I wouldn’t dare defend my suspect morals
or falsely move to protect my vices.
I confess – if it’s any use to confess a sin:
I acknowledge the foolish guilt now in myself.
I hate to desire, but can’t not be what I hate:
ah, what a painful burden to throw off what you love!
I lack all power and authority to control myself:
carried away like a boat, swept swiftly through the water.
It’s not one kind of beauty that excites my desires –
there’s a hundred reasons why I’m always in love.
If it’s one with modest eyes cast on the ground,
I burn, and her shyness sets a trap for me:
or if it’s one who’s bold, I’m taken, sophisticated,
giving hope of being sweetly nimble in bed.
If she looks severe, and strict as a Sabine,
I think she wants it, but hides it, being noble.
If you’re learned, you please me with rare arts:
if you’re naive, your innocence pleases.
Then there’s the girl who says that Callimachus’s songs
are rough beside mine – she who I please soon pleases me.
Even she who castigates me and my poems –
I long to endure her critical thighs.
She walks sweetly – I like the motion: another’s hard –
but she could be sweeter at a man’s touch.
This one who sings divinely and smoothly alters pitch,
I want to give stolen kisses as she sings:
She who strikes plaintive chords with practised fingers –
who could not love such knowledgeable hands?
She who pleases with her postures, and waves her arms
in rhythm, and twists her tender body with sweet art? –
Be silent about me, who’s enticed by everything,
but put chaste Hippolytus by her, and he’d be Priapus!
You, who are so tall, are like the ancient heroines
and can lie the full length of the bed.
This one’s small size is manageable. I’m ruined by both:
tall and short agree with my desire.
She’s not cultured – come, she could take up culture:
she’s well-equipped - she can display her gifts herself.
Fair ones capture me: I’m captured by golden girls,
but Venus is still pleasing when darkly coloured.
If dark tresses hang on a snowy neck,
then Leda was famed for her black hair:
If they’re golden, Aurora’s saffron hair pleases.
My desire adapts itself to all the stories:
Young girls entice me: older ones move me:
she pleases with her body’s looks, she with its form.
In short, whichever girls one might approve of in the city,
my desire has ambitions on them all.