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Amores
III:11b
translated by David Drake
Love and hatred strive, twisting my fickle heart in opposite directions; but I think love conquers.
I flee your wantonness, but your beauty draws me back from flight. I'd like to shun your immorality, but still I love your body. Thus I can neither live with you nor without you, and I don't seem to know what I want.
I wish you were either less lovely or less of a slut, so that such a wonderful body were not the frame for debauched morals. Your behavior deserves my hatred, but your face demands that I love you. Alas for me, that face has more effect than your vices.
Spare me, I beg you, by the pledges we made to one another in bed; by all the gods who so often give you leave to foreswear yourself; by your face, which to me is itself the image of a great goddess; and finally by your eyes, which have blinded me.
Whatever you are, you will always be mine. No matter what you choose, you get me as well whether you want me or not; my madness compels me. I am a sail raised to the wind, compelled to love you whether I would or no.
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