By golden gifts my love was made a slave.
Oh, that some god a lover's prayer might hear,
And sink such gifts in ashes of a grave,
Or bid them in swift waters disappear!
But I shall be avenged. Thy lovely grace
The dust of weary exile will impair;
Fierce, parching suns will mar thy tender face,
And rude winds rough thy curls and clustering hair.
Did I not warn thee never to defile
Beauty with gold? For every wise man knows
That riches only mantle with a smile
A thousand sorrows and a host of woes.
If snared by wealth, thou dost at love blaspheme,
Venus will frown so on thy guilty deed,
'Twere better to be burned or stabbed, I deem,
Or lashed with twisted scourge till one should bleed.
Hope not to cover it! That god will come
Who lets not mortal secrets safely hide;
That god who bids our slaves be deaf and dumb,
Then, in their cups, the scandal publish wide.
This god from men asleep compels the cry
That shouts aloud the thing they last would tell.
How oft with tears I told thee this, when I
At thy white feet a shameful suppliant fell!
Then wouldst thou vow that never glittering gold
Nor jewels rare could turn thine eyes from me,
Nor all the wealth Campania's acres hold,
Nor full Falernian vintage flowing free.
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