Carmina

Heirless, but issue like of kind

Engendered aye should be.

A wee Torquaitus fain I’d see

Encradled on his mother’s breast

Put forth his tender puds while he

Smiles to his sire with sweetest gest

And liplets half apart.

Let son like father’s semblance show

(Manlius!) so with easy guess

All know him where his sire they know,

And still his face and form express

His mother’s honest love.

Approve shall fair approof his birth

From mother’s seed-stock generous,

As rarest fame of mother’s worth

Unique exalts Telemachus

Penelope’s own son.

Fast close the door-leaves, virgin band:

Enow we’ve played.But ye the fair

New-wedded twain live happy, and

Functions of lusty married pair

Exercise sans surcease.

Vesper is here, O youths, rise all; for Vesper Olympus

Scales and in fine enfires what lights so long were expected!

Time ’tis now to arise, now leave we tables rich laden,

Now shall the Virgin come; now chaunt we the Hymenaeus.

Hymen O Hymenaeus: Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!

View ye the Youths, O Maids unwed? Then rise to withstand them:

Doubtless the night-fraught Star displays his splendour Oetean.

Sooth ’tis so; d’ye sight how Speedily sprang they to warfare?

Nor for a naught up-sprang: they’ll Sing what need we to conquer.

Hymen O Hymenaeus: Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!

Nowise easy the palm for us (Companions!) be proffer’d,

Lo! now the maidens muse and meditate matter of forethought

Nor meditate they in vain; they muse a humorous something.

Yet naught wonder it is, their sprites be wholly in labour.

We bear divided thought one way and hearing in other:

Vanquish’t by right we must be, since Victory loveth the heedful.

Therefore at least d’ye turn your minds the task to consider,

Soon shall begin their say whose countersay shall befit you.

Hymen O Hymenaeus: Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!

Hesperus! say what flame more cruel in Heaven be fanned?

Thou who the girl perforce canst tear from a mother’s embraces,

Tear from a parent’s clasp her child despite of her clinging

And upon love-hot youth bestowest her chastest of maidenhoods!

What shall the foeman deal more cruel to city becaptured?

Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!

Hesperus! say what flame more gladsome in Heavens be shining?

Thou whose light makes sure long-pledged connubial promise

Plighted erewhile by men and erstwhile plighted by parents.

Yet to be ne’er fulfilled before thy fire’s ardours have risen!

What better boon can the gods bestow than hour so desirèd?

Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!

Hesperus! one of ourselves (Companions!) carried elsewhither

Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!

For at thy coming in sight a guard is constantly watching.

Hidden o’nights lurk thieves and these as oft as returnest,

Hesper! thou seizest them with title changed to Eous.

Pleases the bevy unwed with feigned complaints to accuse thee.

What if assail they whom their souls in secrecy cherish?

Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!

E’en as a flow’ret born secluded in garden enclosed,

Unto the flock unknown and ne’er uptorn by the ploughshare,

Soothed by the zephyrs and strengthened by suns and nourish’t by showers

Loves her many a youth and longs for her many a maiden:

Yet from her lissome stalk when cropt that flower deflowered,

Loves her never a youth nor longs for her ever a maiden:

Thus while the virgin be whole, such while she’s the dearling of kinsfolk;

Yet no sooner is lost her bloom from body polluted,

Neither to youths she is joy, nor a dearling she to the maidens.

Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!

E’en as an unmated vine which born in field of the barest

Never upraises head nor breeds the mellowy grape-bunch,

But under weight prone-bowed that tender body a-bending

Makes she her root anon to touch her topmost of tendrils;

Tends her never a hind nor tends her ever a herdsman:

Yet if haply conjoined the same with elm as a husband,

Tends her many a hind and tends her many a herdsman:

Thus is the maid when whole, uncultured waxes she aged;

But whenas union meet she wins her at ripest of seasons,

More to her spouse she is dear and less she’s irk to her parents.

Hymen O Hymenaeus, Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!

But do thou cease to resist (O Maid!) such bridegroom opposing,

Right it is not to resist whereto consigned thee a father,

Father and mother of thee unto whom obedience is owing.

Not is that maidenhood all thine own, but partly thy parents!

Owneth thy sire one third, one third is right of thy mother,

Only the third is thine: stint thee to strive with the others,

Who to the stranger son have yielded their dues with a dower!

Hymen O Hymenaeus: Hymen here, O Hymenaeus!

O’er high deep seas in speedy ship his voyage Atys sped

Until he trod the Phrygian grove with hurried eager tread

And as the gloomy tree-shorn stead, the she-god’s home, he sought

There sorely stung with fiery ire and madman’s vaguing thought,

Share he with sharpened flint the freight wherewith his form was fraught.

Then as the she-he sensed limbs were void of manly strain

And sighted freshly shed a-ground spot of ensanguined stain,

Snatched she the timbrel’s legier load with hands as snowdrops white,

Thy timbrel, Mother Cybele, the firstings of thy rite,

And as her tender finger-tips on bull-back hollow rang