Unique woman, born to beauty, you, the object of my pain, since fate excludes me from your saying: ‘Come, often’: your form will be made most famous by my books: with your permission, Calvus: and Catullus, peace to you, with yours.
The aged soldier sleeps by his grounded weapons; ancient oxen refuse to pull the plough; the rotting ship rests on empty sands; and the warrior’s ancient shield idly hangs on some temple wall. But no old age would lead me away from loving you, not even if I was Nestor, or Tithonus.
Wouldn’t it be better to serve a cruel tyrant, and groan in your brazen bull, savage Perillus? Wouldn’t it be better to harden at the Gorgon’s gaze, or even suffer those Caucasian vultures? Yet I shall still endure.
The iron blade’s eaten away by rust and the flint by drops of water: but love’s not worn away by a mistress’s threshold if it stays to suffer and hear threats undeserved. More: the lover pleads, when despised: and when wronged confesses sins: and then returns himself with reluctant step.
You as well, credulous man, waxing proud when love’s at the full: no woman stays firm for long. Does anyone perform his vows in mid-storm, when often a ship drifts shattered in the harbour? Or demand his prize before the race is run, and the wheel has touched the post seven times? The favourable breeze plays us false in love: when it’s delayed great is the ruin that comes.
You, meanwhile, though she still delights in you, close imprisoned joy in your silent heart. For, I don’t know why, but in his love pact, it is always his boastful words that seem to harm the lover. Though she often calls for you, remember, go but once: that which is envied often fails to last. Yet were there to be times like those that pleased the girls of old, I would be again what you are now: I’m vanquished by time. But age shall still not change my habits: let each man be allowed to go his own way.
And you, that recall service to many loves, if so, what pain afflicts your eyes! You see a tender girl of pure white, you see a dark: either colour commands you. You see a form that expresses the Greek, or you see our beauties, either aspect grips you. Whether she’s in common dress or scarlet, one or the other’s the road to a cruel wound. Since one girl can lead your eyes to sufficient sleeplessness, one woman, whoever’s she is, is plenty of trouble.
—Sextus Propertius
Propertius 2.25, translated by A. S. Kline
