Now is the time your artifice to try,
Act not so much the lover as the spy;
For vanity makes all the fair presume
435
There's nothing which their charms can misbecome.
Take this occasion her defects to find,
When you can fix them deeply in your mind;
In the dull minute of your discontents,
(The pensive mood when sated love repents,)
440
To your sick thoughts her blemishes display,
And, for aversion, by those means make way.
These helps, you'll say, are trivial; I confess,
Singly they are, but join'd will have success.
By one small viper's bite an ox is killed;
1
445
The forest-boar by a less dog is held.
Unite my precepts if apart they fail,
And by resistless number you'll prevail.
But different minds for different methods call,
Nor what cures most will have effect on all;
450
E'en that which makes another's flame expire,
Perhaps may prove but fuel to your fire.
For one disgusted with the nymph's undress,
Grows cold and weary of her warm caress,
Another from his wanton mistress flies,
455
When he his rival's recent raptures spies,
Like warm desire; and he but little loves,
Whom ev'ry trifle shocks, and nothing moves.
To those I write, for my advice they need,
Whose hardy passion can unbalk'd proceed.
460
What think you of that lover who could lie
Concealed, to see what custom must deny?
I to no such indecent means direct,
Not to be practis'd tho' of sure effect.
Remedia amoris. P. Ovidius Naso. New York. 1855.
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