You'll think, when thro' Hemonian fields you rove,
255
That magic arts may yield a cure for love.
Old tales, of witchcraft strange effects rehearse;
The only charm I bring is sacred verse.
By my advice no jargon shall be read,
Nor midnight hag, blaspheming, raise the dead;
260
No standing crop to other fields shall range,
No sick eclipse the sun's complexion change;
Old Tyber shall his sacred course retain,
And Cynthia, unmolested, gain her wain.
No suffering heart to spells shall be oblig'd.
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Nor love resign, by sulphur streams besieg'd.
Think on Medea, of all hopes bereft,
When fled from home, and by her lover left.
And what did Circe's powerful drugs avail,
1
When she beheld Ulysses under sail?
270
She tried her magic, charm on charm renew'd;
He with a merry gale his course pursu'd;
No force or skill the fatal dart removes,
She raves to find she loves-but still she loves.
To thousand shapes she could transform mankind,
275
No means to change her hated self could find.
In these soft terms, to her departing guest,
Her passion (to detain him) was exprest.
"I now no more (as when I first receiv'd
Those hopes and you, by both alike deceiv'd)
280
Expect that you with me should pass your life,
Nor more ambitious to be made your wife;
(Though sure my pedigree you cannot scorn;
The daughter of the son, a goddess born)
I but intreat you for a time to stay,
285
And urge, for your own sake, the short delay.
The seas are rough, which you have cause to fear;
Wait but a friendlier season of the year.
What haste? This isle does no new
Troy
afford,
No second Rhesus to employ your sword.
290
Love revels here, with peaceful myrtle crown'd,
And mine the only heart that feels a painful wound."
She said-his crew the swelling sails display,
That bear him and her fruitless pray'rs away.
In vain to her enchantments she returns,
295
Tries all, yet still in hopeless flames she burns.
For Circe's sake, all lovers I advise,
That spells, as senseless things, they would despise.
Remedia amoris. P. Ovidius Naso. New York. 1855.
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