The lovers (or spouses) Asterie and Gyges are parted for the winter, and Gyges’s landlady is threatening to tell tales on him to her husband if he will not sleep with her – she sends a go-between to remind him that similar things happened to others in myth – not only the hero Bellerophon, but also Peleus, the father of Achilles. Asterie need not worry about Gyges’s faithfulness, as it turns out, but Horace feels the need to offer a word of advice to her as well.
In the illustration, Peleus struggles to maintain a hold on Thetis, Achilles’s mother, who was a goddess and a shape-shifter.
Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.