Tibullus and Sulpicia : The Poems
Translated by A. S. Kline © 2001 All Rights Reserved
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Contents
VIII Marathus In
Love With Pholoe
I The Country
Festival (The Ambarvalia)
V Messalinus As
Custodian of the Sybilline Books
I Sulpicia on the
First of March
III A Prayer For
Sulpicia In Her Illness
and own many acres of
well-ploughed soil,
let endless worry
trouble them, with enemies nearby,
and the peals of the
war-trumpets driving away sleep:
let my moderate means
lead me to a quiet life,
as long as my fireside
glows with endless flame.
If only I might now be
happy to live with little,
and not always be
addicted to distant journeys,
but avoid the rising
Dog-star’s summer heat
in the shade of a tree
by a stream of running water.
Nor be ashamed to take
up the hoe at times
or rebuke the lazy
oxen with a goad:
or object to carrying
a ewe-lamb home
or a young kid
deserted by its mother.
Let me plant the
tender vines at the proper time,
tall fruit-trees,
myself a rustic, with skilled hands:
nor let hope fail, but
deliver the piled-up fruits,
and the rich vintage
in overflowing vats,
since I worship
wherever there’s a stump left in the fields,
or an old stone at the
crossroads, wreathed with flowers:
and whatever fruit of
mine the new season brings
I set as an offering
before the god of the fields.
Golden Ceres, a spiked
crown is yours from my estate,
one that is hung
before the doors to your temple:
and blushing Priapus
is set as a guard on the orchards
to terrorise the birds
with his cruel hook.
You too, accept your
gifts, Lares, guardians
of impoverished fields
that once were fruitful.
Then a slaughtered
calf purified countless heifers:
now a lamb’s the poor
sacrifice of my meagre land.
A lamb shall fall to
you, round which the rustic youths
will shout: “Hurrah,
give us good crops and wine!”
But you, wolves and
thieves, spare my meagre flocks:
you must take your
pillage from greater herds.
This is what I have to
purify my herdsmen
and sprinkle gentle
Pales with milk.
Gods, be with me, and
do not scorn what’s given
from a humble table in
pure earthenware.
The cups were earthenware the ancients made,
at first, themselves, from ductile clay.
I don’t need the wealth of my forefathers,
that the harvest brought my distant ancestors:
a little field’s enough: enough to sleep in
peace,
and rest my limbs on the accustomed bed
What joy to hear the raging winds as I lie
there
holding my girl to my tender breast,
or when a wintry Southerly pours its icy
showers,
sleep soundly helped by an accompanying fire!
Let this be mine: let him be rich, of right,
who can stand the raging sea and the mournful
rain.
O, let as much gold, and emeralds more, be lost
as the tears any girl might weep for my
travels.
It’s right for you to war by land and sea,
Messalla,
so that your house might display the enemy
spoils:
the ties of a lovely girl bind me captive,
and I sit a doorman before her harsh entrance.
I don’t care for praise, my Delia: only let me
be
with you, and pray let me be called idle and
lazy.
Let me gaze on you, when my last hour has come,
hold you, as I die, in my failing grasp.
You’ll weep for me, laid on my pyre, Delia,
and grant me kisses mixed with your sad tears.
You’ll weep: your mind’s not bound with cold
steel,
nor is there flint within your tender heart.
No young man or young girl will return home
with dry eyes from that funeral.
Don’t wound my ghost, Delia, but spare
your tender cheeks and your loosened hair.
Meanwhile, while fate allows, let’s join in
love:
soon Death comes with his dark shrouded head:
soon weakened age steals on, and love’s not
fitting
nor speaking flatteries when your hair is
white.
Now’s the time for sweet love, while there’s no
shame
in breaking doors
down, while it’s joy to pick a fight.
Here I’m a general and
brave soldier both: away
standards and
trumpets, bear wounds to greedy men,
and take them wealth:
I safe with my gathered store
will despise their
riches, and despise all hunger too.
by the grape, so that
sleep might quell my weary eyes:
and let no one stir my
mind numbed with drink
while wretched love is
fast asleep.
For a savage guard’s
been set upon my girl
and the harsh door shut
fast with a solid bolt.
Door, of a surly
master, may the rain beat on you,
and lightning hurled
on Jupiter’s orders find you out.
Door, open now,
conquered by my complaints alone,
and no sound as you
open, turned on a stealthy hinge.
And if my mad passion
has ever spoken ill of you
forgive: I pray it
might fall on my own head.
It’s fitting you
should remember what I said many times,
as a suppliant,
setting flowery garlands on your posts.
You too, Delia, don’t
be shy at deceiving the guard.
Be daring: Venus
herself assists the brave.
She favours the youth
who tries out a new threshold
or the girl who
unfastens the door, with the piercing prong:
She teaches how one
creeps secretly from a soft bed,
she teaches how to
place a foot without a sound,
she assigns speaking
gestures in a husband’s presence,
and hides words of
flattery in unassuming signs.
Not teaching all, but
those whom no idleness delays
and whom no fear
inhibits from rising at dead of night.
Look, as I wander
anxiously through the city in the dark,
Venus ensures my
safety in the darkness,
she lets no one attack
me who might wound my body,
with his blade, or try
and make a prize of my clothes.
Whoever’s possessed by
love goes safe and holy
wherever he will: he
should fear no ambush at all.
The numbing cold of a
winter’s night brings me no harm
nor the rain showering
its vast waters on me.
This labour won’t hurt
me, if only Delia unlocks the door
and calls me silently
with the sound of her tapping.
Hide your eyes, man or
woman whom we meet with:
Venus wants her thefts
to be concealed.
Don’t startle us with
clattering feet or ask our names,
nor bring the light of
glowing torches near us.
If anyone has seen us
unawares, let him hide it,
and deny by all the
gods that he remembers.
Since if any turns informer,
he’ll find Venus
is the child of blood
and angry seas.
Still, your husband
won’t believe them, the truthful witch
promised me that, with
her magic rites.
I’ve seen her drawing
stars down from the sky:
her chant turns back
the course of the flowing river.
her spells split the
ground, conjure ghosts from the tomb
and summon dead bones
from the glowing funeral pyre:
now she holds the
infernal crew with magic hissing,
now sprinkling milk
orders them to retreat.
As she wishes, she
dispels the cloud from the sombre sky:
as she wishes, calls
up snows to a summer world.
They say she alone
possesses Medea’s fatal herbs,
only she has fully
tamed the savage hounds of Hecate.
She composed a spell
for me, that you can deceive with:
chant it three times,
spit three times when you’ve done.
Then he’ll not be able
to believe anyone about us,
not even himself if he
saw us in your soft bed.
Still you must keep
away from others: since he’ll see
all the rest: it’s
only me he’ll see nothing of!
What? Do I believe?
Surely she’s the same who said
she could dissolve my
love with herbs or charms,
and purified me with
torches, and in the calm of night
a mournful sacrifice
fell to the gods of sorcery.
I didn’t pray that my
love should wholly vanish, but that
it might be shared, I’d
not wish to be without you if I could.
That man was iron, who
when he could have had you,
stupidly preferred to
chase after war and prizes.
Let him drive
and pitch his camp of
war on captured soil,
let him sit his swift
horse, to be gazed at,
covered all in silver,
covered all in gold:
if only I might yoke
the oxen with you Delia,
and feed the flocks on
the usual mount,
and while I may hold
you in my tender arms,
let soft sleep indeed
be mine on the harsh earth.
What use to lie on a
Tyrian bed, without love’s favours,
if night comes with
wakefulness and weeping?
Since then no feather
pillows, no embroidered covers,
no sound of soothing
waters brings repose.
Have I wronged the
divinity of mighty Venus with words,
and does my impious
tongue now pay the penalty?
Can they say now I’ve
sinfully entered the divine sanctuary
and snatched the
garland from the holy altar?
I won’t hesitate, if
I’m guilty, to kneel in her temple,
and grant her kisses
on her sacred threshold,
to crawl on my knees,
a suppliant, over the ground
and beat my wretched
head against the sacred door.
But you, who laugh
indifferent to my suffering, must soon
take care yourself:
gods do not rage at one alone, forever.
I have seen one who
ridiculed the miseries of young love
bow his aged neck
later in Venus’s harness,
and compose
blandishments himself in a quavering voice,
and seek to dress his
white hair with his own hands:
and not be ashamed to
stand before his dear girl’s door,
and stop her maid in
the middle of the forum.
Around him young men
and boys crowded closely,
and each one spat in
his own tender breast.
But spare me, Venus:
my devoted heart always serves you:
why in your bitterness
burn your own harvest?
oh I hope you and your
company remember me!
Phaecia holds me, ill,
in a foreign country:
Death, black one, keep
your hands away from me, I beg,
black Death, I beg you
keep away: my mother is not here
to gather the charred
bones to her grieving breast,
no sister to pour
Assyrian perfumes on my ashes
and weep with loosened
hair before my tomb.
No Delia at all, who
when she sent me from the city,
took counsel, they
say, before every god.
She took the sacred
lots three times from the acolyte:
and the boy ascribed
good omens to all three.
All promised my
return: yet nothing deterred her
from weeping and
brooding on my journey.
I myself, the
comforter, when I’d given my parting orders,
searched endlessly,
anxiously, for slow delay.
The flight of birds or
evil omens were my excuses
or Saturn’s
inauspicious day held me back.
Oh, how many times I
said, starting off, that my feet
stumbling at the
threshold gave me sad warning!
When Love’s unwilling
let no man depart,
or he’ll find that the
god himself forbade his going.
What use is your
the bronze that you
rattled so often in your hand,
or, while you
worshipped with holy rite, I remember,
your bathing in pure
water, sleeping in a pure bed?
Now, goddess, help me
now (since the many pictures
in your temples
witness that you can heal)
so my Delia fulfilling
her
might sit before your
sacred doors, shrouded in linen
and twice a day be
bound to speak your praise, conspicuous
with loosened hair
among the Pharian crowd.
And may I be able to
worship my home’s Penates
and offer the monthly
incense to the ancient Lar.
How well they lived in
the reign of Saturn,
before the world was
opened up to foreign travel!
The pine had not yet
scorned the blue waves,
or offered spreading
sails to the wind,
nor had the wandering
mariner seeking profit
in unknown lands
loaded his boat with alien wares.
In those days the
strong ox had not submitted to the yoke,
the horse did not
champ the bit with tame mouth,
no house had doors, no
stone was fixed in the earth
to determine a fixed
boundary to the field.
The oaks themselves
dripped honey, and, uncalled,
ewes with full udders
came to their carefree owner.
There was no army,
anger, war, the cruel maker
had not forged the sword
with his harsh craft.
Now under Jove’s rule
always wounds and gore,
sudden death, now by
sea, now by a thousand ways.
Pardon, Father. Don’t
make me fear oaths in my timidity,
or impious words
spoken against the sacred gods.
But if I’ve now
fulfilled my allotted years, let a stone inscribed with these words be set up
above my bones:
HERE
LIES TIBULLUS WASTED BY INEXORABLE DEATH,
WHILE
FOLLOWING MESSALLA BY LAND AND SEA.
Then there is black
Cerberus carrying a snake in his mouth
hissing and keeping
guard of the bronze doors.
Ixion is there who
dared to attempt Juno
his guilty limbs whirling
on the swift wheel:
and Tityos stretched
over nine acres of ground
vultures feeding
forever on his dark liver.
Tantalus is there,
pools of water round him: but it
flies from his raging
thirst before he can drink:
and Danaus’s
daughters, who offended the power of Venus,
carry the waters of
Lethe in leaking buckets.
Let whoever who has
violated my love be there,
who wished me long
services abroad.
But I beg you stay
true, let the old woman who protects
sacred honour, always
sit with you diligently.
She will tell you
tales and when the lamp is lit
draw long threads from
the full distaff:
while the girls all
round work at their heavy task,
till little by little,
wearied, the work sends them to sleep.
Then let me come
suddenly, no one bring news before,
but let me appear to
have dropped from the sky.
Then run to meet me,
Delia, just as you are,
with naked feet, with
your long hair disordered.
This I pray for: with
her rose-red horses,
let bright Dawn bring
me that shining Morning-Star.
and your head not be
harmed by sun or snow,
Priapus, what skill of
yours captivates lovely lads?
For sure, you’ve no
shining beard, or well-groomed hair:
naked you fulfil your
role in the cold of cloudy winter,
naked too in the dry
time of the Dog-Star’s heat.”
So I: then the rustic
child of Bacchus answered me, so,
the god who’s armed
with the curving hook.
“Oh beware of trusting
the crowd of tender boys:
since they always
offer a true cause for love.
This one pleases, that
keeps a tight rein on his horse:
that one breaks the
still waters with his snowy breast:
this one for his
audacious bravery: while that one’s
virgin modesty mantles
his tender cheeks.
But don’t let boredom
seize you, if at first he denies you
fiercely: gradually
his neck will yield to the yoke.
Length of time has
taught lions to comply with man,
with length of time
soft water wears away rock:
time ripens the grapes
on the sunny slopes,
time drives the bright
constellations on their sure course.
Don’t be afraid to
swear: the winds bear vain oaths of love
over the lands and
over the surface of the sea.
Huge thanks to Jove:
the Father himself denied their power,
so that foolish Love
might swear anything in passion:
and Diana lets you
swear by her arrows with impunity
and Minerva lets you
swear by her hair.
But if you linger
you’re lost: how swift time flies!
The day does not stand
idle or return.
How quickly the earth
loses its rich purple hues,
how quickly the high
poplar its lovely leaves.
How the horse is
despised when weak old age’s fate
arrives, he who once
shot from the starting gate at
I’ve seen a young man
on whom later years now pressed
mourning his
foolishness in days gone by.
Cruel gods! The snake
renewed sheds his years:
but fate grants no
delays to beauty.
Only for Bacchus and
Phoebus is youth eternal:
and unshorn hair is
fitting for both those gods.
You’ll yield to your
boy in whatever he wants to try:
love always wins the
most by deference.
You’ll not refuse to
go, though he intends long journeys, and the Dog-Star bakes the earth with
parching drought,
though the brimming
rainbow, threatens coming storm,
painting the heavens
with its purple hues.
If he wants to sail
the blue waves in a boat, with the oar
drive the light vessel
through the waves yourself.
Don’t complain at
submitting yourself to hard labour
or roughening your
hands unused to work:
while you still
please, if he wants to trap deep valleys,
don’t let your
shoulders refuse to bear the hunting nets.
I he wants to fight,
try to play at it with a light hand:
often leave your flank
exposed so he can win.
Then he’ll be gentle
with you, then you may snatch
that precious kiss:
he’ll struggle but let you take it.
At first he’ll let you
snatch it, later he’ll bring it himself
when asked, and then
even want to hang about your neck.
Sadly alas these times
now produce wretched arts:
now tender boys are
accustomed to wanting gifts.
You, whoever you are,
who first taught the sale of love
may a fateful stone
press down on your bones.
Boys, love the Muses
and the learned poets,
let no golden gifts
outweigh the Muses.
Through poetry Nisus’s
lock of hair’s still purple,
without verse no ivory
gleams on Pelop’s shoulder.
He the Muses name,
shall live, while earth bears oaks,
while heaven bears
stars, while rivers carry water.
But he who cannot hear
the Muses, he who sells love,
let him follow the
chariot of Idaean Ops, and traverse
three hundred cities
with his wanderings,
and cut at his
worthless limbs, in the Phrygian way.
Venus wants room for
blandishments: she favours
complaining suppliants
and wretched weeping.”
These things the god’s
mouth told me, to sing to Titius:
but Titius’s wife
forbids him to remember them.
Let him listen to her:
but you praise me as master,
you whom sadly a wily
boy possesses, by wicked art.
Each has his own
glory: let despised lovers consult me:
my doors are open wide
to everyone.
A time will come when
a loyal crowd of young men
shall lead my aged
self along, carrying the laws of Venus.
Alas how Marathus torments
me with love’s delay!
My art is useless, and
useless all my guile.
Spare me boy, I beg
you, lest I become an unworthy tale,
and they all laugh at
my idle teaching.
but now that brave
boast’s beyond my reach.
Now I’m driven, as a
swift top’s whipped over flat ground
one that an agile boy
spins with practised skill.
Scorch the wild beast
and torment him, so after this,
he won’t talk so
mightily: tame his savage speech.
Yet spare me, by the
bond of our secret couch,
by our love, I beg,
and the head that lay by mine.
They say it was me,
with my prayers, who snatched you
from gloomy sickness,
when you were lying there:
I myself cleansed you,
with pure sulphur round you,
once the old woman had
chanted her magic spell.
I myself expiated wild
nightmares, lest they harm you,
three times averting
them with sacred grain:
I myself in woollen
headband and loose tunic
offered nine vows to
Trivia in the silent night.
I’ve paid for all: now
another enjoys my love,
and, happy man, he
benefits from my prayers.
If you were saved, I
imagined in my madness
a happy life would be
mine, but the gods denied me.
“I’ll live in the
country, and while the harvest’s threshed
in the hot sun, my
Delia, will be there, guarding the crop,
or she’ll watch over
the grapes in the brimming troughs
when agile feet
trample the gleaming must.
She’ll be used to
counting flocks: she’ll be used to a child
babbling, a slave’s,
lovingly playing in its mistress’s lap.
She’ll know to offer
the country god grapes for the vines
wheat ears for the
harvest, food for the flocks.
She’ll rule everyone,
all things will be in her care:
and I’ll joy in being
nothing in that house.
Here my Messalla will
come, for whom Delia
will pull down sweetest
fruit from chosen trees:
and, in homage to his
greatness, show great care,
and, herself his
servant, prepare and serve his meals.”
I imagined these
things, prayers, that the Southerlies
and Easterlies now
blow through scented
Often I’ve tried to
dispel troubles with wine:
but grief turned all
the wine to tears.
Often I’ve held
others: but just as delight was near,
Venus warned me of my
love, and left me.
Then the woman,
leaving, called me accursed,
ah, shame, and said my
love knew wicked arts.
My girl does it not
with words, but beauty and tender arms, by those she bewitched me, and her
golden hair.
So Thetis, the
sea-green Nereid, once was, carried
to Thessalian Peleus
by a bridled dolphin.
These things harmed
me. A cunning bawd comes
to ruin me, in that a
rich lover’s now appeared.
May she eat
blood-soaked food, and with gory lips
drink from the bitter
cup filled with gall:
let ghosts always flit
round her, wailing their fate,
and the loud
screech-owl call from her rooftop:
maddened by hunger’s
goad, let her search graves
for grass, and bones
left by savage wolves:
and run with bare
crotch and howl, through the town.
with a fierce crowd of
crossroad-dogs behind her.
It shall be: a god
gives the sign: there are divinities
for lovers, and Venus,
deserted through injustice, rages.
But you, first abandon
the teachings of the greedy witch:
since love is defeated
by endless gifts.
The poor man will
always be there for you: he
will come to you
first, and be glued to your side.
The poor man’s a
faithful friend in the crush of the crowd,
he’ll stir his hands
and forge a way for you.
The poor man will lead
you stealthily to secret friends,
and himself undo the
sandals from your white feet.
Alas, I sing in vain,
and her door won’t open
won by words, a full
hand must do the knocking.
But you, who are
master now, fear my fate:
Fortune turns lightly
on the track of her swift wheel.
Even now, someone
stands, purposefully, at the threshold,
watches closely and
often, then runs away,
pretends to pass the
house, then soon runs back again,
alone, and is always
coughing in front of the door.
Furtive love is
readying something. Enjoy it while you can
I beg you: the boat’s
in the water, sailing towards you.
to lead me on, but
later you’re wretchedly sad and bitter.
Cruel power, what have
you to do with me? What glory is it for a god to set out snares for a man?
For the net’s spread
for me: now cunning Delia
fondles someone
secretly in the dead of night.
Of course she denies
it, swears it, but it’s hard to believe:
she’s always denying
me in that way to her husband.
I myself, wretch,
taught her, the means of eluding
her guards: alas, now
I’m crushed by my own art.
Then she learnt how to
make excuses for sleeping alone,
then how to turn the
door on its hinges silently:
then I gave her juices
and herbs to erase the bruises
that mutual lovemaking
makes out of teeth-marks.
But you, deceived
husband of a faithless wife,
watching me too, that
she might never sin,
be careful she doesn’t
sit talking much with young men
or recline with loose
dress and throat bared,
or deceive you with
nods, or wet her finger with wine
and trace messages
over the table’s surface.
Fear, when she goes
out often, or says she’ll go see
the rites of the Good
Goddess that no man can go near.
But trust her to me,
I’ll follow her to that altar alone:
then I’ll have no
reason to fear for my sight.
Often, I remember
touching her hand, as if I were
examining her jewel’s
design, an excuse.
Often, I sent you to
sleep with wine, while I, the winner,
drank from a sober
glass of counterfeit water.
I’m not aware I harmed
you: forgive, now I confess,
Love told me to. Who
takes up weapons against a god?
It was me, and I’m not
ashamed to tell the truth now,
at whom your dog
barked the whole night through.
What use is a tender
wife to you? If you don’t know
how to guard your
goods, the key for the lock’s in vain.
She holds you, she
sighs for other absent lovers
and suddenly she
pretends to a raging headache.
But trust her to my
keeping: then I’ll not refuse
blows, or shrink from
chains on my ankles.
Away from me then, you
who dress your hair with skill,
and whose roomy togas
flow with loosened folds:
and whoever meets us,
so that he might be sinless,
let him stand far off,
or go by on another road.
The god himself orders
it done, this the great priestess
prophesied to me, with
a voice divine.
She, when she’s
inspired by Bellona’s power, fears
no fierce flames, in
her madness, nor the twisted lash:
she slashes her arms
fiercely with the double-axe
and, unharmed,
sprinkles the goddess with flowing blood,
stands there with a
spear in her side, wounds on her breast,
and chants the fate
that the great goddess proclaims:
“Beware lest you harm
the girl whom Love protects,
and regret being
taught a harsh lesson afterwards.
Who touches her, his
wealth will drain away, like blood
from a wound, as these
ashes are scattered by the wind.”
And she named a
punishment for you, my Delia:
if you still sin, I
beg she’ll be merciful.
I don’t spare you for
yourself, but your old mother
moves me and her
lovely old-age overcomes anger.
She brings me to you
in the darkness, and fearfully
joins our hands
together, secretly, silently:
she waits for me,
glued to the door, at night
and knows the sound of
my nearing feet far off.
Live long for me,
sweet lady: I’d give you my years
to add to your own if
that were allowed.
I’ll love you always,
and your daughter for your sake:
whatever she does,
she’s still of your blood.
Teach her to be chaste,
though no headband tied there
constrains her hair,
nor a long robe her feet.
And for me let the
rules be harsh, let me never be able
to praise anyone
without the girl going for my eyes:
and if I’m thought to
have sinned, let me be led by the hair
and dragged face down
in the middle of the street.
I wouldn’t wish to
strike you Delia, and if such a madness
came to me, I’d rather
choose to have no hands.
Don’t be chaste from
cruel fear, but a loyal mind:
let mutual love guard
you for me in my absence.
But she who was loyal
to none, when age has conquered,
helpless, draws out
the twisted thread with trembling hand
and ties the
fastenings tight to the loom, for hire,
and counts what’s
pulled and drawn from the snowy fleece.
The crowd of youths
see her with joyful hearts,
and say her old age
deserves to bear such suffering.
Venus, sublime, looks
down from high
at her weeping, and
warns how fierce she is to the faithless.
Let these curses fall
on others, Delia: let us two
be a pattern for
lovers when our hair is white.
one that can’t be
unwound by any of the gods:
this would be the day
that would scatter the Gauls,
when
It has come: the
people of
and chieftains
fettered by their captive arms:
and you Messalla,
crowned with the conqueror’s laurels,
drawn in an ivory
chariot by snow-white horses.
The birth of honour
was not without war: you’re witness
Tarbellian
a witness Saône, and
swift Rhône, and great
and
Or shall I sing you,
Cydnus, who gently, with silent waves,
spread blue through
your sea of placid waters,
or how chill Taurus
feeds the unshorn Cilicians
touching the clouds at
his ethereal source?
Why tell how the white
dove sacred to the Syrians
flies unharmed through
the crowded cities of
How
the first that learned
to trust her ships to the winds,
or how when Sirius
cracks the parched fields,
fertile
Father Nile, in what
lands or for what reason
can I say you have
hidden your source?
No earth of yours
needs showers because of you,
parched grass begs
nothing from Jove the rain-maker.
The barbarian peoples
taught to bewail the Memphite heifer
sing of you and marvel
at you as their own Osiris.
Osiris first made the
plough with skilful hand
and stirred the fresh
soil with iron blade,
he first planted seed
in the untried earth
and gathered fruits
from unknown trees.
He showed how to tie
the young vine to a stake,
how to prune its green
leaves with the iron hook:
to him the ripe grapes
crushed by rough feet
first gave their
pleasing flavours.
Their juice taught men
to modulate voice in song,
and move untaught
limbs in true rhythms:
When the labourer’s
breast is crushed by heavy toil
Bacchus grants the
relaxations of joy:
Bacchus brings peace
to suffering beings
though harsh shackles
ring with fettered blows.
Sad cares and grief
are not for you Osiris,
but dance and song and
sweet, fitting, love,
varied flowers, and
brows crowned with ivy-berries,
and saffron robes
flowing over youthful feet,
and Tyrian garments,
and the sweet, singing flute,
and the light basket
that shares its hidden sacredness.
Come, celebrate the
guardian spirit with play and dance
and bathe his brow
with wine in plenty:
let the perfumes drip
from his glistening hair,
and let sweet garlands
circle neck and head.
So let this day come:
I’ll honour you with incense,
and bring from
Mopsopus cakes sweetened with honey.
And let a child spring
from you who’ll add fresh deeds
to the parent’s and
stand by his elder with respect.
Let him whom the soil
of
since, heaped by your
wealth, hard gravel’s laid here,
and here flint slabs
are joined together deftly.
Let the farmer sing
you, come late from the great City,
returning home safely
without stumbling.
And you, birth day,
come to be celebrated
for many a year, ever
brighter and brighter.
those soft words
spoken with a gentle sound.
Yet I’ve no lots or
entrails that show gods’ will,
birdsongs don’t call
to me of things to come:
Venus herself tied my
arms with magic knots
and taught it me, and
not without many blows.
Stop your pretence:
the god inflames more fiercely
those he sees have
succumbed to him unwillingly.
What use now to groom
your soft tresses
and alter the shape of
your hair continually,
beautify your cheeks
with shining rouge,
have your nails cut by
an artist’s skilled hand?
Now your dresses, your
clothes are changed in vain
and in vain the tight
strap squeezes the narrow feet.
She pleases him,
though she comes with face untouched,
hasn’t dressed her
shining hair with lingering art.
Has some old woman
bewitched you with her chants,
or pallid herbs, in
the silent hours of night?
Spells draw the
harvest from a neighbour’s fields,
spells stop the path
of the angry snake,
spells try to draw the
moon down from her course,
and would, were it not
for the sound of echoing bronze.
Why do I, in misery,
complain that chanting harms,
alas, or herbs? Beauty
needs no help from magic:
but touching of bodies
hurts us, and giving
drawn-out kisses, and
thigh twining with thigh.
Yet remember not to be
harsh with the boy:
Venus follows sad
deeds with punishment.
Don’t ask for gifts:
let an ageing lover give gifts,
so that tender arms
might fondle his frozen limbs.
A young man’s dearer
than gold, whose bright face shines
and no harsh beard to
prickle in your embrace.
Place your shining
arms beneath his shoulders,
and look down on all
the treasures of a king.
Venus has contrived
your sleeping secretly with the boy
while he fears, and
ceaselessly entwines your tender breasts,
giving wet kisses with
panting breath and writhing tongues,
and printing marks on
his neck with your teeth.
No stones or gems
delight the girl who sleeps cold
and alone, and who’s
desirable to no one.
Ah, we call back love
too late and call back youth
when white-haired old
age has bleached our head.
Then looks are
studied: then the hair’s altered
dyes hide the years,
stains from the nut’s green shell:
then we’re careful to
pluck out white hairs by the root
and take away a new
face with old skin removed.
Then use your time of
youth while it’s in flower:
the feet aren’t slow
on which it slips away.
Don’t torment
Marathus: what glory in power over a boy?
Girl, be hard on the
old, on the aged.
Spare the tender lad,
I beg you: he’s no grave illness,
but excess of passion
makes his complexion muddy.
Or, wretched, he often
directs mournful complaints
at the absent one, and
moistens all round with tears!
“Why scorn me? The
guard could have been evaded”
he says, “the god
himself gives lovers the power to deceive.
Secret love’s known to
me, how to breathe quietly,
how stolen kisses are
snatched without a sound:
and I can steal in,
though its
and open the door
noiselessly, unknown.
What use is art, if
she scorns her wretched lover
and, cruel girl, flees
from the bed itself?
Or if she promises,
but suddenly deceives faithlessly,
and night to me is a
vigil of many sorrows.
While I imagine she’s
coming to me, whatever stirs
I credit with being
the sound of her footfall.”
Cease to weep, boy:
she’s unmoved,
and your weary eyes
are swollen now with weeping.
I warn you, Pholoe,
the gods hate pride,
and it’s useless
feeding incense to their holy fires.
This Marathus once
jeered at wretched lovers,
not knowing the god of
vengeance was at his back:
they even say he often
laughed at tears of grief,
and kept his lover
waiting with false delays.
Now he hates all
disdain, now it displeases him
whenever the door is
bolted shut against him.
And you’ll be punished
too, girl, unless you forsake pride.
Then how you’ll wish
prayers could recall the day!
me your
word before the gods, only to break it secretly?
Ah sadly, even if
perjury is hidden at first,
punishment will come
later, on silent feet.
Spare him, gods: it’s
right that beauty should offend
your divinity, once,
and go unpunished.
The farmer yokes his
bulls to the useful plough
and works the land
hard in search of profit:
fixed stars guide the
swaying ships, through seas
obedient to the winds,
in search of profit.
My lad’s captivated by
gifts. But may the god
turn those gifts to
ashes or running water.
Soon he’ll make
amends: dust will take his beauty
and his hair will be
entangled by the winds:
his face will be
burned, his tresses burned by the sun,
and the long road will
blister his tender feet.
How many times have I
warned him: “ Don’t let gold
sully your beauty:
many evils often lurk beneath the gold.
Venus is bitter and
difficult with anyone
who violates love,
captivated by wealth.
Scorch my head with
fire instead, attack my body
with steel, and scar
my back with the twisted lash.
Don’t hope to conceal
it when you’re planning sin:
the god knows, who
forbids wrongs to be hidden.
The god himself has
often allowed a silent servant
to babble freely due
to strong drink.
The god himself has
ordered a voice subdued by sleep
to speak and tell
unwillingly of things better buried.”
This I said to you:
now I’m ashamed that I wept
as I spoke, and
stretched myself out at your tender feet.
Then you swore to me
you’d not sell your loyalty
for measures of rich
gold nor for jewels,
not if
or the Falernian
fields that Bacchus cares for.
Those words could have robbed me of thinking
the stars
shine in the sky, and rivers flow down to the
sea.
You even wept: but I unskilled in deceit,
fondly
wiped the wetness continually from your cheeks.
What might I do if you were not yourself in
love
with a girl: I beg she might be fickle, given
your example.
Oh how often, your friend indeed, I carried the
bright light
at night, so no one should be aware of your
words.
Often, through my doing, she came when
unexpected
and hid herself, veiled, behind the closed
doors.
Then I was lost, sad wretch, foolishly trusting
in love:
now I might be warier of your snares.
My stunned heart even sang your praises:
but now I’m ashamed for myself and the Muses.
May Vulcan scorch those songs now, with swift
fire,
and the river wash
them away in its clear waters.
Go far off from here, you whose aim is to sell
your beauty
and to return with a great handful of gifts.
And you who dare to corrupt the boy with
rewards,
let your wife, unpunished, mock with her
constant intrigues,
and when she’s tired her lover with their
secret doings,
let her lie sleepily with you, with the sheet
between.
Let there always be strange traces in your bed
and your house always be wide open to lovers:
don’t let it be said her wanton sister drinks
more
in her cups, or wears out more men.
They say she often leads on the party with wine
till the wheels of Lucifer rise to call up the
day:
no one spends the night better than she does,
or better arranges the various modes of leisure.
And your wife has learnt it all: and you don’t
notice,
idiot, when she moves her body with unusual
art.
Do you think she dresses her hair for you,
combs her fine tresses with the thin-toothed
steel?
Is it your beauty persuades her to circle her
arms with gold
and appear abroad dressed in Tyrian robes?
She wants to seem beautiful for a certain boy,
not you:
she’d give up all your house and things for
him.
She does it not from vice, but the sensitive
girl shrinks
from a body marred by gout and an old man’s
arms.
Yet my boy has slept with him: now I’ll believe
the lad could join in union with a savage
beast.
Mad boy, did you dare to sell my caresses to
others,
and carry my kisses to other men as well?
Weep then when another lad has captivated me
and spends his proud reign in your kingdom.
I’ll joy then in your punishment. And to
deserving Venus
a golden-palm tree shall be raised, marking my
fate:
How iron-willed and truly made of iron he was!
Then slaughter was created, war was born to
men.
then a quicker road was opened to dread death.
But perhaps it’s not the wretch’s fault we turn
to evil
what he gave us to use on savage beasts?
That’s the curse of rich gold: there were no
wars
when the beech-wood cup stood beside men’s
plates.
There were no fortresses or fences, and the
flock’s leader
sought sleep securely among the diverse sheep.
I might have lived then, Valgius, and not known
sad arms, or heard the trumpet with beating
heart.
Now I’m dragged to war, and perhaps some enemy
already carries the spear that will pierce my
side.
Lares of my fathers, save me: you are the same
that reared me, a little child running before
your feet.
Don’t be ashamed that you’re made from ancient
wood:
so you were when you lived in my grandfather’s
house.
Then faith was better kept, when a wooden god
poorly dressed, stood in a narrow shrine.
He was placated, if someone offered the first
grapes
or placed the garland of wheat-ears on his
sacred head:
and whoever gained his wish brought the
honey-cakes
himself, his little daughter behind, with the
pure comb.
Turn the bronze spears away from me, Lares,
………………………………………………
and (accept) a sacrifice of a hog from
the full sty.
I will follow in pure clothing, carrying the
basket
bound with myrtle, myrtle binding my own head.
So I may please you: let another be brave in
war,
and topple hostile generals with Mars’ help,
then he can tell me his military deeds while I
drink,
and draw his camp on the table with wine.
What madness to summon up dark Death by war!
It menaces us, and comes secretly on silent
feet.
There are no cornfields down there, no trim
vineyards,
only bold Cerberus, and the foul ferryman of
There, with eyeless sockets and scorched hair,
a pallid crowd wanders by the lakes of
darkness.
No he’s more to be praised whom, blessed with
children,
a long old age keeps occupied in his humble
cottage.
He tends the sheep, and his son the lambs,
and his wife provides hot water for weary
limbs.
So let me be, and may my head whiten with snowy
temples,
and recall old things from ancient deeds.
Meanwhile let peace tend the fields. Bright
peace first
bowed the oxen for ploughing under the curved
yoke.
Peace nurtured the vines and laid up the juice
of the grape
so the son’s wine might pour from the father’s
jar.
Hoe and ploughshare gleam in peace, but rust
seizes
the grim weapons of the cruel soldier in
darkness.
The countryman drives home from the wood,
himself half-sober, with wife and children in
his cart,
but then they summon love’s war, and the woman
bewails her torn hair and the broken doors.
The bruised girl weeps for her tender cheeks,
but the victor
weeps himself that his hands were so strong in
his madness.
And impudent Love supplies evil words to the
quarrel,
and sits indifferent between the angry pair.
Ah, he’s stone and iron, whoever would strike
his girl:
that action draws down the gods from the
heavens.
let it be enough to have torn the thin cloth
from her limbs,
enough to have disordered the arrangement of
her hair,
enough to have caused her tears: he’s four
times blessed
whose anger can make a tender girl weep.
But he whose hands are cruel, should carry
shield and pike,
and stay far away from gentle Venus.
Then come, kindly Peace, hold the wheat-ear in
your hand,
and let your radiant breast pour out fruits
before us.
in the rite handed down by our ancestors of
old.
Come, Bacchus, let the sweet grapes hang from
your horns,
and Ceres, wreathe your brow with ears of corn.
Let the earth rest, on this sacred day, the
farmer too,
and the heavy work of the lifted plough cease.
Loose the straps from the yokes: the oxen must
stand
near the full manger, now, with garlanded
heads.
Let all things wait on the god: let no
spinner’s hand dare set to work.
You too I command, stand away, leave the altar,
you whom Venus allowed pleasure last night.
Purity pleases the gods: come with pure robes
and draw the fountain’s water with pure hands.
See how the sacred lamb goes to the shining
altar
behind it the crowd, in white, heads crowned
with olive.
Gods of our fathers, we purify worker and
field:
drive evil far away from our boundaries,
let the fields not cheat us of harvest, failed
in the shoot,
let our slow lambs not be in fear of swifter
wolves.
Then let the glowing farmer sure of full fields
pile huge logs up, on his blazing hearth,
and a crowd of young slaves, true signs of
wealth
play, and build little huts of sticks before
it.
I pray, with success: see how the favourable
entrails
show that the gods are pleased, by the liver’s
markings.
Now bring out the smoky Falernian from old
consulships,
and loosen the bindings from the Chian jar.
Let wine celebrate the day: no shame to be
drunk
on a day of festival, and weave about on
unsteady feet.
But let each say over their wine-cup: Health to
Messalla!”
and the name of the absent one be echoed in
every word.
Messalla, celebrated for your triumphs over
great victor, glory of your unshorn ancestors,
come to me, favour me, while I give thanks
with my verse to the gods of the fields.
I sing the country and the rural gods. With
them
as guides, men stopped chasing hunger away with
acorns,
they first taught him to build with wooden
beams,
and cover his meagre house with green leaves:
they also say they first taught bulls to be
servants,
and set the wheels underneath the wagon.
Then savage ways
vanished, then the fruit tree was planted, and the fertile garden drank
irrigating water,
then the golden grapes
gave up their juice to trampling feet,
and sober water was
mingled with carefree wine.
The country bears the
harvest, when, each year,
the earth sheds its
yellow hair, in the sky’s fiery heat.
The swift bee heaps the springtime hive with
pollen,
busily filling the combs with sweet honey.
Then the farmer sated with constant ploughing
first sang rural words to sure melodies,
replete, first made a tune on a dried reed,
to play before the gods he’d decorated:
Bacchus, it was a farmer first dyed himself
with red
and led the dancing with unskilled art.
He too who, offering a he-goat, the leader of
his flock,
prime gift from the full fold, increased his
scant wealth.
In the country, a boy first made a wreath of
spring flowers
and garlanded the ancient Lares with it.
In the country, too, there’s the sheep, work
for young girls
in the soft fleece it wears on its gleaming
back.
Women’s labour comes from it, the weight of
wool,
distaff, and spindle’s work, turned in the
fingers:
and the girl who’s spinning sings, in Minerva’s
endless toil,
and the loom vibrates to the rhythm of her
body.
They say that Cupid himself was born in the
fields
and among the flocks and the wild mares.
There he first practised with the untrained
bow:
ah, what skilful hands he has now!
He doesn’t aim at creatures as before, it’s
piercing girls
excites him, and subjugating proud men.
He robs the young of their wealth, commands old
men
to speak shameful words at an angry girl’s
threshold.
He guides the girl who, passing the sleeping
guards,
secret, alone, comes to her lover in the
darkness,
feeling her way with her feet, in fear’s suspense,
and exploring the shadows before her with her
hand.
Ah wretched ones, whom the god bears down on
fiercely!
But he’s happy whom gentle Love breathes softly
on.
Sacred One, come to our festive meal: but set
aside
your arrows I beg, leave your burning torch far
from here.
All sing the god we glorify, and call him by
your voices
to the herd: call for the herd aloud, for
yourselves in silence.
Or perhaps aloud for yourselves: since the
happy crowd
will drown it, and the curved pipe’s Phrygian
note.
Play: now Night yokes her team, and the golden
stars
follow their mother’s chariot, playful dancers,
and after them silent Sleep comes, furled in
dark wings
and ill-omened Dream with wandering steps.
whoever is here, man or woman, be silent.
Let fire burn the sacred incense, burn the
resins
which the gentle Arab sends from his rich land.
Let the Guardian Spirit come to see his
honours,
and let soft garlands wreathe his sacred head.
Let his temples drip with pure balsam,
let him be filled with cake, and soaked with
wine.
Whatever you ask for, Cornutus, he will nod.
Look, ask, come on (Why stop? He nods).
I prophesy you’ll wish for your wife’s true
love:
I think the gods themselves have learnt that by
now.
You’d not prefer to have all the land in the
world
that sturdy farmers plough with strong oxen,
nor all the pearls produced by happy
where the waves of
Your prayers are fulfilled: see how Love flies
to you
on whirring wings, brings yellow ribbons to
your wife,
ties that last forever, while slow age
brings wrinkles and whitens your hair.
Let it be so, birth day, and show an omen of
children to be,
and let a crowd of young ones play around your
feet.
ah, he’s made of iron who can stay in the city.
Venus herself has gone now to open fields,
and Love’s learning the farmer’s rustic words.
Oh, if I could only gaze at my girl, how firmly
I’d turn the rich soil there with my strong
hoe,
and follow the curving blade as a ploughman,
while the bullocks carved clods for the sowing!
I wouldn’t complain if the sun burnt my slender
limbs
or broken blisters wounded my sensitive hands.
Apollo, the beautiful, fed the bulls of
Admetus:
his lyre and his uncut hair did him no good,
nor could he cure his illness with
health-giving herbs:
love conquered whatever of his art might heal.
They say the god himself used to drive cows
from the byre………………………………..
and taught how to mix rennet in with fresh
milk,
and curdled the milky liquid as it was stirred.
Then the basket was woven from light stems of
rushes,
and thin passages made, through the lattice,
for the whey.
Oh how often his sister blushed at meeting him
as he carried a young calf through the fields!
Oh how often the lowing cattle dared to disturb
his skilled song as he sang, deep in the
valley!
Often leaders sought oracles on matters of
note,
a disappointed company came home from his
temple:
often Latona lamented the roughness of his
sacred hair
which had been a wonder to his stepmother
before.
Whoever saw his head undressed, his loosened
hair,
would have asked where the locks of Phoebus
were.
Where is your
Love indeed commands you to a humble shed.
Happy those, once, when, they say, the eternal
gods
were not ashamed openly to be slaves of Venus.
Now he’s a myth: but he who cares for his girl
would rather be talked of than be a god without
love.
But you, whoever you are, whom frowning Cupid
orders to set up camp in my house………………..
(…you too may be replaced by a richer lover…..)
this age of iron praises profit not passion,
and yet profit’s involved in many evils.
Profit equips the fierce soldiers with weapons
of war:
from that blood and slaughter, and death come
nearer.
Profit doubles the danger of the fickle sea,
giving war-rams to precarious ships.
The profiteer longs to occupy vast plains
to graze his innumerable sheep on their many
acres:
he fancies foreign marble, and the columns are
carried
through the trembling city, by a thousand
strong pairs:
dams enclose the ungovernable sea, so that, in
their calm,
the fish can ignore the approach of threatening
storms.
But let my joyous feast attract only Samian
ware,
and the smooth clay that
Ah, I see that young girls delight in the rich:
then let profit appear if Venus wishes for
wealth:
so that my Nemesis might flow with luxury, and
walk,
conspicuous by my gifts, through the city.
Let her wear the thin silks, that some women of
has woven, laying the fabric out in golden
bands:
let dusky followers be hers, whom
and the sun darkened as his horses drove so
near:
let
compete to offer her the choicest dyes.
I say what’s known: he holds a kingdom who was
forced,
often, on the cruel slave platform to endure
chalked feet.
May Earth pay nothing of faithful seed to you,
cruel fields that steal Nemesis from the city.
And you, tender Bacchus, who plant the pleasing
vine,
relinquish the vats on which we’ve placed a
curse.
No one’s allowed to hide lovely girls among
gloomy fields
with impunity: father, your new wine’s not
worth that.
Oh let the fruits of the earth prevail, let
there be no girls
in the country: eat acorns, and drink water in
the old way.
Acorns fed the ancients, and they made love
everywhere:
what harm was it to them to have no sown
furrows?
Then gentle Venus brought joy, openly, in the
shadows
of valleys, to those whom Love breathed kindly
on.
No watchman there, no door to be shut on the
man
who lamented. If it be right, I pray those ways
return.
………………………………………………………..
Let coarse limbs be clothed in shaggy garments.
Now if my love’s shut in, if I can see her
seldom,
ah me, what joy is there in a flowing toga?
Lead me away: I’ll plough the fields on my
lady’s orders:
I’ll not deny myself the chains and lash.
farewell now to the freedom of my fathers.
I’m given to sad slavery, held by chains,
and Love never slackens my wretched bonds,
but burns me whether I merit it or I’m sinless.
Oh, I burn: cruel girl remove the flame.
O not to be able to feel such pain,
how much better to be a stone on the frozen
hills,
or stand, a rock, exposed to the void of winds,
on which the shipwrecked wave of the vast sea
breaks.
Now the day is bitter, the shadows of night
more bitter:
now every moment’s soaked in acerbic gall.
Verse is no help, nor Apollo who inspires my
song:
her hollow palm is always demanding gifts.
Vanish Muses, if you’ll give no help to lovers:
I don’t cultivate you so warfare can be sung,
nor do I tell the journeys of the Sun, nor how
the Moon
wheels her horses and returns, her circuit
done.
I seek by song to gain easy access to my
mistress:
Vanish, Muses, if the thing is of no use.
I need to acquire gifts for you by crimes and
slaughter,
so as not to lie weeping before your closed
house:
or snatch the ornaments that hang in sacred
temples:
But Venus’s before all others is for me to
pillage.
She urges me on to wicked crimes and grants me
a greedy mistress: let her feel my sacrilegious
hands.
Oh let whoever gathers the deep green emeralds
perish,
or dyes the snowy fleece with Tyrian purples.
Silks of
are the cause of greed in girls.
They make them wicked: because of them the door
knows the key, and the dog’s set to guard the
threshold.
But if you bear great gifts the watchman’s
conquered,
keys don’t prevent it, the very dog is silent.
Ah, whichever god gave beauty to the greedy
girl,
what good he brought wholly to grief!
From it weeping and squabbling rises, in short
it’s why
the God of Love wanders now in infamy.
And you, who shut out lovers, beaten by gifts,
may wind and flame snatch away your wealth.
May the young men delight in seeing the blaze,
and no one busy themselves throwing water on
the fire.
Or if death comes to you, let there be none to
weep,
or bring gifts to your mournful funeral.
But she who’s kind, not greedy, let her live
a hundred years, to be wept for by the burning
pyre:
And some aged man in homage to his past love
will yearly set a garland on her heaped tomb,
and, as he leaves, will say: “Sleep well, and
sleep in peace,
and on your untroubled ashes may the earth lie light.”
I give true warning, but what use is truth to
me?
My love’s to be cherished as she ordains.
Why, even if she ordered me to sell my
ancestral home,
you Lares must go
under the hammer, at her command.
Let Nemesis mix
whatever drugs Circe or Medea possess,
and whatever herbs the
earth of
that fluid that drips
from the vulva of a mare on heat
when Venus breathes
passion into the wild herd,
and a thousand other
herbs, if only she’ll look
with kindness on me, I
will drink.
Come to us, come now, with lyre and song.
Now I pray let your fingers pluck the sounding
strings,
now harmonise my words to modes of praise.
Come to your rites, yourself, while they heap
the altar,
your brow wreathed with triumphal laurel.
Come, shining, beautiful: put on your choicest
garments,
now comb your flowing hair carefully,
be as they say you were when Saturn fled his
throne,
and you sang in praise of victorious Jove.
You see the future
from afar, your sworn augur knows,
in truth, what the
prophetic bird of fate is singing:
you control the lots:
through you the seer reads
the glistening
entrails where the god has set his mark:
with you as guide, the
Sibyl, who sings hidden fate
in six-beat measure,
has never failed the Romans.
Let Messallinus touch the prophetess’s sacred
scroll,
and teach him yourself, Phoebus, I beg you,
what she sings.
She told Aeneas his fate, they say, after he’d
carried
his father on his shoulders, taken the Lares in
his arms:
not believing
in sorrow, on
(
of the eternal City, no place for his brother
Remus:
but the cattle grazed then on a grassy
and humble huts stood on the heights of Jove.
There Pan was drenched with milk in the holm
oak’s shade,
and Pales was cut from wood by a rural knife,
and the garrulous pipes, sacred to the woodland
god,
hung on a tree, an offering from the wandering
shepherd,
pipes with their ever shortening row of reeds,
since wax joins each hollow stem to a lesser
one.
But where the district of Velabrum stretches,
small boats used to send a wave through the
shallows.
Often a girl, pleasing to some rich owner of a
herd,
was ferried across on holidays to her lover,
returning with the gifts of a thriving farm,
cheese, and a white lamb from a snowy ewe.)
“Un-resting Aeneas, brother of winged Cupid,
whose exiled ships carry the sacred relics of
now Jupiter grants you the fields of Laurentum,
now a friendly land calls to your wandering
Lares.
There you’ll become a local god, when the waves
of revered Numicius send you heaven-wards.
See Victory flies above your weary fleet:
the proud goddess comes at last to the Trojans.
See fire shines towards me from the Rutule
camp:
now savage Turnus I predict your death.
Before my eyes are Laurentum’s fort, Lavinium’s
wall,
and
Now I see you also, Ilia, priestess pleasing to
Mars,
deserting the Vestal Virgin’s flame:
your secret union, your headband discarded,
the passionate god’s weapons abandoned on the
bank.
Browse, bulls, while you can on the grass
of the seven hills: here soon a great city will
be sited.
wherever Ceres sees her fields from heaven,
where dawn appears, and where in flowing waves
the
Then past
you’ve truly consoled her, by your long
journey.
I sing the truth: so may I always chew the
sacred laurel
without harm, and eternal chastity always be
mine.”
So the prophetess sang, and called you to her,
Phoebus,
and tossed her flowing hair before her face.
All that Amalthea told, and Herophile of
Marpessos,
all the warnings of Phoeto of Greece,
and all the sacred
words that the Sibyl of Tibur carried through Anio’s stream, brought back in
her dry breast,
all spoke of a comet
to come, an evil sign of war,
and that many stones
would shower onto the earth.
And they say the
trumpets and clash of weapons were heard in heaven, and the sacred groves
chanted the coming rout:
and the statues of the
gods poured out hot tears,
and the cries of the
cattle foreshadowed fate.
The clouded year even
saw the Sun himself eclipsed
by day, yoking pale
horses to his chariot.
So once it was, but at
last, you, kind Apollo,
submerge monstrous
things in the savage depths:
let the kindling
laurel crackle loud in the sacred flames,
omen that it will be a
happy and fruitful year.
When the laurel has
given its auspicious sign, farmers
be joyful, Ceres will
fill your barns with rich harvest,
and stained with the
vintage the countryman will press
grapes with his feet,
till he runs short of big jars and vats:
and the shepherd,
drenched with wine, will celebrate
the feast of Pales:
then, wolves be far from the fold.
Drunk he’ll fire the
light heaps of straw as appointed
and leap through the
sacred flames.
And the mother will
bear him a child,
the child grab his
father’s ears to snatch a kiss:
and the grandfather
won’t be bored with watching
his little grandson,
the old man babbling with the young.
Then people serving
the god will recline on the grass,
where the light
shadows of an ancient tree fall,
or spread out canopies
from cloths crowned with garlands,
and wreathe the
wine-cups themselves where they stand.
Then each, for
himself, will heap up the banquet
and make a feast, the
tables and couches of turf.
Here the young lad in
drink will heap curses on his girl,
which he’ll soon wish
to render vain with prayers.
That same man, whose
savage with her, will weep
when he’s sober, and
swear he was out of his mind.
Phoebus, if you will,
let arrows and bows vanish
so that Love might
wander the earth unarmed.
It’s a skilled art, but
since Cupid took up archery
how many, alas, has
that art inflicted sorrow on!
And me above all: I’ve
been wounded for a year now,
and I add to my
sickness, since the pain itself delights,
I sing endlessly of
Nemesis, without whom my poetry
can’t even devise the
proper words or measure.
But you, I warn, spare
your sacred poet, girl,
since there’s a
guardian god watches over poets,
so that I may tell of
Messalinus, when he carries
with wild bay,
singing: “Io, Triumphe” in loud voices.
Then let my Messalla
grant the crowd the pious sight
of a father applauding
his son’s chariot as it goes by.
Grant this, Phoebus:
so let your hair be ever unshorn,
so let your sister be
forever pure.
Will he go too, and
bravely carry weapons round his neck?
And will he go, with
his sword, by the warrior’s side, whether the way leads over distant lands or
restless seas?
Boy, brand the savage,
I beg, who’s broken your peace
and call the straggler
back to your standard again.
But if you spare
soldiers, well then, here’s a soldier too,
who’d carry sweet
water for himself in his helmet.
I’m off to camp,
goodbye Venus, goodbye girls:
I’m tough too, for me
too the trumpet was created.
Brave speech, but when
I’ve uttered the proud boast
the door closing
dashes the bold words from my lips.
How often have I sworn
never to return to her threshold?
For all the fine
oaths, my feet return themselves.
Fierce Love, I wish,
if were it possible, your weapons
could be broken, your
arrows destroyed, torches quenched.
You torment the
wretched, you force me to curse myself,
and utter wickedness
from my maddened spirit.
I’d already have ended
my ills in death, but hope,
believing, fuels life,
saying, ever, tomorrow will be better.
Hope nourishes the
farmer, hope entrusts the seed
to the ploughed
furrows to be returned with interest:
it takes the bird in
the noose, the fish with the rod,
after the slender
hook’s first hidden by the bait:
hope even consoles the
slave bound with strong chains:
his legs are struck by
the iron, but he sings at his labour:
hope promises Nemesis
will be kind: but she declines.
Ah me, harsh girl
don’t deny the goddess. Spare me,
I pray, by the bones
of your sister dead before her time:
so may the little one
sleep in peace beneath the gentle earth.
To me she’s sacred:
I’ll bring gifts and garlands
wet with my tears, to
her grave. I’ll hurry
to her tomb, and
sitting there as a suppliant
I’ll lament my fate to
her silent dust.
She won’t always
suffer your follower to weep near you:
in her name, don’t be
cold towards me,
lest her spirit
slighted sends you evil dreams, and, in sleep, your sorrowful sister stands
before your bed,
such as she was when
falling from that high window
she went headlong,
blood-spattered, to the lakes below.
I’ll say no more, lest
I stir my lady’s bitter grief,
I’m not worthy enough
that she should ever weep.
Nor should tears
disfigure those speaking eyes:
the go-between harms
me, the girl herself is good.
Phryne, the bawd,
denies me, alas, as she comes and goes
secretly hiding the
letters she carries in her bosom.
Often when I recognise
my lady’s sweet voice
from the cruel threshold,
the go-between denies she’s home:
often, when the
night’s been promised me, she declares
the girl is ill or has
been frightened by some warning.
Then I die with
anxiety, then my wild mind imagines
who embraces my love,
and in what ways:
anxiously enough if
any part of my prayer stirs the gods.
Sulpicia’s dressed for
you, great Mars, on your Calends:
come from the sky
yourself, to see her, if you’re wise.
Venus will forgive
you: but you, violent one, beware
lest your weapons
fall, shamefully, in wonder.
Cruel Love lights his
twin torches from her eyes,
when he would set fire
to the gods themselves.
Whatever she does,
wherever she turns her steps,
Grace follows her
secretly to prepare everything.
If she loosens her
hair, flowing tresses become her:
if she arranges it,
the curls she’s arranged are divine.
She inflames, if she
chooses to walk in a Tyrian gown:
she inflames, if she
comes gleaming in white robes.
So, pleasing Vertumnus
wears a thousand fashions
on eternal
Sole among girls she’s
worthy that
soft wool twice dipped
in costly dyes,
and she possess
whatever the rich Arab, the farmer
of perfumed fields,
reaps from his fragrant lands,
and whatever gems the
dark Indian gathers
from the red shores of
the waters near to the Dawn.
You Muses, sing of
her, on the festive Calends,
and you, proud
Phoebus, to the tortoiseshell lyre.
She’ll carry out this
sacred rite for many a year:
no girl is more worthy
of your choir.
or deep among shaded
hills, wild boar, spare my boy,
don’t let your strong
tusks be sharpened for attack:
let guardian Love keep
him safe for me.
But Diana leads him on
with love of hunting.
O, let the woods die,
and the dogs be lost!
What madness, to want
to wound soft hands
encircling the wooded
hill, in your drive?
What pleasure is it to
creep into wild beasts’ lairs
and scratch your
gleaming legs with sharp briars?
And yet, Cerinthus, if
I might wander with you
I’d carry the tangled
nets over the hills myself,
chase the tracks of
the quick deer myself
and loose the swift
hound’s iron chain.
Then the woods would
please me, my love,
when it’s known I’ve
lain with you, beside your nets:
Though the wild boar
comes to the snare, then,
he’ll go safe, lest he
disturb the joy of eager passion.
Now let there be no
love without me, by Diana’s law
chaste boy, lay chaste
hands on the nets:
and whoever steals
secretly into my place,
let her fall to the
wild beasts, and be torn apart.
And you leave the
study of hunting to your father,
and hurry back quickly
to my breast.
come, proud, with your
unshorn curls.
Trust me, and hurry:
Phoebus, you won’t regret
having laid healing
hands on her beauty.
See that no wasting
disease grips her pale body,
no unpleasant marks
stain her weak limbs,
and whatever ills
exist, whatever sadness we fear,
let the swift
river-waters carry them to the sea.
Come, sacred one,
bring delicacies with you,
and whatever songs
ease the weary body:
Don’t torment the
youth, who fears for the girl’s fate,
and offers countless
prayers for his mistress.
Sometimes he prays,
sometimes, because she’s ill,
he speaks bitter words
to the eternal gods.
Fear not, Cerinthus:
the god won’t harm lovers.
Only love always: and
your girl is well.
No need to weep: tears
will be more fitting,
if she’s ever more
severe towards you.
But now she’s all
yours: the lovely girl
thinks only of you, and a hopeful crowd wait in
vain.
Phoebus, be gracious.
Great praise will be due to you
in saving one life
you’ll have restored the two.
Soon you’ll be
honoured, delighted, when both, safe,
compete to repay the
debt at your sacred altar.
Then the holy company
of gods will call you happy,
and each desire your
own art for themselves.
to me, and will always
be among the days of joy.
When you were born the
Fates sang out new slavery
for girls, and gave
you proud sovereignty.
I burn more fiercely
than the others. It’s joy to burn,
Cerinthus, if from my
fire shared fire enters you.
Let love be shared, I
ask it, by your sweetest theft,
by your eyes, by your
guardian spirit.
Stay spirit, take this
glad incense, and favour my prayers:
if only he’s inflamed
when he thinks of me.
But if even now he
sighs deeply for another,
then leave your
faithless altar, sacred one.
And don’t you be
unjust, Venus, let both serve you,
equally as slaves, or
lighten my chains.
Rather let us both be
held by heavy shackles,
that no day after this
might ever loosen.
The boy wants the same
as me, but hides his longing:
he’s ashamed as yet to
say the words aloud.
But you, birth spirit,
since you’re an all-seeing god,
assent: what matter if
he asks it silently or aloud?
that the learned
girl’s gentle hand offers you.
She’s bathed for you,
today, dressed herself so gladly,
to stand before your
altar, visible to all.
She ascribes the cause
to you, goddess, it’s true:
yet there’s one she
secretly desires to please.
Then be gracious,
sacred one, let no one separate
the lovers, but, I beg
you, forge the same fetters for the boy.
You’ll do well to join
them: there’s no girl he
might more fittingly
serve, and no man her.
And may no wakeful
guard surprise their passion,
and Love provide a
thousand pathways of deceit.
Assent, Juno, and
come, bright in your purple robes:
three times they offer
cake, chaste goddess, three times
wine, and the mother
tells the daughter what to wish for:
while she in the
silence of her heart asks something other.
She burns as the altar
burns with swift flames,
and would not wish to
be unscathed, even if she could.
Juno, be gracious, so
that when next year comes
this same love, that
is, will still be in their prayers.
Won over by my Muse,
Venus of
brought him, and
placed him here in my arms.
Venus fulfils what she
promised: let my joy be told,
spoken by him who has
no joy of his own.
I wouldn’t wish at all
to command my letters sealed
so that none can read
them before my lover does.
I delight in my sin: I
loathe composing my looks
for public approval: let them declare worth
meets worth.
in the wretched
country, and without Cerinthus.
What’s sweeter than
the city? Is a villa fit for a girl
or that chilly river
that runs through Arretium’s fields?
Peace now, Messalla,
no over-zealous care of me:
journeys, dear
relative, aren’t always welcome.
Snatched away, I leave
my mind and feelings here,
she coercion won’t allow to make her own
decisions.
been lifted from your
girl’s spirit? Now I can be in
for my birthday. Let’s
all celebrate this birthday
that comes to you,
now, by unexpected chance.
now you allow yourself
free reign, and are careless of me.
Any toga, any whore
loaded down by a basket of wool
is dearer to you than
Sulpicia, Servius’s daughter.
But they’re anxious
for me, those for whom the greatest
reason for grief is
lest I give myself to an unworthy bed.
now that fever wastes
my weary body?
Ah, otherwise, I would
not want to conquer
sad illness, if I
thought you did not wish it too.
And what use is it to
me to conquer illness, if you
endure my trouble with
an indifferent heart?
as I seem to have been
a few days ago,
if I’ve done anything
in my foolish youth
I’ve owned to
regretting more
than leaving you,
alone, last night
wanting to hide the
desire inside me.
Let other men gather bright gold to themselves
More wine:
and let new pain be lessened
Will you
cross the Aegean Sea without me, Messalla,
“So the
protective shadows might be yours,
I was
harsh, and said I could bear separation well:
Always you meet me with seductive looks, Love,
The
Fates sang of this day as they wove the thread,
No one
can hide that lover’s nod from me
If you were to wound my wretched love, why did you give
Who was
he, who first forged the fearful sword?
Whoever
is here, attend: we purify crops and fields,
Let us
only speak good: the birth day comes to the altar:
Cornutus,
my girl’s in the country, at a villa:
Here I
see mistress and slavery ready for me:
Phoebus,
show favour: a new priest enters your temple.
Macer is
off to the camp: what will happen to tender Love?
Whether
you live on the plain’s rich pastures
Phoebus,
come, drive away the gentle girl’s illness,
That day
that gave you to me, Cerinthus, will be sacred
Juno,
birth-spirit, accept the sacred heaps of incense
Love has
come at last, such love that to hide it in shame
would be
worse than being spoken of for showing it.
My
hateful birthday’s here, to be spent in sadness,
Did you
know the threat of that wretched journey’s
Be
grateful I’ll not suddenly fall into evil foolishness,
Have you
any kind thought for your girl, Cerinthus,
Let me
not be such a feverish passion to you, my love,