ELEGIA IV.
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uod amet mulieres, cujuscunque formÊ sint. I mean not to defend the scapes[249] of any,Or justify my vices being many;For I confess, if that might merit favour,Here I display my lewd and loose behaviour.I loathe, yet after that I loathe I run:Oh, how the burthen irks, that we should[250] shun.I cannot rule myself but where Love please;Am[251] driven like a ship upon rough seas.No one face likes me best, all faces move,A hundred reasons make me ever love. 10If any eye me with a modest look,I burn,[252] and by that blushful glance am took;And she that's coy I like, for being no clown,Methinks she would be nimble when she's down.Though her sour looks a Sabine's brow resemble,I think she'll do, but deeply can dissemble.If she be learned, then for her skill I crave her;If not, because she's simple I would have her.Before Callimachus one prefers me far;Seeing she likes my books, why should we jar? 20Another rails at me, and that I write,Yet would I lie with her, if that I might:Trips she, it likes me well; plods she, what than[253]?She would be nimbler lying with a man.And when one sweetly sings, then straight I long,To quaver on her lips even in her song;Or if one touch the lute with art and cunning,Who would not love those hands[254] for their swift running?And her I like that with a majesty,Folds up her arms, and makes low courtesy. 30To[255] leave myself, that am in love with all,Some one of these might make the chastest fall.If she be tall, she's like an Amazon,And therefore fills the bed she lies upon:If short, she lies the rounder: to speak[256] troth,Both short and long please me, for I love both.I[257] think what one undecked would be, being drest;Is she attired? then show her graces best.A white wench thralls me, so doth golden yellow:And nut-brown girls in doing have no fellow. 40If her white neck be shadowed with black hair,Why so was Leda's, yet was Leda fair.Amber-tress'd[258] is she? then on the morn think I:My love alludes to every history:A young wench pleaseth, and an old is good,This for her looks, that for her womanhood:Nay what is she, that any Roman loves,But my ambitious ranging mind approves? FOOTNOTES: [249] "Mendosos ... mores." [250] "Heu quam, quae studeas ponere, ferre grave est." [251] So eds. B, C.--Isham copy and ed. A "And." [252] This is Dyce's certain correction for the old eds. "blush." (Theoriginals has "uror.") [253] Then. [254] Ed. A "those _nimble_ hands." [255] "Ut taceam de me, qui causa tangor ab omni,Illic Hippolytum pone, Priapus erit." [256] So Isham copy and ed. A.--Eds. B, C "say." [257] This and the next three lines are omitted in Isham copy and ed. A. [258] So eds. B, C.--Isham copy and ed. A "yellow trest." ELEGIA V.[259]
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