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. Beauty to draw my am'rous glances made:
  2. Compare your servant's merit with your eyes,
  3. You'll find no cause his service to dispise.
  4. Don't think I press upon your pride too hard.
  5. For little things may be with great compar'd:
  6. We're told Calypso, an immortal pow'r,
  7. Detain'd a mortal in th' Ogygian pow'r,
  8. And when her pray'r to stay he would not grant,
  9. So strong her love, she kept him by constraint.
  10. A Nereid took the Pythian to her arms.
  11. And Numa knew divine Egeria's charms.
  12. Vulcan though lame, and of a form obscene,
  13. Was oft made happy by the Paphian queen;
  14. She matter'd not his limping, but approv'd
  15. His flame, and saw no faults in him she lov'd
  16. My verses are unequal like his feet,
  17. Yet the long kindly with the shorter meet.
  18. As they with them, why shouldst thou not with me
  19. Comply, my life and my divinity !