Agamemnon did not joy like this over his triumph at Troy, when Laomedon’s great wealth went down to ruin: Ulysses was no happier, when, his wanderings done, he touched the shore of his beloved Ithaca: nor Electra, on finding Orestes safe, when she’d cried, as a sister, clasping what she thought his ashes: nor Ariadne, Minos’ daughter, seeing Theseus return unharmed, with her guiding thread, out of Daedalus’s maze: as I with the joys I gathered last night. I’ll be immortal if there’s another like it. Yet when I used to go with a suppliant’s hanging head, she spoke of me as worth less than a dried up pond.
She doesn’t try to oppose me now, with unjustified disdain, and can’t rest indifferent to my moans. I wish her peace terms had not been made known to me so late! Now the medicine’s wasted on the ashes. The path was under my feet and I was blind: no one of course can see when crazed with love.
This attitude I have found the best: lovers, show disdain! She comes today, who yesterday said no.
Others, frustrated, knocked, and called my lady’s name: the girl, at ease, laid her head by mine. This victory’s more than conquering far Parthia to me: she’s my spoil: my chariot: my riches. I’ll add rich gifts to your sanctuary’s columns Cytherea, and this will be the verse below my name:
GODDESS, PROPERTIUS SETS THESE SPOILS BEFORE YOUR TEMPLE: HE WAS RECEIVED AS A LOVER FOR ONE WHOLE NIGHT
Now, mea lux, shall my ship preserved come to your shores, or sink, fully laden, in the shallows? For if you change towards me, perhaps through some fault of mine, let me lie down dying at your threshold!
—Sextus Propertius
Propertius 2.14, translated by A. S. Kline
