BASIUM XIV.

QUID profers mihi flammeum labellum ?
Non te, non volo basiare, dura!
Duro marmore durior, Neæra !
Tanti istas ego ut osculationes
Imbelleis faciam, superba, vestras ;
Ut, nervo toties rigens supino,
Pertundam tunicas meas, tuasque ;
Et desiderio furens inani,
Tabescam, miser, æstuante venâ?
Quò fugis?-remane! nec hos ocellos,
Nec nega mihi flammeum labellum:
Te jam, te volo basiare mollis!
Molli mollior anseris medullâ !

[Quid profers mihi, &c.] The reader must easily perceive, that the beginning of this kiss very much resembles, and is evidently written in the same spirit with, the beginning of the ninth kiss ;

Non semper udum da mihi basium, &c.

[Molli mollior, &c.]

This singular expression is imi

tated from the licentious Catullus:

Cinæde Thalle, mollior cuniculi capillo,

Vel anseris medullula.

CATULL. CARM. XXV.

Voluptuous Thallus! softer far

Than softest down, than softest hair.

KISS XIV.

THOSE tempting lips of scarlet glow,
Why pout with fond, bewitching art?
For to those lips, Neæra! know,

My lips shall not one kiss impart.

Perhaps you'd have me greatly prize,
Hard-hearted fair! your precious kiss;
But learn, proud mortal! I despise
Such cold, such unimpassion'd bliss.

Think'st thou I calmly feel the flame
That all my rending bosom fires?
And patient bear thro' all my frame,
The pangs of unallay'd desires ?

Ah! no;-but turn not thus aside

Those tempting lips, of scarlet glow!

Nor yet avert, with angry pride,

Those eyes, from whence such raptures flow!

Forgive the past, sweet-natur'd maid!

My kisses, love! are all thy own;

Then let my lips o'er thine be laid,

O'er thine! more soft than softest down!

BASIUM XV.

ADDUCTO, Puer Idalius, post tempora,nervo,
Stabat in exitium, pulchra Neæra, tuum.
Cùm frontem, sparsosque videns in fronte capillos ;
Luminaque argutis irrequieta notis;
Flammeolasque genas, et dignas matre papillas;
Jecit ab ambiguâ tele remissa manu :

[Cum frontem, sparsosque, &c.] The turn of this line differs but little from the following of Propertius: Seu vidi ad frontem sparsos errare capillos.

PROP. ELEG. 1. LIB. 11.

If o'er that brow your playful hair I view'd. In short, traces of Propertius appear throughout all the writings of Secundus.

[Jecit ab ambigua, &c.] Of all the various instances of the force of female charms, I remember none so happy as this. Madame Dacier remarks, that the manner in which Helen's appearance wrought on the Grecian sages, as they sat at the Scæan gate to view the decisive combat between Menelaus and Paris, is the greatest panegyric on beauty she knows in any classical writer.

Οἱ δ ̓ ὡς ἂν εἶδον Ελένην ἐπὶ πυργον ἰᾶσαν,
Ηκα πρὸς ἀλλήλες ἔπει πλερόεντ ̓ ἀγορευον.
Ου νέμεσις, Τρώας καὶ ἐυκνήμιδας Αχαιὲς
Τοῆδ ̓ ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ πολυν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχειν.

MOMER. ILJAD. LIB. III.

KISS XV.

TI' Idalian boy, to pierce Nesra's heart,
Had bent his bow, had chose the fatal dart;
But when the child, in wonder lost, survey'd
That brow, o'er which your sunny tresses play'd!
Those cheeks, that blush'd the rose's warmest dye!
That streamy languish of your lucid eye!
That bosom, too, with matchless beauty bright;
Scarce Cypria's own could boast so pure a white!
Tho' mischief urg'd him first to wound my fair,
Yet partial fondness urg'd him now to spare;
But, doubting still, he linger'd to decide:
At length resolv'd he flung the shaft aside:

These, when the Spartan Queen approach'd the tow'r
In secret own'd resistless beauty's pow'r ;

They cry'd, no wonder such celestial charms

For nine long years have set the world in arms.

POPE'S HOMER'S ILIAD. BOOK III.

Very wonderful indeed are the powers which Tibullus ascribes to the charms of his mistress:

Sæpe ego tentavi curas depellere vino :

At dolor in lacrimas veiterat omne meruni. Sæpe aliam tenui; sed jam quum gaudia adirem, Admonuit dominæ, deseruitque Venus.

Inque tuas cursu effusus, peuriliter, ulnas,
Mille tibi fixit basia, mille modis;

Quæ succos tibi myrteolos, Cypriosque liquores,
Pectoris afflarunt usque sub ima tui :

Juravitque Deos omneis, Veneremque parentem, Nil tibi post unquum velle movere mali.

Et miremur adhuc, cur tam tua basia fragrent? Duraque cur miti semper amore vaces?

Tunc me devotum descendens femina dixit.
Et, pudet heu, narrat scire nefanda mea.
Non facit hoc verbis ; facie tenerisque lacertis
Devovet, et flavis nostra puella comis.

TIBULL. ELEG. VI. LIB. I.

With wine I strove to soothe my love-sick soul,
But vengeful Cupid dash'd with tears the bowl:
All mad with rage, to kinder nymphs I flew ;
But viguor fled me, when I thought on you.
Balk'd of the rapture, from my arms they run,
Swear I'm devoted, and my converse shun!
By what dire witchcraft am I thus betray'd?
Your face and hair unnerve me, matchless maid!

GRAINGER.

For an explanation of the word devovere, see the notes of Tibullus's commentator, Broekhusius, or those of this translator. But, surely, no example of the effects of beauty can equal the delicate one Secundus gives us in this Kiss.

Et miremur adhuc, &c.] What can be more delicately beautiful than this happy fiction, which at the same time accounts for the delicious sweetness of Neæra's kisses, and the extreme coldness of her heart?