Book 13
76
Ibycus, too, of Rhegium, speaks loudly as follows— In early spring the gold Cydonian apples, Water'd by streams from ever-flowing rivers, Where the pure garden of the Virgins is, And the young grapes, growing beneath the shade Of ample branches flourish and increase: But Love, who never rests, gives me no shade, Nor any recruiting dew; but like the wind, Fierce rushing from the north, with rapid fire, Urged on by Venus, with its maddening drought Burns up my heart, and from my earliest youth, Rules o'er my soul with fierce dominion. And Pindar, who was of an exceedingly amorous disposition, says— Oh may it ever be to me to love, And to indulge my love, remote from fear; And do not thou, my mind, pursue a chase Beyond the present number of your years. On which account Timon, in his Silli, says— There is a time to love, a time to wed, A time to leave off loving; and adds that it is not well to wait until some one else shall say, in the words of this same philosopher— When this man ought to set (δύνειν) he now begins To follow pleasure (ἡδύνεσθαι). Pindar also mentions Theoxenus of Tenedos, who was much beloved by him; and what does he say about him?— And now (for seasonable is the time) You ought, my soul, to pluck the flowers of love, Which suit your age. And he who, looking on the brilliant light that beams From the sweet countenance of Theoxenus, Is not subdued by love, Must have a dark discolour'd heart, Of adamant or iron made, And harden'd long in the smith's glowing furnace. That man is scorn'd by bright-eyed Venus. Or else he's poor, and care doth fill his breast; Or else beneath some female insolence He withers, and so drags on an anxious life: But I, like comb of wily bees, Melt under Venus's warm rays, And waste away while I behold The budding graces of the youth I love. Surely at Tenedos, persuasion soft, And every grace, Abides in the lovely son of wise Agesilas.
