A portion of Polyphemus’ travesty of a courting appeal to Galatea, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses 13.830:
Nec tibi deliciae faciles vulgataque tantummunera contingent, dammae leporesque caperque,parve columbarum demptusve cacumine nidus: inveni geminos, qui tecum ludere possint,inter se similes, vix ut dignoscere possis,villosae catulos in summis montibus ursae: inveni et dixi “dominae servabimus istos!”
And you shall have no easily gotten pets or common presents, such as does and hares and goats, or a pair of doves, or a nest taken from the cliff. I found on the mountain-top two cubs of a shaggy bear for you to play with, so much alike that you can scarcely tell them apart. I found them and I said: “I’ll keep these for my mistress!
Extracts 