429 Farewell Severe Mistress (Poems of Exile)

another offering from my 'translations' of pseudo-Seneca, in my collection Poems of Exile

Farewell severe Muse!  Now I  return to amusements and frolics.

Pleasure and playing delight me, Muse.

Swollen-breasted Arethusa stamps at my threshold

and would speak to me, in the manner of the night:

She who learned to slide through shadows,

now tangles me with her hair, now releases me.

She puts her gentle arms around my neck

reveals her snowy flank and half-lying on her back,

she imitates a painter’s model, always

surpassing herself, she languishes on my bed.

Muse, she is even more debauched than me, shameless

and exulting, not ceasing in our pleasures.

The poet has abandoned his labours, of Priam* bewailing his Hector.

Playing delights me Muse:  farewell severe Mistress!

*Priam was King of Troy, famous for lamenting his fallen son Hector, a typical subject of tragedy

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