Metin
Drink freely then: nor can you safely trust
575
To satisfaction, drink even to disgust.This is not the only advice which Ovid gives that has a little too much of libertinism in it; but he proposes a less evil to avoid a greater.
Visit your mistress, keep her in your sight,
Lock'd up all day, and in your arms all night.
Still sit at board, though appetite decay,
And though you find you could be absent, stay:
580
Indulge desire, till your desires are cloy'd,
And love by too much plenty is destroy'd.
Even fear with passion will some minds inspire
Remove distrust, and passion will retire.
Who fears some rival should his mistress gain,
585
Machaon's skill can scarce relieve his pain.
Since no fond mother for her darling son,
Feels greater pangs, when to the wars he's gone.
Near the Salarian gate a temple's plac'd,
With Erycinian Venus' worship grac'd;
590
'Tis there Lethaean love cures love's desire,Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. There was one in Lydia of that name, another in Macedon, another in Spain and another in Crete.
Bedews his lamps, and water blends with fire;
There sweet forgetfulness griev'd lovers find,
And, injur'd nymphs, whose husbands prove unkind.
