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. No coaxing now, your hardest phrases use,
  2. Your looks, your language, all their terrors lose;
  3. I am not such a fool as I have been,
  4. To dread your spirit, and to sooth your spleen.
  5. But, ah! by diff'rent passions I'm oppress'd,
  6. Fierce love and hate contend within my breast;
  7. My soul they thus divide, but love, I fear,
  8. Will prove too strong, and get the mast'ry there;
  9. I'll strive to hate her, but if that should prove
  10. A fruitless strife, in spite of me I'll love.
  11. The bull does not affect the yoke, but still
  12. He bears the thing he hates against his will
  13. I hate, I fly the faithless fair in vain,
  14. Her beauty ever brings me back again;
  15. She always in my heart will have a place,
  16. I hate her humour, but I love her face;
  17. No rest I to my tortur'd soul can give,
  18. Nor with her nor without her can I live.
  19. Oh ! that thy mind we in thy face did view,
  20. Less lovely that thou wert, or else more true.