APIS Translation (English)
(Lines 1-4) O sweet delight didst thou seem to me, when thou lovedst me, when with hostile spear thou didst sack the Phrygians' city, desiring to take me only as thy spouse back to thy native land; but now, heartless one, wilt thou depart, leaving me a lonely wife, for whom went out the band of the Danaids, for whose sake Artemis carried off the unwed maid, Agamemnon's victim? (lines 5-11) The brown birds singing hard by through the wood deserted of commanders, perched on the topmost branches of a pine, chirped and twittered in mingled chorus, some beginning, others pausing, others silent, others in full song; then the hills speak with voices, and chattering Echo, lover of solitude, answers in the dells; the willing busy bees, blunt-faced and dusky-winged, summer's thronging toilers, who leave their sting behind, deep-toned, workers in clay, full of eagerness, unsheltered, draw out the sweet nectar, honey-laden. (lines 12-13) In admonishing a lover you are ignorant that you are seeking to quench a smoldering fire with oil. (lines 13-14) A lover's spirit, as a torch fanned by the wind, is now ablaze, and now again dies away. (lines 15-16) We are drunk with drinking and no longer in our senses, and love has consumed me with � that are like fire.