Or travel (tho' you find your fetter strong);Set out betimes; your journey must be long.You'll weep at thoughts of her you left behind,And halting, to return be oft inclin'd.But how much more unwilling to proceed,Compel your feet to so much greater speed.Advance, let nothing interrupt your way,Nor wind nor weather, nor unlucky day.Nor count the miles you've past, but what remain;For loitering nigh no fond pretences feign.Nor reckon time, nor once look back on Rome,But fly; and, Parthian like, by flight o'ercome.You'll call my precepts hard; I grant they are;But for dear health who would not hardships bear;When sick, the bitter potion I have ta'en;And, for the food I've fancied, begg'd in vain.Both steel and fire you'll patiently endure,And thirst, more scorching, for your body's cure.Can you, who thus your earthly part redeem,For your immortal mind have less esteem?Yet, for my patient's comfort, I must own,When this first stage he manfully has run,The half, the worst half of his task is done.Gall'd with the yoke, at first the heifer draws;The curb's first trial frets the courser's jaws.Perhaps to leave your father's house you'll mourn;Yet go; and think, when tempted to return,Your kindred but the false pretence is made;'Tis absence from your mistress does persuade.When once set out, diversions you will meet,Fair country prospects, and companions sweet.Nor only travel far, but tarry long;Nor once look homewards while your passion's strong.Rebellious love, if he perceives you halt,With greater fury will renew th' assaultHalf-famish'd passion will more fiercely preyAnd all your labor past be thrown away.

You'll think, when thro' Hemonian fields you rove,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;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.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,Circe poisoned her husband, the king of Sarmatae, and was therefore banished by her subjects. In her exile she came to Italy, where she changed Scylla by her spells into a monster, and metamorphosed Ulysses's companions into several kinds of beasts. Ulysses, after he had lived with her some time, left her. She was the daughter of the sun.When she beheld Ulysses under sail?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,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'dThose hopes and you, by both alike deceiv'd)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,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.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,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.

The benefits of travel I have told,Which, for sick minds, the best relief I hold.But if through business you must still remainIn town, and near the author of your pain;Though 'tis a dangrous neighbourhood, I'll showWhat methods there the lover must pursue.He takes the wisest course, who from his heartDoes by mere force, wrest out the offensive dart:Resolv'd severely once for all to smart.A master of such courage I'll admire;Such patients will no more advice require.Who wants this resolution to be freedAt once, by slower methods must proceed.To milder remedies I'll him direct,Which yet in time, will have the wish'd effect.Think, till the thought your indignation move,What damage you've receiv'd by her you love:How she has drain'd your purse; nor yet content,'Till your estate's in costly presents spent,And you have mortgaged your last tenement.How she did swear, and how she was forsworn;Not only false, but treated you with scorn:And, since her avarice has made you poor,Forc'd you to take your lodgings at her door:Reserv'd to you, but others she'll caress:The foreman of a shop shall have access.Let these reflections on your reason win;From seeds of anger hatred will begin;Your rhet'ric on these topics should be spent.Oh, that your wrongs could make you eloquent!But grieve, and grief will teach you to enlarge,And, like an orator, draw up the charge.

A certain nymph did once my heart incline,Whose humor wholly disagreed with mine;(I, your physician, my disease confess)I from my own prescriptions found redress.Her still I represented to my mind,With what defects I could suppose or find,Oh, how ill-shaped her legs, how thick and short!(Though neater limbs did never nymph support,)Her arms, said I, how tawny brown they are!(Though never ivory statue had so fair.)How low of statue! (yet the nymph was tall)Oh, for what costly presents will she call!What change of lovers! - And of all the rest,I find this thought strike deepest in my breast.Such thin partitions good and ill divide,That one for t'other may be misapplied.E'en truth and your own judgment you must strain,Those blemishes you cannot find, to feign:Call her blackmoor, if she's but lovely brown;Monster, if plump; if slender, skeleton.Censure her free discourse as confidence;Her silence, want of breeding and good sense.Discover her blind side, and put her stillUpon the task which she performs but ill;To dance, if she has neither shape nor air;Court her to sing, if she wants voice and ear;If talking misbecomes her, make her talk;If walking, then in malice make her walk.Commend her skill when on the lute she plays,Till vanity her want of skill betrays.Take care, if her large breasts offend your eyes,No dress does that deformity disguise.Ply her with merry tales of what you will,To keep her laughing, if her teeth be ill.Or if blear-eyed, some tragic story find,Till she has read and wept herself quite blind.But one effectual method you may take,-Enter her chamber ere she's well awake:Her beauty's art, gems, gold, and rich attire,Make up the pageant you so much admire:In all that specious figure which you see,The least, least part of her own self is she;In vain for her you love, amidst such cost,You search; the mistress in the dress is lost.Take her disrob'd, her real self surprise,I'll trust you then for cure, to your own eyes.(Yet have I known this very rule to fail,And beauty most, when stript of art prevail.)Steal to her closet, her close tiring place,While she makes up her artificial face.All colours of the rainbow you'll discern,Washes and paints, and what you're sick to learn,

I now should treat of what may pall desire,And quench in love's own element the fire;For all advantages you ought to make,And arms from love's own magazine to take:But modesty forbids at full extentTo prosecute this luscious argument,Which, to prevent your blushes, I shall leaveFor your own fancy better to conceive,For some of late censoriously accuseMy am'rous liberty and wanton muse.He alludes to his books of the Art of Love, which gave offense.But envy did the wit of Homer blame,Malice gave obscure Zoilus a name.Zoilus having compiled books against Homer, read them to Ptolemy, king of Egypt; the king made no reply, being displaeased that he should presume to censure so great a poet. Zoilus afterwards, being reduced to want, came to beg relief of the same Ptolemy, who thus answered: "What! have the works of Homer, after his having been a thousand years in the grave, been able to maintain millions of men; and cannot you, who pretend yourself a greater wit than he, by your writings maintain one?" Zoilus, some time after, was accused of parricide, and crucified according to the execution then used by the ancients in the east. Almost all masters in any of the sciences had their Zoiluses: Cicero, Ovid, and even Virgil himself, could not escape them.Thus sacrilegious censure would destroyThe pious museHe means Virgil, who is justly admired by all that can read and understand him; yet this divine poet was not spared by the malice of some false critics., who did her heart employTo settle here the banish'd gods of Troy.But you who at my freedom take offence,Distinguish right before you speak your sense.Maeonian strains alone can war resound,No place is there for love and dalliance found.The tragic style requires a tale distress'd,And comedy consists of mirth and jest;The tender elegy is love's delight,Which to themselves pleas'd mistresses recite.Callimachus would do Achilles wrong;Cydippe were no theme for Homer's song.What mortal patience could endure to seeThais presenting chaste Andromache?Kind Thais (none of Vesta's nuns) suppliesMy song; with Thais all my business lies:The actress, if my muse performs with art,You must commend, tho' you dislike the part.Burst envy; I've already got a name,A justice which Ovid does himself; and we may see by it, his reputation was very well settled, or he could not have said this with so much assurance.And, writing more, shall more advance my fame,Despair not then, for, as I longer live,Each day fresh fuel for your spleen shall give.Thus fame's increasing gale bears me on high,While tir'd and grovelling on the ground you lie.Soft elegy in such esteem I've plac'd,Not Virgil more the Epic strain has grac'd.The poet gives us to understand that he has made himself as famous for elegiac verse, as Virgil was for heroic; and at the same time that he praises himself, he gives the highest commendation to Virgil. Propertius, Tibullus, and Catullus excelled also in the elegy, which they wrote in imitation of Callimachus and Euphorion.Censure did us to this digression force;Now, muse, pursue thy interrupted course.When first the nymph admits your visit, stay,And take some other beauty in your way;More safely thus your passion you may trust,When you approach her charms with fainter gust;You'll otherwise misconstrue for delightThe eagerness of your own appetite.Desire does all; the grotto's cool retreat,And shady grove, relieve in summer's heat;Warm fires in winter; thirst makes water sweet.