The Lame Husband of Venus

Poem by Pierre De Ronsard Collection The MélangesThemes LovePeriod 16th century

The lame husband of Venus
With his naked Cyclopes
Was one day lighting the flames
Of his forge, in order to heat
A great mass of iron
To make arrows for Love.

Venus dipped them in honey,
Love dipped them in gall,
When Mars, returned from alarms,
Mocking, despised them
And brandishing his spear, said to him:
Here are truly stronger weapons.

You laugh at them then, said Love to him,
Truly you will feel one day
How bitter their sting is.
When wounded by them in the heart,
You who play the warrior so much,
Will languish on my mother’s breast.

Pierre de Ronsard

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

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