This also I composed, yes, Me,
The very Ovid himself,
(no autographs!)
Born in Pelignian waters,
Poet of my own worthlessness.
This also Love ordered-
Begone, prudes and conservatives,
And stay gone, far away from here!
You clearly aren’t the intended audience
For my tender, elegant meters.
Let a virgin girl read me, virgin
But not frigid in the face of her fiance.
Or a boy, inexperienced, touched
By a love til-now-unknown
And let any-one of the Youths,
Wounded now by the same bow as I,
Recognize the familiar signs of his own flame,
And having marveled at it for a long time
Let him say,
“By Which traitor has this poet been taught,
Who wrote so clearly of my exact disasters?”
I had dared, I remember, to speak of
Celestia warfare, and the hundred-handed Gyas-
(which I was more than capable of doing, by the way)
When the Earth had wreaked poor vengeance,
And harsh Mt. Ossa, piled up on Olympus,
Brought down sloping Pelion.
And I was holding in my very hands clouds, lightning,
Jupiter himself and that which he sends forth
So skilfully from the sky he rules -
But my girlfriend slammed the doors on me!
And I let fall the lightning, Jupiter too,
Yes, Jupiter himself fell from my mind,
Jupiter, forgive me!
Your weapons of war weren’t helping me one bit!
Her closed-shut door holds power greater than yours!
And I took up my weapons, flattering elegies;
Gentle words thus softened her harsh doors.
Yes, songs draw down the horns of the blood-red moon,
And call back the snowy horses of the falling sun;
With song, Snakes burst with split jaws,
With song, water, turned, runs back to its origins.
Doors yield to songs, and the bar set into the post,
However strong it was, is conquered at last by a song.
How would Achilles, if I’d sung of him, help me with this?
How would either of Atreus’s sons do anything for me,
Or the guy who destroyed as many years in wandering
As he did in war,
Or Hector, captured, dragged by Achilles’ crying horses?
But when I praise a beautiful girl’s face enough
She comes herself to this poet
For the price of a song- A great bargain!
So long heroes with your famous names;
Your gratitude isn’t enough for me!
Girls, bring out your prettiest faces,
And listen to the songs
Which Rosy Cupid himself dictates to me
