That health (and greeting) which she herself will lack unless you give it, the Cretan girl sends to the Amazonian man.
§4.3Perlege, quodcumque est — quid epistula lecta nocebit?
Read it through, whatever it is — what will a read letter hurt?
There can be something in this which may please you too; by these characters secrets are carried over land and sea.
§4.6Inspicit acceptas hostis ab hoste notas.
An enemy inspects the characters received from an enemy.
Three times trying to speak with you, three times the useless tongue cleaved, three times the sound stopped at the very front of the mouth.
§4.9Qua licet et sequitur, pudor est miscendus amori; §4.10Dicere quae puduit, scribere iussit amor.
Where it is permitted and where it follows, shame must be mixed with love; what she was ashamed to say, Love ordered her to write.
Whatever Love has ordered, it is not safe to despise; he reigns and has right over the ruler gods.
§4.13Ille mihi primo dubitanti scribere dixit:
He said to me when I was at first hesitating to write: 'Write!
§4.14'Scribe! dabit victas ferreus ille manus. ' §4.15Adsit et, ut nostras avido fovet igne medullas, §4.16Figat sic animos in mea vota tuos!
That iron-hearted man will yield and stretch out his hands.' May he be present, and just as he warms our marrow with greedy fire, so may he fix your mind onto my vows!
I shall not break the marriage bonds through depravity; my reputation — I wish you would ask — is free from crime.
Love comes more heavily, the later it comes — we are burned within; we are burned, and our breasts have a hidden wound.
§4.21Scilicet ut teneros laedunt iuga prima iuvencos, §4.22Frenaque vix patitur de grege captus equus, §4.23Sic male vixque subit primos rude pectus amores, §4.24Sarcinaque haec animo non sedet apta meo.
Indeed, just as the first yokes hurt tender steers, and the horse captured from the herd scarcely tolerates the reins, so a raw breast enters upon first loves with difficulty and pain, and this burden does not sit fitly on my mind.
It becomes an art, where crime is learned from tender years; he to whom love comes when proper time has passed, loves more miserably.
You will receive the first-fruits of my preserved reputation, and equally each of us will become guilty.
It is something to pluck fruit from full branches, and to pick the first rose with a thin nail.
§4.31Si tamen ille prior, quo me sine crimine gessi, §4.32Candor ab insolita labe notandus erat, §4.33At bene successit, digno quod adurimur igni; §4.34Peius adulterio turpis adulter obest.
Yet if that former purity, in which I conducted myself without crime, had to be marked by an unaccustomed stain, at least it turned out well that we are burned by a worthy fire; a shameful adulterer hurts worse than adultery itself.
If Juno should grant to me her brother and husband, I seem likely to prefer Hippolytus to Jupiter!
Even now — you will scarcely believe it — I am driven into unknown pursuits; I have an impulse to go through savage beasts.
Now my first goddess is the Delian, distinguished by her curved bow; I myself follow your own judgment.
§4.41In nemus ire libet pressisque in retia cervis §4.42Hortari celeris per iuga summa canes, §4.43Aut tremulum excusso iaculum vibrare lacerto, §4.44Aut in graminea ponere corpus humo.
I wish to go into the grove, and, when deer are pressed into nets, to urge on the swift dogs over the highest ridges, or to brandish a trembling javelin with brandished arm, or to lay my body on the grassy ground.
§4.45Saepe iuvat versare leves in pulvere currus §4.46Torquentem frenis ora fugacis equi; §4.47Nunc feror, ut Bacchi furiis Eleleides actae, §4.48Quaeque sub Idaeo tympana colle movent, §4.49Aut quas semideae Dryades Faunique bicornes §4.50Numine contactas attonuere suo.
Often it pleases to turn light chariots in the dust, twisting with reins the mouth of the fleeting horse; now I am carried away, like the Eleleides driven by the furies of Bacchus, and those who move the timbrels under the Idaean hill, or those whom the half-divine Dryads and two-horned Fauns have struck with panic, touched by their divine power.
For they report to me all things, when that madness has subsided; a conscious love burns me in my silence.
Perhaps we pay back this love by the fate of our lineage, and Venus demands tribute from the whole family.
Jupiter loved Europa — that is the first origin of our race — while a bull disguised the god.
My mother Pasiphae, subjected to the deceived bull, bore from her womb a crime and a burden.
The treacherous son of Aegeus, following the leading threads, escaped the winding house by my sister's help.
Lo, I now, lest by chance I be believed too little a daughter of Minos, go as the last of my race into the family laws!
This also is fatal: one house pleased two sisters; your beauty captures me, your father captured my sister.
The son of Theseus and Theseus himself have carried off two sisters — set up double trophies from our house!
At the time when Eleusis of Ceres was entered by us, I wish the Gnosian soil had held me back!
Then especially (though not that you did not please me before) a sharp love clung in my innermost bones.
§4.71Candida vestis erat, praecincti flore capilli, §4.72Flava verecundus tinxerat ora rubor, §4.73Quemque vocant aliae vultum rigidumque trucemque, §4.74Pro rigido Phaedra iudice fortis erat.
Your clothing was white, your hair bound with flowers, a modest blush had dyed your golden face, and that look which other women call stiff and fierce, with Phaedra as judge, was brave instead of stiff.
May those young men dressed like a woman be far from us! — a manly form loves to be adorned with moderate care.
That stiffness of yours, and your hair arranged without art, and the light dust on your excellent face becomes you.
§4.79Sive ferocis equi luctantia colla recurvas, §4.80Exiguo flexos miror in orbe pedes; §4.81Seu lentum valido torques hastile lacerto, §4.82Ora ferox in se versa lacertus habet, §4.83Sive tenes lato venabula cornea ferro.
Whether you bend back the struggling neck of a fierce horse, I marvel at its bent feet in a small circle; or whether you hurl a flexible spear with strong arm, your fierce arm has my eyes turned toward itself; or whether you hold hunting spears of cornel wood with broad iron.
§4.84Denique nostra iuvat lumina, quidquid agis.
In short, whatever you do pleases my eyes.
Only lay aside your harshness in the mountainous forests; I am not worthy to perish by your harsh warfare.