As many causes give to many things
Impulse and irritation, so one force
In human kind rouses the human seed
To spurt from man. As soon as ever it issues,
Forced from its first abodes, it passes down
In the whole body through the limbs and frame,
Meeting in certain regions of our flesh,
And stirs in time the genitals of man.
The aroused regions swell with seed, and then
Comes the delight to dart the same at what
The mad desire so yearns, and body seeks
That object, which the mind by love is pierced.
For quite soon each man follows toward his wound,
And our blood spurts even toward the spot from where
The stroke from where we are struck, and if indeed
The foe be close, the red jet reaches him.
Thus, one who gets a stroke from Venus' shafts--
Whether a boy with limbs effeminate
Assault him, or a woman darting love
From all her body--that one strains to get
Even to the thing whereby he's hit, and longs
To join with it and cast into its frame
The fluid drawn even from within its own.
For the mute craving does promise delight.
This need it is that's Venus trap to us:
From this, are born all the lures of love,
From this, O first has into human hearts
Trickled that drop of pure joy which quite soon
Is by chill care succeeded. Since, indeed,
Though whom you love so now be far away,
Yet idol-images of her are near
And the sweet name is floating in your ear.
But it makes sense to flee those images;
And scare away whatever feeds your love;
And turn elsewhere your mind; and vent the sperm,
Within you gathered, into many bodies,
Nor, with your thoughts still busied with one love,
Keep it for one delight, and so store up
Care for yourself and pain that's unavoidable.
For, see, the ulcer, just by nourishing
Grows to more life with deep habitual life,
And day by day the passion swells again,
And the pain increases heavier day by day--
Unless you soon destroy even by new blows
The former wounds of love, and so cure them
While they're still fresh, by wandering freely round
After the freely-wandering Venus, or
Can lead elsewhere the tumults of your mind.
Nor does that man who keeps away from love
Yet lack the fruits of Venus; rather takes
Those pleasures which are free of penalties.
For the delights of Venus, verily,
Are more unmixed for mortals sane-of-soul
Than for those sick-at-heart with love-pining.
Yes, in the very moment of possessing,
Surges the heat of lovers back and forth,
Restless, uncertain; and they cannot choose
On what to first enjoy with eyes and hands.
The parts they sought for, those they squeeze so tight,
And pain the creature's body, close their teeth
Often against her lips, and bruise with kiss
Mouth into mouth,--because this same delight
Is not unmixed; and underneath are stings
Which make a man to hurt the very thing,
Whate'er it be, from where arise in him
Those fruits of madness. But with gentle touch
Venus subdues these pains in acts of love,
And the sweet blending of erotic joys
Soften the bites of passion. Lovers hope
That by the very body where they caught
The heats of love their flames can be put out.
But nature protests it's all quite otherwise;
For this same love it is the one sole thing
Of which, the more we have, the hotter burns
The breast with doomed desire. For food and drink
Are taken within our members; and, since they
Can stop up certain parts, thus, easily
Desire of water is glutted and of bread.
But, look, from human face and lovely bloom
Nothing's possessed by us to be enjoyed
Except vague idol-images and vain--
A sorry hope which sooon the winds disperse.
As when the thirsty man in deep sleep seeks
To drink, and water is not granted him
With which to quench the heat within his members,
But after images of liquids grasps
And toils in vain, and thirsts even while he drinks
So deeply from the water, so, in love,
Venus quite fools with idol-images
The lovers. Nor can they abate their lust
By merely gazing on the bodies, nor
Are able with their palms and fingers rub
Love from each tender limb. And so they stray,
Uncertain, over all the body. Then,
At last, with members intertwined, when they
Enjoy the flower of their age, when now
Their bodies have sweet promise of keen joys,
And Venus is about to sow the fields
Of woman, greedily their frames they lock,
And mingle salivers of their mouths, and breathe
Into each other, pressing teeth on mouths--
Yet to no purpose, since they're powerless
To blend their flesh, or penetrate and pass
With body entire into body, although
They seem to strive and struggle thus to do;
So eagerly they cling in Venus' bonds,
Whilst melt away their members, overcome
By violence of delight. But when at last
Lust, gathered in the flesh, expends itself,
There comes a brief pause in the raging heat--
But then a madness just the same returns
And that old fury visits them again,
When once again they seek and crave to reach
They know not what, all powerless to find
The certain means to put an end to this.
In such uncertain state they waste away
With unseen wound. And I must also add,
They waste their powers and with their torments die;
And I add too, they spend their futile years
Under another's beck and call; their duties
Neglected languish and their honest name
Is made sick, sick; and meantime their estates
Are lost in Babylonian tapestries;
And scented ointments and neat high-heeled shoes
Laugh on her feet; and (as you may be sure)
Big emeralds of green light are set in gold;
And rich sea-purple dress by constant wear
Grows shabby and all soaked with Venus' sweat;
And the well-earned ancestral property
Is spent on rich hats, wigs, and many a time
The cloaks, or garments of a fashion brand
And in the latest style. And banquets, set
With rarest cloth and food plates, are prepared--
And games of chance, and many a drinking cup,
And scented ointments, crowns and flowers. All in vain,
Since from amid the well-spring of delights
Bubbles some drop of poison to torment
Among the very flowers--when quite soon mind
Berates itself, now stricken with remorse
For slothful years and ruin in bedrooms,
Or else because she's left him all in doubt
By launching some sly word, which still like fire
Lives wildly, cleaving to his eager heart;
Or else because he thinks she darts her eyes
Too much about and gazes at another,--
And in her face sees traces of a laugh.
These ills are found in prospering love and true;
But in crossed love and helpless there be such
As through shut eyelids you can still take in--
Uncounted ills; so that it's better far
To watch beforehand, in the way I've shown,
And guard against enticements. For to shun
A fall into the hunting-snares of love
Is not so hard, as to get out again,
When tangled in the very nets, and burst
The stoutly-knotted cords of Aphrodite.
Yet even when there enmeshed with tangled feet,
Still you can flee the threat, unless, indeed
You choose to block the way of your own good.
First concentrate on all the blemishes
Of mind and body of your much desired,
Desirable dame. Often men will,
Quite blind with passion, see beauty in them
That is not theirs in fact. And so we see
Women in many ways so homely and ugly
Whom foolish sweethearts hold in high esteem;
And men will warn each other and advise
To flee fair Venus, since their friends are trapped
By a base passion--miserable fools,
But they don't see their own worst hurt of all.
The black-skinned girl is "tawny like the honey";
The filthy and the fetid's "negligee";
The cat-eyed she's "a little Pallas," she;
The sinewy and wizened's "a gazelle";
The pudgy and the pigmy is "piquant,
One of the Graces sure"; the big and bulky
O she's "an Admiration, imposante";
The stuttering and tongue-tied "sweetly lisps";
The mute girl's "modest"; and the garrulous,
The spiteful spit-fire, is "a sparkling wit";
And she who scarcely lives for her thin flesh
Becomes "a slender darling"; "delicate"
Is she who's nearly dead of coughing-fit;
The bosomed female with protuberant breasts
She is "like Ceres when the goddess gave
Young Bacchus suck"; the pug-nosed lady-love
"A Satyress, a feminine Silenus";
The blubber-lipped is "all one luscious kiss"--
A weary while it were to tell the whole.
But let her face possess what charm you will,
Let Venus' glory rise from all her limbs,--
In truth, there still are others; and in truth
We lived before without her; and in truth
She does the same things--and we know she does--
All, as the ugly creature, and she scents,
Yes she, her wretched self with vile perfumes;
Whom even her handmaids flee and giggle at
Behind her back. But he, the lover, in tears
Because shut out, covers her threshold o'er
Often with flowers and garlands, and anoints
Her haughty door-posts with the marjoram,
And prints, poor fellow, kisses on the doors--
Admitted at last, if haply but one whiff
Got to him on approaching, he would seek
Decent excuses to go out in haste;
And his lament, long pondered, then would fall
Down at his heels; and there he'd damn himself
For his vain foolishness, observing how
He had assigned to that same lady more--
Than it is proper to admit to mortals.
And these our Venuses quite know of this.
Therefore the more are they at pains to hide
All the-behind-the-scenes of life from those
Whom they desire to keep in bonds of love--
In vain, since ne'ertheless you can't by thought
Drag all the matter forth into the light
And well search out the cause of all these smiles;
And if of graceful mind she be and kind,
Do you, in your turn, overlook the same,
And so allow for poor mortality.
Nor sighs the woman always with feigned love,
Who links her body round man's body locked
And holds him fast, making his kisses wet
With lips sucked into lips; often she acts
Even from desire, and, seeking mutual joys,
Incites him there to run love's race-course through.
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