Ode 3.15

B.C. 35

Wife of poor Ibycus, listen; a word with you.
?How can you seem so outrageously gay?
Think of your age! It is sad and absurd, with you
Acting this way.
Truly, old lady, it's time that you ceased all this;
?Here, with young girls, you should never be found.
Stop those ridiculous antics; at least all this
Running around.
It's all very well for a kitten like Pholoe
?To smile at the lads who repay her in kind,
But when you approach them, they rapidly stroll away—
Lord, are you blind!
Strange, you won't see that the thing which delights a man
?Is always the dancer and seldom the dance;
A Thyiad with white hair and wrinkles affrights a man;
He looks askance.
Roses and romance and wine-jars are not for you;
?There is the loom and the raw wool to comb,
Mending and baking and—oh, there's a lot for you
Right here at home!
A.D. 1919

You are old, Mrs. Ibycus, wrinkled and old,
?And still you are going the pace;
Your actions are scandalous. Really, I'm told
?They know you all over the place.
You doll yourself up like a girl of sixteen,
?You tango from morning to night;
You wear out your partners, you primp and you preen—
?“Do you think, at your age, it is right?”
You run after boys that are just out of school;
?You trot with your daughter's young men;
Forgetting that chickens may do, as a rule,
?What's forbidden a silly old hen.
Oh rub off the rouge of your giddy career,
?And send back your drinks to the bar;
“The home is the sphere for a woman,” my dear,
?—When the woman's as old as you are.
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