Kitap 2
And all the nymph confess the pow'r of love.
Nature's not thus indulgent to the young,
760
These joys alone to riper years belong;
Who youth enjoys, drinks crude unready wine,
Let age your girl and sprightly juice refine,
Mellow their sweets, and make the taste divide.
To Helen who'd Hermione prefer,
765
Or Gorge think beyond her mother fair;
But he that covets the experienc'd dame,
Shall crown his joys and triumph in his flame.
One conscious bed receives the happy pair;
Retire, my muse; the door demands thy care.Ovid, who was advanced a little too far, checks his muse, and bids her give back. It is certain, he ought to have stopped here: but he could not forbear telling what he had in his head. He, however, says but a little, and it is not necessary to explain it: the subject is too well known already. If our moralizing was convenient at any time, it must be now, for fear our imagination should out-run the poet's. As Ovid tells his muse here, so every man should tell himself, even in the most excellent things: when we are arrived at a certain point, we should abstain from saying any more, we should enioy the charms of philosophy retired. and by ourselves : for as the way of the world is now. it is scandalous in some companies to talk of it: and there are men even so stupid, as a ways to turn it in into ridicule. I shall be glad if my author's arguments have the effect he pretends to on this occasion.
770
What charming words, what tender things are said,
What language flows without the useless aid!
There shall the roving hand employment find,
Inspire new flames, and make e'en virgins kind.
Thus Hector did Andromache delight,
775
Hector in love victorious, as in fight.
When weary from the field Achilles came,
Thus with delays he rais'd Briseis' flame;
