Why, if my sighs thou wert so soon to scorn,
Didst dare on Heaven with perjured promise call?
Ah! not unpunished can men be forsworn;
Silent and slow the perjurer's doom shall fall.

Ye gods, be merciful! Oh! let it be
That beauteous creatures who for once offend
Your powers divine, for once may go scot-free,
Escape your scourge, and make some happy end!

'Tis love of gold binds oxen to the plough,
And bids their goading driver sweat and chide;
The quest of gold allures the ship's frail prow
O'er wind-swept seas, where stars the wanderers guide.

By golden gifts my love was made a slave.
Oh, that some god a lover's prayer might hear,
And sink such gifts in ashes of a grave,
Or bid them in swift waters disappear!

But I shall be avenged. Thy lovely grace
The dust of weary exile will impair;
Fierce, parching suns will mar thy tender face,
And rude winds rough thy curls and clustering hair.

Did I not warn thee never to defile
Beauty with gold? For every wise man knows
That riches only mantle with a smile
A thousand sorrows and a host of woes.

If snared by wealth, thou dost at love blaspheme,
Venus will frown so on thy guilty deed,
'Twere better to be burned or stabbed, I deem,
Or lashed with twisted scourge till one should bleed.

Hope not to cover it! That god will come
Who lets not mortal secrets safely hide;
That god who bids our slaves be deaf and dumb,
Then, in their cups, the scandal publish wide.

This god from men asleep compels the cry
That shouts aloud the thing they last would tell.
How oft with tears I told thee this, when I
At thy white feet a shameful suppliant fell!

Then wouldst thou vow that never glittering gold
Nor jewels rare could turn thine eyes from me,
Nor all the wealth Campania's acres hold,
Nor full Falernian vintage flowing free.

For oaths like thine I would have sworn the skies
Hold not a star, nor crystal streams look clear:
While thou wouldst weep, and I, unskilled in lies,
Wiped from thy lovely blush the trickling tear.

Why didst thou so? save that thy fancy strayed
To beauty fickle as thine own and light?
I let thee go. Myself the torches made,
And kept thy secret for a live-long night.

Sometimes I led to sudden rendezvous
The flattered object of thy roving joys.
Mad that I was! Till now I never knew
How love like thine ensnares and then destroyes.

With wondering mind I versified thy praise;
But now that Muse with blushes I requite.
May some swift fire consume my moon-struck lays,
Or flooding rivers drown them out of sight!

And thou, O thou whose beauty is a trade,
Begone, begone! Thy gains bring cursed ill.
And thou, whose gifts my frail and fair betrayed,
May thy wife rival thine adulterous skill!

Languid with stolen kisses, may she frown,
And chastely to thy lips drop down her veil!
May thy proud house be common to the town,
And many a gallant at thy bed prevail!

Nor let thy gamesome sister e'er be said
To drain more wine-cups than her lovers be,
Though oft with wine and rose her feast is red
Till the bright wheels of morn her revels see!

No one like her to pass a furious night
In varied vices and voluptuous art!
Well did she train thy wife, who fools thee quite,
And clasps, with practised passion, to her heart!

Is it for thee she binds her beauteous hair,
Or in long toilets combs each dainty tress?
For thee, that golden armlet rich and rare,
Or Tyrian robes that her soft bosom press?

Nay, not for thee! some lover young and trim
Compels her passion to allure his flame
By all the arts of beauty. 'Tis for him
She wastes thy wealth and brings thy house to shame.

I praise her for it. What nice girl could bear
Thy gouty body and old dotard smile?
Yet unto thee did my lost love repair—
O Venus! a wild beast were not so vile!

Didst thou make traffic of my fond caress,
And with another mock my kiss for gain?
Go, weep! Another shall my heart possess,
And sway the kingdom where thou once didst reign.

Go, weep! But I shall laugh. At Venus' door
I hang a wreath of palm enwrought with gold;
And graven on that garland evermore,
Her votaries shall read this story told:

"Tibullus, from a lying love set free,O Goddess, brings his gift, and asks new grace of thee."