But still this is better, than if I were languishing without a flame; may a life of seriousness be the lot of my foes. May it be the lot of my foes to sleep in the couch of solitude, and to recline their limbs outstretched in the midst of the bed. But, for me, may cruel Love _ever_ disturb my sluggish slumbers; and may I be not the solitary burden of my couch. May my mistress, with no one to hinder it, make me die _with love_, if one is enough to be able to do so; _but_ if one is not enough, _then_ two. Limbs that are thin, [401] but not without strength, may suffice; flesh it is, not sinew that my body is in want of. Delight, too, will give resources for vigour to my sides; through me has no fair ever been deceived. Often, robust through the hours of delicious night, have I proved of stalwart body, even in the mom. Happy the man, who proves the delights of Love? Oh that the Gods would grant that to be the cause of my end! Let the soldier arm his breast [402] that faces the opposing darts, and with his blood let him purchase eternal fame. Let the greedy man seek wealth; and with forsworn mouth, let the shipwrecked man drink of the seas which he has wearied with ploughing them. But may it be my lot to perish in the service of Love: _and_, when I die, may I depart in the midst of his battles; [403] and may some one say, when weeping at my funeral rites: "Such was a fitting death for his life." ELEGY XI. _He endeavours to dissuade Corinna from her voyage to Baiæ._ |The pine, cut on the heights of Pelion, was the first to teach the voyage full of danger, as the waves of the ocean wondered: which, boldly amid the meeting rocks, [404] bore away the ram remarkable for his yellow fleece. Oh! would that, overwhelmed, the Argo had drunk of the fatal waves, so that no one might plough the wide main with the oar. Lo! Corinna flies from both the well-known couch, and the Penates of her home, and prepares to go upon the deceitful paths _of the ocean_. Ah wretched me! why, for you, must I dread the Zephyrs, and the Eastern gales, and the cold Boreas, and the warm wind of the South? There no cities will you admire, _there_ no groves; _ever_ the same is the azure appearance of the perfidious main. The midst of the ocean has no tiny shells, or tinted pebbles; [405] that is the recreation [406] of the sandy shore. The shore _alone_, ye fair, should be pressed with your marble feet. Thus far is it safe; the rest of _that_ path is full of hazard. And let others tell you of the warfare of the winds: the waves which Scylla infests, or those which Charybdis _haunts_: from what rocky range the deadly Ceraunia projects: in what gulf the Syrtes, or in what Malea [407] lies concealed. Of these let others tell: but do you believe what each of them relates: no storm injures the person who credits them.