Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A53606
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Ovid's epistles translated by several hands.; Heroides. English
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Ovid, 43 B.C.-17 or 18 A.D.; Dryden, John, 1631-1700.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing O659; ESTC R6089
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82,305
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296
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Had I been won I had deserv'd your blame But sure my part was nothing but the shame Yet the base theft to him no fruit did bear I scap'd unhurt by any thing but fear Rude force might some unwilling Kisses gain But that was all he ever cou'd obtain You on such terms would nere have let me go Were he like you we had not parted so Untouch'd the Youth restor'd me to my Friends And modest usage made me some amends 'T is vertue to repent a vicious deed Did he repent that Paris might succeed Sure 't is some Fate that sets me above wrongs Yet still exposes me to busie tongues I l'e not complain for whose's displeas'd with Love If it sincere discreet and Constant prove But that I fear not that I think you base Or doubt the blooming beauties of my face But all your Sex is subject to deceive And ours alas too willing to believe Yet others yield and Love o'recomes the best But why should I not shine above the rest Fair Leda's Story seems at first to be A fit example ready found for me But she was Cousen'd by a borrow'd shape And under harmless Feathers felt a Rape If I should yield what Reason could I use By what mistake the Loving Crime excuse Her fault was in her pow'rful Lover lost But of what Iupiter have I to boast Tho you to Heroes and to Kings succeed Our Famous Race does no addition need And great Alliances but useless prove To one that 's come her self from mighty Iove Go then and boast in some less haughty place Your Phrygian Blood and Priam's Ancient race Which I wou'd shew I valu'd if I durst You are the fifth from Iove but I the first The Crown of Troy is pow'rful I confess But I have reason to think ours no less Your Letter fill'd with promises of all That Men can good or Women pleasant call Gives expectation such an ample field As wou'd move Goddesses themselves to yield But if I e're offend great Iuno's Laws Your self shall be the Dear the only Cause Either my Honour I 'll to death maintain Or follow you without mean thoughts of Gain Not that so fair a Present I despise We like the Gift when we the giver prize But 't is your Love moves me which made you take Such pains run such hazards for my sake I have perceiv'd though I dissembled too A Thousand things that Love has made you do Your eager Eyes would almost dazle mine In which wild man your wanton thoughts wou'd shine Sometimes you 'd sigh sometimes disorder'd stand And with unusual ardor press my hand Contrive just after me to take the Glass Nor wou'd you let the least occasion pass Which oft I fear'd I did not mind alone And blushing sate for things which you have done Then murmur'd to my self he 'll for my sake Do any thing I hope 't was no mistake Oft have I read within this pleasing Grove Under my Name those Charming words I Love I frowning seem'd not to believe your Flame But now alas am come to write the same If I were capable to do amiss I could not but be sensible of this For oh your Face has such peculiar charms That who can hold from flying to your arms But what I ner'e can have without offence May some blest Maid possess with innocence Pleasure may tempt but vertue more should move O Learn of me to want the thing you Love What you desire is sought by all mankind As you have eyes so others are not blind Like you they see like you my charms adore They wish not less but you dare venture more Oh! had you then upon our Coasts been brought My Virgin Love when thousand Rivals sought You had I seen you should have had my voice Nor could my Husband justly blame my Choice For both our hopes alas you come to late Another now is Master of my Fate More to my wish I cou'd have liv'd with you And yet my present lot can undergo Cease to solicit a weak Woman's will And urge not her you Love to so much ill But let me live contented as I may And make not my unspotted fame your prey Some Right you claim since naked to your eyes Three Goddesses disputed Beauties prize One offer'd Valour to'ther Crowns but she Obtain'd her Cause who smiling promis'd me But first I am not of belief so light To think such Nymphs wou'd shew you such a sight Yet granting this the other part is feign'd A Bribe so mean your sentence had not gain'd With partial eyes I shou'd my self regard To think that Venus made me her reward I humbly am content with human praise A Goddesse's applause wou'd envy raise But be it as you say for 't is confest The Men who flatter highest please us best That I suspect it ought not to displease For Miracles are not believ'd with ease One joy I have that I have Venus voice A greater yet that you confirm'd her Choice That proffer'd Laurels promis'd Sov'raignty Iuno and Pallas you contemn'd for me Am I your Empire then and your renown What heart of Rock but must by this be won And yet bear witness O you Powr's above How rude I am in all the Arts of Love My hand is yet untaught to write to men This is th' Essay of my unpractis'd pen Happy those Nymphs whom use has perfect made I think all Crime and tremble at a shade Ev'n while I write my fearful conscious eyes Look often back misdoubting a surprize For now the Rumour spreads among the Croud At Court in whispers but in Town aloud Dissemble you what er'e you hear e'm say To leave off Loving were your better way Yet if you will dissemble it you may Love secretly the absence of my Lord More freedom gives but does not all afford Long is his Journey long will be his stay Call'd by affairs of Consequence away To go or not when unresolv'd he stood I bid him make what swift return he cou'd Then Kissing me he said I recommend All to thy Care but most my Trojan Friend I smil'd at what he innocently said And only answer'd you shall be obey'd Propitious winds have born him far from hence But let not this secure your confidence Absent he is yet absent he Commands You know the Proverb Princes have long hands My Fame 's my burden for the more I 'm prais'd A juster ground of jealousie is rais'd Were I less fair I might have been more blest Great Beauty through great danger is possest To leave me here his venture was not hard Because he thought my vertue was my Guard He fear'd my Face but trusted to my Life The Beauty doubted but believ'd the Wife You bid me use th' occasion while I can Put in our hands by the good easie man I wou'd and yet I doubt 'twixt Love and fear One draws me from you and one brings me near Our flames are mutual and my Husband 's gone The nights are
OVID's EPISTLES TRANSLATED BY SEVERAL HANDS Vel tibi composiT â— cantetur Epistola voce Ignotum hoc aliis ille novavit opus Ovid. LONDON Printed for Iacob Tonson at the Sign of the Iudges Head in Chancery Lane near Fleet-Street 1680. THE PREFACE TO OVID's EPISTLES THe Life of Ovid being already writen in our Language before the Translation of his Metamorphoses I will not presume so far upon my self to think I can add any thing to Mr. Sandys his undertaking The English Reader may there be satisfied that he flourish'd in the Reign of Augustus Caesar that he was Extracted from an Antient Family of Roman Knights that he was born to the Inheritance of a Splendid Fortune that he was design'd to the Study of the Law and had made considerable progress in it before he quitted that Profession for this of Poetry to which he was more naturally form'd The Cause of his Banishment is unknown because he was himself unwilling further to provoke the Emperour by ascribing it to any other reason than what was pretended by Augustus which was the Lasciviousness of his Elegies and his Art of Love 'T is true they are not to be Excus'd in the severity of Manners as being able to Corrupt a larger Empire if there were any than that of Rome yet this may be said in behalf of Ovid that no man has ever treated the Passion of Love with so much Delicacy of Thought and of Expression or search'd into the nature of it more Philosophically than he And the Emperour who Condemn'd him had as little reason as another man to punish that fault with so much severity if at least he were the Authour of a certain Epigram which is ascrib'd to him relating to the Cause of the first Civil War betwixt himself and Mark Anthony the Triumvir which is more fulsome than any pasâ—age I have met with in our Poet. To pass by the naked Familiarity of his Expressions to Horace which are cited in that Authours Life I need only mention one notorious Act of his in taking Livia to his Bed when she was not only Married but with Child by her Husband then living But Deeds it seems may be Iustified by Arbitrary Power when words are question'd in a Poet. There is another ghess of the Grammarians as far from truth as the first from Reason they will have him Banish'd for ome favours which they say he receiv'd from Julia the Daughter of Augustus whom they think he Celebrates under the Name of Corinna in his Elegies but he who will observe the Verses which are made to that Mistress may gather from the whole Contexture of them that Corinna was not a Woman of the highest Quality If Julia were then Married to Agrippa why should our Poet make his Petition to Isis for her safe Delivery and afterwards Condole her Miscarriage which for ought he knew might be by her own Husband Or indeed how durst he be so bold to make the least discovery of such a Crime which was no less than Capital especially Committed against a Person of Agrippa's Rank Or if it were before her Marriage he would surely have been more discreet than to have publish'd an Accident which must have been fatal to them both But what most Confirms me against this Opinion is that Ovid himself complains that the true Person of Corinna was found out by the Fame of his Verses to her which if it had been Julia he durst not have own'd and besides an immediate punishment mâ—st have follow'd He seems himself more truly to have touch'd at the Cause of his Exile in those obscure Verses Cur à liquid vidi cur â—oxia Lumina fâ—ci c. Namely that he had either seen or was Conscious to somewhat which had procur'd him his disgrace But neither am I satisfyed that this was the Incest of the Emperour with his own Daughter For Augustus was of a Nature too vindicative to have contented himself with so small a Revenge or so unsafe to himself as that of simple Banishment and would certainly have secur'd his Crimes from publick notice by the death of him who was witness to them Neither have Histories given us any sight into such an Action of this Emperour nor would he the greatest Polititian of his time in all probability have manag'd his Crimes with so little secresie as not to shun the Observation of any man It seems more probable that Ovid was either the Confident of some other passion or that he had stumbled by some inadvertency upon the privacies of Livia and seen her in a Bath For the words Nudam sine veste Dianam agree better with Livia who had the Fame of Chastity than with either of the Julias who were both noted of Incontinency The first Verses which were made by him in his Youth and recited publickly according to the Custom were as he himself assures us to Corinna his Banishment happen'd not till the Age of fifty from which it may be deduc'd with probability enough that the love of Corinna did not occasion it Nay he tells us plainly that his offence was that of Errour only not of wickedness and in the same paper of Verses also that the cause was notoriously known at Rome though it be left so obscure to after Ages But to leave Conjectures on a Subject so incertain and to write somewhat more Authentick of this Poet That he frequented the Court of Augustus and was well receiv'd in it is most undoubted all his Poems bear the Character of a Court and appear to be written as the French call it Cavalierement Add to this that the Titles of many of his Elegies and more of his Letters in his Banishment are address'd to persons well known to us even at this distance to have been considerable in that Court Nor was his acquaintance less with the famous Poets of his Age than with the Noblemen and Ladies he tells you himself in a particular Account of his own Life that Macer Horace Tibullus Propertius and many others of them were his familiar Friends and that some of them communicated their Writings to him but that he had only seen Virgil. If the Imitation of Nature be the business of a Poet I know no Authour who can justly be compar'd with ours especially in the Description of the Passions And to prove this I shall need no other Iudges than the generality of his Readers for all Passions being inborn with us we are almost equally Iudges when we are concern'd in the representation of them Now I will appeal to any man who has read this Poet whether he find not the natural Emotion of the same Passion in himself which the Poet describes in his feign'd Persons His thoughts which are the Pictures and results of those Passions are generally such as naturally arise from those disorderly Motions of our Spirits Yet not to speak too partially in his behalf I will confess that the Copiousness of his Wit was such that he often writ