Such my cohort and setting. And she bound ivy to his thyrsos; Fitted song to the strings; Roses twined in her hands. And one among them looked at me with face offended, Calliope: “Content ever to move with white swans! “Nor will the noise of high horses lead you ever to battle; “Nor will the public criers ever have your name in their classic horns, “Nor Mars shout you in the wood at Aeonium, Nor where Rome ruins German riches, “Nor where the Rhine flows with barbarous blood, and flood carries wounded Suevi. “Obviously crowned lovers at unknown doors, “Night dogs, the marks of a drunken scurry, “These are your images, and from you the sorcerizing of shut-in young ladies, “The wounding of austere men by chicane.” Thus Mistress Calliope, Dabbling her hands in the fount, thus she Stiffened our face with the backwash of Philetas the Coan. III Midnight, and a letter comes to me from our mistress: Telling me to come to Tibur, _At_ once!!: “Bright tips reach up from twin towers, Anienan spring water falls into flat-spread pools.” What _is_ to be done about it? Shall I entrust myself to entangled shadows, Where bold hands may do violence to my person? Yet if I postpone my obedience because of this respectable terror I shall be prey to lamentations worse than a nocturnal assailant. _And_ I shall be in the wrong, _and_ it will last a twelve month, For her hands have no kindness me-ward, Nor is there anyone to whom lovers are not sacred at midnight And in the Via Sciro. If any man would be a lover he may walk on the Scythian coast, No barbarism would go to the extent of doing him harm, The moon will carry his candle, the stars will point out the stumbles, Cupid will carry lighted torches before him and keep mad dogs off his ankles. Thus all roads are perfectly safe and at any hour; Who so indecorous as to shed the pure gore of a suitor? I Cypris is his cicerone. What if undertakers follow my track, such a death is worth dying. She would bring frankincense and wreaths to my tomb, She would sit like an ornament on my pyre. Gods’ aid, let not my bones lie in a public location with crowds too assiduous in their crossing of it; For thus are tombs of lovers most desecrated.