Ovid, Amores 2.4
“I will not be so bold as to defend my lying ways
or to lift false weapons for the sake of my sins.
I admit it—if there’s any advantage to confessing;
Insane now I confront the crimes I’ve confessed:
I hate, and though I want to, I can’t stop being what I hate.
Alas, how it hurts to carry something you long to drop!”
Non ego mendosos ausim defendere mores
falsaque pro vitiis arma movere meis.
confiteor—siquid prodest delicta fateri;
in mea nunc demens crimina fassus eo.
odi, nec possum, cupiens, non esse quod odi;
heu, quam quae studeas ponere ferre grave est!
I cannot read this poem without thinking of this one (Carm. 85):
“I hate and I love: you might ask why I do this–
I don’t know, but I see it happen and it’s killing me.
Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
N.B. qua re may be better rendered as “how”: see Armand D’Angour’s Recent argument
Anacreon, Fr. 428 (Hephaestion, Handbook on Meters)
“I love and again do not love
I am insane and yet sane too”
ἐρέω τε δηὖτε κοὐκ ἐρέω
καὶ μαίνομαι κοὐ μαίνομαι
