…Good luck to any lover who likes loving;
Let him rejoice and sail before the wind.
But if some minx has got him in her clutches,
Succour and safety in my art he’ll find.
Why should a lover knot a noose and dangle
Aloft from a high beam, a tragic weight?
Why plunge a sword-blade in his breast? This bloodshed
Is yours, peace-lover, and it earns you hate.
Let him who’ll die of love unless he ends it,
End it; then you shall be the death of none.
You are a boy; you’re only fit for playing….
Ovid’s discourse with Cupid
from Ovid – The Love Poems translated by A.D. Melville
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