Certaine of Ovid's Elegies, by C. Marlowe. At Middlebourgh. 8vo. [no date.]
Marlowe's translations from Ovid are seldom to be met with. A small edition of twenty-five copies was lately printed for private circulation, and from it the present reprint has been taken.
AMORUM, LIB. I. ELEGIA 1.
Quemadmodum a Cupidine, pro bell's amoris scribere coactus sit.
WE which were Ovid's five books, now are three,
For these before the rest preferreth he:
If reading five thou 'plain'st of tediousness,
Two ta'en away, the labour will be less;
With muse uprear'd, I meant to sing of arms,
Choosing a subject fit for fierce alarms :
Both verses were alike till Love (men say)
Began to smile and take one foot away.
Rash boy, who gave thee power to change a line?
We are the Muses' prophets, none of thine.
What, if thy mother take Diana's bow,
Shall Dian fan when love begins to glow?
In woody groves is 't meet that Ceres reign,
And quiver bearing Dian till the plain?
Who set the fair tress'd son in battle 'ray,
While Mars doth take the Aonion harp to play?
Great are thy kingdoms, over strong and large,
Ambitious imp! why seek'st thou further charge?
Are all things thine? the Muses' Tempe thine?
Then scarce can Phœbus
say, this harp is mine.
When in this work first verse I trod aloft,
I slack'd my muse, and made my number soft:
I have no mistress nor no favorite,
Being fittest matter for a wanton wit.
Thus I complain'd, but love unlock'd his quiver,
Took out the shaft, ordain'd my heart to shiver,
And bent his sinewy how upon his knee,
Saying, Poet here's a work beseeming thee.
Oh, woe is me! he never shoots but hits,
I burn, love in my idle bosom sits:
Let my first verse bes x, my last five feet;
Farewell stern war, for blunter poets meet!
Elegian muse, that warblest amorous lays,
Girt my shine brow, with seabank myrtle praise !
C. MARLOWE.
AMORUN, LIB. I. ELEGIA 3.
I ask but right, let her that conqu'd me late,
Either love, or cause that I may hate;
I crave too much—would she but let me love her;
Love knows with such like prayers I daily move her.
Accept him that will serve thee all his youth,
Accept him that will love thee with spotless truth.
If lofty titles cannot cause me to be thine,
That am descended but of knightly line;
(Soon may you plough the little lands I have;
I gladly grant my parents given to save ;)
Apollo, Bacchus, and the Muses may,
And Cupid who hath mark'd me for thy prey;
My spotless life, which but to gods gives place,
Naked simplicity, and modest grace.
I love but one, and he I love change never,..
If men have faith, I'll live with thee for ever.
The years that fatal destiny shall give
I'll live with thee, and die, or thou shalt grieve.
Be thou the happy subject of my books
That I may write things worthy thy fair looks,
By verses horned Io got her name;
And she to whom in shape of Bull love came;
And she that on a feign'd Bull swam to land,
Griping his false horns with her virgin hand.
So likewise we will through the world be rung,
And with my name shall thine be always sung.
AMORUM, LIB. I. ELEGIA 5.
Corinnæ concubitus.
In summer's heat, and mid-time of the day,
To rest my limbs, upon a bed I lay;
One window shut, the other open stood,
Which gave such light, as twinkles in a wood,
Like twilight glimpse at setting of the sun
Or night being past, and yet not day begun;
Such light to shamefaced maidens must be shown
Where they sport, and seem to be unknown:
Then came Corinna in a long loose gown,.
Her white neck hid with tresses hanging down,
Resembling fair Semiramis going to bed,
Or Lais of a thousand lovers spread,
I snatch'd her gown being thin, the harm was small, Yet striv'd she to be covered therewithal,
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