First could I wish that my arms had fallen from off my shoulders; to better purpose could I have parted with a portion of myself. To my own disadvantage had I the strength of a madman; and for my own punishment did I stoutly exert my strength. What do I want with you, ye ministers of death and criminality? Impious hands, submit to the chains, your due. Should I not have been punished had I struck the humblest Roman [085] of the multitude? _And_ shall I have a greater privilege against my mistress? The son of Tydeus has left the worst instance of crime: he was the first to strike a Goddess, [086] I, the second. But less guilty was he; by me, she, whom I asserted to be loved _by me_, was injured; against an enemy the son of Tydeus was infuriate. Come now, conqueror, prepare your boastful triumphs; bind your locks with laurel, and pay your vows to Jove, and let the multitude, the train, that escorts your chariot, shout aloud, "Io _triumphe!_ by _this_ valiant man has the fair been conquered!" Let the captive, in her sadness, go before with dishevelled locks, pale all over, if her hurt cheeks [087] may allow. In short, if, after the manner of a swelling torrent, I was impelled, and if impetuous anger did make me its prey; would it not have been enough to have shouted aloud at the trembling girl, and not to have thundered out my threats far too severe? Or else, to my own disgrace, to have torn her tunic from its upper edge down to the middle? Her girdle should, at the middle [089] have come to its aid. But now, in the hardness of my heart, I could dare, seizing her hair on her forehead, to mark her free-born cheeks [090] with my nails. _There_ she stood, amazed, with her features pale and bloodless, just as the marble is cut in the Parian mountains. [091] I saw her fainting limbs, and her palpitating members; just as when the breeze waves the foliage of the poplars; just as the slender reed quivers with the gentle Zephyr; or, as when the surface of the waves is skimmed by the warm South wind. Her tears, too, so long repressed, flowed down her face, just as the water flows from the snow when heaped up. Then, for the first time, did I begin to be sensible that I was guilty; the tears which she was shedding were _as_ my own blood. Yet, thrice was I ready, suppliantly to throw myself before her feet; thrice did she repel my dreaded hands. But, _dearest,_ do not you hesitate, (_for_ revenge will lessen your grief) at once to attack my face with your nails. Spare not my eyes, nor _yet_ my hair; let anger nerve your hands, weak though they may be. And that tokens so shocking of my criminality may no longer exist, put your locks, arranged anew, in their proper order. [092] ELEGY VIII. _He curses a certain procuress, whom he overhears instructing his mistress in the arts of a courtesan._