by Tibullus
Hinc fletus rixaeque sonant, haec denique causa
Fecit ut infamis hic deus esset Amor.
27 Ah, ruin to all who gather the emeralds green or with Tyrian purple dye the snowy sheepskin. The stuffs of Cos and the bright pearl from out of the red seas sow greed in lasses. ’Tis these have made them evil. From these hath the door learned to feel the key, and the dog been set to guard the threshold. But if thou comest with a great fee, keys are no hindrance, and the very dog is mute. Ah, that god who gave beauty to the covetous girl, what a pearl did he bring to a herd of mischiefs! From this comes the noise of weeping and of bickering. This, in brief, is the cause that Love now roams the earth dishonoured.
At tibi, quae pretio victos excludis amantes,
Eripiant partas ventus et ignis opes; 40
Quin tua tum iuvenes spectent incendia laeti,
Nec quisquam flammae sedulus addat aquam.
Seu veniet tibi mors, nec erit qui lugeat ullus,
Nec qui det maestas munus in exequias.
At bona quae nec avara fuit, centum licet annos 40
Vixerit, ardentem flebitur ante rogum,
Atque aliquis senior veteres veneratus amores
Annua constructo serta dabit tumulo
Et «bene» discedens dicet «placideque quiescas,
Terraque securae sit super ossa levis.» 45
Vera quidem moneo, sed prosunt quid mihi vera?
Illius est nobis lege colendus Amor.
39 But thou, that dost shut out lovers whom gold has vanquished, may wind and fire sweep off the wealth that thou hast gained. Nay, may the young then see thy house ablaze, and none bestir himself to put water on the fire. Or, if ’tis death that comes to thee, let there be none to mourn thee or come with offering to thy woful burial. But she that has been kind and free from greed, though she live a hundred years, shall be wept by the burning pyre. And some aged man in homage to his ancient love will yearly place a garland on her mounded tomb, and, as he goes, will say: “Sleep well and peacefully, and above thy untroubled ashes let the earth be light.”
Quin etiam sedes iubeat si vendere avitas,
Ite sub imperium sub titulumque, Lares.
Quicquid habet Circe, quicquid Medea veneni, 55
Quicquid et herbarum Thessala terra gerit,
Et quod, ubi indomitis gregibus Venus adflat amores,
Hippomanes cupidae stillat ab inguine equae,
Si modo me placido videat Nemesis mea voltu,
Mille alias herbas misceat illa, bibam. 60
51 ’Tis a true warning; but of what help is the truth to me? I must ply my love as she ordains. Yea, if she bid me sell the home of my forefathers, then, gods of the household, ye must stoop to be labelled at her word. All Circe’s, all Medea’s potions, all the herbs that the land of Thessaly bears, even the hippomanes which drips from the yearning mare when Venus breathes passion into unbridled herds, yea, a thousand herbs beside may my Nemesis mingle in the draught, and, so she look kindly on me, I will drink.
V
The Installation of Messalinus
Phoebe, fave: novus ingreditur tua templa sacerdos:
Huc age cum cithara carminibusque veni.
Nunc te vocales inpellere pollice chordas,
Nunc precor ad laudes flectere verba meas.
Ipse triumphali devinctus tempora lauro, 5
Dum cumulant aras, ad tua sacra veni;
Sed nitidus pulcherque veni: nunc indue vestem
Sepositam, longas nunc bene pecte comas,
Qualem te memorant Saturno rege fugato
Victori laudes concinuisse Iovi. 10
1 BE gracious, Phoebus; a new priest sets foot within thy temple. Hither I bid thee come with lyre and song. Now, I prithee, let thy fingers sweep the singing strings; now tune thy song to a loyal paean. And while they heap the altar, come to thy rites thyself, thy brows encircled with triumphal bay. Come bright and beautiful; now don thy treasured raiment; now duly comb thy flowing locks. Be as men tell thou wast when, Saturn driven from his throne, thou sangest a paean for victorious Jove.
Tu procul eventura vides, tibi deditus augur
Scit bene, quid fati provida cantet avis,
Tuque regis sortes, per te praesentit haruspex,
Lubrica signavit cum deus exta notis;
11 Thou seest from afar the things to come. The augur whose soul is given up to thee knows well what means the note of the bird that foresees what is to be. ’Tis thou dost guide the lots; through thee divines the reader of the inward parts, whensoever a god has set his marks on the glistening entrails.
Te duce Romanos numquam frustrata Sibylla, 15
Abdita quae senis fata canit pedibus.
Phoebe, sacras Messalinum sine tangere chartas
Vatis, et ipse precor quid canat illa doce.
Haec dedit Aeneae sortes, postquam ille parentem
Dicitur et raptos sustinuisse Lares; 20
Nec fore credebat Romam, cum maestus ab alto
Ilion ardentes respiceretque deos.
15 With thee her guide, the Sibyl who sings Fate’s hidden will in six-foot measure hath never played the Romans false. Phoebus, grant leave to Messalinus to touch the seeress’ holy scroll, and teach him thyself the meaning of her strains.
19’Twas she that gave responses to Aeneas after the hour when, as story tells, he bore away in his arms his sire and household gods, never dreaming that a Rome would be, when from the deep he turned his eyes in sorrow on Ilion and its gods ablaze.
Romulus aeternae nondum formaverat urbis
Moenia, consorti non habitanda Remo,
Sed tunc pascebant herbosa Palatia vaccae, 25
Et stabant humiles in Iovis arce casae.
Lacte madens illic suberat Pan ilicis umbrae
Et facta agresti lignea falce Pales,
Pendebatque vagi pastoris in arbore votum,
Garrula silvestri fistula sacra deo, 30
Fistula, cui semper decrescit arundinis ordo,
Nam calamus cera iungitur usque minor.
At qua Velabri regio patet, ire solebat
Exiguus pulsa per vada linter aqua.
Illa saepe gregis diti placitura magistro 35
Ad iuvenem festa est vecta puella die,
Cum qua fecundi redierunt munera ruris,
Caseus et niveae candidus agnus ovis. -
23 (Not yet had Romulus traced the walls of the Eternal City wherein was no abiding for his brother Remus. But still on a grassy Palatine browsed the kine, and lowly cabins stood upon the heights of Jove. There drenched with milk, was Pan beneath the holm-oak’s shade, and Pales shaped from wood by rustic knife; and on the tree, in quittance of the roving shepherd’s vow, the prattling pipe hung sacred to the woodland god — the pipe with its ever-dwindling rows of reeds, “whose wax joins stalks each lesser than the last. But where now spreads the quarter of Velabrum, a small skiff stirred the waters as it plied across the shallows. There oft a lass who would please some rich keeper of a herd was ferried on holidays to her swain, and with her came back the gifts of a thriving farm, cheese and the white lamb of a snowy ewe.)
«Inpiger Aenea, volitantis frater Amoris,
Troica qui profugis sacra vehis ratibus, 40
Iam tibi Laurentes adsignat Iuppiter agros,
Iam vocat errantes hospita terra Lares.
Illic sanctus eris, cum te veneranda Numici
Unda deum caelo miserit indigetem.
Ecce super fessas volitat Victoria puppes, 45
Tandem ad Troianos diva superba venit.
Ecce mihi lucent Rutulis incendia castris:
Iam tibi praedico, barbare Turne, necem.
Ante oculos Laurens castrum murusque Lavini est
Albaque ab Ascanio condita Longa duce. 50
Te quoque iam video, Marti placitura sacerdos
Ilia, Vestales deseruisse focos,
Concubitusque tuos furtim vittasque iacentes
Et cupidi ad ripas arma relicta dei.
Ca
rpite nunc, tauri, de septem montibus herbas, 55
Dum licet: hic magnae iam locus urbis erit.
Roma, tuum nomen terris fatale regendis,
Qua sua de caelo prospicit arva Ceres,
Quaque patent ortus, et qua fluitantibus undis
Solis anhelantes abluit amnis equos. 60
Troia quidem tunc se mirabitur et sibi dicet
Vos bene tam longa consuluisse via.
Vera cano: sic usque sacras innoxia laurus
Vescar, et aeternum sit mihi virginitas.»
39 “Aeneas never-resting, brother of Cupid ever on the wing, whose exiled barks carry the holy things of Troy, now doth Jove allot to thee the fields of Laurentum, now doth a hospitable land invite thy wandering gods. There shall divinity be thine when Numicius’ ever-worshipped waters pass thee to heaven, a god of the native-born. See, o’er the weary ships is Victory hovering. At last the haughty goddess comes to the men of Troy. Lo, I see the fire blaze from the Rutule camp. Now, savage Turnus, I foretell thy fall. Before my eyes is Laurentum’s fortress and Lavinium’s wall, and Long Alba, which Ascanius leads his host to found. Now thee too, Ilia, priestess whom Mars is to find fair, I see departed from the Vestal hearth. I see thy secret bridal, thy snood cast upon the ground, and, left upon the banks, the arms of the eager god. Now, while ye may, bulls, crop the grass of the Seven Hills. Ere long this will be a great city’s site. Thy nation, Rome, is fated to rule the earth wherever Ceres looks from heaven upon the fields she tends, both where the gates of dawn are opened and where in tossing waters the Ocean river bathes the Sun-god’s panting team. Then shall old Troy be a marvel to herself, and own that in this far journey ye did well for her. ’Tis truth I sing; so may I ever eat the holy bay unharmed and everlasting maidenhood be mine.”
Haec cecinit vates et te sibi, Phoebe, vocavit, 65
Iactavit fusas et caput ante comas.
65 So sang the seeress, and called thee to her, Phoebus, and tossed before her face her streaming hair.
Quicquid Amalthea, quicquid Marpesia dixit
Herophile, Phoeto Graia quod admonuit,
Quasque Aniena sacras Tiburs per flumina sortes
Portarit sicco pertuleritque sinu, - 70
Haec fore dixerunt belli mala signa cometen,
Multus ut in terras deplueretque lapis,
Atque tubas atque arma ferunt strepitantia caelo
Audita et lucos praecinuisse fugam.
Ipsum etiam Solem defectum lumine vidit 75
Iungere pallentes nubilus annus equos
Et simulacra deum lacrimas fudisse tepentes
Fataque vocales praemonuisse boves. -
67 All that Amalthea, all that Herophile of Marpessos foretold, all the warnings of Grecian Phyto and hers of Tibur who carried her holy scrolls of destiny through the stream of Anio and in dry bosom bore them home.... These told that a comet should appear, the evil sign of war, and how that thick on earth should fall the stony shower. And they say that trumpets and the clash of arms were heard in heaven, and sacred groves rang with the coming rout. From the images of the gods poured the warm tears; and kine found tongue and spake of the coming doom. Yea, from the very Sun ebbed the light, and the clouded year saw him yoke dim horses to his car.
Haec fuerunt olim, sed tu iam mitis, Apollo,
Prodigia indomitis merge sub aequoribus, 80
Et succensa sacris crepitet bene laurea flammis,
Omine quo felix et sacer annus erit.
Laurus ubi bona signa dedit, gaudete coloni:
Distendet spicis horrea plena Ceres,
Oblitus et musto feriet pede rusticus uvas, 85
Dolia dum magni deficiantque lacus,
Ac madidus Baccho sua festa Palilia pastor
Concinet: a stabulis tunc procul este lupi.
Ille levis stipulae sollemnis potus acervos
Accendet, flammas transilietque sacras, 90
Et fetus matrona dabit, natusque parenti
Oscula conprensis auribus eripiet,
Nec taedebit avum parvo advigilare nepoti
Balbaque cum puero dicere verba senem.
79 So was it once; but thou, Apollo, kind at last, whelm monstrous things beneath the savage deep. Let the bay crackle loud as it kindles in the holy flames, an omen telling that the season shall be blest and holy. When the bay has given propitious sign, rejoice, ye farmers: Ceres will fill with ears your straining barns. And smeared with must the countryman will stamp above the grapes till the great tanks and butts can hold no more. And drenched in wine the shepherd will chaunt the feast of Pales, the shepherd’s holiday. Ye wolves, be ye then far from the fold. Full of drink, he will fire the light straw heaps in the appointed way, and leap across the sacred flames. Then shall his dame bear offspring, and the child take hold of his father’s ears to snatch the kiss; nor shall the grandsire find it irksome to watch by his little grandson’s side, nor, for all his years, to lisp in prattle with the child.
Tunc operata deo pubes discumbet in herba, 95
Arboris antiquae qua levis umbra cadit,
Aut e veste sua tendent umbracula sertis
Vincta, coronatus stabit et ipse calix.
At sibi quisque dapes et festas exstruet alte
Caespitibus mensas caespitibusque torum. 100
Ingeret hic potus iuvenis maledicta puellae,
Postmodo quae votis inrita facta velit:
Nam ferus ille suae plorabit sobrius idem
Et se iurabit mente fuisse mala.
95 Then in the god’s service the folk shall recline upon the grass where fall the flickering shadows of some ancient tree, or of their garments spread out canopies and tie them up with garlands, wreaths also round the goblets where they stand. Then each for himself will pile high the feast and festal board, cut sods the table and cut sods the couch. Here the tipsy lad will heap curses on his lass, such as erelong he will hope and pray may turn to naught. Aye, he who is now so savage with his dear will weep when he is sober, and swear that his wits had gone astray.
Pace tua pereant arcus pereantque sagittae, 105
Phoebe, modo in terris erret inermis Amor.
Ars bona, sed postquam sumpsit sibi tela Cupido,
Heu heu quam multis ars dedit ista malum!
Et mihi praecipue: iaceo cum saucius annum
Et faveo morbo, cum iuvat ipse dolor, 110
Usque cano Nemesim, sine qua versus mihi nullus
Verba potest iustos aut reperire pedes.
105 Phoebus, by thy good leave, let bows and arrows perish, so Love may rove unarmed upon the earth. ’Tis an honest craft; but since Cupid took to carrying arrows, how many, ah me, has that honest craft made smart! And me beyond the rest. For a year have I been afflicted from his stroke, and, siding with my malady (for the pain itself is pleasure), I sing unceasingly of Nemesis, apart from whom no verse of mine can find its words or proper feet.
At tu - nam divum servat tutela poetas -
Praemoneo, vati parce, puella, sacro,
Ut Messalinum celebrem, cum praemia belli 115
Ante suos currus oppida victa feret,
Ipse gerens laurus: lauro devinctus agresti
Miles «o» magna voce «triumphe» canet.
Tum Messalla meus pia det spectacula turbae
Et plaudat curru praetereunte pater. 120
Adnue: sic tibi sint intonsi, Phoebe, capilli,
Sic tua perpetuo sit tibi casta soror.
113 But do thou, damsel (for guardian gods watch over poets), be warned in time, and spare thy sacred bard, that I may tell of Messalinus when before his chariot he shall bear the conquered towns, the prize of war, wearing the bay wreath, while his soldiery, with wild bay round their brows, loudly chaunt the cry of triumph. Then let my dear Messalla afford the throng the sight of a father’s love, and clap his hands as his son’s car passes by. Phoebus, grant this; and so be thy locks for aye unshorn, and thy sister ever a maiden pure.
VI
To Macer
Castra Macer
sequitur: tenero quid fiet Amori?
Sit comes et collo fortiter arma gerat?
Et seu longa virum terrae via seu vaga ducent
Aequora, cum telis ad latus ire volet?
Ure, puer, quaeso, tua qui ferus otia liquit, 5
Atque iterum erronem sub tua signa voca.
1 FOR the camp is Macer bound. What shall become of gentle Love? Must he go with him and stoutly bear his arms about his neck? And, weapons in hand, will he be at the gallant’s side whether his path lie over the distant mainland or the tossing seas? Young sir, I prithee, brand the rebel that has left thy haunts of peace: call back the truant to thy banners.
Quod si militibus parces, erit hic quoque miles,
Ipse levem galea qui sibi portet aquam.
Castra peto, valeatque Venus valeantque puellae:
Et mihi sunt vires, et mihi facta tuba est. 10
7 But if thou art merciful to soldiers, here is one will be a soldier too, and bring himself refreshing water in his helm. I am off to the camp. Farewell to Love, farewell to lasses. I too am stout of limb; in my ears too the trumpet’s note is sweet.
Magna loquor, sed magnifice mihi magna locuto
Excutiunt clausae fortia verba fores.
Iuravi quotiens rediturum ad limina numquam!
Cum bene iuravi, pes tamen ipse redit.
Acer Amor, fractas utinam, tua tela, sagittas, 15
Si licet, extinctas adspiciamque faces!
Tu miserum torques, tu me mihi dira precari
Cogis et insana mente nefanda loqui.
Iam mala finissem leto, sed credula vitam
Spes fovet et fore cras semper ait melius. 20
11 Brave is my speech; but when I have uttered the brave bravado, the shutting of a door strikes the bold words from my lips. How often have I sworn that to its threshold I would return no more! For all’ my valiant swearing, my foot comes back itself. Fierce Love, oh, if this could be, I would see thine arms destroyed, the arrows broken and the torches quenched. Thou rackest me with anguish: thou forcest me to’curse myself and in impious speech to vent the frenzy of my soul. Ere now I would have ended my miseries in death; but fond Hope keeps the spark alive, whispering ever that to-morrow things will mend.
Spes alit agricolas, Spes sulcis credit aratis
Semina, quae magno faenore reddat ager;
Haec laqueo volucres, haec captat arundine pisces,