_He wonders how Corinna has discovered his intrigue with Cypassis, her
handmaid, and tells the latter how ably he has defended her and himself
to her mistress._
|Cypassis, perfect in arranging the hair in a thousand fashions, but
deserving to adorn the Goddesses alone; discovered, too, by me, in our
delightful intrigue, to be no novice; useful, indeed, to your mistress,
but still more serviceable to myself; who, _I wonder_, was the informant
of our stolen caresses? "Whence was Corinna made acquainted with your
escapade? Is it that I have blushed? Is it that, making a slip in any
expression, I have given any guilty sign of our stealthy amours? And
have I _not_, too, declared that if any one can commit the sin with a
bondwoman, that man must want a sound mind?
The Thessalian was inflamed by the beauty of the captive daughter of
Brises; the slave priestess of Phoebus was beloved by the general from
Mycenæ. I am not greater than the descendant of Tantalus, nor greater
than Achilles; why should I deem that a disgrace to me, which was
becoming for monarchs?
But when she fixed her angry eyes upon you, I saw you blushing all
over your cheeks. But, if, perchance, you remember, with how much more
presence of mind did I myself make oath by the great Godhead of Venus!
Do thou, Goddess, do thou order the warm South winds to bear away over
the Carpathian ocean [388] the perjuries of a mind unsullied. In return
for these services, swarthy Cypassis, [389] give me a sweet reward,
your company to-day. Why refuse me, ungrateful one, and why invent new
apprehensions? 'Tis enough to have laid one of your superiors under an
obligation. But if, in your folly, you refuse me, as the informer, I
will tell what has taken place before; and I myself will be the betrayer
of my own failing. And I will tell Cypassis, in what spots I have met
you, and how often, and in ways how many and what.