me spoken or acted is all.
Waste on a traitorous heart, nor finding kindly requital.
Therefore cease, nor still bleed agoniz'd any more. 10

Make thee as iron a soul, thyself draw back from affliction.
Yea, tho' a God say nay, be not unhappy for aye.
What? it is hard long love so lightly to leave in a moment?
Hard; yet abides this one duty, to do it: obey.
Here lies safety alone, one victory must not fail thee. 15
One last stake to be lost haply, perhaps to be won.

O great Gods immortal, if you can pity or ever
Lighted above dark death's shadow, a help to the lost;
Ah! look, a wretch, on me; if white and blameless in all I
Liv'd, then take this long canker of anguish away. 20
If to my inmost veins, like dull death drowsily creeping,
Every delight, all heart's pleasure it wholly benumbs.

Not anymore I pray for a love so faulty returning,
Not that a wanton abide chastely, she may not again.
Only for health I ask, a disease so deadly to banish. 25
Gods vouchsafe it, as I ask, that am harmless of ill.

LXXVII.

Rufus, a friend so vainly believ'd, so wrongly relied in,
(Vainly? alas the reward fail'd not, a heavier ill;)
Could'st thou thus steal on me, a lurking viper, an aching
Fire to the bones, nor leave aught to delight any more?
Nought to delight any more! ah cruel poison of equal 5
Lives! ah breasts that grew each to the other awhile!
Yet far most this grieves me, to think thy slaver abhorred
Foully my own love's lips soileth, a purity rare.
Thou shalt surely atone thine injury: centuries harken,
Know thee afar; grow old, fame, to declare him anew. 10

LXXXVIII.

Gellius, how if a man in lust with a mother, a sister
Rioteth, one uncheck'd night, to iniquity bare?
How if a man's dark passion an aunt's own chastity spare not?
Canst thou tell what vast infamy lieth on him?

Infamy lieth on him, no farthest Tethys, or ancient 5
Ocean, of hundred streams father, abolisheth yet.
Infamy none o'ersteps, nor ventures any beyond it.
Not tho' a scorpion heat melt him, his own paramour.

LXXXIX.

Gellius--he's full meagre. It is no wonder, a friendly
Mother, a sister is his loveable, healthy withal.