VI. A DIALOGUE. Dic mihi de nostra, quae sentis, vera puella. PROPERTIUS. ALL that thou know'st of Cynthia let me hear : All messengers by truth should needs stand fast; Begin with open ears I'll drink the tale. Hast thou e'er seen her weep with ruffled hair, Her arms a mourning robe loose-mantling o'er ? Shut and unheeded on the chamber floor, While o'er the house a gloomy shadow hung? Hast seen her slaves their tasks in sorrow ply- And tell our quarrels with a faltering tongue? LYGDAMUS. "O Lygdamus! was this my promised meed ? And e'en declare no home my peer can show !* "He's glad I pine on lonesome couch undone; "The venom-swollen toad, 'mid brambles found, Snakes' bones, owls' feathers, culled from crumbling tomb, Wool-fillets twined the fatal couch around Such the weird spells with which she wrought his doom. "Yet if my dreams bode truth, meet vengeance dread, Though late, shall at my feet be amply paid; The flimsy cobweb line their vacant bed, And Love sleep all night long though fondly prayed." PROPERTIUS. If earnest be the plaint she made to thee, Go back the way thou cam'st and speed along, That fires as fierce as hers torment my life, Yet ne'er for other maid I've deigned to burn; And if sweet union crown so sad a strife, Thou'lt earn through me thy freedom in return. * Aequalem nulla dicere habere domo ! ---The copies have nulla and nullo; Mueller reads multa. VII. ON THE DEATH OF PAETUS. Ergo sollicitae tu causa, Pecunia, vitae! MONEY!-alas! from thee what troubles spring! Through thee before our time death's path we tread; To human vices felly pandering, Of cares the fosterer and fountain-head! Thou whelmedst Paetus in the raging tide, No mother there earth's holy dues could pay, Fell Aquilo, fair Orithyia's bane, What splendid spoils of his have swelled thy store? Neptune, what joy from shipwreck dost thou gain? No crew of impious men his vessel bore. Paetus, why count thy years? why vainly call On mother dear? On godless waves thou'rt borne. For in that midnight storm the cables all That lashed thee to the rocks snapt, chafed and worn. Those shores, where sunk Argynnus in his bloom, Go, build curved ships to glut the greedy grave: Can anchor hold whom home has failed to keep? To snare the trader Nature smoothed the main : When reeled wrecked Greece athwart the trackless brine. Then wise Ulysses, whose accustomed skill But if, content to turn his father's field, Paetus had weighed my words of warning well, His roof-tree now a welcome guest would shield, Poor, but on land unswept by tempest fell. No shrieking hurricane he'd learned to dread, On pillow soft of feathers many-hued. I Out by the roots his nails the wave had torn; With gasping mouth he gulped the hateful brine; On one small plank drear night beheld him borne : To crush him did so many ills combine. With tears he poured this plaint-his latest prayer— And waves that downward drag my head to death!— "O whither are ye hurrying one so young ? No impious hands I brought your waters near: On jagged halcyon-cliffs I shall be flung, Transfixed, woe's me! by Neptune's trident-spear. "Ye tides! O bear me to Italia's shore; Sucked down by eddying waves he spake no more— Ye hundred Nereïd-nymphs who scour the main, And, Thetis, thou who'st felt a mother's woe! (Ye should have raised his drooping chin again, So light a load your hands had failed to know,) Give back his corse: his life is in the wave: Poor sand, unsought, my Paetus' body veil! And let the sailor gliding o'er his grave Declare, "Thy fate may make the boldest quail." But thou, dread Spirit of the Northern Wind, In sweet security I'll fitly find, At Cynthia's door, a peaceful tomb at last. |