Love And War Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDDEFGHDIJKLMNOPQR OSTDUSSSVOWSXYDZA2DS B2SC2D2NE2F2 SLovers all are soldiers and Cupid has his campaigns | A |
I tell you Atticus lovers all are soldiers | B |
Youth is fit for war and also fit for Venus | C |
Imagine an aged soldier an elderly lover | D |
A general looks for spirit in his brave soldiery | D |
a pretty girl wants spirit in her companions | E |
Both stay up all night long and each sleeps on the ground | F |
one guards his mistress's doorway one his general's | G |
The soldier's lot requires far journeys send his girl | H |
the zealous lover will follow her anywhere | D |
He'll cross the glowering mountains the rivers swollen with storm | I |
he'll tread a pathway through the heaped up snows | J |
and never whine of raging Eurus when he sets sail | K |
or wait for stars propitious for his voyage | L |
Who but lovers and soldiers endure the chill of night | M |
and blizzards interspersed with driving rain | N |
The soldier reconnoiters among the dangerous foe | O |
the lover spies to learn his rival's plans | P |
Soldiers besiege strong cities lovers a harsh girl's home | Q |
one storms town gates the other storms house doors | R |
It's clever strategy to raid a sleeping foe | O |
and slay an unarmed host by force of arms | S |
That's how the troops of Thracian Rhesus met their doom | T |
and you O captive steeds forsook your master | D |
Well lovers take advantage of husbands when they sleep | U |
launching surprise attacks while the enemy snores | S |
To slip through bands of guards and watchful sentinels | S |
is always the soldier's mission and the lover's | S |
Mars wavers Venus flutters the conquered rise again | V |
and those you'd think could never fall lie low | O |
So those who like to say that love is indolent | W |
should stop Love is the soul of enterprise | S |
Sad Achilles burns for Briseis his lost darling | X |
Trojans smash the Greeks' power while you may | Y |
From Andromache's embrace Hector went to war | D |
his own wife set the helmet on his head | Z |
and High King Agamemnon looking on Priam's child | A2 |
was stunned they say by the Maenad's flowing hair | D |
And Mars himself was trapped in The Artificer's bonds | S |
no tale was more notorious in heaven | B2 |
I too was once an idler born for careless ease | S |
my shady couch had made my spirit soft | C2 |
But care for a lovely girl aroused me from my sloth | D2 |
and bid me to enlist in her campaign | N |
So now you see me forceful in combat all night long | E2 |
If you want a life of action fall in love | F2 |
- | |
translated from the Latin by Jon Corelis | S |
Ovid
(1)
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