Letter 23 – To a woman

So then, if you ask for money, I am poor, but if you ask for friendship and good character, I am rich. It is not so calamitous to me that O possess no money as it is shameful to you that you charge money for your love; ma courtesan's business, of course, is to admit men who carry pikes and swords, since such spend money readily, but a free woman will bear in mind the claim of the ideal and reward the good man with her favour. Command me as you please, and I obey; order me to go to seas, and I embark; order me to suffer stripes, I endure; to cast away my life, I do not hesitate; to run through fire, O do not refuse' What rich man does as much?

Letter 25 – To a woman

Yesterday I found you in a rage and I thought that I was looking at another woman. The cause of this was the transport of passion which completely destroyed the charm of your countenance. Put on another mien at once. No more of your savage glances! Not even the moon seems to us to be still shining when it is obscured by clouds; nor Aphrodite to be beautiful when she is angry or in tears; nor Hera to be ox-eyed when she indulges in wrath against Zeus; nor the sea to be bright when it is stirred up. Athena even tossed her flute away because it deformed her features. And moreover we now call the Furies the Eumenides, implying that they renounce their gloomy nature. And we delight in rose-bramble because, sprung as they are from a savge shrub that can hurt and prick, they nevertheless burst forth in roses. In the case of a woman calmness of countenance is the bright flower of her charm. Be not harsh or terrifying; do not filch away your own beauty nor despoil yourself of the roses that bloom in the eyes of you fair ladies. And if you don't believe what I say, take your mirror and see how your countenance has changed. Good for you for heeding the warning! Surely youi despised yourself, or feared yourself, or failed to recognize yourself, or had a change of heart.

Letter 26 – To a woman

You bid me not to look, and I bid you not to let yourself be seen. Who is the lawgiver who orders this, and who that? If neither act is prohibited, don't deprive yourself of approval for exhibition nor me of the licence to enjoy. A fountain does not say, “Don't drink”; nor does fruit say, “Don't take”; nor a meadow, “Don't come near.” Do you too, woman, observe nature's laws and quench the thirst of a wayfarer, whom your star has parched.

Letter 29 – To a woman

Your eyes I love, my own I hate; for, whereas in yours I recognize a great intelligence, in mine I recognize a wondrous meddlesomeness. They are shameless, yes, they are unable to hide anything of what they have once seen. So they cease not to say to my heart, “Did you not see the woman with the lovely hair, the woman with the comely countenance? Come, stand up and speak; yes, write and weep and beg.” And my heart ever so readily yields – yields because it cannot disobey its greedy satellites; for even against its will they drag it forth and compel it to share to the full opinions to which they have already given their own assent. Doubtless, before Love alighted on earth, the heart knew the sun's beauty and no other, and this beauty was its spectacle and marvel; but after tasting human beauty it fell away from that zealous worship, and was reduced to bitter servitude, whose tasks are waiting outside doors, and sleeping on the ground, and defiance of heat and cold, and the fight, “your life or mine,” against one's rival. For all these sufferings you are the cure, if you will but accept, in return for a momentary service, works that cannot die, and, in return for a brief physical satisfaction, a remembrance that never grows old; for what you will give is something that every woman has and can give easily, and what you will gain in return is great beyond the power of my words to tell: affection, remembrance, and night – these three, from which a mother and father too are made.

Letter 30 – To a married woman

The act is one and the same whether it is done with the husband or with a paramour. But that which involves more danger is more attractive, for the prerogative that is openly acknowledged lacks the charm of forbidden pleasure, and stolen fruit is always sweeter. So poseidon assumed the form of a purple billow, and Zeus the form of a golden shower and a bull and a serpent, and other disguises as well – whence Dionysus and Apollo and heracles, the gods sprung from adultery; and Homer says that even Hera was glad to see Zeus at the time when he consorted with her secretly; for he had transformed the husband's prerogative into the adulterer's theft.

Letter 31 – To a woman

The paramour who has his way pays for it in extreme danger, and if he is thwarted he pays in suffering: if he is successful he has the law to fear, and if he is disappointed he buys his disappointment at the price of love. Yet it is better to get what one wants and be afraid than to be spurned and grieve.

Letter 34 – To a woman

I know not what part of you to praise the most. Your head? But oh the eyes! Your eyes? But oh your cheeks! Your cheeks? But your lips entice me and with a wondrous passion they consume me – closed indeed for modesty's sake, yet open to exhale sweet breath. If you go further and take your clothes off, I suppose that there is a radiance as of lightning. O Pheidias and Lysippus and Polycleitus, how much too soon you ceased to be! Surely you would not have made any other statue in preference to hers. - Exceeding loveley is your hand, lovel the breadth of your bosom, lovely the symmetry of your belly. As to what remains, I know not in what terms to describe it. Even were Priam's son the judge, your beauty still contests the prize. Ah! What is is to become of me? Shall I praise this? No, surely that is better. Shall I adjudge the prize to that? No, for assuredly this lures me back again. Let me touch it, and I will give my decision.

Letter 38 – To a woman who is a whore

That which seems to others infamous and deserving of reproach – the fact that you are shameless and bold and complaisant – is what I love about you most. Take the case of animals: the horses we most admire are those that are conscious of their own powers; and the lions we admire are those that show spirit; and the cocks we admire are those that do not let their heads droop. So then, in your case also, you are doing nothing strange if, since you are a woman who surpasses many in beauty, you have a haughty glance and an imposing gait; surely there is a citadel of loveliness surpassing far this citadel of kings – at least we love you and fear them. You receive wages; so too Danae received gold. And you accept garlands; the virgin Artemis did the same. And you give yourself to tillers of the soil; but Helen actually gave herself to shepherds. And you grant your favours to lyre-players: why hesitate – just look at Apollo? Do not hold yourself back from flute-players either, for theirs is the art of the Muses. And do not scorn slaves, but let them think that, thanks to you, they are freemen. And do not feel shame, my fair one, of Aphrodite's rites with those who live by the hunt and by the chase; nor with sailors: 'tis true that they go off quickly, but Jason, the first to dare the sea, was not without honor; not yet of those who serve in arms for pay; strip these vainglorius fellows bare. For you must never so much as gainsay the poor: to them the gods give ear. Esteem the aged man because of his dignity; instruct the young man, regarding him as a tiro; hold back the stranger, if he is hastening away. That is what Timagore did, and Lais, and Aristagora, and Menander's Glycerium, and in their footsteps you also are treading. You place your charms at men's disposal with full knowledge, and you possess a skill that is nicely adjusted to produce its effect. For fire is not so hot as is your panting, nor flute so sweet to hear as are your words.

Letter 54 – To a woman

Though you shun me, yet do at least accept the roses in my place. And I pray you not only to garland yourself with them but also to sleep on them. For indeed they are both beautiful to behold, possessing splendour as of fire, and delicate to touch and softer than any bed, surpassing the Babylonian scarlet and the Tyrian purple; for, although these are magnificent, yet they have no beautiful fragrance. I have told the roses to kiss your throat and to cling to your breasts and to play the part of a man, if you will permit; and I know they will obey. O happy roses! What a woman you are going to embrace! Pray beseech her in my behalf and serve as my ambassadors and prevail upon her; and if she will not listen, consume her.

Letter 68 – To Ctesidemus

The erotic poets are pleasant hearing even for men beyond the age of gallantry; for they lead them on to thoughts of love and, as it were, make them renew their youth. So do not think yourself too old to hear them; communion with such poets will either keep you from forgetting sexual pleasures or recall them to you.

Letter 71 – To Pleistaeretianus

The poet-folk are numerous, even more numerous than the swarms of bees; but whereas the bees find their food in meadows, the poets find theirs in houses and cities; and in requiting hospitality some poets serve honey and some serve magnificent and costly viands Then too there are some poets who serve sweetmeats; let us consider that the poets of erotic verse are such. Among their number is Celsus, the bearer of this note, who has devoted his life to song, as the good cicadas do. I amsure you will see to it that he is fed, not on dew, but on substantial food.

From letters of fishermen

Thalassus to Pontius I sent you a flounder, a sole, a mullet, and thirty-five periwinkles. Please send me a pair of your oars, for mine are broke. It's a case, you know, of a friend's return to friend. For he who asks readily and confidently shows that he believes that all which friends possess is held in common – for giving to friends.