He says that he is compelled by Cupid to write of love instead of battles and that the Divinity insists on making each second Hexameter line into a Pentameter.

I was preparing to write of arms and impetuous warfare in serious numbers, 003 the subject-matter being suited to the measure. 004 The second verse was of equal measure with the first; but Cupid is said to have smiled, and to have abstracted one foot. 005 "Who, cruel boy, has given thee this right over my lines? We poets are the choir of the Muses, the Pierian maids, not thine. What if Venus were to seize the arms of the yellow-haired Minerva, and if the yellow-haired Minerva were to wave the lighted torches of Love? Who would approve of Ceres holding her reign in the woods on the mountain ridges, or of the fields being tilled under the control of the quivered Virgin? Who would arm Phoebus, graceful with his locks, with the sharp spear, while Mars is striking the Aonian lyre? Thy sway, O youth, is great, and far too potent; why, in thy ambition, dost thou attempt a new task? Is that which is everywhere, thine? Is Heliconian Tempe thine? Is even his own lyre hardly safe now for Phoebus? When the new page has made a good beginning in the first line, at that moment does he diminish my energies. 008 I have no subject fitted for these lighter numbers, whether youth, or girl with her flowing locks arranged."

Thus was I complaining; when, at once, his quiver loosened, 009 he selected the arrows made for my destruction; and he stoutly bent upon his knee the curving bow, and said, "Poet, receive a subject on which to sing." Ah wretched me! unerring arrows did that youth possess. I burn; and in my heart, hitherto disengaged, does Love hold sway. Henceforth, in six feet 010 let my work commence; in five let it close. Farewell, ye ruthless wars, together with your numbers. My Muse, 011 to eleven feet destined to be attuned, bind with the myrtle of the sea shore thy temples encircled with their yellow locks.