You ask me, friend,
Why I don't send
The long since due-and-paid-for numbers—
Why, songless, I
As drunken lie
Abandoned to Lethaean slumbers.
Long time ago
(As well you know)
I started in upon that carmen;
My work was vain—
But why complain?
When gods forbid, how helpless are men!
Some ages back,
The sage Anack
Courted a frisky Samian body,
Singing her praise
In metered phrase
As flowing as his bowls of toddy.
'Till I was hoarse
Might I discourse
Upon the cruelties of Venus—
'Twere waste of time
As well of rhyme,
For you've been there yourself, Maecenas!
Perfect your bliss,
If some fair miss
Love you yourself and not your minae;
I, fortune's sport,
All vainly court
The beauteous, polyandrous Phryne!