Kitap 2
Could Helen be content to lie alone?
She in his bed receiv'd her am'rous guest,
400
And nightly clasp'd him to her panting breast.
Unthinking cuckold, to a proverb blind!
What, trust a beau and a fair wife behind!
Let furious hawks thy trembling turtles keep,
And to the mountain wolves commit thy sheep:
405
Helen is guiltless, and the lover's crime
But what yourself would act another time.
The youth was pressing, the dull husband gone;
Let ev'ry woman make the case her own.
Who could a prince, by Venus sent, refuse?
410
The cuckold's negligence is her excuse.
But not the foaming boar whom spears surround,
Revenging on the dogs his mortal wound;
Nor lioness, whose young receives the breast;
Nor viper by unwary footsteps press'd;
415
Nor drunkard by th' Aonian god possess'd,Aonia is taken here for Boeotia, of which Thebes was the capital, where Bacchus was born; and the fury that transports people when they are drunk, is very well compared to that of wild beasts and vipers.
Transcend the woman's rage, by fury led,
To find a rival in her injur'd bed.
