BkIII:XXV Bacchanalian Song
BkIII:XXV Bacchanalian Song
Where are you taking me, Bacchus,
now I’m full of you? To what caves or groves, driven,
swiftly, by new inspiration?
In what caverns will I be heard planning to set
illustrious Caesar’s lasting
glory among the stars, in the councils of Jove?
I’ll sing a recent achievement,
not yet sung by other lips. So does the sleepless
Bacchante, stand in amazement
on a mountain-ridge, gazing at Hebrus, at Thrace,
shining with snow, at Rhodope,
trodden by barbarous feet, even as I like
to wander gazing, at river
banks, and echoing groves. O master of Naiads,
of Bacchae owning the power
to uproot the tallest ash-trees, with their bare hands,
I’ll sing nothing trivial, no
humble measure, nothing that dies. O, Lenaeus,
the danger of following a god
is sweet, wreathing my brow with green leaves of the vine.
BkIII:XX The Conflict
BkIII:XX The Conflict
Pyrrhus, you can’t see how dangerous it is
to touch the Gaetulian lioness’ cub?
Soon you’ll be running from all that hard fighting,
a spiritless thief,
while she goes searching for lovely Nearchus,
through obstructive crowds of young men: ah, surely
the fight will be great, whether the prize is yours,
or, more likely, hers.
Meanwhile, as you produce your swift arrows, as
she is sharpening her fearsome teeth, the battle’s
fine judge is said to have trampled the palm leaf,
beneath his bare foot,
and he’s cooling his shoulders, draped in perfumed
hair, in the gentle breeze, just like Nireus,
or like Ganymede, who was snatched away from
Ida rich in streams.
BkIII:XXII To Diana
BkIII:XXII To Diana
Virgin protectress of the mountain and the grove,
who, called on three times, hears young girls, labouring
through childbirth, and rescues them from dying, O
triple formed goddess,
may it be yours, this pine-tree above my farm,
so that I may, happily, through passing years,
offer it the blood of a boar, that’s trying
its first sidelong thrusts.
BkIII:XVII The Approaching Storm
BkIII:XVII The Approaching Storm
Aelius, noble descendant of ancient
Lamus (and they say the Lamiae of old
were named from him, the ancestral line,
through all of our recorded history):
you come from him, the original founder,
who, it’s said, first held the walls of Formiae
and Latium’s River Liris where
it floods the shores of the nymph, Marica,
he the lord, far and wide. Tomorrow a storm
sent from the East, will fill all the woodland grove
with leaves, and the sands with useless weed,
unless the raven, old prophet of rain,
is wrong. Pile up the dry firewood while you can:
tomorrow, with your servants, released from their
labours, cheer your spirit with neat wine,
and a little pig, only two months old.
BkIII:XV Too Old
BkIII:XV Too Old
O, dear wife of poor Ibycus,
put an end to your wickedness, at last, and all
of your infamous goings-on:
now you are nearer the season for dying,
stop playing about with the girls,
and scattering a mist over shining stars.
What fits Pholoe is not quite
fitting for you, Chloris: while your daughter’s more
suited to storming the houses of lovers,
like a Bacchante stirred by the beating drum.
Her love for Nothus forces her
to gambol like a lascivious she-goat:
the wool that’s shorn near to noble
Luceria’s fitting for you, sad old thing,
not the dark red flower of the rose,
nor the lyre, nor the wine-jars drained to their dregs
BkIII:XIV Augustus Returns
BkIII:XIV Augustus Returns
O citizens, conquering Caesar is home
from the Spanish shores, who, like Hercules, now
was said to be seeking that laurel, that’s bought
at the price of death.
May his wife rejoice in a matchless husband,
having sacrificed to true gods, appear now
with our famous leader’s sister, and, all dressed
in holy ribbons,
the mothers of virgins and youths, now safe and
sound. And you, O you boys and you young girls who
are still without husbands, spare us any of
your ill-omened words
This day will be a true holiday for me,
and banish dark care: I’ll not fear civil war,
nor sudden death by violence, while Caesar has
command of the earth.
Go, now, you boys, seek out perfumes and garlands
and a jar that’s old as the Marsian War,
if any of them have managed to escape
Spartacus’s eyes.
And tell that graceful Neaera to hurry
and fasten all her perfumed hair in a knot:
if her hateful doorkeeper causes
delay, come away.
My greying hair softens a spirit eager
for arguments and passionate fights:
I’d not have endured it in my hot youth, while
Plancus was Consul.
BkIII:XII Neobule, to Herself
BkIII:XII Neobule, to Herself
Girls are wretched who can’t allow free play to love, or drown their cares
with sweet wine, those who, terrified, go around in fear of a tongue
lashing from one of their uncles.
Neobule, Cytherea’s winged boy snatches your wool stuff away
and your work, your devotion to busy Minerva, whenever
shining Liparean Hebrus,
that lover of yours, has bathed his oiled shoulders in Tiber’s waters,
even better a horseman than Bellerephon, never beaten
through slowness of fists or of feet,
clever too at spearing the deer, as they pour, in a startled herd,
across the wide open spaces, and quick to come at the wild boar
as it lurks in the dense thicket.
BkIII:X Cruel One
BkIII:X Cruel One
If you drank the water of furthest Don, Lyce,
married to some fierce husband, you’d still expose me
to the wailing winds of your native North country,
stretched out here by your cruel door.
Hear how the frame creaks, how the trees that are planted
inside your beautiful garden moan in the wind,
and how Jupiter’s pure power and divinity
ices over the fallen snow.
Set aside your disdain, it’s hateful to Venus,
lest the rope fly off, while the wheel is still turning:
you’re no Penelope, resistant to suitors,
nor born of Etruscan parents.
O, spare your suppliants, though nothing moves you,
not gifts, not my prayers, not your lover’s pallor,
that’s tinged with violet, nor your husband smitten
with a Pierian mistress,
you, no more pliant than an unbending oak-tree,
no gentler in spirit than a Moorish serpent.
My body won’t always put up with your threshold,
or the rain that falls from the sky.
BkIII:VII Be True
BkIII:VII Be True
Why weep, Asterie, for Gyges, whom west winds
will bring back to you at the first breath of springtime,
your lover constant in faith,
blessed with goods, from Bithynia?
Driven by easterlies as far as Epirus,
now, after Capella’s wild rising, he passes
chill nights of insomnia,
and not without many a tear.
Yet messages from his solicitous hostess,
telling how wretched Chloë sighs for your lover,
and burns with desire, tempts him
subtly and in a thousand ways.
She tells how a treacherous woman, making
false accusations, drove credulous Proteus
to bring a too-hasty death
to a too-chaste Bellerophon:
she tells of Peleus, nearly doomed to Hades,
fleeing Magnesian Hippolyte in abstinence:
and deceitfully teaches
tales that encourage wrongdoing.
All in vain: still untouched, he hears her voice, as deaf
as the Icarian cliffs. But take care yourself
lest Enipeus, next door,
pleases you more than is proper:
even though no one else is considered as fine
at controlling his horse, on the Campus’s turf,
and no one else swims as fast
as him, down the Tiber’s channel.
Close your doors when it’s dark, and don’t you go gazing
into the street, at the sound of his plaintive flute,
and when he keeps calling you
cruel, you still play hard to get.
BkIII:IV Temper Power With Wisdom
BkIII:IV Temper Power With Wisdom
O royal Calliope, come from heaven,
and play a lengthy melody on the flute,
or, if you prefer, use your clear voice,
or pluck at the strings of Apollo’s lute.
Do you hear her, or does some lovely fancy
toy with me? I hear, and seem to wander, now,
through the sacred groves, where delightful
waters steal, where delightful breezes stray.
In my childhood, once, on pathless Vultur’s slopes,
beyond the bounds of nurturing Apulia,
exhausted with my play and weariness,
the fabled doves covered me with new leaves,
which was a wonder to everyone who holds
Acherontia’s high nest, and Bantia’s
woodland pastures, and the rich meadows
of low-lying Forentum, since I slept
safe from the bears and from the dark vipers,
the sacred laurel and the gathered myrtle
spread above me, a courageous child,
though it was thanks to the power of the gods.
Yours Muses, yours, I climb the high Sabine Hills,
or I’m carried off to my cool Praeneste,
to the slopes of Tibur, if I please,
or the cloudless loveliness of Baiae.
A friend of your sacred fountains and your
choirs, the rout of the army at Philippi
failed to kill me, and that accursed
tree, and Palinurus’ Sicilian Sea.
Whenever you are with me, as a sailor
I’ll attempt the raging Bosphorus, or be
a traveller in the burning sands
of the Syrian shore: as a stranger
I’ll see the fierce inhospitable Britons,
the Spaniards that love drinking horses’ blood,
I’ll see the quiver-bearing Thracians,
and, unharmed, visit the Scythian stream.
It’s you then who refresh our noble Caesar,
in your Pierian caves, when he’s settled
his weary troops in all the cities,
and he’s ready to complete his labours.
You give calm advice, and you delight in that
giving, kindly ones. We know how the evil
Titans, how their savage supporters
were struck down by the lightning from above,
by him who rules the silent earth, the stormy
sea, the cities, and the kingdoms of darkness,
alone, in imperial justice,
commanding the gods and the mortal crowd.
Great terror was visited on Jupiter
by all those bold warriors bristling with hands,
and by the brothers who tried to set
Pelion on shadowy Olympus.
But what power could Giant Typhoeus have,
or mighty Mimas, or that Porphyrion
with his menacing stance, Rhoetus,
or Enceladus, audacious hurler
of uprooted trees, against the bronze breastplate,
Minerva’s aegis? On one side stood eager
Vulcan, on the other maternal
Juno, and Apollo of Patera
and Delos, who is never without the bow
on his shoulder, who bathes his flowing hair
in Castalia’s pure dew, who holds
the forests, and thickets of Lycia.
Power without wisdom falls by its own weight:
The gods themselves advance temperate power:
and likewise hate force that, with its whole
consciousness, is intent on wickedness.
Let hundred-handed Gyas be the witness
to my statement: Orion too, well-known as
chaste Dian’s attacker, and tamed
by the arrows of the virgin goddess.
Earth, heaped above her monstrous children, laments
and grieves for her offspring, hurled down to murky
Orcus by the lightning bolt: The swift
fires have not yet eaten Aetna, set there,
nor the vultures ceased tearing at the liver
of intemperate Tityus, those guardians placed
over his sin: and three hundred chains
hold the amorous Pirithous fast.
