If there is anyone who thinks it shameful to serve a girl, by his judgment let me be proved shameful!
Let me be disreputable, so long as she burns me more moderately, she who rules Paphos and wave-beaten Cythera.
And would that I had been the prey of a gentle mistress also, since I was destined to be the prey of a beautiful one!
§2.17.7Dat facies animos.
Beauty gives arrogance.
facie violenta Corinna est — §2.17.8Me miserum! cur est tam bene nota sibi?
Corinna is violent because of her beauty — wretched me! why is she so well known to herself?
Surely her pride is taken from the reflection in her mirror, nor does she see herself before she is fully adorned!
§2.17.11Non, tibi si facies animum dat et omina regni — §2.17.12O facies oculos nata tenere meos! — §2.17.13Collatum idcirco tibi me contemnere debes; §2.17.14Aptari magnis inferiora licet.
No, even if your beauty gives you pride and signs of sovereign rule — O face born to hold my eyes! — you ought not on that account to despise me compared to you; it is permitted for lesser things to be fitted to the great.
It is told also that the nymph Calypso, captured by love for a mortal, detained the man who refused her.
§2.17.17Creditur aequoream Pthio Nereida regi, §2.17.18Egeriam iusto concubuisse Numae, §2.17.19Vulcano Venerem, quamvis incude relicta §2.17.20Turpiter obliquo claudicet ille pede.
It is believed that the sea Nereid slept with the Phthian king, that Egeria slept with the just Numa, and Venus with Vulcan, although, leaving his anvil, he limps shamefully with his crooked foot.
This very genre of song is unequal; yet appropriately the heroic verse is joined with the shorter measure.
§2.17.23Tu quoque me, mea lux, in quaslibet accipe leges; §2.17.24Te deceat medio iura dedisse foro.
You too, my light, receive me on whatever terms you wish; let it become you to dictate laws in the middle of the forum.
I shall not be a disgrace to you, nor one whose departure you would rejoice in; this love of ours will not have to be denied by us.
§2.17.27Sunt mihi pro magno felicia carmina censu, §2.17.28Et multae per me nomen habere volunt; §2.17.29Novi aliquam, quae se circumferat esse Corinnam.
I have successful poems instead of a great estate, and many women wish to have a name through me; I know a certain woman who boasts that she is Corinna.
§2.17.30Ut fiat, quid non illa dedisse velit?
To make it so, what would she not wish to have given?
§2.17.31Sed neque diversi ripa labuntur eadem §2.17.32Frigidus Eurotas populiferque Padus, §2.17.33Nec nisi tu nostris cantabitur ulla libellis; §2.17.34Ingenio causas tu dabis una meo.
But neither do the cold Eurotas and the poplar-bearing Po, flowing in different directions, glide on the same bank, nor shall any woman but you be sung of in my little books; you alone will provide the causes for my genius.