Pompeii, Its Life and Art

by August Mau

My girl from me to turn,

On far-off mountains bleak

May Love the scoundrel burn.'

Of extant elegiac poets Ovid, Propertius, and Tibullus are quoted or paraphrased. Among the quotations is the familiar couplet of Propertius: Nunc est ira recens, nunc est discedere tempus; Si dolor afuerit, crede, redibit amor,—

'Now is it time to depart,

Now anger freshly burns;

When one ceases to feel the smart,

Believe me, love returns.'

If it was written by a lover after a quarrel, reconciliation was not far off. Another discouraged suitor perhaps consoled himself by writing on the wall of the Basilica this distich from Ovid's "Art of Love," the form of which differs slightly from that given in the manuscripts: Quid pote tam durum saxso aut quid mollius unda? Dura tamen molli saxsa cavantur aqua,—