He who scanned all the lights of the great firmament, who ascertained the rising and the setting of the stars, how the flaming splendour of the swift sun was endarkened, how the planets disappear at certain seasons, how sweet love with stealth detaining Trivia beneath the Latmian crags, draws her away from her airy circuit, that same Conon saw me amongst celestial light, the hair from Berenice's head, gleaming with brightness, which she outstretching graceful arms did devote to the whole of the gods, when the king flushed with the season of new wedlock had gone to lay waste the Assyrian borders, bearing the sweet traces of nightly contests, in which he had borne away her virginal spoils. Is Venus abhorred by new-made brides? Why be the parents' joys turned aside by feigned tears, which they shed copiously amid the lights of the nuptial chamber? Untrue are their groans, by the gods I swear! This did my queen teach me by her many lamentings, when her bridegroom set out for stern warfare. Yet thou didst not mourn the widowhood of desolate couch, but the tearful separation from a dear brother? How care made sad inroads in thy very marrow! In so much that thine whole bosom being agitated, and thy senses being snatched from thee, thy mind wandered! But in truth I have known thee great of heart ever since thou wast a little maiden. Hast thou forgotten that noble deed, by which thou didst gain a regal wedlock, than which none dared other deeds bolder? Yet what grieving words didst thou speak when bidding thy bridegroom farewell! Jupiter! as with sad hand often thine eyes thou didst dry! What mighty god changed thee? Was it that lovers are unwilling to be long absent from their dear one's body? Then didst thou devote me to the whole of the gods on thy sweet consort's behalf, not without blood of bullocks, should he be granted safe return. In no long time he added captive Asia to the Egyptian boundaries. Wherefore for these reasons I, bestowed 'midst the celestial host, by a new gift fulfil thine ancient promise. With grief, O queen, did I quit thy brow, with grief: I swear to thee and to thine head; fit ill befall whosoever shall swear lightly: but who may bear himself peer with steel? Even that mountain was swept away, the greatest on earth, over which Thia's illustrious progeny passed, when the Medes created a new sea, and the barbarian youth sailed its fleet through the middle of Athos. What can locks of hair do, when such things yield to iron? Jupiter! may the whole race of the Chalybes perish, and whoever first questing the veins 'neath the earth harassed its hardness, breaking it through with iron. Just before severance my sister locks were mourning my fate, when Ethiop Memnon's brother, the winged steed, beating the air with fluttering pennons, appeared before Locrian Arsinoe, and this one bearing me up, flies through aethereal shadows and lays me in the chaste bosom of Venus. Him Zephyritis herself had dispatched as her servant, a Grecian settler on the Canopian shores. For 'twas the wish of many gods that not alone in heaven's light should the golden coronet from Ariadne's temples stay fixed, but that we also should gleam, the spoils devote from thy golden-yellow head; when humid with weeping I entered the temples of the gods, the Goddess placed me, a new star, amongst the ancient ones. For a-touching the Virgin's and the fierce Lion's gleams, hard by Callisto of Lycaon, I turn westwards fore-guiding the slow-moving Bootes who sinks unwillingly and late into the vasty ocean. But although the footsteps of the gods o'erpress me in the night-tide, and the daytime restoreth me to the white-haired Tethys, (grant me thy grace to speak thus, O Rhamnusian virgin, for I will not hide the truth through any fear, even if the stars revile me with ill words yet I will unfold the pent-up feelings from truthful breast) I am not so much rejoiced at these things as I am tortured by being for ever parted, parted from my lady's head, with whom I (though whilst a virgin she was free from all such cares) drank many a thousand of Syrian scents.

Now do you, whom the gladsome light of the wedding torches hath joined, yield not your bodies to your desiring husbands nor throw aside your vestments and bare your bosom's nipples, before your onyx cup brings me jocund gifts, your onyx, ye who seek the dues of chaste marriage-bed. But she who giveth herself to foul adultery, may the light-lying dust responselessly drink her vile gifts, for I seek no offerings from folk that do ill. But rather, O brides, may concord always be yours, and constant love ever dwell in your homes. But when thou, O queen, whilst gazing at the stars, shalt propitiate the goddess Venus with festal torch-lights, let not me, thine own, be left lacking of unguent, but rather gladden me with large gifts. Stars fall in confusion! So that I become a royal tress, Orion might gleam in Aquarius' company.