I have expended every method; neither by entreaties nor by threats have I moved you, O _man, even_ more deaf yourself than your door. It becomes you not to watch the threshold of the beauteous fair; of the anxieties of the prison, [076] are you more deserving. And now Lucifer is moving his wheels beset with rime; and the bird is arousing [077] wretched _mortals_ to their work. But, chaplet taken from my locks joyous no longer, be you the livelong night upon this obdurate threshold. You, when in the morning she shall see you _thus_ exposed, will be a witness of my time thus thrown away. _Porter_, whatever your disposition, good bye, and _one day_ experience the pangs of him who is now departing; sluggish one, and worthless in not admitting the lover, fare you well. And you, ye cruel door-posts, with your stubborn threshold; and _you, ye_ doors, equally slaves, [078] hard-hearted blocks of wood, farewell. ELEGY VII. _He has beaten his mistress, and endeavours to regain her favour._ |Put my hands in manacles (they are deserving of chains), if any friend of mine is present, until all my frenzy has departed. For frenzy has raised my rash arms against my mistress; hurt by my frantic hand, the fair is weeping. In such case could I have done an injury even to my dear parents, or have given unmerciful blows to even the hallowed Gods. Why; did not Ajax, too, [080] the owner of the sevenfold shield, slaughter the flocks that he had caught along the extended plains? And did Orestes, the guilty avenger of his father, the punisher of his mother, dare to ask for weapons against the mystic Goddesses? [081] And could I then tear her tresses so well arranged; and were not her displaced locks unbecoming to my mistress? Even thus was she beauteous; in such guise they say that the daughter of Schoeneus [082] pursued the wild beasts of Mænalus with her bow. 'Twere more fitting for her face to be pale from the impress of kisses, and for her neck to bear the marks of the toying teeth. In such guise did the Cretan damsel [083] weep, that the South winds, in their headlong flight, had borne away both the promises and the sails of the forsworn Theseus. Thus, _too_, chaste Minerva, did Cassandra [084] fall in thy temple, except that her locks were bound with the fillet. Who did not say to me, "You madman!" who did not say _to me_, "You barbarian!" She herself _said_ not a word; her tongue was restrained by timid apprehensions. But still her silent features pronounced my censure; by her tears _and_ by her silent lips did she convict me.