Bkiii:Vii Be True

Why weep, Asterie, for Gyges, whom west winds will bring back to you at the first breath of springtime, your lover constant in faith, blessed with goods, from Bithynia? Driven by easterlies as far as Epirus, now, after Capella’s wild rising, he passes chill nights of insomnia, and not without many a tear. Yet messages from his solicitous hostess, telling how wretched Chloë sighs for your lover, and burns with desire, tempts him subtly and in a thousand ways. She tells how a treacherous woman, making false accusations, drove credulous Proteus to bring a too-hasty death to a too-chaste Bellerophon: she tells of Peleus, nearly doomed to Hades, fleeing Magnesian Hippolyte in abstinence: and deceitfully teaches tales that encourage wrongdoing. All in vain: still untouched, he hears her voice, as deaf as the Icarian cliffs. But take care yourself lest Enipeus, next door, pleases you more than is proper: even though no one else is considered as fine at controlling his horse, on the Campus’s turf, and no one else swims as fast as him, down the Tiber’s channel. Close your doors when it’s dark, and don’t you go gazing into the street, at the sound of his plaintive flute, and when he keeps calling you cruel, you still play hard to get.