What slim rider’s astride you in the roses’ shade
drenched with sweetest of scents….spurring you hot and hard
Yildiz, flushed in the soft grass;
whose doom drives you to bind your braids,

sheer gold, bold in their coils? Crushed, he’ll bewail for weeks
faithless gods, your deceit, stare at the stormy deep,
black squalls savaging wild waves,
wide-eyed gape in bewildered shock,

who just wants to enjoy — golden and his for good —
you there all of the time, always a smiling face.
Hope soars high, but the wind cheats,
his mind’s closed; what a wreck awaits

those you dazzle untried! There on the sacred wall
vow-filled plaques tell a tale. Mine are the sopping rags
hung up on high to mighty
Neptune, lord of the swelling seas.



[ORIGINAL POEM

CARMINA I.5

Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa
perfusus liquidis urget odoribus
grato, Pyrrha, sub antro;
cui flavam religas comam,

simplex munditiis? Heu, quotiens fidem,
mutatosque deos flebit et aspera
nigris aequora ventis
emirabitur insolens,

qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea
qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem.
sperat, nescius aurae
fallacis; miseri quibus

intemptata nites! Me tabula sacer
votiva paries indicat uvida
suspendisse potenti
vestimenta maris deo.]