The Art of Love Book Two

…Short partings do best, though: time wears out affections,

The absent love fades, a new one takes its place.

With Menelaus away,

Helen's disinclination for

Alone led her into her

Warm bed at night.

Were you crazy,

Menelaus?

Why go off leaving your

With a stranger in the house?

Do you trust doves to falcons,

Full sheepfolds to mountain wolves?

Here Helen's not at fault, the adulterer's blameless -He did no more than you, or any man else,

Would do yourself.

By providing place and

You precipitated the act.

What else did she

But act on your clear advice?

Husband gone; this stylish

Here on the spot; too scared to sleep alone -Oh,

Helen wins my acquittal, the blame's her husband's:

All she did was take advantage of a

Human complaisance.

And yet, more savage than the

Boar in his rage, as he tosses the maddened

On lightening tusks, or a lioness suckling her

Cubs, or the tiny adder

By some careless foot, is a woman's wrath, when some

Is caught in the bed she shares.

Her feelings

On her face.

Decorum's flung to the wind, a

Frenzy grips her, she rushes headlong

After fire and steel… .