'Twas better, Troy, your banished gods ye sent to Latium's
Lo! with what omens hitherward the Dardan vessel bore!
Even then the augury was fair, that many a wily foe
Bursting from forth the wooden horse could never work her woe,
When to the son's neck clung the sire all trembling, and the flame
Those filial shoulders feared to scorch, though, mantling round, it came.
Then followed valiant Decius, followed Brutus stern and
And Venus' self her Caesar's arms bore o'er the ocean
The arms that soon with victory should wreathe renascent
A happy land received thy gods, Iulus, favoured boy!
If the trembling Sibyl's tripod on Avernus did divine.
The fields should be for Remus cleansed on holy Aventine:
Or if the Trojan maiden's strain, late ratified in sooth,
Thundered forth to aged Priam, bore the sacred stamp of truth:
"List thee, thou shalt fall, O Troy !-in Rome, O Troy ! thou❜lt rearise;
How many a weary woe by sea and land before thee lies! Turn the horse, O fell your conquest! Greeks, the Ilian land shall live;
Arms to these crumbling ashes yet great Jupiter shall give."
O she-wolf sent of Mars, best nurse of all our fortunes thou, How vast the walls that from thy milk have grown around us now!
Those walls I fain in this my strain would sing with words of love:
O woe is me the melody should all so lowly prove!
Yet ne'er the less each rill of song from humble breast of mine That e'er shall flow, my lovèd land, my country, shall be thine !
Let Ennius wreathe around his rhymes a chaplet rudely wrought,
O Bacchus give to me the leaves from thine own ivy sought, That Umbria glory in my strains—proud Umbria, the home Of him who'll bear the name of the Callimachus of Rome.
Let all who view those lofty towers, high-climbing o'er the valleys,
Measure them by the bard and say: "There genius filled his chalice."
Give ear, O Rome! for thee I sing for thee my strains
Ye citizens, give omens fair! Heaven crown mine enterprise ! I sing of sacred rites and days and ancient names of places; On to the goal, my gallant steed, though difficult the race is!
"Rash, wayward youth! ah, whither art thou led?
Thy distaff ne'er will spin the tangled thread.
Thy song will cost thee tears: Apollo frets ;*
The lute disdains; thou'lt earn but sad regrets.
Sure proofs I bring from sources sure-no seer
Unskilled to move the stars on brazen sphere.
My sire's sire was Archytas, Horops mine,
Horos I'm called; from Conon comes our line.
* At certis lacrimis cantas: aversus Apollo.-(Munro.)
I never shamed my kin-gods witness be!—
And truth has aye been all in all to me.
Now seers make gain of Heaven; even Jove is sold,
And all the planets on the sphere, for gold;
The lucky beams of Jove and greedy Mars;
And Saturn's orb, most baleful of the stars;
The fateful Fishes and the Lion brave;
And Capricorn, that wades the Western wave.
When Arria led her sons in days agone-
Against Heaven's will she girt their armour on—
I said they'd ne'er again their hearth behold,
And now their graves attest the truth I told.
Lupercus, while he screened his steed's gashed head,
Forgot himself, and 'neath the steed fell dead;
While, in the camp his standard guarding well,
Gallus before his gore-stained eagle fell.
Doomed youths! proud mother sent you to the tomb;
I read, though 'gainst my will, your certain doom.
When, too, Lucina Cinara's pangs delayed,
Who raised in vain her weary cries for aid,
I said, 'Go vow, and Juno will be calm.'
A babe she bore, and I bore off the palm.
"Such truths thou'lt gain not from Jove's sandy shrine,
Nor yet from entrails, big with fate, divine;
Thou❜lt never read them in the raven's wing,
Nor out of ghost from magic waters wring.
First scan Heaven's path and thread the starry sky,
Search the five zones-in these the truth doth lie.
A mournful proof is Calchas, who of yore
Loosed from safe rocks the ships on Aulis' shore,
Plunged in the maiden's neck Atrides' glave,
And bade his gory canvas tempt the wave.
The Greeks returned not; ruined Troy, allay
Thy griefs, and look towards Euboea's bay:
At nightfall Nauplius waves the avenging flame;
Greece, whelmed with all her spoils, the billows claim.
Proud Ajax! ravish-love the priestess rare
Whom Pallas dared thee from her robe to tear.
"So much for story: to thy stars I'll go;
Now list with patient ear thy tale of woe.
Old Umbria gave thee birth—a spot renowned—
Say, am I right? is that thy native ground?—
Where, dewy-moist, low lie Mevania's plains,
Where steams the Umbrian lake with summer rains,
Where towers the wall o'er steep Asisium's hill,
A wall thy genius shall make nobler still?
Too soon thou laid'st thy father's bones at rest,
Compelled to live by straitened means opprest;
For all thy fields, that many a steer once trod,
Were swept before the ruthless measuring-rod.
The golden toy resigned thou'dst worn from birth,
Thou donn'dst the toga at thy mother's hearth;
Then Phoebus charmed thy poet-soul afar
From the fierce thunderings of the noisy bar.
Be elegy-a tricksome task-thy field,
And to all others an example yield.
'Neath bloodless arms through Venus' wars thou❜lt go, And to the Cupids prove a ready foe.
For all the fruits of all thy weary toil
Thy glory-wreaths a single maid will spoil;
Though from thy chin the firm-fixed hook thou shake,
'Tis vain-the claw a firmer hold will take.
Thy light and darkness will obey her call,
No tear thou'lt weep unless she bids it fall.
No guards nor bolted doors will keep her in ;
A chink's enough if she's resolved to sin.
Although thy bark should ride the raging wave,
Though all unarmed thou face the foeman's glave,
Yea, though earth shake, and to its centre crack,
Thou'rt safe-beware of Cancer's baleful back."
Quid mirare meas tot in uno corpore formas ?
WHY do my countless shapes your wonder raise?
List to the god Vertumnus' native traits.
I'm Tuscan, Tuscan-born, yet I'm not sorry
I left Volsinii's hearths 'mid warfare's worry.
I like this crowd; no ivory shrine for me:
Enough if I the Roman Forum see.
Here once ran Tiber, and they say the plashing
Of oars was heard across the shallows dashing.
He changed his course to gratify his sons:
Hence I'm Vertumnus called, one story runs ;
While others show my name and title clear
In the fruit-offerings of the changing year.
For me grape-clusters wear the purple stain,
And spiky ears swell out with milky grain,
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