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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow Elegia IX Ad Atticum, amantem non oportere desidiosum esse, sicuti nec militem. - The Works of Christopher Marlowe, vol. 3 (Poems)

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Elegia IX Ad Atticum, amantem non oportere desidiosum esse, sicuti nec militem. - Christopher Marlowe, The Works of Christopher Marlowe, vol. 3 (Poems) [1598]

Edition used:

The Works of Christopher Marlowe, ed. A.H. Bullen (London: John C. Nimmo, 1885). Vol. 3.

Part of: The Works of Christopher Marlowe, 3 vols.

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Elegia IX3
Ad Atticum, amantem non oportere desidiosum esse, sicuti nec militem.

  • All lovers war, and Cupid hath his tent;
  • Attic, all lovers are to war far sent.
  • What age fits Mars, with Venus doth agree;
  • 'Tis shame for eld in war or love to be.
  • What years in soldiers captains do require,
  • Those in their lovers pretty maids desire.
  • Both of them watch: each on the hard earth sleeps:
  • His mistress' door this, that his captain's keeps.
  • Soldiers must travel far: the wench forth send,1
  • Her valiant lover follows without end.

    10

  • Mounts, and rain-doubled floods he passeth over,
  • And treads the desert snowy heaps do2 cover.
  • Going to sea, east winds he doth not chide,
  • Nor to hoist sail attends fit time and tide.
  • Who but a soldier or a lover's bold
  • To suffer storm-mixed snows with night's sharp cold?
  • One as a spy doth to his enemies go,
  • The other eyes his rival as his foe.
  • He cities great, this thresholds lies before:
  • This breaks town-gates, but he his mistress' door.

    20

  • Oft to invade the sleeping foe 'tis good,
  • And armed to shed unarmèd people's blood.
  • So the fierce troops of Thracian Rhesus fell,
  • And captive horses bade their lord farewell.
  • Sooth,3 lovers watch till sleep the husband charms,
  • Who slumbering, they rise up in swelling arms.
  • The keepers' hands4 and corps-du-gard to pass,
  • The soldier's, and poor lover's work e'er was.
  • Doubtful is war and love; the vanquished rise,
  • And who thou never think'st should fall, down lies.

    30

  • Therefore whoe'er love slothfulness doth call,
  • Let him surcease: love tries wit best of all.
  • Achilles burned, Briseis being ta'en away;
  • Trojans destroy the Greek wealth, while you may.
  • Hector to arms went from his wife's embraces,
  • And on Andromache1 his helmet laces.
  • Great Agamemnon was, men say, amazed,
  • On Priam's loose-trest daughter when he gazed.
  • Mars in the deed the blacksmith's net did stable;
  • In heaven was never more notorious fable.

    40

  • Myself was dull and faint, to sloth inclined;
  • Pleasure and ease had mollified my mind.
  • A fair maid's care expelled this sluggishness,
  • And to her tents willed me myself address.
  • Since may'st thou see me watch and night-wars move:
  • He that will not grow slothful, let him love.

[3]Not in Isham copy or ed. A.

[1]“Mitte puellam.”

[2]Old eds. “to.”

[3]So ed. B.-Ed. C “Such.”

[4]“Custodum transire manus vigilumque catervas.” (For “hands” the poet should have written “bands.”)

[1]“Et galeam capiti quae daret uxor erat.”