Carmina

Then shall the high-reared tomb stand bathed with Polyxena’s life-blood,

Who, as the victim doomed to fall by the double-edged falchion,

Forward wi’ hams relaxt shall smite a body beheaded.

Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, O Spindles.

Wherefore arise, ye pair, conjoin loves ardently longed-for,

Now doth the groom receive with happiest omen his goddess,

Now let the bride at length to her yearning spouse be delivered.

Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, O Spindles.

Neither the nurse who comes at dawn to visit her nursling

E’er shall avail her neck to begird with yesterday’s ribband.

[Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, O spindles.]

Nor shall the mother’s soul for ill-matcht daughter a-grieving

Lose by a parted couch all hopes of favourite grandsons.

Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ye, O Spindles.

Thus in the bygone day Peleus’ fate foretelling

Chaunted from breasts divine prophetic verse the Parcae.

For that the pure chaste homes of heroes to visit in person

Oft-tide the Gods, and themselves to display where mortals were gathered,

Wont were the Heavenlies while none human piety spurned.

Often the Deities’ Sire, in fulgent temple a-dwelling,

Whenas in festal days received he his annual worship,

Looked upon hundreds of bulls felled prone on pavement before him.

Full oft Liber who roamed from topmost peak of Parnassus

Hunted his howling host, his Thyiads with tresses dishevelled.

Then with contending troops from all their city outflocking

Gladly the Delphians hailed their God with smoking of altars.

Often in death-full war and bravest of battle, or Mavors

Or rapid Triton’s Queen or eke the Virgin Rhamnusian,

Bevies of weaponed men exhorting, proved their presence.

But from the time when earth was stained with unspeakable scandals

And forth fro’ greeding breasts of all men justice departed,

Then did the brother drench his hands in brotherly bloodshed,

Stinted the son in heart to mourn decease of his parents,

Longèd the sire to sight his first-born’s funeral convoy

So more freely the flower of step-dame-maiden to rifle;

After that impious Queen her guiltless son underlying,

Impious, the household gods with crime ne’er dreading to sully—

All things fair and nefand being mixt in fury of evil

Turned from ourselves avert the great goodwill of the Godheads.

Wherefor they nowise deign our human assemblies to visit,

Nor do they suffer themselves be met in light of the day-tide.

Albeit care that consumes, with dule assiduous grieving,

Me from the Learnèd Maids (Hortalus!) ever seclude,

Nor can avail sweet births of the Muses thou to deliver

Thought o’ my mind; (so much floats it on flooding of ills:

For that the Lethe-wave upsurging of late from abysses,

Lavèd my brother’s foot, paling with pallor of death,

He whom the Trojan soil, Rhoetean shore underlying,

Buries for ever and aye, forcibly snatched from our sight.

I can address; no more shall I hear thee tell of thy doings,

Say, shall I never again, brother all liefer than life,

Sight thee henceforth? But I will surely love thee for ever

Ever what songs I sing saddened shall be by thy death;

Such as the Daulian bird ’neath gloom of shadowy frondage

Warbles, of Itys lost ever bemoaning the lot.)

Yet amid grief so great to thee, my Hortalus, send I

These strains sung to a mode borrowed from Battiades;

Lest shouldest weet of me thy words, to wandering wind-gusts

Vainly committed, perchance forth of my memory flowed—

As did that apple sent for a furtive giftie by wooer,

In the chaste breast of the Maid hidden a-sudden out-sprang;

For did the hapless forget when in loose-girt garment it lurkèd,

Forth would it leap as she rose, scared by her mother’s approach,

And while coursing headlong, it rolls far out of her keeping,

O’er the triste virgin’s brow flushes the conscious blush.

He who every light of the sky world’s vastness inspected,

He who mastered in mind risings and settings of stars,

How of the fast rising sun obscured be the fiery splendours,

How at the seasons assured vanish the planets from view,

How Diana to lurk thief-like ’neath Latmian stone-fields,

Summoned by sweetness of Love, comes from her aëry gyre;

That same Cónon espied among lights Celestial shining

Me, Berenice’s Hair, which, from her glorious head,

Fulgent in brightness afar, to many a host of the Godheads

Stretching her soft smooth arms she vowed to devoutly bestow,

What time strengthened by joy of new-made wedlock the monarch

Bounds of Assyrian land hurried to plunder and pill;

Bearing of nightly strife new signs and traces delicious,

Won in the war he waged virginal trophies to win.

Loathsome is Venus to all new-paired? Else why be the parents’

Pleasure frustrated aye by the false flow of tears

Poured in profusion amid illuminate genial chamber?

Nay not real the ’groans; ever so help me the Gods!

This truth taught me my Queen by force of manifold ’plainings

After her new groom hied facing the fierceness of fight.

Yet so thou mournedst not for a bed deserted of husband,

As for a brother beloved wending on woefullest way?

How was the marrow of thee consumedly wasted by sorrow!

So clean forth of thy breast, rackt with solicitous care,

Mind fled, sense being reft! But I have known thee for certain

E’en from young virginal years lofty of spirit to be.

Hast thou forgotten the feat whose greatness won thee a royal

Marriage—a deed so prow, never a prower was dared?

Yet how sad was the speech thou spakest, thy husband farewelling!

(Jupiter!) Often thine eyes wiping with sorrowful hand!

What manner God so great thus changed thee? Is it that lovers

Never will tarry afar parted from person beloved?

Then unto every God on behalf of thy helpmate, thy sweeting,

Me thou gayest in vow, not without bloodshed of bulls,

If he be granted return, and long while nowise delaying,