Extant Works

Bountiful Venus was lying in her bridal chamber, night just having passed,
Released from the hard embrace of her Getic Thracian husband:
The goddess presses the supports and the couches, a tender troop of Cupids,
They seek signals: which torches to carry, which hearts to pierce,
Whether to rage on earth, or in the evil seas,
Or to confuse the gods, or to still vex the Thunderer Jupiter?
60 Her own mind is not yet fixed, nor is there a settled will in her heart.
Where she lies weary on the bedding, the same place that bears witness to her guilt
When the Lemnian chains referring to Vulcan's net brought back the captured bed,
Here a boy from the troop of winged ones, who has much fire
In his mouth and light hand, whose arrow never missed,
From the middle of the crowd, spoke thus sweetly with a tender
Voice, and the quiver-bearing brothers pressed silence.
"You know, Mother," he says, "no right hand of mine is slow
In battle; whoever of men or gods you have given me
70 Is burned, and once by tears and a supplicating right hand
And vows and prayers, allow the man to be moved,
O Mother, for we are not created from hard adamant,
But we are your crowd. A youth is illustrious from the Latin race,
Whom nobility, rejoicing, bore, sprung from patrician ancestors,
And at once his form, prophetic, placed nicknames from our heaven upon him.
This one I myself once, with my whole quiver (sweet to you),
Mischievous, pierced with a dense arrow-point while he trembled,
Although that son-in-law was much sought after by Ausonian Italian
Mothers, I subdued him when conquered, and ordered him to bear the yoke
80 Of a powerful mistress, and to hope through long years."
But taking him gently (for so you were commanding)