VI.

A DIALOGUE.

Dic mihi de nostra, quae sentis, vera puella.

PROPERTIUS.

ALL that thou know'st of Cynthia let me hear :
So, Lygdamus, thy freedom thou❜lt receive.
Yet puff not with unfounded tales mine ear,
Detailing what thou think'st I'd fain believe.

All messengers by truth should needs stand fast;
Yet more, with slaves, from fear should truth prevail.
Now tell me all thou know'st from first to last,—

Begin with open ears I'll drink the tale.

Hast thou e'er seen her weep with ruffled hair,
Tears from her eyes down-streaming all unchecked?
Her bed laid out, and yet no mirror there?
Her snowy hands with jewels unbedecked?

Her arms a mourning robe loose-mantling o'er ?
At her bed-feet her jewel-casket flung,

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-
She spinning all the while her maids among ;
With tuft of wool the trickling tear-drops dry,

And tell our quarrels with a faltering tongue?

LYGDAMUS.

"O Lygdamus! was this my promised meed ?
'Tis base in him," she said, "to treat me so;
And he can leave me sad for no misdeed,

And e'en declare no home my peer can show !*

"He's glad I pine on lonesome couch undone;
Well, let him dance for joy when I am dead.
By herbs, not graces, hath that base wench won,
And by the wicked witch's wheel-whirled thread.

"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,
And bear these words with many tears from me,—
That wrath has marred my love, but never wrong—

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,
What time to Pharian ports he sailed away;
For, following thee, he sank in youthhood's pride,
And now he floats, to distant fish a prey.

No mother there earth's holy dues could pay,
Or lay with kindred dust the last of thee:
Now o'er thy bones the sea-birds linger aye,
For tomb thou hast the wide Carpathian sea.

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,
Attest the depth of Agamemnon's woe,
Who for his loss detained the fleet to doom
Iphigenia to the realms below.

Go, build curved ships to glut the greedy grave:
By human hands is dealt the fatal blow:
Earth was too small; we added then the wave,
And swelled by art Misfortune's ways of woe.

Can anchor hold whom home has failed to keep?
What merits he who can his land despise?
The winds will all thy gains and treasures reap:
No ship grows old: the very harbour lies.

To snare the trader Nature smoothed the main :
Thou'rt lucky if but once success be thine;
Caphareus dashed the conquering prows in twain,

When reeled wrecked Greece athwart the trackless brine.

Then wise Ulysses, whose accustomed skill
Against the ruthless ocean nought availed,
As drooping comrade followed comrade still,
At last the loss of all his crew bewailed.

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,
Nor bruise his tender hands with cable rude,
But lain on terebinth or cedar bed,

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—
Ere the dark billow choked his dying breath:
"Ye dread Aegean gods! ye winds of air!

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;
Enough if but my mother find my clay."

Sucked down by eddying waves he spake no more—
These his last words, and that his latest day.

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,
Shalt never see my canvas tempt thy blast;

In sweet security I'll fitly find,

At Cynthia's door, a peaceful tomb at last.