Tant que tu n'as aimé personne plus que moi, Quand Chloé n'était pas préférée à Lydie, J'ai vécu plus illustre et plus fière qu'Ilie. HORACE. J'appartiens maintenant à la blonde Chloé, Qui plait par sa voix douce et son luth enjoué. Je suis prêt à mourir pour prolonger sa vie. LYDIE. Calais maintenant tient mon âme asservie, Nous brûlons tous les deux de mutuels amours, Et je mourrais deux fois pour prolonger ses jours. HORACE. Mais quoi! Si j'ai regret de ma première chaine? Si Vénus de retour sous son joug me ramène? Si je refuse à l'autre, et te rends mon amour? LYDIE. Encor que Calais soit beau comme le jour, Et toi plus inconstant que la feuille inconstante, Avec toi je vivrais et je mourrais contente. Horace was the poet of ease, Catullus of love, Propertius of passion, Tibullus of sentiment. Ovid was the poet of pleasure. A man of means, of fashion, of the world, what to-day would be called a gentleman, he might have been laureate of the Empire. Corinna interfered. Corinna was his figurative muse. Whether she were one or many is uncertain, but nominally at least it was for her that he wrote the suite of feverish fancies entitled the "Art of Love" and which were better entitled the "Art of not Loving at all." Subsequently, he planned a great Homeric epic. But, if Corinna inspired masterpieces, she gave him no time to complete them. She wanted her poet to herself. She refused to share him even with the gods. It is supposed that Corinna was Julia, daughter of Augustus. Because of her eyes, more exactly because of her father's, Ovid was banished among barbarian brutes. It was rather a frightful penalty for participating in the indiscretions of a woman who had always been the reverse of discreet. Corinna, as described by Ovid, was a monster of perversity. Julia, as described by Tacitus, yielded to her nothing in that respect.