TRANSLATIONS

FROM

OVID'S ART OF LOVE.

THE

FIRST BOOK

OF

OVID's ART OF LOV E.

I

N Cupid's fchool whoe'er would take degree,

Must learn his rudiments, by reading me.

Seamen with failing arts their veffels move;
Art guides the chariot; art inftructs to love.
Of hips and chariots others know the rule;
But I am master in Love's mighty school.
Cupid indeed is obftinate and wild,

A ftubborn God; but yet the God's a child:
Eafy to govern in his tender age,

Like fierce Achilles in his pupillage:

That hero, born for conqueft, trembling stood Before the Centaur, and receiv'd the rod.

As Chiron mollify'd his cruel mind

With art, and taught his warlike hands to wind
The filver strings of his melodious lyre:
So Love's fair Goddess does my foul inspire,
To teach her fofter arts; to footh the mind,

And smooth the rugged breafts of human kind.
VOL. IV.

I

Yet Cupid and Achilles, each with scorn
And rage were fill'd; and both were goddess-born.
The bull, reclaim'd and yok'd, the burden draws:
The horse receives the bit within his jaws;
And stubborn Love fhall bend beneath my fway,
Tho ftruggling oft he strives to disobey.

He shakes his torch, he wounds me with his darts;
But vain his force, and vainer are his arts.
The more he burns my foul, or wounds my fight,
The more he teaches to revenge the fpite.

I boast no aid the Delphian God affords,
Nor aufpice from the flight of chattering birds;
Nor Clio, nor her fifters have I feen;
As Hefiod faw them on the fhady green:
Experience makes my work; a truth so try'd
You may believe; and Venus be my guide.

Far hence, ye vestals, be, who bind your hair; And wives, who gowns below your ancles wear. I fing the brothels loose and unconfin'd, Th' unpunishable pleasures of the kind; Which all alike, for love, or money, find.

your name,

You, who in Cupid's rolls infcribe First seek an object worthy of your flame; Then frive, with art, your lady's mind to gain:

And, laft, provide your love may long remain.