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. If there's a wretch, who thinks it is a shame,
  2. To serve a lovely and a loving dame:
  3. If such a slave he loads with infamy,
  4. I'm willing he should judge as hard of me;
  5. I'm willing all the world should know my shame
  6. If Venus will abate my raging flame.
  7. Let me a fair and gentle mistress have,
  8. And then proclaim aloud that I'm her slave.
  9. Beauty is apt to swell a maiden's mind,
  10. And thus Corinna is to pride inclin'd:
  11. But as she is above all maiden's fair,
  12. What's pride in them is insolence in her;
  13. Less fair I wish she was, or knew it less;
  14. How learnt she, she is lovely by her face!
  15. Her mirror tells her so, she often tries
  16. Her mirror, and believes her charming eyes.
  17. The looks she then puts on, are still her best,
  18. And she ne'er uses it but when she's dress'd.
  19. Though wide the empire of your beauties spread,
  20. Beauty to draw my am'rous glances made: