Amores I:1 I-1: I started to write of arms and bloody wars in hexameters, suiting my subject to the meter, but

each second verse came out crippled: Cupid had laughed and snatched away one foot. "Who are you, unruly boy, to tell me what to write? We bards are subject to the Muses, not to you!" I cried. "What if Venus snatched the weapons from blond Minerva and blond Minerva waved the torches of passion? Who would want Ceres to rule in the mountain glades while the fields lay under the laws of quiver-bearing Diana? Who would array shining Phoebus with a spear and give Mars an Aonian lyre to play? "These subjects are too great for you, boy! Why do you get in over your head? Or--is everything subject to you? Do you also rule Helicon in Tempe? Is not even Phoebus' lyre safe from you? For when I start a new page, the first verse is fine but the next forces me to write it shorter--and my subject isn't suitable for lighter meters! I'm not writing about a boy nor a girl dressing her long hair." Thus I complained, but Cupid chose from his quiver the shaft that doomed me. Curving his bow he cried, "Here is the work I give you to sing, bard!" Poor me. Cupid's arrows are certain. I am afire, and Love rules my empty breast. My verses start on six feet but end in five. Farewell, iron war and war's meters. Bind my temples with white flowering the seashore's myrtle, Muse who must be sung on eleven feet. ***

Amores I:3 I ask for justice! May the woman who recently stole my heat either love me or give me reason to love her forever. Ah, that is too much to ask, for merely to be allowed to love is a great thing. Still I believe that Cytherean Venus will hear my repeated prayer. Receive me, for I will serve you throughout the long years to come. Receive me, for I know how to love in faithful purity. I lack the commendation of a noble lineage, for the founder of my house was a knight. My lands are not so spacious that plows without number are needed to turn them, for both my parents lived frugally. Nonetheless Apollo, the nine Muses, Bacchus the father of wine, and Love himself who gives me to you are my sponsors. Besides their testimony I bring unfailing faithfulness, a stainless personal life, simple purity, and shining decency. I'm no juggler of love who seeks a thousand women. I will be yours forever if you are faithful to me. With you I will spend as many years as the Fates' thread grants me. I will live with you, and I will die leaving you to mourn me. Give yourself to me to become an ideal source of my poetry, for my songs cannot fail to be worthy with you as their subject. Already I have brought fame to frightened Io, wandering as a cow. I've shown adulterous Jupiter sporting in the guise of a of a swan and how, pretending to be a bull, he bore the maiden over the seas as she held his crooked horn with her delicate hand. I will sing your praises through the whole world, and your name will always be joined with mine! ***

Amores I:9
Every lover is a soldier and guards the camp of Cupid; believe me, Atticus, every lover is a soldier. The age that's suitable for war is equally fitted for Venus. An aged soldier is a sad thing, just as an old man's love is sad. The range of years that generals look for in a brave soldier are the same years that a pretty girl looks for in a companion. Soldier and lover both will have to keep long watches and either will have to sleep on the ground: the lover guards the doorstep of his mistress, the soldier that of his general. Long journeys are the duty of a soldier. Likewise if his girl goes on a trip, the worthy lover follows no matter how far she goes. Lover and soldier alike will march into stark mountains and cross rivers doubled by rainfall; either will chop a path through piled snow, nor will he make the excuse that he can't press on because violent east winds lash the shore and force him to wait for sailing season before he puts to sea. Who but a soldier or a lover would bear the chill of night or snow mixed with heavy rain? One is sent as a scout against hostile enemies; the other keeps his eyes on a rival as though an enemy. One besieges mighty cities, the other the doorstep of his sweetheart. One smashes a city gate, the other a bedroom door. Often a soldier is able to attack when his enemies are sleeping, slaughtering the unarmed mob with the weapon in his hand. Thus the heroes of the Iliad butchered the wild Thracians whom Rhesus led so that his captured horses left their dead master behind. Lovers of course use the dreams of husbands and move their weapons while their enemies sleep. Mars is doubtful, nor is Venus certain: the defeated rise up again, and those whom you'd swear will never manage it again are back on the job. Those who think love is only desire should think again: Love is a matter of skill and experience. Achilles was miserable, burning with love when Briseis was taken away from him. (While he grieves, use your chance to break the Argive lines, Trojans.) Hector left the embraces of Andromache to arm himself--and she, his wife, was the one who set the helmet on his head. The greatest of the leaders, Agamemnon son of Atreus, stood lovestruck at the sight of Priam's daughter Cassandra with her hair flying like a Maenad of Bacchus. Even Mars when caught by love was caught in Vulcan's net as well; no story made the rounds more often in heaven. I was born with a sluggish disposition meant for quiet leisure; when shadows fell, sleep was all I cared for. Love of a pretty girl spurred me from my lethargy and drove me to earn my wage in Cupid's camp. Now you see me a brisk man waging nocturnal wars. If a man wants to avoid laziness, let him love. ***

Amores I:11
Nape, you're skilled at arranging your mistress' scattered hair, but you're not merely a handmaid. You've shown your talent for the duties of the furtive night, and you've proved your cleverness at passing me notes. Often you've encouraged a hesitant Corinna to come to me, often you've proven faithful when I was in difficulties. Thrust aside all forms of delay and take the tablets I've written this morning to your mistress. You don't have veins of stone nor a heart of hard iron, and you're not a complete innocent. I believe you too have sensed the darts of Cupid: guard these as though they were the standards of your own service. If she asks what I'm doing, say that I live in hope of a night with her. For the rest, just offer in your charming hand the wax on which I've written. While I'm talking, the hour flies. Slip her the tablet when she's alone, but make sure that she reads it immediately. And carefully watch her eyes and her forehead while she reads: from her expression alone it's possible to foretell the future. Hasten! Tell her to reply with a long letter when she's read mine. I hate it when most of the tablet shines unused! Let her squeeze her lines together on the wax and scribble the last letters in the margin so that I have to squint to read them. And yet what need is there for her to tire her fingers with a stylus? Let her write nothing on the tablet but, "Come!" If this succeeds I won't delay to wrap the victorious tablet in laurel and hang it in the temple of Venus with the caption: NASO DEDICATES THIS FAITHFUL MINISTER TO VENUS, WHO RECENTLY TREATED HIM LIKE TRASH. ***

Amores I:12
Weep with me for my hard luck: my girlfriend's answer came back, "No." Her wretched message denies she can see me today. I should've known from the omens. When Nape turned to leave the house with my request, she stubbed her toe on the lintel. Girl, the next time you're sent out, remember to cross the lintel carefully and take high, dignified steps. As for you, surly tablet--get out of my sight! Your wood panels are suitable for a funeral pyre and your wax is filled with words of denial, wax which I think bees on ill-famed Corsica collected from the flowers of the tall hemlock. You blush as though you'd been dyed with vermilion, and this color proved truly bloody. May you be thrown down at a crossroads, useless tablet, where the wheels of passing wagons will smash you to bits! The man who turned you from a tree into a writing tablet must have been a criminal. That tree had displayed men by their miserable necks; that tree had supplied executioners with their grim crosses. This tree shaded hooting owls; its branches bore the weight of vultures and the nests of screech-owls. Was I mad to have committed our love and my gentle words to my mistress to such a tablet? Better should this wax have been used for a bail application which some grim-faced assessor would read, or it could've lain among the daily accounts and the profit and loss statements over which the greedy merchant grieves. I realize now that you're not just a two-leaf notebook but a two-faced one, for two is not a number of good omen. I can do nothing in my anger but pray that old age gnaws you with woodworm and that your white wax may end in an ash heap. ***