and must beware.” 
    “Yet have I oft been beaten in the field,
    And sometimes hurt,” said I, “but scorn’d to yield.” 
    He smiled and said:  “Alas! thou dost not see,
    My son, how great a flame’s prepared for thee.” 
    I knew not then what by his words he meant: 
    But since I find it by the dire event;
    And in my memory ’tis fix’d so fast,
    That marble gravings cannot firmer last. 
    Meanwhile my forward youth did thus inquire: 
    “What may these people be?  I much desire
    To know their names; pray, give me leave to ask.” 
    “I think ere long ’twill be a needless task,”
    Replied my friend; “thou shalt be of the train,
    And know them all; this captivating chain
    Thy neck must bear, (though thou dost little fear,)
    And sooner change thy comely form and hair,
    Than be unfetter’d from the cruel tie,
    Howe’er thou struggle for thy liberty;
    Yet to fulfil thy wish, I will relate
    What I have learn’d.  The first that keeps such state,
    By whom our lives and freedoms we forego,
    The world hath call’d him Love; and he (you know,
    But shall know better when he comes to be
    A lord to you, as now he is to me)
    Is in his childhood mild, fierce in his age;
    ’Tis best believed of those that feel his rage. 
    The truth of this thou in thyself shalt find,
    I warn thee now, pray keep it in thy mind. 
    Of idle looseness he is oft the child;
    With pleasant fancies nourish’d, and is styled
    Or made a god by vain and foolish men: 
    And for a recompense, some meet their bane;
    Others, a harder slavery must endure
    Than many thousand chains and bolts procure. 
    That other gallant lord is conqueror
    Of conquering Rome, led captive by the fair
    Egyptian queen, with her persuasive art,
    Who in his honours claims the greatest part;
    For binding the world’s victor with her charms,
    His trophies are all hers by right of arms. 
    The next is his adoptive son, whose love
    May seem more just, but doth no better prove;
    For though he did his loved Livia wed,
    She was seduced from her husband’s bed. 
    Nero is third, disdainful, wicked, fierce,
    And yet a woman found a way to pierce
    His angry soul.  Behold, Marcus, the grave
    Wise emperor, is fair Faustina’s slave. 
    These two are tyrants:  Dionysius,
    And Alexander, both suspicious,
    And yet both loved:  the last a just reward
    Found of his causeless fear.  I know y’ have heard
    Of him, who for Creuesa on the rock
    Antandrus mourn’d so long; whose warlike stroke
    At once revenged his friend and won his love: 
    And of the youth whom Phaedra could not move
    T’ abuse his father’s bed; he left the place,
    And by his virtue lost his life (for base