_He says that he is compelled by Cupid to write of love instead of
battles and that the Divinity insists on making each second Hexameter
line into a Pentameter._
|I was preparing to write of arms and impetuous warfare in serious
numbers, [003] the subject-matter being suited to the measure. [004] The
second verse was of equal measure with the first; but Cupid is said to
have smiled, and to have abstracted one foot. [005] "Who, cruel boy,
has given thee this right over my lines? We poets are the choir of _the
Muses,_ the Pierian maids, not thine. What if Venus were to seize the
arms of the yellow-haired Minerva, _and_ if the yellow-haired Minerva
were to wave the lighted torches _of Love?_ Who would approve of Ceres
holding her reign in the woods on the mountain ridges, _or_ of the
fields being tilled under the control of the quivered Virgin? Who would
arm Phoebus, graceful with his locks, with the sharp spear, while Mars
is striking the Aonian lyre? Thy sway, O youth, is great, and far too
potent; why, in thy ambition, dost thou attempt a new task? Is that
which is everywhere, thine? Is Heliconian Tempe thine? Is even his own
lyre hardly safe now for Phoebus? When the new page has made a good
beginning in the first line, at that moment does he diminish my
energies. [008] I have no subject fitted for _these_ lighter numbers,
whether youth, or girl with her flowing locks arranged."
_Thus_ was I complaining; when, at once, his quiver loosened, [009] he
selected the arrows made for my destruction; and he stoutly bent upon
his knee the curving bow, and said, "Poet, receive a subject on which to
sing." Ah wretched me! unerring arrows did that youth possess. I
burn; and in my heart, _hitherto_ disengaged, does Love hold sway.
_Henceforth_, in six feet [010] let my work commence; in five let it
close. Farewell, ye ruthless wars, together with your numbers. My Muse,
[011] to eleven feet destined to be attuned, bind with the myrtle of the
sea shore thy temples encircled with their yellow _locks_.