Thus she said; and from the myrtle (for she was standing with her locks wreathed with myrtle) she gave me a leaf and a few berries. Receiving them, I was sensible of the divine influence as well; the sky shone with greater brightness, and all care departed from my breast. While she inspires my genius; hence receive the precepts, ye fair, which propriety, and the laws, and your own privileges, [1013] allow you. Even now, be mindful of old age, that one day will come; then will no time be passed by you in idleness. Disport yourselves, while yet you may, and while even now you confess to your true years; after the manner of the flowing stream, do the years pass by. Neither shall the water which has past by, be ever recalled; nor can the hour which has past, ever return. You must employ your youthful age; with swift step age is gliding on; and that which follows, is not so pleasing as that which having passed was charming. Those brakes, which are withering, I have beheld as beds of violets; from amid those brambles, has a beauteous chaplet been gathered for myself. The time will be, when you, who are now shutting out a lover, will be lying, an old woman, chilled in the lonely night. No door [1014] of yours will be broken open in the broils of the night; nor will you find in the morning your threshold bestrewed with roses. [1015] How soon, ah me! are our bodies pursed with wrinkles, and that colour which existed in the beauteous face, fades away! The grey hairs, too, which you might have sworn that you had had from childhood, will suddenly be sprinkled over all your head. Old age is thrown off by serpents, together with the light slough; and the shedding of their horns makes the stags not to be old. Our advantages fly irretrievably; pluck the flowers then; if they be not plucked, they will lamentably fade themselves to your sorrow. Besides, child-bearing makes the hours of youth more short-lived; with continual crops the soil waxes old. Endymion of Latmus, O Moon, causes not thee to blush; nor was Cephalus a prey for the rosy Goddess to be ashamed of. Though Adonis be allowed to Venus, whom she yet laments; whence had she Æneas and Hermione [1016] for her children? Follow, O race of mortals, the example of the Goddesses; and refuse not your endearments to the eager men. Even should they deceive you, what do you lose? All remains the same. Were a thousand to partake thereof, nothing is wasted thereby. Iron is worn away, stones are consumed by use; your persons are proof against all apprehension of detriment. Who would forbid light to be taken from another light presented? Or who, on the deep sea, would hoard up the expanse of waters? "But 'tis not right," you say, "for any woman to grant favours to a man." Tell me, what are you losing but the water, which you may take up again? [1017] Nor are my words urging you to prostitution; but they are forbidding you to fear evils that do not exist: your favours are exempt from loss to yourselves.