Remedia amoris
Choose a text
id="mobileReaderAuthor" class="mobile-reader-author" href="/authors/ovid" aria-label="More works by Ovid">
—
⋯
Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
249.255
You'll think, when thro' Hemonian fields you rove,
249.256
That magic arts may yield a cure for love.
249.257
Old tales, of witchcraft strange effects rehearse;
249.258
The only charm I bring is sacred verse.
249.259
By my advice no jargon shall be read,
249.260
Nor midnight hag, blaspheming, raise the dead;
249.261
No standing crop to other fields shall range,
249.262
No sick eclipse the sun's complexion change;
249.263
Old Tyber shall his sacred course retain,
249.264
And Cynthia, unmolested, gain her wain.
249.265
No suffering heart to spells shall be oblig'd.
249.266
Nor love resign, by sulphur streams besieg'd.
249.267
Think on Medea, of all hopes bereft,
249.268
When fled from home, and by her lover left.
249.269
And what did Circe's powerful drugs avail,Circe poisoned her husband, the king of Sarmatae, and was therefore banished by her subjects. In her exile she came to Italy, where she changed Scylla by her spells into a monster, and metamorphosed Ulysses's companions into several kinds of beasts. Ulysses, after he had lived with her some time, left her. She was the daughter of the sun.
249.270
When she beheld Ulysses under sail?
249.271
She tried her magic, charm on charm renew'd;
249.272
He with a merry gale his course pursu'd;
249.273
No force or skill the fatal dart removes,
249.274
She raves to find she loves-but still she loves.
249.275
To thousand shapes she could transform mankind,
249.276
No means to change her hated self could find.
249.277
In these soft terms, to her departing guest,
249.278
Her passion (to detain him) was exprest.
249.279
"I now no more (as when I first receiv'd
249.280
Those hopes and you, by both alike deceiv'd)
249.281
Expect that you with me should pass your life,
249.282
Nor more ambitious to be made your wife;
249.283
(Though sure my pedigree you cannot scorn;
249.284
The daughter of the son, a goddess born)
249.285
I but intreat you for a time to stay,
249.286
And urge, for your own sake, the short delay.
249.287
The seas are rough, which you have cause to fear;
249.288
Wait but a friendlier season of the year.
249.289
What haste? This isle does no new Troy afford,
249.290
No second Rhesus to employ your sword.
249.291
Love revels here, with peaceful myrtle crown'd,
249.292
And mine the only heart that feels a painful wound."
249.293
She said-his crew the swelling sails display,
249.294
That bear him and her fruitless pray'rs away.
249.295
In vain to her enchantments she returns,
249.296
Tries all, yet still in hopeless flames she burns.
249.297
For Circe's sake, all lovers I advise,
249.298
That spells, as senseless things, they would despise.