Poor bird, thy doing 'tis, that now
My loved one's eyes are swollen and red,
With weeping for her darling dead.

Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.

"FICKLE AND CHANGEABLE EVER"

Never a soul but myself, though Jove himself were to woo her,
Lesbia says she would choose, might she have me for her mate.
Says--but what woman will say to a lover on fire to possess her,
Write on the bodiless wind, write on the stream as it runs.

Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.

TWO CHORDS

I Hate and love--the why I cannot tell.
But by my tortures know the fact too well.

Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.

LAST WORD TO LESBIA

O Furius and Aurelius! comrades sweet!
Who to Ind's farthest shore with me would roam,
Where the far-sounding Orient billows beat
Their fury into foam;

Or to Hyrcania, balm-breathed Araby,
The Sacian's or the quivered Parthian's land,
Or where seven-mantled Nile's swoll'n waters dye
The sea with yellow sand;

Or cross the lofty Alpine fells, to view
Great Caesar's trophied fields, the Gallic Rhine,
The paint-smeared Briton race, grim-visaged crew,
Placed by earth's limit line:

To all prepared with me to brave the way,
To dare whate'er the eternal gods decree--
These few unwelcome words to her convey
Who once was all to me.

Still let her revel with her godless train,
Still clasp her hundred slaves to passion's thrall,
Still truly love not one, but ever drain
The life-blood of them all.

Nor let her more my once fond passion heed,
For by her faithlessness 'tis blighted now,
Like flow'ret on the verge of grassy mead
Crushed by the passing plow.

Translation of James Cranstoun.

BENVENUTO CELLINI

(1500-1571)

Among the three or four best autobiographies of the world's
literature, the 'Memoirs' of Benvenuto Cellini are unique as the
self-delineation of the most versatile of craftsmen, a bizarre genius,
and a typical exponent of the brilliant period of the later Italian
Renaissance. As a record of the ways of living and modes of thinking
of that fascinating epoch, they are more lively and interesting than
history, more entertaining, if more true to fact, than a romance. As
one of his