Now is the time your artifice to try,Act not so much the lover as the spy;For vanity makes all the fair presumeThere'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,)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;This is a little malicious on the sex, and shows that the least vice of a mistress is fatal to a lover.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;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,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.What think you of that lover who could lieConcealed, to see what custom must deny?I to no such indecent means direct,Not to be practis'd tho' of sure effect.

If to excess you find your passion rise,I would at once two mistresses advise:Love when divided is always least violent. This remedy is not so sure as it is dishonourable.Divided care will give your mind relief;What nourish'd one may starve the twins of grief.Large rivers, drain'd in many streams, grow dry;Withdraw its fuel, and the flame will die.What ship can safely with one anchor ride ?With several cables she can brave the tide.Who can at once two passions entertain,May free himself at will from either chain.If treated ill by her whom you adore,A kinder nymph your freedom must restore.No sooner Minos did fair Procris view,Procris or Plotis, and not Prognis, as it is in some editions; this Procris was a very beautiful virgin, with whom Minos fell in love. After which he turned off Pasiphae, who out of revenge or want prostituted herself most scandalously, as the commentator in Pindar, cited by Merula, tells us. She was the daughter of the sun, and in the fable is famous for her falling in love with a bull, and bringing forth the Minotaur.But scandal on Pasiphae's fame he threw.From his first charmer soon Alcmaen fled,Callirhoe once admitted to his bed.Oenone still had Paris' mistress been,She was the daughter of the river Troas, according to Apollodorus, and of Xanthus, according to others. Her story is told more at large in the fifth of Ovid's historical Epistles. When Hecuba, Priam's wife and Paris's mother, was with child of him, she dreamed she had a firebrand in her womb which would consume Troy to ashes. To prevent Priam's making him away, Hecuba sent him to Mount Ida to be bred up in the mean condition of a shepherd, and when he grew up he married Oenone. There he had a vision of the three naked goddesses, and was made arbiter of their beauties, and gave the golden apple, upon which was written detur pulchriori, to Venus, who promised him the fairest woman in the world if he decided the dispute in her favor; Pallas tempted him with wisdom, and Juno with power, both which he slighted, and preferred pleasure. His father afterwards coming to the knowledge of him, and admitting him to court, he from thence went to Sparta, stole Helen, and Hecuba's dream proved but too true.Had Paris fairer Helen never seen.So Progne's beauty, tho' a wife, endear'dHer Tereus, till Philomel appear'd.But I too long on dry examples dwell,Some new desire your former must expel.A fruitful mother with one child can part,The rest surviving to support her heart;But she's impatiently of one bereft,Who has, alas! no second comfort left.But lest you think that I new laws decree(Tho' proud of the invention I could be),The same long since wise Agamemnon saw;(What saw he not who held all Greece in awe!)The beauteous captive to himself he kept;Her name was Astynome and her father's Chryses. He was Apollo's priest; and the god, to revenge the insult offered him in the person of his priest, sent a plague among the Greeks for Agamemnon ravishing her, which was not taken off until that king of kings restored the young lady to her father by Calchus's advice. The story is described at large in the first book of Homer's Iliad, as is also the rape of Briseis, Achilles' mistress, who was so disgusted at Agamemnon for taking her from him, that he refused to fight, and kept himself close in his tent; until hearing his friend Patroclus, to whom he had lent his arms, was killed, he returned to the battle and slew Hector.Her father fondly for his daughter wept.Why dost thou grieve, old sot? thy daughter's blest!A royal whore. But, to assuage the pest,When with his mistress he was forced to part,The prudent prince ne'er laid the loss to heart.Achilles keeps as fair a lass as she,Their form, their very names, almost agree."Let him," said he "resign her by consent,Or he shall feel my kingly power's extent;If to my subjects this shall give offence,The name of monarch is a vain pretence.Rather than reign and have my love confin'd,My throne shall to Thersites be resign'd."Thersites was the ugliest among the Greeks, and a great talker, of whom Homer speaks in his second Iliad; he was one-eyed, hunch-backed, and lame. Juvenal in his eighth satire adds, he was also bald.He said: and, for a charming mistress lost,Repair'd his sufferings at another's cost.Do you this royal precedent pursue,And quench your former passions by a new.

If you're a stranger to the sex, enquireWhere you may find a mistress to admire.To learn their haunts my books of love peruse,Where from a swarm of beauties you may choose.But if my precepts have the least pretenceTo truth, and if I speak Apollo's sense,Tho' Aetna's fires within your bosom glow,Dissemble, and appear more cold than snow.In spite of torture, still from tears refrain;Laugh when you have most reason to complain.Nor do I such severe commands impart,At once to bid you tear her from your heart:But counterfeit; you'll prove in the event,That careless lover whom you represent.Oft when the merry round I would not keep,I've seem'd to nod, and, seeming, fall'n asleep.I've laugh'd at him who fool'd away his heart,Dissembling passion, till he felt the smart.Love comes by use; disuse will love expel;Learn to feign health, and you will soon be wellIf she has bid you come, and fix'd the night,Tho' sure that she to mock you did invite,Yet go; and if you find the door fast lock'd,Endure the disappointment; be not shock'd;Nor curse the gate, nor fond entreaties make,Nor on the threshold a hard lodging take:And when you see her next, complaints forbear,Nor in your looks the least resentment wear.Her pride will stoop, and give your feign'd neglectWhat she denied to your sincere respect.Nor is't enough your mistress thus to cheat,You on yourself must put the same deceit:Acquaint not your own thoughts with the design,Till the work's done and you have sprung the mire.For else 'tis odd, but nature in your heartWill faction raise, and take your mistress' part.What you propose will soon effected be,Your progress sure, if made with secrecy.Conceal your nets; if they are spread in sight,The bird you meant to take you'll only fright.Nor suffer her you love, so much to prizeHer charming self, that she may you despise.Take courage; conscious of your merit seem,And worthy you'll appear of her esteem.E'en then when you her door wide open spy,Nay, tho' called in, yet pass regardless by.She'll offer you her bed; refuse to takeThe favour, or a doubtful answer make.Let wisdom once but teach you to abstainFrom what you wish, you may your wish obtain.Perhaps at my severe advice you'll start,But know, I act a reconciler's part.Diseases in a thousand forms are rang'd;As tempers vary, med'cines must be chang'd.Some bodies must a sharp long course endure,A single drug on others works a cure.If your soft nature yield to Cupid's stroke,And strength is wanting to support his yoke,Forbear against the wind and tide to strive;Slacken your sail, and with the current drive.For first the raging thirst in which you fry,Must be assuag'd, ere other means you try:Drink freely then: nor can you safely trustTo satisfaction, drink even to disgust.This is not the only advice which Ovid gives that has a little too much of libertinism in it; but he proposes a less evil to avoid a greater.Visit your mistress, keep her in your sight,Lock'd up all day, and in your arms all night.Still sit at board, though appetite decay,And though you find you could be absent, stay:Indulge desire, till your desires are cloy'd,And love by too much plenty is destroy'd.

Even fear with passion will some minds inspireRemove distrust, and passion will retire.Who fears some rival should his mistress gain,Machaon's skill can scarce relieve his pain.Since no fond mother for her darling son,Feels greater pangs, when to the wars he's gone.Near the Salarian gate a temple's plac'd,With Erycinian Venus' worship grac'd;'Tis there Lethaean love cures love's desire,Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. There was one in Lydia of that name, another in Macedon, another in Spain and another in Crete.Bedews his lamps, and water blends with fire;There sweet forgetfulness griev'd lovers find,And, injur'd nymphs, whose husbands prove unkind.There in a vision, (if a vision 'twere)I heard the Cupid speak, or seem'd to hear."0, thou who dost sometimes teach youth to love,Then rules prescribe their passion to remove:One powerful precept more let me impart,Unknown to you a master in the art.Bid him who loves, and would love's yoke reject,On his own life's misfortunes oft reflect:For all have crosses, 'tis the common lot.Let him, who deeply into debt has got,Think on a gaol, and how he shall sustainConfinement, more severe than Cupid's chain.Let him who serves a rigid father's willAnd sees his filial duty treated ill,(Whate'er success in other things he find)Keep still his father's angry looks in mind.Let him who has that double curse of life,At once a shrew and beggar to his wife,Instead of gallantry abroad, contriveDomestic famine from his door to drive,You that are masters of a gen'rous soil,Look to your vines, employ your careful toil,Lest sudden frosts the hopeful vintage spoil.One has a trading vessel homeward bound;Let him imagine storms, his ship unsound,Bulg'd, founder'd, wreck'd, and more, some barb'rous coastEnrich'd with the dear cargo he has lost.Fear for your son, who serves in this campaign,And for your daughter be in greater pain.For mortifying cares you need not roam,By thousands they will throng to you at home.If, Paris, Helen's charms you would abhor,Behold your brothers weltering in their gore."Thus spake the god, till from my fancy's viewHis youthful form, sleep from my eyes withdrew.What shall I do, my Palinurus gone,Palinurus was one of Aeneas's companions, and his pilot; who falling asleep at the helm, tumbled with it in his hand into the sea, and after three days swimming arrived at Port Velino in Italy, where he was robbed and killed by the inhabitants. For this they were severely plagued, and, having consulted Apollo's oracle, to appease his ghost consecrated a grove to him, and built him a tomb on the next promontory; called still by the Italians the cape of Palinurus.And left to steer through untried seas alone?

But solitude must never be allow'd;A lover's ne'er so safe as in a crowd.For private places private griefs increase;What haunts you there, in company will cease.If to the gloomy desert you repair,Your mistress' angry form will meet you there.What makes the night less cheerful than the day?Your griefs are present, and your friends away.Nor shun discourse, nor make your house a cell;Despair and darkness still together dwell.To comfort you some Pylades admit,Which is of friendship the chief benefit.To death's cold arms what made poor Phyllis fly?'Twas less her grief than want of company.Wild as a bacchanal, her way she took,With hair dishevell'd, and distracted look;Far out to sea she cast her prying eyes;Now stretched upon the sandy beach she lies:"Faithless Demophoon!" to deaf waves she cried,While sighs her interrupted words divide,Hard by a lonesome tree its shadow cast,As if for solitary mischief plac'd:'Twas now her ninth sad visit to the shore;No sail appears, and she'll expect no more:Her nuptial girdle round her waist was tied,Just o'er herhead a stretching bough she spied;She offers, and flies back, dreads what she dares;And, thus confus'd, the fatal knot prepares.Now, wretched Phillis, while this deed was done,I could have wish'd thou hadst not been alone.Let disappointed lovers warning takeBy thee, and never company forsake.