XI 1 "WHAT god, Octavius, has snatched thee from us? Or was it, as they say, the cups of o'er-strong wine that thou, alas, didst quaff?" "With you I drank, if that's a fault. His own fate pursues each. Why should the guiltless cups be blamed? "Thy writings, indeed, we shall much admire, and that thou and thy Roman history are torn from us, we shall much lament, but thou no more shalt be!" Tell us, ye Spirits perverse: Why did ye grudge that he should outlive his father? XII 2 PROUD Noctuinus, thou addle-pate, the girl thou seekest is given thee, I say; the girl thou seekest, proud Noctuinus, is given thee. But seest thou not, thou proud Noctuinus, that Atilius has two daughters. -that two, both this and the other, are given thee?3 Come 4 ye now, come ye! Proud Noctuinus, see! brings home, as is meet-a jug! Thalassio, Thalassio, Thalassio! 5 consumed) before the son. (So F. de Marchi, in Rivista di Filologia, 1907, pp. 492 ff.) Birt's attempt to introduce Centaurum in line 2 is due to an epigram of Callimachus (Anth. Pal. vII. 725), with a similar motif, and containing the words ἦ ῥα τὸ καὶ Κένταυρον ; this may be right. The word would be governed by abstulisse understood: "was it those cups of strong wine, which they say overcame the Centaur?" 2 A companion piece to VI. above. Noctuinus is drunk at his wedding. 3 The second bride is the wine-jug. * Addressed, probably, to the crowd in the street. 5 With this salutation brides had been greeted ever since the days of Romulus. XIII IACERE me, quod alta non possim, putas, ut ante, vectari freta nec ferre durum frigus aut aestum pati neque arma victoris sequi? valent, valent mihi ira et antiquus furor et lingua, qua adsim tibi quid, impudice et improbande Caesari, et prostitutae turpe contubernium vel acta puero cum viris convivia udaeque per somnum nates et inscio repente clamatum insuper "Thalassio, Thalassio." quid palluisti, femina? an ioci dolent? an facta cognoscis tua? non me vocabis pulchra per Cotytia ad feriatos fascinos, nec deinde te movere lumbos in stola prensis videbo altaribus flavumque propter Thybrim olentis nauticum vocare, ubi adpulsae rates stant in vadis caeno retentae sordido macraque luctantes aqua; neque in culinam et uncta compitalia dapesque duces sordidas, 6 qua adsim (assim B) : adsiem Wagner: sat sim Scaliger adsignem Bücheler: mas sim Ellis. For the hiatus, cf. Hor. Epod. v. 100, XIII. 3. 7,8 placed after 10 Birt. 21 stola Bücheler: latus Baehrens: caltula Ribbeck: ratulam B: rotulam Z. XIII 1 DOST think I am helpless, because I cannot, as heretofore, sail the deep seas, nor bear stern cold, nor endure summer heat, nor follow the victor's arms? Strong, strong are my wrath and old-time fury, and my tongue, wherewith I stand at thy side. 9 Why, thou shameless one, worthy of Caesar's ire! --whether thy secret crimes be told (thy prostituted sister's vile life within thy tent-O why dost thou spur me on?-and thy thrift in late hour at a brother's cost, when thy patrimony was squandered), or whether those banquets thou didst share in boyhood with men, thy body wet throughout the hours of sleep, and, over and above, the cry "Thalassio, Thalassio," raised on a sudden by one I know not: why, I ask, hast thou paled, O woman? Can mere jests pain thee? or dost recognize deeds that are thine own? Amid Co tytto's beauteous rites thou wilt not invite me to the long-disused symbols, nor, as thy hands grasp the altars, shall I see thee bestir thy loins beneath thy woman's robe, and, hard by the yellow Tiber, call to the boat-smelling throng, where the barques that have reached port stand in the shallows, fast in the filthy mire, and struggling with the scanty water; nor wilt thou lead me to the kitchen, to the greasy cross-roads' feast and its mean fare, with which and 1 These iambics, written in the same couplet form as the first ten Epodes of Horace, are full of Archilochian venom, whether genuine or assumed. The poem is different from everything else that bears the name of Virgil, and Némethy assigns it definitely to Horace's authorship. De Witt, in the American Journal of Philology, vol. xxxiii., 1912, p. 320, gives good reasons for supposing Antony to be the object of attack. quibus repletus et salivosis aquis, obesam ad uxorem redis et aestuantes dote solvis pantices, osusque lambis saviis. nunc laede, nunc lacesse, si quicquam vales! et nomen adscribo tuum. cinaede Luciene, liquerunt opes fameque genuini crepant. videbo habentem praeter ignavos nihil fratres et iratum Iovem scissumque ventrem et hirneosi patrui pedes inedia turgidos. XIIIA CALLIDA imago sub hac (caeli est iniuria) sede, 30 35 40 XIV Si mihi susceptum fuerit decurrere munus, XIII. 29 et] ut . 31 dote MHA: nocte Scaliger: docte B. 32 scelusque Birt. 35 cinaede Luciene Bücheler: Cine delucci iâ te. XIIIA. In Z this epigram is found after XIII. 16. 1 Callide (Allide) mage : Callida Birt: imago Bücheler and Birt. sede Birt: saecli MSS. Pallida mole sub hac celavit membra Secundus Riese: Palladis arce sub hac Itali est with slimy water thou satest thyself, then returnest to thy lumpish wife, untiest the boiling sausages her dowry provides, and then, hated though thou art, dost smother her with kisses. 33 Now assail, now provoke me, if at all thou canst! Even thy name I add, thou wanton Lucienus! Now thy means have failed thee, and with hunger thy back teeth rattle! I shall yet see thee possessed of nothing but good-for-naught brothers and an angry Jove, thy stomach rent, and thy ruptured uncle's feet swollen with fasting. XIIIA A SCHOLAR'S shade rests beneath this place 1-a wrong done by heaven 2- -one not inferior to the great minds of old, and a man with whom Rome could challenge learned Athens: but to none is it given to vanquish iron Fate. XIV3 If it be my lot to finish the course I have begun, O thou that dwellest in Paphos and in the Idalian groves, so that at length through Roman towns Trojan Aeneas may go his way, borne along with 1 Nobody knows to whom this epitaph refers, and the first verse is largely conjectural. 2 The gods are reproached for allowing the man to die; cf. Culex, 347. 3 Written, apparently, after the poet had begun the Aeneid. Venus. inuria saecli Ellis: Palladi magna suae visa est iniuria sedis Baehrens. XIV. erat Z. |