What worth a lovely wife, if others buy
Thy treasure, if thy stoutest bolt betrays,
If in thy very arms she breathes a sigh
For absent joy, and feigns a slight _malaise?_
Give her in charge to me! I will not spare
A master's whip. Her chain shall constant be.
While thou mayst go abroad and have no care
Who trims his curls, or flaunts his toga free.
Whatever beaux accost her, all is well!
Not the least hint of scandal shall be made.
For I will send them far away, to tell
In some quite distant street their amorous trade.
All this a god decrees; a sibyl wise
In prophet-song did this to me proclaim;
Who when Bellona kindles in her eyes,
Fears neither twisted scourge nor scorching flame.
Then with a battle-axe herself will scar
Her own wild arms, and sprinkle on the ground
Blood, for Bellona's emblems of wild war,
Swift-flowing from the bosom's gaping wound.
A barb of iron rankles in her breast,
As thus she chants the god's command to all:
"Oh, spare a beauty by true love possessed,
Lest some vast after-woe upon thee fall!
"For shouldst thou win her, all thy power will fail,
As from this wound flows forth the fatal gore,
Or as these ashes cast upon the gale,
Are scattered far and kindled never more.
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