Amores

Ovid

Ovid. Ovid's Art of Love (in three Books), the Remedy of Love, the Art of Beauty, the Court of Love, the History of Love, and Amours. Dryden, John, et al., translator. New York: Calvin Blanchard, 1855.

  1. Soon as the fife the signal gives, they move
  2. In long procession through the sacred grove
  3. Branches and flow'rs are with devotion spread
  4. O'er all the way, and priestly vestments laid.
  5. Next after these, through loud acclaims, they lead
  6. A cow milk white, and of Phaliscan breed;
  7. Then a young steer, whose forehead ne'er had borne
  8. The crooked honours of the butting horn.
  9. The least of all the victims was a swine,
  10. And then a ram whose horns around his temples twine.
  11. A goat, whom most the goddess hates, comes last;
  12. The present feels her vengeance for the past.
  13. When in a wood to hide herself she tried,
  14. She by the bleating of a goat was spied;
  15. For this the beast is by the boys pursu'd;
  16. For this she's ever greedy of its blood,
  17. And he, who first the letcher wounds in play,
  18. Claims by her law, and hears the prize away.
  19. The tender youth, and tim'rous virgin strow
  20. With robes the ground the goddess is to go.