I’m a bit stuck on the last sentence, or more specificially on “mulier cupido”. I understand what the line means, it’s not that hard but I don’t understand how these 2 nominatives relate to each other. Should I simply read it as “the woman’s desire”? If so, why is a genitive not used? Anyway, here is the poem:
Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle
quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat.
Dicit: sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti,
in uento et rapida scribere oportet aqua
Ah yes, this is a very nice poem, although pessimistic. cupido is a dative from the adjective cupidus “desirous”, not the third declension noun cupido, -inis. You can easily see that it agrees with amanti.
Iterum, Optime, multas gratias tibi ago.
Instead of starting a new thread for every poem I thought I’d continue this one. Number 92 in this case. However, my question is different this time. I completely understand the grammer and vocabulary of this one, my question is more about ..er…idiom(?).
The poem:
Lesbia mi dicit semper male nec tacet umquam
de me. Lesbia me dispeream nisi amat.
quo signo? qua sunt totidem mea: deprecor illam
assidue, verum dispeream nisi amo.
Lovely indeed. Now, I saw in the translation on perseus that dispeream is translated as “I’ll be damned”. I’m wondering whether this would be a common exclamation of, say, astonishment or feeling really certain about something in latin, like it is in english. Like he is certain she loves him, damned if she doesn’t. Or is he simply expressing he would feel utterly ruined if she doesn’t love him?
I have never seen that idiom, but that doesn’t count for much 
. I think it can be taken quite literally “I shall perish unless Lesbia loves me… in fact, I shall perish unless I love [her].”
Despite your modesty benissimus, I think it counts for quite a lot! 
I agree it can easily be taken litterally for the poem to make sense.
Thanks again!