll go write: what your lifetime won’t rub away: ‘Cynthia, strong in beauty: Cynthia light in word.’ Trust me, though you defy scandal’s murmur, this verse, Cynthia, will make you pale.

Book II.6:1-42 His jealousy

There was never so much crowding round Lais’s house in Corinth, at whose doors all of Greece knelt down, never such a swarm for Menander’s Thais with whom the Athenians once amused themselves. Nor for Phryne, so rich from many lovers, she might have rebuilt the ruined walls of Thebes.

Why, you even invent false relatives, and don’t lack for those who’ve the right to kiss you. The faces of young men in your paintings, and their names, annoy me, even the tender voiceless boy in the cradle. I’m wounded if your mother smothers you in kisses, your sister, or the girlfriend you sleep with. Everything hurts me: I’m afraid: (forgive my fear) and, wretched, suspect a man under every shift.

Once, so the tale is, wars occurred for jealousies like these: see here the origins of Troy’s destruction. The same madness made the Centaurs smash wine-cups, violently fighting Pirithous. Why seek Greek examples? You were the author of that crime, Romulus, reared on a she-wolf’s savage milk: you taught them to rape Sabine virgins, and go free: through you, Love dares what he pleases now in Rome.

Admetus’s wife, Alcestis, was blessed, and Ulysses’s bed-mate, Penelope, and every woman who loves her husband’s home! What use is it girls, building temples in honour of Chastity, if every bride’s allowed to do what she wants?

The hand that first painted obscene pictures and set up disgraceful things to view in innocent homes corrupted the unknowing eyes of young girls, and denied them ignorance of sin itself. Oh, let him groan who sent abroad, through art, the trouble latent in silent pleasures! Once, they’d not deck their houses with those images: then, the walls weren’t painted with sin. Not without cause cobwebs wreathe the shrines, and rank weeds clothe neglected gods.

What guards shall I set for you, then, what lintel that no hostile foot shall ever cross? For a sad prison will achieve nothing against your will. She’s only safe, Cynthia, who’s ashamed to sin. No wife or mistress will ever seduce me: you’ll always be my mistress, and my wife.

Book II.7:1-20 Lifting of the law that bachelors must marry

Cynthia was overjoyed, of course, when that law was repealed: we’d wept for ages in case it might divide us. Though Jupiter himself can’t separate two lovers against their will. ‘But Caesar’s mighty.’ But Caesar’s might’s in armies: conquered people are worth nothing in love.

I’d sooner suffer my head being parted from my body than quench this fire to humour a bride, or as a husband pass by your sealed threshold, and, having betrayed it, look back with streaming eyes. Ah, what sleep my flute would sing you to then, a flute sadder than a funeral trumpet!

Is it for me to supply sons for our country’s triumphs? There’ll be no soldiers from my line. But if I follow the true camp of my mistress, Castor’s horse will not be grand enough for me. It was in fact through this my glory gained such a name, glorious as far as the wintry Dneiper. You’re the only one who pleases me: let me please you, Cynthia, alone: that love will be more to me than being called ‘father’.

Book II.8:1-12 She’s leaving him

She’s being torn away from me, the girl I’ve loved so long, and, friend, do you stop me shedding tears? No enmities are bitter but those of love: cut my throat indeed and I’ll be a milder enemy. Can I watch her leaning on another’s arm, she, no longer called mine, called mine a moment ago?

All things may be overturned: surely, love’s affairs may be so: you win or lose: this is the wheel of love. Often, great leaders, great tyrants have fallen: and Thebes stood once, and there was noble Troy. Many as the gifts I gave, many as the songs I made: yet she, the cruel one, never said: ‘I love.’

Book II.8A:13-40 Propertius scorned

So, cruel girl, through all the years now, have I, who supported you and your household, have I ever seemed a free man to you? Perhaps you’ll always hurl scornful words at my head?

So, will you die, like this, Propertius, you who are still young? Then die: let her rejoice at your death! Let her disturb my ghost, and harass my shade, insult my pyre, and trample on my bones! Why! Didn’t Haemon of Boeotia, his flank wounded by his own sword, fall by Antigone’s tomb, and mingle his bones with those of the luckless girl, not wishing to return to the palace of Thebes without her? But you, also, man, will not escape: you should die with me: both our blood will trickle from this same blade. However much my coming death shames me, shameful though it be indeed, you will die it too. The Theban princes fell in no less dire a war for a kingdom, their mother torn between them, than if we fought, my girl between us, I, not fleeing my own death if I could achieve yours.

Even Achilles, left alone, his mistress taken, let his sword rest there in his tent. He saw the Achaeans fleeing, then mangled on the beach, the Dorian camp ablaze with Hector’s torch: he saw Patroclus hideous with sand, stone dead, blood in his outspread hair: and he suffered that because of fair Briseis. Grief rages, so deeply, when love is torn away. Then when his captive girl was given back in retribution, he dragged that same brave Hector behind his Thessalian steeds.

No wonder that Amor triumphs over me, since I am so much the lesser in birth or arms.

Book II.9:1-52 Cynthia’s new lover

That which he is, I was, often: but perhaps one day he’ll be thrown away, and another dearer to you.

Penelope was able to live un-touched for twenty years, a woman worthy of so many suitors. She evaded marriage by her cunning weaving, cleverly unravelling each day’s weft by night: and though she never hoped to see her Ulysses again, she waited, growing old, for his return. Briseis, too, clutching dead Achilles, beat at her own bright face with frenzied hands, and, a weeping slave, she bathed her bloodstained lord, as he lay by the yellow waters of Simois, besmirched her hair, and lifted the mighty bones and flesh of great Achilles with her weak hands. Peleus was not with you then Achilles, nor your sea-goddess mother, nor Scyrian Deidamia, bereaved in her bed.

So it was that Greece, then, was happy in its true daughters: then honour was respected even in the camps. But you, you, impious girl, can’t stay free a single night, or remain alone a single day! Why, you both drink from the cup, laughing away: and perhaps there are wicked words about me. You even chase after him, who left you once before. The gods grant you may enjoy being slave to that man!

Were they for this, the vows I undertook for your health, when the waters of Styx had all but gone over your head, and we friends stood, weeping, round your bed? Where was he, by the gods, faithless girl, what on earth was he then to you?

What if I was a soldier, detained in far-off India, or my ship was stationed on the Ocean? But it’s easy for you to weave lies and deceits: that’s one art that women have always learned. The Syrtes’ shoals don’t change as swiftly in shifting storms: the leaves don’t tremble as fast in the wintry South-west gale, as a woman’s given word fails in her anger, whether the cause is weighty, or whether the cause is slight.

Now, since this wilfulness pleases you, I concede. I beg you, Boys, bring out your sharper arrows, compete at shooting me, and free me of my life! My blood will prove great honour to you.

The stars are witnesses, girl, and the frost at dawn, and the doors that opened secretly for unhappy me that nothing in my life was ever as dear to me as you: and you will be, forever, too, though you’re so unkind to me. No woman will leave a trace in my bed: I’ll be alone, since I can’t be yours. And I wish, if perhaps I’ve lead a pious life, for that man, in the midst of love, to turn to stone!

Book II.10:1-26 A change of style needed.

Now it’s time to circle Helicon to other metres; time to give the Thessalian horse its run of the field. Now I want to talk about squadrons brave in fight, and mention my leader’s Roman camp. But if I lack the power, then surely my courage will be praised: it’s enough simply to have willed great things.

Let first youth sing of Love, the end of life of tumult: I sing war now my girl is done. Now, I want to set out with more serious aspect: now my Muse teaches me on a different lute. Surge, mind: vigour now, away from these low songs, Muses: now this work will be large-voiced, thus:

‘Euphrates now rejects Parthian cavalry protection, and mourns that he reduced Crassus’s presence. Even India, Augustus, bows its neck to your triumph, and Arabia’s virgin house trembles at you; and if any country removes itself to the furthest ends of the earth, let it feel your hand later, once it’s captive.’

I’m a follower of camps like this: I’ll be a great poet singing of your camp: let the fates oversee that day!

When we can’t reach the head of some tall statue, and the garland is set before its lowly feet, so now, helpless to embark on a song of praise, I offer cheap incense from a poor man’s rites. My verses as yet know not Hesiod’s founts of Ascra: Love has only washed them in Permessus, Apollo’s stream.

Book II.11:1-6 ‘Let other men write about you’

Let other men write about you, or yourself be all unknown. Let the man who sows his seed in barren soil praise you. All your gifts, believe me, that dark funeral day will be borne away with you, on the one bed: and he’ll despise your dust, the man who passes by: he’ll not say: ‘This ash was once a learned maid.’

Book II.12:1-24 A portrait of Amor

Whoever he was who first depicted Amor as a boy, don’t you think it was a wonderful touch? He was the first to see that lovers live without sense, and that great good is lost in trivial cares. Also, with meaning, he added the wings of the wind, and made the god hover in the human heart: true, since we’re thrown about on shifting winds, and the breeze never lingers in one place.

And it’s right that his hand should grip barbed arrows, and the Cretan quiver hang across his shoulders, since he hits us before we safely see the enemy, and no one escapes unwounded from his hurt.

His darts remain with me, and his form, a boy, but surely he must have lost his wings, since he never stirs anywhere but in my heart, and, oh, wages endless war in my blood.

What joy is it for you, Amor, to inhabit my thirsty heart? If you know shame, transfer your war elsewhere: better to try those innocent of your poison. It’s not me you hit: it’s only my tenuous shadow.

If you destroy me, who’ll be left to sing like this? (This slender Muse of mine is your great glory.) Who will sing the face, the hands, or the dark eyes of my girl, or how sweetly her footsteps are accustomed to fall.

Book II.13:1-16 His wish for Cynthia’s appreciation of his verse

Erythra’s not armed with as many Persian shafts, as the arrows Love has fixed in my chest. He ordered me not to despise the lesser Muses and told me to live like this in Ascra’s grove: not so that the oaks of Mount Pierus would follow my sweet words, or so I could lead wild creatures down to Ismara’s valley, but more that Cynthia might wonder at my verse. Then I’d be better known in my art than the Argive, Linus.<