He reproaches his mistress for having attempted to procure abortion.

Of what use is it for damsels to live at ease, exempt from war, and not with their bucklers, 439 to have any inclination to follow the bloodstained troops; if, without warfare, they endure wounds from weapons of their own, and arm their imprudent hands for their own destruction? She who was the first to teach how to destroy the tender embryo, was deserving to perish by those arms of her own. That the stomach, forsooth, may be without the reproach of wrinkles, the sand must 440 be lamentably strewed for this struggle of yours.

If the same custom had pleased the matrons of old, through such criminality mankind would have perished; and he would be required, who should again throw stones 441 on the empty earth, for the second time the original of our kind. Who would have destroyed the resources of Priam, if Thetis, the Goddess of the waves, had refused to bear Achilles, her due burden? If Ilia had destroyed 442 the twins in her swelling womb, the founder of the all-ruling City would have perished.

If Venus had laid violent hands on Æneas in her pregnant womb, the earth would have been destitute of its CÆsars. You, too, beauteous one, might have died at the moment you might have been born, if your mother had tried the same experiment which you have done. I, myself, though destined as I am, to die a more pleasing death by love, should have beheld no days, had my mother slain me.

Why do you deprive the loaded vine of its growing grapes? And why pluck the sour apples with relentless hand? When ripe, let them fall of their own accord; once put forth, let them grow. Life is no slight reward for a little waiting. Why pierce 443 your own entrails, by applying instruments, and why give dreadful poisons to the yet unborn? People blame the Colchian damsel, stained with the blood of her sons; and they grieve for Itys, Slaughtered by his own mother. Each mother was cruel; but each, for sad reasons, took vengeance on her husband, by shedding their common blood. Tell me what Tereus, or what Jason excites you to pierce your body with an anxious hand?

This neither the tigers do in their Armenian dens, 444 nor does the lioness dare to destroy an offspring of her own. But, delicate females do this, not, however, with impunity; many a time 445 does she die herself, who kills her offspring in the womb. She dies herself, and, with her loosened hair, is borne upon the bier; and those whoever only catch a sight of her, cry "She deserved it." 446 But let these words vanish in the air of the heavens, and may there be no weight in these presages of mine. Ye forgiving Deities, allow her this once to do wrong with safety to herself; that is enough; let a second transgression bring its own punishment.