Wherefore the more are they at pains to hide All that takes place behind the scenes of life From those they would keep fettered in love’s chains But all in vain, since in imagination You yet may draw forth all these things to light, Discovering every cause for ridicule: And if she be of a mind that still can charm, And not malicious, you may in your turn Overlook faults and pardon human frailty. Nor always with feigned love does the woman sigh, When with her own uniting the man’s body She holds him clasped, with moistened kisses sucking His lips into her lips. Nay, from the heart She often does it, and seeking mutual joys Woos him to run to the utmost goal of love. And nowise else could birds, cattle, wild beasts, And sheep and mares submit to males, except That their exuberant nature is in heat, And burning draws towards them joyously The lust of the covering mates. See you not also That those whom mutual pleasure has enchained Are often tormented in their common chains? How often on the highroads dogs desiring To separate, will strain in opposite ways Eagerly with all their might, yet the whole time They are held fast in the strong bonds of Venus! Thus they would never act, unless they had Experience of mutual joys, enough To thrust them into the snare and hold them bound. Therefore I assert, the pleasure must be common. Often when, mingling her seed with the man’s, The woman with sudden force has overwhelmed And mastered the man’s force, then children are borne Like to the mother from the mother’s seed, As from the father’s seed like to the father. But those whom you see sharing the form of both, Mingling their parents’ features side by side, Grow from the father’s body and mother’s blood, When mutual ardour has conspired to fling The seeds together, roused by the goads of Venus Throughout the frame, and neither of the two Has gained the mastery nor yet been mastered. Moreover sometimes children may be born Like their grandparents, and will often recall The forms of their remoter ancestors, Because the parents often hold concealed Within their bodies many primal atoms Mingled in many ways, which, handed down From the first stock, father transmits to father. And out of these Venus produces forms With ever-varying chances, and recalls The look and voice and hair of ancestors: Since truly these things are no more derived From a determined seed, than are our faces Bodies and limbs. Also the female sex May spring from a father’s seed, and males come forth Formed from a mother’s body: for the birth Is always fashioned out of the two seeds. Whichever of the two that which is born Is most like, of that parent it will have More than an equal share; as you may observe,