AQUILIUS--I will, then, give you versions of the two which immediately follow. DE AMORE SUO. I love and hate. You ask me how 'tis so. Small is the reason which I have to show: I feel it to my cost--'tis all I know. Then follows a compliment, by comparison, to his Lesbia. DE QUINTIA ET LESBIA. Many think Quintia beautiful: she's tall, And fair, and straight. I know, I grant it all, When each particular beauty I recall; But I deny--when these are uncombined To form a whole of beauty--and I find So large a person with so small a mind. But Lesbia's perfect person is all soul, Compact in beauty--as if grace she stole From all the rest, and made herself one perfect whole. CURATE.--This is compliment enough as far as comparison goes--but he pays her a much greater shortly after: for he loves her in their greatest quarrels. OF LESBIA. "Lesbia mi dicit semper male." Lesbia's always speaking ill Of me--her tongue is never still: Yet may I die, but 'gainst her will, She loves me, spite of her detraction. Why think I so? Because I blame Her ways, abuse her just the same: Yet howsoe'er I name her name, I still love Lesbia to distraction. GRATIAN.--Perhaps the constancy was more to the credit of Lesbia than Catullus. Now then, Aquilius. AQUILIUS.-- DE LESBIA. Lesbia speaketh ill of me Ever--nought it moves me: Say she what she will of me, Yet I know she loves me. Why? Because in words of hate, I am far before her; Yet no jot of love abate, Rather I adore her. CURATE.--I don't like "I am far before her." We say, "I am not behind" in hate or love--I doubt "before." AQUILIUS.--Easily mended--thus then,-- Why? Because in words of hate I go far beyond her, Yet no jot of love abate-- But still grow the fonder. GRATIAN.--Probatum est. AQUILIUS.--The Curate is too quick upon me. We must go back: he has left out "De Inconstantia Feminei Amoris." CURATE.--True. Here is my version. Not being a happy subject, I passed over it. OF WOMAN'S INCONSTANCY. My pretty she will none but me For husband, though were Jove, her wooer. So tells she me: but what a she Says to her lover and pursuer, Might well be written on the wind, Or stream that leaves no track behind. AQUILIUS.--I object to "pretty she," for _mulier_. I think, however, that _mulier_ here is a word of contempt. I make it out thus: DE INCONSTANTIA FEMINEI AMORIS. She says--the woman says--she none would wed But me, though Jove came suitor to her bed; She says--but, oh! what woman says--so fair, And smooth to doting man, is writ on air, And on the running stream that changeth every where.