Overwhelm her with your favours; her gratitude may be of use to you. If you should miss that, what good fortune will there be for you? She has both beauty, _and_ her years are fitted for dalliance; her charms are not deserving to fade in listless neglect. Ever watchful though you are deemed, _still_ she may deceive you; what two persons will, does not fail of accomplishment. Still, as it is more convenient to try you with our entreaties, we do implore you, while you have _still_ the opportunity of conferring your favours to advantage. [330] ELEGY IV. _He confesses that he is an universal admirer of the fair sex._ |I would not presume to defend my faulty morals, and to wield deceiving arms in behalf of my frailties. I confess them, if there is any use in confessing one's errors; and now, having confessed, I am foolishly proceeding to my own accusation. I hate _this state_; nor, though I wish, can I be otherwise than what I hate. Alas! how hard it is to bear _a lot_ which you wish to lay aside! For strength and self-control fail me for ruling myself; just like a ship carried along the rapid tide, am I hurried away. There is no single style of beauty which inflames my passion; there are a hundred causes for me always to be in love. Is there any fair one that casts down her modest eyes? I am on fire; and that very modesty becomes an ambush against me. Is another one forward; _then_ I am enchanted, because she is not coy; and her liveliness raises all my expectations. If another seems to be prudish, and to imitate the repulsive Sabine dames; [332] I think that she is kindly disposed, but that she conceals it in her stateliness. [333] Or if you are a learned fair, you please me, _thus_ endowed with rare acquirements; or if ignorant, you are charming for your simplicity. Is there one who says that the lines of Callimachus are uncouth in comparison with mine; at once she, to whom I am _so_ pleasing, pleases me. Is there even one who abuses both myself, the Poet, and my lines; I could wish to have her who so abuses me, upon my knee. Does this one walk leisurely, she enchants me with her gait; is another uncouth, still, she may become more gentle, on being more intimate with the other sex.