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. Thy cruel parents by false lords abus'd,
  2. Had yet some plea, tho' none their crime excus'd.
  3. What, Jason, did your dire revenge provoke?
  4. What, Tereus, urge you to the fatal stroke?
  5. What rage your reason led so far away,
  6. As furious hands upon yourself to lay?
  7. The tigresses that haunt th' Armenian wood,
  8. Will spare their proper young, though pinch'd for food;
  9. Nor will the Libyan lionesses slay
  10. Their whelps,—but woman are more fierce than they;
  11. More barb'rous to the tender fruit they bear,
  12. Nor nature's call, tho' loud she cries, will hear.
  13. But righteous vengeance oft their crimes pursues,
  14. And they are lost themselves, who would their
  15. children lose;
  16. The pois'nous drugs with mortal juices fill
  17. Their veins, and, undesign'd, themselves they kill
  18. Themselves upon the bier are breathless borne,
  19. With hair tied up that was in ringlets worn,