No More Learning

If she's to press in comfort a lover against that soft bosom,

Doesn't he want her to be free from all brooches and chains?

Must not the jewelry, and then the lace and the bustles and whalebone

All of it come off entire, if he's to learn how she feels?

I encounter no troubles like those. Simple dress of rough homespun,

At but a lover's mere touch, tumbles in folds to the floor.

Quickly he carries the girl as she's clad in chemise of coarse linen--

Just as a nursemaid might, playfully up to her bed.

Drapings of satin are absent; the mattress is quite unembroidered.

Large is this room where the bed offers its comfort for two.

Jupiter's welcome to more from his Juno if he can get it;

Let any mortal find rest, softer, wherever he can.

We are content with Cupid's delights, authentic and naked--

And with the exquisite creak /crack of the bed as it rocks.




IV

Ask whomever you will but you'll never find out where I'm lodging,

High society's lords, ladies so groomed and refined.

"Tell me, was Werther authentic? Did all of that happen in real life? "

"Lotte, oh where did she live, Werther's only true love? "

How many times have I cursed those frivolous pages that broadcast

Out among all mankind passions I felt in my youth!

Were he my brother, why then I 'd have murdered poor Werther.
Yet his despondent ghost couldn't have sought worse revenge.

That's the way "Marlborough," the ditty, follows the Englishman's travels

Down to Livorno from France, thence from Livorno to Rome,

All of the way into Naples and then, should he flee on to Madras,

"Marlborough" will surely be there, "Marlborough" sung in the port.

Happily now I've escaped, and my mistress knows Werther and Lotte

Not a whit better than who might be this man in her bed:

That he's a foreigner, footloose and lusty, is all she could tell you,

Who beyond mountains and snow, dwelt in a house made of wood.




V

Do not, beloved, regret that you yielded to me so quickly:

I entertain no base, insolent thoughts about you.

Arrows of Cupid work divers effects. Some do but scratch us:

Slow and insidious these poison our hearts over years.

Yet with a head freshly honed and cunningly fledged, certain others

Pierce to the marrow, inflame rapidly there our blood.

When gods and goddesses in days of heroes made love, then

Lust followed look and desire, with no delay, was indulged.

Surely you don't think the goddess of love lost a moment reflecting

When, in Idean grove, Anchises caught her eye.

Nor did Luna delay about kissing that beautiful dreamer--

Jealous Aurora had else hastily wakened the lad.

At the loud banquet Hero regarded Leander--then promptly

Into dark waters he plunged, ardently swam toward his love.

When Rhea Silvia, princess and virgin, came down to the Tiber

Just to fetch water, a god seized her and that is the way

Mars begat himself sons, a pair of twins whom a she wolf

Suckled. Today a proud Rome claims to be queen of the world.




VI

We are so pious, we lovers. Discreetly we worship all powers,

Hoping for favor from each god and each goddess as well.

We are like you, ye victorious Romans, in this: for we offer

Gods of all peoples and tribes, over the whole world, a home--

May the Egyptian, black and austere out of primeval basalt,

Or from the marble a Greek, form them charming and white--

Yet the eternal ones do not object to particularism

(Incense of most precious sort, strewn for just one of their host).