Ovid's Amores: 1.1

Lines 11-End

Who would provide eminent Apollo with a sharp point,
or with Mars a moving Aonian lyre?
The powerful and magnificent kingdoms are good to you, boy:
Why do you make new works Ambitious One?
Or, is it yours, which is everywhere? Are the Helconian Valleys yours?
And now the beloved lyre of Apollo is hardly yours?
When a new page has started well with the first line,
That next one humbles my strengths.
And to me there is no suitable material for lighter rhythms,
Neither a boy nor girl with elegant long locks."
I had been protested, when thereafter he freed the quiver,
Selected arrows that had been made for my destruction,
and he strongly bent his curving bow on his knee,
and he said, "Take this, prophet, let you sing the work!"
Miserable Me! That boy has sure arrows!
I burn, and love reigns in my vacant chest.
Let my work rise in six feet, and let in fall in five.
Iron wars with your prevailing meter!
Equip the golden season with myrtle from the sea-shore,
Muse, you must be measured through 11 feet.