beard. Has not Aurora, too, bewailed new loves,1 and blushingly hidden her eyes in her roseate mantle ? Thus have the denizens of heaven done: and the golden age, did it do less? Therefore what gods and heroes have done, why should not a later age do? 76 Unhappy I, who was not born in those days when Nature was kind! O my luckless birth-lot, and O the wretched race, in which desire is laggard! Such havoc have the Fates made of my life, that what remains of me your eyes could scarcely recognize. 1 Her old love was for Tithonus; her new one was for Orion, who was killed by Diana's arrows. PRIAPEA* I VERE rosa, autumno pomis, aestate frequentor spicis: una mihi est horrida pestis hiemps. nam frigus metuo, et vereor ne ligneus ignem hic deus ignaris praebeat agricolis. II EGO haec, ego arte fabricata rustica, ego arida, o viator, ecce populus agellulum hunc, sinistra et ante quem vides, erique villulam hortulumque pauperis tuor malaque furis arceo manu. Mihi corolla picta vere ponitur mihi rubens arista sole fervido, mihi virente dulcis uva pampino, mihi gelata duro oliva frigore. I. 1 autumno pomis MSS.: pomis autumno Lachmann. 4 ignavis Voss, accepted by Ribbeck, Buehrens, Vollmer. II. 2 o It.: omitted. 5 3 agellulum u agellum 2. sinistra et ante Hand: sinistre tante (stantem) BZ. 5 tuor It. Wagner: tueor . So Birt: mihi glauca olivo (oliva) duro cocta frigo (frigore cocta) MSS.: mihique glauca (or duro) oliva cocta frigore Wagner: mihi caduca oliva, cocta frigore Ellis: mihi recocta glauca oliva frigore Bücheler. *The principal MSS. cited are B and Z, for which see note at the opening of the Ciris. Z embraces H, A, and R. PRIAPEA I IN spring I am covered with roses, in autumn with fruits, in summer with ears of corn: winter alone is to me a horrid plague. For the cold I dread, and am afraid that your god of wood may furnish fuel to heedless husbandmen.1 II 2 Lo! 'tis I, O wayfarer, I, wrought with rustic skill, I, this dry poplar, that guard this little field thou seest in front and to the left, with the poor owner's cottage and small garden, and that shield them from the wicked hand of thieves. 6 On me in spring is placed a garland gay; on me, in the scorching sun, the ruddy corn; on me the luscious grapes with tendrils green; on me the olive, when chilled by winter's cold.3 1 The first three poems are Priapea, i.e. verses in honour of the god Priapus. The opening one, in elegiac couplets, is composed as if to be set up as an inscription on a wooden image of the god. In all three Priapus is himself the speaker (hic deus, like hic homo = ego). 2 The verse of the original is the pure iambic trimeter. Olives were picked during a frost. For other MSS. see Ellis. The title Priapea does not occur in the MSS., and in Z the title Catalepton is put at the head of the Priapea. VOL II. I I 10 15 Meis capella delicata pascuis in urbem adulta lacte portat ubera, meisque pinguis agnus ex ovilibus gravem domum remittit aere dexteram, teneraque matre mugiente vaccula deum profundit ante templa sanguinem. Proin, viator, hunc deum vereberis manumque sursum habebis: hoc tibi expedit, parata namque crux stat ecce mentula. "velim pol," inquis. at pol ecce vilicus venit, valente.cui revolsa bracchio fit ista mentula apta clava dexterae. III HUNC ego, o iuvenes, locum villulamque palustrem, nutrior; magis et magis fit beata quotannis. huius nam domini colunt me deumque salutant 5 pauperis tuguri pater filiusque adulescens, primitus tenera virens spica mollis arista, 10 II. 14 teneraque. . . vacula : tenella d'Orville: tenerque buculus Wagner. III. 1 21 fuit Z. O added by Lachmann. 3 formitata BH: formicata M: formidata Med.: formata ARu fomitata I. Voss, and read by Vollmer: fabricata Ribbeck (after Schrader). 4 nutrior BH (cf. Georg. II. 425): nunc tuor Scaliger: en tuor Ribbeck. fit Baehrens: ut . magis ut magis sit Ellis. me deumque Aldine edition 1517: mediumque . Б 7 colens] cavens L. Müller. 10 From my pastures the dainty she-goat bears to town her udders swelled with milk; from my folds comes the fatted lamb to send home again the moneyladen hand;1 and the tender calf, amid her mother's lowing, pours forth her blood before the temples of the gods. 16 Therefore, O wayfarer, thou shalt fear this god, and hold thy hand high: this is worth thy while, for lo! there stands ready thy cross, the phallus.2 "By Pollux! I'd like to," thou sayest. Nay, by Pollux, here comes the bailiff, whose stout arm, plucking away that phallus, finds in it a cudgel, well fitted to his right hand. III 4 O YOUTHS, this place and cottage in the marsh, thatched with osier shoots and handfuls of sedge, I support, I, a dried oak chipt into shape by farmer's axe; year by year, more and more rich it grows. For the owners of this poor hut, a father and youthful son, honour and greet me as a god; the one so honouring me with constant care that weeds and rough brambles are taken from my shrine; the other with lavish hand ever bringing humble gifts. 10 On me in flowery spring is placed a garland gay; on me the soft ear of corn, when first 'tis green on 1 cf. Eclogues, I. 35. 2 The wayfarer can thus show that he is not stealing. Slaves guilty of theft could be crucified, but for the cross Priapus substitutes his own weapon, viz. the club projecting from his groin. i.e. to steal. The metre of the original is the so-called Priapean, a combination of the Glyconic and the Pherecratean (see any Latin Grammar). II 2 |