Classic Poem

Tibullus, don’t grieve too much, when you remember
your cruel Glycera, and don’t keep on singing
those wretched elegies, or ask why, trust broken,
you’re outshone by a younger man.

Lovely Lycoris, the narrow-browed one, is on fire
with love for Cyrus, Cyrus leans towards bitter
Pholoë, but does in the wood are more likely
to mate with Apulian wolves,

than Pholoë to sin with some low-down lover.
So Venus has it, who delights in the cruel
game of mating unsuitable bodies and minds,
under her heavy yoke of bronze.

I, myself, when a nobler passion was called for,
was held in the charming bonds of Myrtale,
that freed slave, more bitter than Hadria’s waves
that break in Calabria’s bay.