Persephone, let your mercy endure: Dis, why set out to be crueller than her? There are so many thousands of lovely girls among the dead: if allowed, leave one beautiful one up here! Down there with you is Iope; with you shining Tyro; with you Europa, and wicked Pasiphae; and whatever beauty old Troy and Achaia bore, the bankrupt kingdoms of ancient Priam and Apollo; and whoever among their number was a Roman girl, perished: every one of them the greedy fire possesses. No one has endless fortune, eternal beauty: sooner or later death awaits us all.
Since you’ve escaped, mea lux, from great danger pay Diana the gift of song and dance you owe her, and keep vigil as well for that heifer, now a goddess; and, for my sake, grant her the ten nights you vowed.
—Sextus Propertius
Propertius 2.28, translated by A. S. Kline
