Classical Poetry

Propertius (2.18)

Translated by Max Latham B.A. (Hons.) Classical Studies

You had to bear a grudge, many, constantly complaining,
          That in secret your woman is breaking,
Often with a man. If anything you've seen has ever
          To have seen this, you must split up with her!
Or if anything painful had been, nullify that pain!
         If anything of mine, say like an old
Dog that was going grey in later years and could have had
         Crow's feet, sunken eyes? Yet not Tithonus
Spurning Eastern Aurora in old age, forsaken he's
          Discarded raisin-wine, home-made. Often
That he'd warmed himself in shallow streams themselves, receding,
          Since busy washing horses bound to him;
That to mature Indian neighbourhoods rests with love, he's
          Once more in lament reduced to these days;
Embarking on the unbalanced chariot of the gods,
         'T was said and stood before lands unwilling
To do its duty. For this living man, Old Tithonus
          Was happier than the graver lament
Expressed by dismissed Memnon. When the old man was'nt ashamed
          That he'd slept with such a girl, so many
Kisses, and stroked her grey-hair. Yet you however will hate
          Young faithless me, since you, one crooked day
Could not long be an actual "oldie". Yet come now, me, I
          Take less care, because often this Cupid,
The evil you are has become accustomed to it,
          Whom before'd been good. Now, must you really
Act like someone off their head? As dyed Britons at the games
          And with their foreign splendour, colour-stained?
As nature gave a gift, so all is from a ruled species:
         'T is disgraceful for a Roman to be
With his body dyed a Belgian colour. Those from underneath
          The earth could make a great deal of trouble,
Girls that tell silly lies, she flicked her head of long hair, twirled!
          You must withdraw: for me surely you will
Be able to appear beautifully formed; beautiful
          Enough to me, if only you'd arrived
To visit more often. Or if at certain times themselves
          I'm painted sky-blue it will have been dyed,
Is that a good reason for a body with sky-blue woad?
          Since to you neither a brother nor could
Any son be for you, I'd be a brother to you, and
          Your one son, me.