TO XANTHIAS PHOCEUS.
Horace
Let not, O Xanthias Phoceus, your passion for your maid put you out of
countenance; before your time, the slave Briseis moved the haughty
Achilles by her snowy complexion. The beauty of the captive Tecmessa
smote her master, the Telamonian Ajax; Agamemnon, in the midst of
victory, burned for a ravished virgin: when the barbarian troops fell by
the hands of their Thessalian conqueror, and Hector, vanquished, left
Troy more easily to be destroyed by the Grecians. You do not know that
perchance the beautiful Phyllis has parents of condition happy enough to
do honor to you their son-in-law. Certainly she must be of royal race,
and laments the unpropitiousness of her family gods. Be confident, that
your beloved is not of the worthless crowd; nor that one so true, so
unmercenary, could possibly be born of a mother to be ashamed of. I can
commend arms, and face, and well-made legs, quite chastely: avoid being
jealous of one, whose age is hastening onward to bring its eighth
mastrum to a close.
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