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. Why arms invent thy jarring sons to wound ?
  2. What quarrel hast thou with the sea, and why
  3. Didst thou at first the pathless ocean try ?
  4. Cannot the land content thy restless pride ?
  5. Didst thou with Saturn's sons the whole divide,
  6. Thou wouldst not with three worlds be satisfied.
  7. 'Tis strange thy vast ambition did not fly
  8. O'er earth, and sea, and air, and scale the sky;
  9. That man did not aspire to be a god,
  10. And tread the paths by Indian Bacchus trod,
  11. To give his name to some distinguish'd star,
  12. And be what Hercules and Caesar are.
  13. Instead of yellow harvests, now we seek
  14. For solid gold, and thro' earth's entrails break;
  15. The wealth we thus acquire's the soldier's prey,
  16. And dearly for the blood he spills we pay.
  17. The courts deny admittance to the poor,
  18. In vain the needy clients crowd the door;
  19. The judges to the rich decree the cause,
  20. And money only gives their force to laws.