Absente Musa (dactylic hexameter)
Me miserum! Quando pestem considero Musam
tam longe fugisseque seque abscondere semper
a nostris oculis plorantibus — ut sedeo sic —
mi moriendum habeo, melius multo nobis est.
My Muse Is Gone
Wretched me! When I consider that my damned Muse
has taken off and keeps hiding herself
from my imploring eyes — as I sit thus —
I do consider I should die: it’s better for us.
Hic an Haec? (elegiac couplet)
Si quis deserto mentem vir dixerit longe
Nec stat quae auscultet, peccat hic, haec minime?
He or She?
If some man off in the desert speak his mind,
And there is no woman around to hear him,
Is he still wrong? ( . . . and she isn”t?)