...Short partings do best, though: time wears out affections, <br />The absent love fades, a new one takes its place. <br />With Menelaus away, Helen's disinclination for sleeping <br />Alone led her into her guest's <br />Warm bed at night. Were you crazy, Menelaus? <br />Why go off leaving your wife <br />With a stranger in the house? Do you trust doves to falcons, <br />Full sheepfolds to mountain wolves? <br />Here Helen's not at fault, the adulterer's blameless - <br />He did no more than you, or any man else, <br />Would do yourself. By providing place and occasion <br />You precipitated the act. What else did she do <br />But act on your clear advice? Husband gone; this stylish stranger <br />Here on the spot; too scared to sleep alone - <br />Oh, Helen wins my acquittal, the blame's her husband's: <br />All she did was take advantage of a man's <br />Human complaisance. And yet, more savage than the tawny <br />Boar in his rage, as he tosses the maddened dogs <br />On lightening tusks, or a lioness suckling her unweaned <br />Cubs, or the tiny adder crushed <br />By some careless foot, is a woman's wrath, when some rival <br />Is caught in the bed she shares. Her feelings show <br />On her face. Decorum's flung to the wind, a maenadic <br />Frenzy grips her, she rushes headlong off <br />After fire and steel... .<br /><br />Ovid<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-art-of-love-book-two/
