When love is permanent and fully prosperous, These evils are experienced; but if love Be crossed and hopeless, there are evils such That you might apprehend them with closed eyes, Beyond numbering; so that it is wiser, As I have taught you, to be vigilant Beforehand, and watch well lest you be snared. For to avoid being tripped up in love’s toils Is not so difficult as, once you are caught, To issue from the nets and to break through The strong meshes of Venus. None the less Even when you are tangled and involved, You may escape the peril, unless you stand In your own way, and always overlook Every defect whether of mind or body In her whom you pursue and long to win. For this is how men generally behave Blinded by lust, and assign to those they love Good qualities which are not truly theirs. So we see women in various ways misformed And ugly, to be fondly loved and held In highest favour. And a man will mock His fellows, urging them to placate Venus, Because they are troubled by a degrading love, Yet often the poor fool will have no eyes For his own far worse plight. The tawny is called A honey brown; the filthy and unclean, Reckless of order; the green-eyed, a Pallas; The sinewy and angular, a gazelle; The tiny and dwarfish is a very Grace, Nothing but sparkle; the monstrous and ungainly, A marvel, and composed of majesty. She stammers, cannot talk, why then she lisps; The mute is bashful; but the fiery-tongued Malicious gossip becomes a brilliant torch. One is a slender darling, when she scarce Can live for lack of flesh; and one half dead With cough, is merely frail and delicate. Then the fat and full-bosomed is Ceres’ self Suckling Iacchus; the snub-nosed, a female Silenus, or a Satyress; the thick-lipped, A kiss incarnate. But more of this sort It were a tedious labour to recite. Yet be she noble of feature as you will, And let the might of Venus emanate From every limb; still there are others too; Still we have lived without her until now; Still she does, and we know she does, the same In all things as the ugly, and, poor wretch, Perfumes herself with evil-smelling scents, While her maids run and hide to giggle in secret. But the excluded lover many a time With flowers and garlands covers tearfully The threshold, and anoints the haughty posts With oil of marjoram, and imprints, poor man, Kisses upon the doors. Yet when at last He has been admitted, if but a single breath Should meet him as he enters, he would seek Specious excuses to be gone, and so The long-studied, deep-drawn complaint would fall To the ground, and he would then convict himself Of folly, now he sees he had attributed More to her than is right to grant a mortal. Nor to our Venuses is this unknown: