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. Feasting a second time upon his food,
  2. His limbs with sudden heaviness oppress'd,
  3. He bends his head, and sinks to pleasing rest.
  4. A noisy crow, cleaving the liquid air,
  5. Thrice with lewd bill pick'd off the heifer's hair;
  6. The glossy white imbib'd a spreading blot,
  7. But on her breast appear'd a livid spot.
  8. The cow rose slowly from her consort's side,
  9. But when afar the grazing bull she spied,
  10. Frisk'd to the herd, with an impetuous haste,
  11. And pleas'd, in new luxuriant soil, her taste.
  12. Oh, learn'd diviner!
  13. What may this visionary dream portend,
  14. If dreams in any future truth can end ?
  15. The prophet nicely weighs what I relate,
  16. And thus denounces in the voice of fate:-
  17. "That heat you tried to shun i' th' shady grove,
  18. But shunn'd in vain, was the fierce heat of love.
  19. The cow denotes the nymph, your only care,
  20. (For white's th' expressive image of the fair,)