He endeavours to dissuade Corinna from her voyage to BaiÆ.

The pine, cut on the heights of Pelion, was the first to teach the voyage full of danger, as the waves of the ocean wondered: which, boldly amid the meeting rocks, 404 bore away the ram remarkable for his yellow fleece. Oh! would that, overwhelmed, the Argo had drunk of the fatal waves, so that no one might plough the wide main with the oar.

Lo! Corinna flies from both the well-known couch, and the Penates of her home, and prepares to go upon the deceitful paths of the ocean. Ah wretched me! why, for you, must I dread the Zephyrs, and the Eastern gales, and the cold Boreas, and the warm wind of the South? There no cities will you admire, there no groves; ever the same is the azure appearance of the perfidious main.

The midst of the ocean has no tiny shells, or tinted pebbles; 405 that is the recreation 406 of the sandy shore. The shore alone, ye fair, should be pressed with your marble feet. Thus far is it safe; the rest of that path is full of hazard. And let others tell you of the warfare of the winds: the waves which Scylla infests, or those which Charybdis haunts: from what rocky range the deadly Ceraunia projects: in what gulf the Syrtes, or in what Malea 407 lies concealed. Of these let others tell: but do you believe what each of them relates: no storm injures the person who credits them.

After a length of time only is the land beheld once more, when, the cable loosened, the curving ship runs out upon the boundless main: where the anxious sailor dreads the stormy winds, and sees death as near him, as he sees the waves. What if Triton arouses the agitated waves? How parts the colour, then, from all your face! Then you may invoke the gracious stars of the fruitful Leda: 409 and may say, 'Happy she, whom her own dry land receives!'Tis far more safe to lie snug in the couch, 410 to read amusing books, 411 and to sound with one's fingers the Thracian lyre.

But if the headlong gales bear away my unavailing words, still may Galatea be propitious to your ship. The loss of such a damsel, both ye Goddesses, daughters of Nereus, and thou, father of the Nereids, would be a reproach to you. Go, mindful of me, on your way, soon to return with favouring breezes: may that, a stronger gale, fill your sails. Then may the mighty Nereus roll the ocean towards this shore: in this direction may the breezes blow: hither may the tide impel the waves. Do you yourself entreat, that the Zephyrs may come full upon your canvass: do you let out the swelling sails with your own hand.

I shall be the first, from the shore, to see the well-known ship, and I shall exclaim, "'Tis she that carries my Divinities: 412 and I will receive you in my arms, and will ravish, indiscriminately, many a kiss; the victim, promised for your return, shall fall; the soft sand shall be heaped, too, in the form of a couch; and some sand-heap shall be as a table 413 for us. There, with wine placed before us, you shall tell many a story, how your bark was nearly overwhelmed in the midst of the waves: and how, while you were hastening to me, you dreaded neither the hours of the dangerous night, nor yet the stormy Southern gales. Though they be fictions, 414 yet all will I believe as truth; why should I not myself encourage what is my own wish? May Lucifer, the most brilliant in the lofty skies, speedily bring me that day, spurring on his steed."