Disease of Love

  by: Sophocles (496-406 B.C.)

    translated by E. H. Plumptre


 

A pleasant ill is this disease of love,
And 'twere not ill to sketch its likeness thus:
When sharp cold spreads through all the æther clear,
And children seize a crystal icicle,
At first they firmly hold their new-found joy;
But in the end the melting mass nor cares
To slip away, nor is it good to keep:
So those that love, the self-same strong desire
Now leads to action, now to idleness.


   More poems by Sophocles