A quotation from Propertius

The sailor tells of stormy gales, of oxen talks the farmer,
   The soldier counts his wounds, of sheep the shepherd prates away;
I sing of hours in rosy bowers, of dalliance with my charmer:
   We all have here our proper sphere — his part let each one play.
   
[Navita de ventis, de tauris narrat arator,
   Enumerat miles vulnera, pastor oves.
   Nos contra angusto versantes proelia lecto:
Qua pote quisque, in ea conterat arte diem.]

Propertius (50-16 BC) Roman elegiac poet [Sextus Propertius]
Elegies, Book 2, Elegy 1, l. 43ff (2.1.43–46) [tr. Cranstoun (1875)]


More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/propertius/85363/

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