A foreign lover brought down Helen’s kingdom, and she was led back, living, home; The Cytharean brought low by Mars’ lechery reigns in respectable heavens, ... Oh, oh, and enough of this, by dew-spread caverns, The Muses clinging to the mossy ridges; to the ledge of the rocks; Zeus’ clever rapes, in the old days, combusted Semele’s, of Io strayed. Of how the bird flew from Trojan rafters, Ida has lain with a shepherd, she has slept between sheep. Even there, no escape Not the Hyrcanian seabord, not in seeking the shore of Eos. All things are forgiven for one night of your games.... Though you walk in the Via Sacra, with a peacock’s tail for a fan. XII Who, who will be the next man to entrust his girl to a friend? Love interferes with fidelities; The gods have brought shame on their relatives; Each man wants the pomegranate for himself; Amiable and harmonious people are pushed incontinent into duels, A Trojan and adulterous person came to Menelaus under the rites of hospitium, And there was a case in Colchis, Jason and that woman in Colchis; And besides, Lynceus, you were drunk. Could you endure such promiscuity? She was not renowned for fidelity; But to jab a knife in my vitals, to have passed on a swig of poison, Preferable, my dear boy, my dear Lynceus, Comrade, comrade of my life, of my purse, of my person; But in one bed, in one bed alone, my dear Lynceus I deprecate your attendance; I would ask a like boon of Jove. And you write of Achelöus, who contended with Hercules, You write of Adrastus’ horses and the funeral rites of Achenor, And you will not leave off imitating Aeschylus. Though you make a hash of Antimachus, You think you are going to do Homer. And still a girl scorns the gods, Of all these young women not one has enquired the cause of the world, Nor the modus of lunar eclipses Nor whether there be any patch left of us After we cross the infernal ripples, nor if the thunder fall from predestination; Nor anything else of importance. Upon the Actian marshes Virgil is Phoebus’ chief of police, He can tabulate Caesar’s great ships. He thrills to Ilian arms, He shakes the Trojan weapons of Aeneas, And casts stores on Lavinian beaches. Make way, ye Roman authors, clear the street O ye Greeks, For a much larger Iliad is in the course of construction (and to Imperial order) Clear the streets O ye Greeks!