Ausonius: Mosella

Transieram celerem nebuloso flumine Nauam
Addita miratus ueteri noua moenia Vinco,
Aequauit Latias ubi quondam Gallia Cannas
Infletaeque iacent inopes super arua cateruae.
Vnde iter ingrediens nemorosa per auia solum
Et nulla humani spectans uestigia cultus
Praetereo arentem sitientibus undique terris
Dumnissum riguasque perenni fonte Tabernas
Aruaque Sauromatum nuper metata colonis:
Et tandem primis Belgarum conspicor oris
Noiomagum, diui castra inclita Constantini.
Purior hic campis aer Phoebusque sereno
Lumine purpureum reserat iam sudus Olympum;
Nec iam consertis per mutua uincula ramis
Quaeritur exclusum uiridi caligine caelum;
Sed liquidum iubar et rutilam uisentibus aethram
Libera perspicui non inuidet aura diei.

I had crossed the swift Nava by the misty river,
admiring the new walls added to ancient Vinco,
where Gaul once matched the Latin Cannae,
and swollen throngs lie helpless upon the fields.
Whence, entering on my journey through wooded trackless places,
and seeing no traces of human cultivation,
I pass by parched Dumnissus, with lands thirsty on every side,
and Tabernae irrigated by a perennial spring,
and fields lately meted out to Sarmatian colonists:
and at length, upon the first shores of the Belgae, I espy
Noviomagus, the renowned camp of the divine Constantine.
Here the air is purer on the plains, and Phoebus with a serene
light now opens the purple, cloudless Olympus;
nor now, with branches interlaced by mutual bonds,
is the sky, shut out by green dimness, sought;
but to those looking on, the free breeze of a limpid day
does not begrudge the liquid radiance and the ruddy aether.

In speciem tum me patriae cultumque nitentis
Burdigalae blando pepulerunt omnia uisu:
Culmina uillarum pendentibus edita ripis
Et uirides Baccho colles et amoena fluenta
Subter labentis tacito rumore Mosellae.
Salue, amnis, laudate agris, laudate colonis,
Dignata imperio debent cui moenia Belgae:
Amnis odorifero iuga uitea consite Baccho,
Consite gramineas, amnis uiridissime, ripas:
Nauiger ut pelagus, deuexas pronus in undas
Vt fluuius, uitreoque lacus imitate profundo
Et riuos trepido potes aequiperare meatu
Et liquido gelidos fontes praecellere potu:
Omnia solus habes, quae fons, quae riuus et amnis
Et lacus et biuio refluus manamine pontus.
Tu placidis praelapsus aquis nec murmura uenti
Vlla nec occulti pateris luctamina saxi.

Then the likeness of my fatherland and of shiningly adorned Burdigala
by their coaxing sight drove me in fancy:—
the summits of villas set high on overhanging banks,
and hills green with Bacchus, and the lovely streams
of the Moselle gliding beneath with a silent murmur.
Hail, river, praised by fields, praised by farmers,
to whose command the Belgae owe walls deemed worthy of dominion:
river, whose vine-bearing ridges are planted with odoriferous Bacchus,
whose grassy banks, O river most green, are planted;
as navigable as the sea, sloping down into your declivitous waves
as a river, and you imitate a lake in vitreous depth,
and you can match brooks in your trembling course
and surpass icy springs in limpid potation:
you alone possess all the things which a spring has, which a rivulet and a river,
and a lake and the sea refluxing with a two-way current.
You, gliding past with placid waters, suffer neither any murmurs of the wind
nor the hidden struggles of a rock.

Non spirante uado rapidos properare meatus
Cogeris, extantes medio non aequore terras
Interceptus habes, iusti ne demat honorem
Nominis, exclusum si diuidat insula flumen.
Tu duplices sortite uias, et cum amne secunda
Defluis, ut celeres feriant uada concita remi,
Et cum per ripas nusquam cessante remulco
Intendunt collo malorum uincula nautae.
Ipse tuos quotiens miraris in amne recursus
Legitimosque putas prope segnius ire meatus!

When the ford not breathing, you are compelled to hasten your rapid courses,
caught you have lands standing out where the mid-surface is not level,
lest an island, if it divide the excluded river, take away the honor
of its rightful name. You, allotted double ways, and when with the stream favorable
you flow down, so that swift oars, stirred, may strike the shallows,
and when, along the banks, with the tow never ceasing,
the sailors stretch the bonds of the masts to the neck.
How often you yourself marvel at your returns within the river
and almost think your legitimate courses go more sluggishly!

Tu neque limigenis ripam praetexeris uluis,
Nec piger immundo perfundis litora caeno:
Sicca in primores pergunt uestigia lymphas.
I nunc et Phrygiis sola leuia consere crustis
Tendens marmoreum laqueata per atria campum;
Ast ego despectis, quae census opesque dederunt,
Naturae mirabor opus, non cura nepotum
Laetaque iacturis ubi luxuriatur egestas.
Hic solidae sternunt umentia litora harenae,
Nec retinent memores uestigia pressa figuras.

You neither fringe your bank with mud-born sedges,
nor, sluggish, do you drench the shores with unclean mire:
dry footprints go on into the foremost waters.
Go now and, alone, stitch smooth with Phrygian crusts,
stretching a marble plain through coffered halls;
but I, looking down on the things which fortune and wealth have given,
shall marvel at the work of Nature, not the care of grandsons,
and where neediness luxuriates, glad in squanderings.
Here solid sands strew the moist shores,
nor do they, mindful, retain the impressed shapes of footprints.

Spectaris uitreo per leuia terga profundo,
Secreti nihil amnis habens: utque almus aperto
Panditur intuitu liquidis obtutibus aer
Nec placidi prohibent oculos per inania uenti,
Sic demersa procul durante per intima uisu
Cernimus arcanique patet penetrale profundi,
Cum uada lene meant liquidarum et lapsus aquarum
Prodit caerulea dispersas luce figuras:
Quod sulcata leui crispatur harena meatu,
Inclinata tremunt uiridi quod gramina fundo;
Vsque sub ingenuis agitatae fontibus herbae
Vibrantes patiuntur aquas lucetque latetque
Calculus et uiridem distinguit glarea muscum:
Tota Caledoniis talis pictura Britannis,
Cum uirides algas et rubra corallia nudat
Aestus et albentes, concharum germina, bacas,
Delicias hominum, locupletibus atque sub undis
Assimulant nostros imitata monilia cultus.
Haud aliter placidae subter uada laeta Mosellae
Detegit admixtos non concolor herba lapillos.
Intentos tamen usque oculos errore fatigant
Interludentes, examina lubrica, pisces.

You are beheld through the glassy deep across your smooth surface, the river having nothing of secrecy: and as the kindly air is laid open to open regard for liquid gazes, nor do gentle winds hinder the eyes through the empty spaces, so, with sight enduring far down through the inmost parts, we discern the things submerged, and the penetralia of the profound lie open, when the shallows of clear waters glide softly and the slipping of the waters brings forth, in cerulean light, the scattered shapes: how the sand, furrowed by a light current, is crisped into ripples, how the grasses, bent over, tremble on the green bottom; even beneath free-born springs the stirred plants, quivering, endure the waters, and the pebble both shines and hides, and the gravel distinguishes the green moss: such is the whole picture among the Caledonian Britons, when the tide lays bare green algae and red corals and, whitening, the berries—the buds of shells—delights of men—which, beneath the wealthy waves, imitate necklaces resembling our adornments. Not otherwise, beneath the happy shallows of the placid Moselle, the not-all-of-one-color grass reveals mixed little stones. Yet, ever-interplaying, the slippery swarms, the fishes, weary eyes intent with their illusion.

Sed neque tot species obliquatosque natatus
Quaeque per aduersum succedunt agmina flumen,
Nominaque et cunctos numerosae stirpis alumnos
Edere fas aut ille sinit, cui cura secundae
Sortis et aequorei cessit tutela tridentis.
Tu mihi flumineis habitatrix Nais in oris,
Squamigeri gregis ede choros liquidoque sub alueo
Dissere caeruleo fluitantes amne cateruas.
Squameus herbosas capito inter lucet harenas
Viscere praetenero fartim congestus aristis
Nec duraturus post bina trihoria mensis,
Purpureisque salar stellatus tergora guttis,
Et nullo spinae nociturus acumine rhedo,
Effugiensque oculos celeri leuis umbra natatu.

But neither is it right nor does he allow me to set forth so many species and the oblique swim-strokes, and the columns which advance through the opposing river, and the names and all the pupils of the numerous stock, he to whom the care of the second lot and the guardianship of the sea’s trident has fallen.
You for me, Naiad, inhabitress on the riverine shores,
declare the choruses of the scaly herd and, beneath the limpid river-bed,
discourse the companies floating in the cerulean stream.
The scaly capito shines among the grassy sands,
stuffed abundantly with grain-ears in its very tender entrails,
nor destined to keep on the table after 6 hours,
and the salar, its back starred with purple drops,
and the rhedo, going to harm with no sharpness of spine,
and the light shadow fleeing the eyes with swift swim.

Tuque per obliqui fauces uexate Saraui,
Qua bis terna fremunt scopulosis ostia pilis,
Cum defluxisti famae maioris in amnem,
Liberior laxos exercei, barbe, natatus:
Tu melior peiore aeuo, tibi contigit omni
Spirantum ex numero non illaudata senectus.
Nec te puniceo rutilantem uiscere, salmo,
Transierim, latae cuius uaga uerbera caudae
Gurgite de medio summas referuntur in undas,
Occultus placido cum proditur aequore pulsus.
Tu loricato squamosus pectore, frontem
Lubricus et dubiae facturus fercula cenae
Tempora longarum fers incorrupte morarum,
Praesignis maculis capitis, cui prodiga nutat
Aluus opimatoque fluens abdomine uenter.

And you too, harried through the jaws of the slanting Saravus,
where twice three mouths roar with rocky piles,
when you have flowed down into the river of greater fame,
more freely you practice your loose swim, O barbel:
you, better in a worse age; to you there has fallen, out of the number
of breathing creatures, a not ill-praised senescence.
Nor would I pass you by, salmon, glowing with crimson flesh,
whose roving lashes of the broad tail
are carried from the midst of the eddy into the topmost waves,
when the hidden pulse is betrayed on the placid surface.
You, scaly with a cuirassed breast, slippery at the brow
and destined to make dishes for a doubtful dinner,
you bear unspoiled the seasons of long delays,
notable for the spots of your head, whose lavish belly nods
and whose stomach flows with a rich abdomen.

Quaeque per Illyricum, per stagna binominis Histri
Spumarum indiciis caperis, mustela, natantum
In nostrum subuecta fretum, ne lata Mosellae
Flumina tam celebri defraudarentur alumno.
Quis te naturae pinxit color! atra superne
Puncta notant tergum, qua lutea circuit iris;
Lubrica caeruleus perducit tergora fucus;
Corporis ad medium fartim pinguescis, at illinc
Vsque sub extremam squalet cutis arida caudam.

And you who through Illyricum, through the pools of the two-named Hister (Danube),
are taken by the indications of foams, mustela, of those that swim,
borne into our strait, lest the broad rivers of the Moselle
be defrauded of so celebrated a nursling.
What color did nature paint you! Black above,
spots mark the back, where a yellow iris encircles;
a cerulean dye carries along the slippery hides;
up to the body’s midline you grow plump in plenty, but from there
all the way beneath the farthest tail the dry skin is scurfy.

Nec te, delicias mensarum, perca, silebo,
Amnigenos inter pisces dignande marinis,
Solus puniceis facilis contendere mullis:
Nam neque gustus iners solidoque in corpore partes
Segmentis coeunt, sed dissociantur aristis.
Hic etiam Latio risus praenomine, cultor
Stagnorum, querulis uis infestissima ranis,
Lucius, obscuras ulua caenoque lacunas
Obsidet; hic nullos mensarum lectus ad usus
Feruet fumosis olido nidore popinis.
Quis non et uirides, uulgi solacia, tincas
Norit et alburnos, praedam puerilibus hamis,
Stridentesque focis, obsonia plebis, alausas?

Nor will I pass you by, perch, the delicacies of tables,
deemed worthy among marine kinds amid the river-born fishes,
the only one easy to contend with the crimson-red mullets:
for neither is its savor inert, and in the solid body the parts
do not coalesce into segments, but are sundered by bristle-like fibers.
Here too the Lucius, with a Latin praenomen that provokes a laugh, the dweller
of pools, a most pestilent force to the querulous frogs,
haunts the dim meres with sedge and mud;
this one, chosen for no uses of the tables,
boils in smoky cookshops with a fetid nidor.
Who does not also know the green tenches, consolations of the crowd,
and the bleaks, a prey for boys’ hooks,
and the alause (shads), sizzling at the hearths, relishes of the plebs?

Teque inter species geminas neutrumque et utrumque,
Qui necdum salmo nec iam salar ambiguusque
Amborum medio, sario, intercepte sub aeuo?
Tu quoque flumineas inter memorande cohortes,
Gobio, non geminis maior sine pollice palmis,
Praepinguis, teres, ouipara congestior aluo
Propexique iubas imitatus, gobio, barbi.
Nunc, pecus aequoreum, celebrabere, magne silure,
Quem velut Actaeo perductum tergora oliuo
Amnicolam delphina reor: sic per freta magnum
Laberis et longi uix corporis agmina solvis
Aut breuibus defensa uadis aut fluminis uluis.

And you, between twin species, neither and both,
who not yet a salmo nor now a salar, and ambiguous,
in the middle of both, sario, caught off in youth?
You too, to be remembered among the riverine cohorts,
gobio, no larger than two handspans without the thumb,
very fat, rounded, with an oviparous belly more congested,
and, gobio, imitating the hanging manes of the barbel.
Now, water-herd, you shall be celebrated, great silurus,
whom I deem a river-dwelling dolphin, as though your hides had been
drawn through Actaean olive-oil: thus through the straits, a great one,
you glide and scarcely loosen the ranks of your long body,
either defended by shallow shoals or by the river’s weeds.

At cum tranquillos moliris in amne meatus,
Te uirides ripae, te caerula turba natantum,
Te liquidae mirantur aquae: diffunditur alueo
Aestus et extremi procurrunt margine fluctus.
Talis Atlantiaco quondam ballena profundo,
Cum uento motuue suo telluris ad oras
Pellitur, exclusum fundit mare, magnaque surgunt
Aequora, uicinique timent deereseere montes.
Hic tamen, hie nostrae mitis ballena Mosellae
Exitio procul est magnoque honor additus amni.

But when you set in motion tranquil courses in the river,
you the green banks, you the cerulean throng of swimmers,
you the liquid waters marvel at: the surge is diffused through the channel
and the outermost waves run forward along the margin.
Such, once, a whale in the Atlantic deep,
when by wind and by its own motion it is driven to the shores of the land,
shut out, it pours forth the sea, and great broad waters rise,
and the neighbors fear the mountains are dwindling.
Here, however, here the gentle whale of our Moselle
is far from destruction, and honor has been added to the great river.

Iam liquidas spectasse uias et lubriea pisces
Agmina multiplicesque satis numerasse cateruas.
Indueant aliam spectacula uitea pompam
Sollicitentque uagos Baccheia munera uisus,
Qua sublimis apex longo super ardua tractu
Et rupes et aprica iugi flexusque sinusque
Vitibus assurgunt naturalique theatro.
Gauranum sie alma iugum uindemia uestit
Et Rhodopen, proprioque nitent Pangaea Lyaeo;
Sic uiret Ismarius super aequora Thracia collis;
Sic mea flauentem pingunt uineta Garunnam.

Now I have looked upon the liquid ways and the slippery ranks of fishes,
and have sufficiently numbered their multiple cohorts.
Let the viny spectacles assume another pomp
and let Bacchic gifts solicit the wandering gazes,
where the lofty apex, over the steep places with a long tract,
and both the crags and the sunny slope of the ridge, its bends and its bosoms,
rise with vines into a natural theater.
Thus the kindly vintage clothes the Gauran ridge,
and Rhodope, and Pangaea shine with their own Lyaeus;
thus the Ismarian hill greens above the Thracian waters;
thus my vineyards paint the tawny Garonne.

Summis quippe iugis tendentis in ultima cliui
Conseritur uiridi fluuialis margo Lyaeo.
Laeta operum plebes festinantesque coloni
Vertice nunc summo properant, nunc deiuge dorso,
Certantes stolidis clamoribus. Inde uiator
Riparum subiecta terens, hinc nauita labens
Probra canunt seris cultoribus: astrepit ollis
Et rupes et silua tremens et concauus amnis.

Indeed on the highest ridges of the slope stretching to the farthest edges,
the fluvial margin is sown with green Lyaeus.
The happy plebs of labors and the hastening colonists
now hurry on the topmost summit, now on the downhill back of the ridge,
vying with stolid shouts. Then the traveler,
treading the low-lying tracts beneath the banks, and here the sailor gliding,
sing out reproaches to late cultivators: to them resound
both the cliff and the trembling forest and the hollow river.

Nec solos homines delectat scaena locorum:
Hic ego et agrestes Satyros et glauca tuentes
Naidas extremis credam concurrere ripis,
Capripedes agitat cum laeta proteruia Panas
Insultantque uadis trepidasque sub amne sorores
Terrent indocili pulsantes uerbere fluctum.
Saepe etiam mediis furata e collibus uuas
Inter Oreiadas Panope fluuialis amicas
Fugit lasciuos, paganica numina, Faunos.
Dicitur et, medio cum sol stetit aureus orbe,
Ad commune fretum Satyros uitreasque sorores
Consortes celebrare choros, cum praebuit horas
Secretas hominum coetu flagrantior aestus;
Tunc insultantes sua per freta ludere Nymphas
Et Satyros mersare uadis rudibusque natandi
Per medias exire manus, dum lubrica falsi
Membra petunt liquidosque fouent pro corpore fluctus.

Nor does the scene of the places delight men alone:
here I too could believe that rustic Satyrs and Naiads, gazing at the blue-green,
run together on the farthest banks, when merry sauciness drives
the goat-footed Pans, and they leap upon the shallows and frighten their sisters
trembling beneath the river, striking the untamed wave with a lash.
Often too, Panope the riverine, having stolen grapes from the midmost hills,
flees, among her Oread friends, the lascivious Fauns, pagan divinities.
And it is said that, when the golden sun has stood in the middle of its orb,
to the common stream the Satyrs and their glassy sisters
celebrate shared dances, when the more burning heat has granted hours
secret from the company of men; then the Nymphs, leaping along their own waters,
play, and dunk the Satyrs in the shallows, and, raw at swimming,
come up through the midst by their hands, while they grasp at slippery limbs
and, for a counterfeit body, cherish the liquid waves.

Sed non haec spectata ulli nec cognita uisu
Fas mihi sit pro parte loqui: secreta tegatur
Et commissa suis lateat reuerentia riuis.
Illa fruenda palam species, cum glaucus opaco
Respondet colli fluuius, frondere uidentur
Fluminei latices et palmite consitus amnis.
Quis color ille uadis, seras cum propulit umbras
Hesperus et uiridi perfundit monte Mosellam!

But let not these things, viewed by no one nor known by sight,
may it be lawful for me to speak only in part: let the secrets be covered,
and let the reverence committed to its own streams lie hidden.
That aspect is to be enjoyed openly, when the glaucous
river answers the dusky hill; the fluvial waters seem to be in leaf,
and the river planted with vine-shoots.
What a color in the shallows, when Hesperus has driven forth the late shadows
and the green mountain drenches the Moselle!

Tota natant crispis iuga motibus et tremit absens
Pampinus et uitreis uindemia turget in undis.
Annumerat uirides derisus nauita uites,
Nauita caudiceo fluitans super aequora lembo
Per medium, qua sese amni confundit imago
Collis et umbrarum confinia conserit amnis.
Haec quoque quam dulces celebrant spectacula pompas,
Remipedes medio certant cum flumine lembi
Et uarios ineunt flexus uiridesque per oras
Stringunt attonsis pubentia germina pratis!

All the ridges swim with crisp motions, and, though absent, the vine-leaf trembles,
and the vintage swells in the vitreous waves.
The sailor, derided, enumerates the green vines,
the sailor floating over the waters in a wooden skiff,
through the middle, where the image of the hill merges itself with the river
and the river stitches together the confines of the shadows.
These spectacles too celebrate how sweet pomps,
oar-footed skiffs vie with the river in midstream,
and they enter various bends, and along the green margins
they skim the downy sprouts in the shorn meadows!

Puppibus et proris alacres gestire magistros
Impubemque manum super amnica terga uagantem

Dum spectat, [uiridis qua surgit ripa, colonus,
Non sentit] transire diem, sua seria ludo
Posthabet: excludit ueteres noua gratia curas.
Tales Cumano despectat in aequore ludos
Liber, sulphurei cum per iuga consita Gauri
Perque uaporiferi graditur uineta Veseui,
Cum Venus Actiacis Augusti laeta triumphis
Ludere lasciuos fera proelia iussit Amores,
Qualia Niliacae classes Latiaeque triremes
Subter Apollineae gesserunt Leucados arces,
Aut Pompeiani Mylasena pericula belli
Euboicae referunt per Auerna sonantia cumbae:
Innocuos ratium pulsus pugnasque iocantes
Naumachiae, Siculo qualis spectala Peloro,
Caeruleus uiridi reparat sub irnagine pontus.
Non aliam speciem petulantibus addit ephebis
Pubertasque amnisque et picti rostra phaseli.

the masters, lively, caper upon sterns and prows,
and the beardless band roaming over the riverine backs.

While he looks on, [where the green bank rises, the farmer,
does not feel] the day pass by; he postpones his serious tasks to play:
a new charm shuts out his ancient cares.
Such games on the Cumaean level Liber looks down upon,
when along the vine-planted ridges of sulfurous Gaurus
and through the vineyards of vapor-bearing Vesuvius he strides,
when Venus, glad at Augustus’s Actian triumphs,
bade the wanton Loves to play at fierce battles,
such as the Nile-side fleets and the Latin triremes
waged beneath the Apollinean citadels of Leucas,
or the Euboean skiffs, resounding through Avernus,
recall the Mylaean perils of the Pompeian war:
harmless beatings of oars and jesting combats
of a naumachia—such a spectacle as at Sicilian Pelorus—
the cerulean sea restores beneath its green image.
No other aspect do they add to the frolicsome ephebes—
youth’s bloom and the river and the painted beaks of the skiff.

Hos Hyperionio cum sol perfuderit aestu,
Reddit nautales uitreo sub gurgite formas
Et redigit pandas inuersi corporis umbras.
Vtque agiles motus dextra laeuaque frequentant
Et commutatis alternant pondera remis,
Vnda refert alios, simulacra umentia, nautas:
Ipsa suo gaudet simulamine nautica pubes
Fallaces fluuio mirata redire figuras.
Sic ubi compositos ostentatura capillos,
Candentem late speculi explorantis honorem
Cum primum carae nutrix admouit alumnae,
Laeta ignorato fruitur uirguncula ludo
Germanaeque putat formam spectare puellae:
Oscula fulgenti dat non referenda metallo
Aut fixas praetemptat acus aut frontis ad oram
Vibratos captat digitis extendere crines:
Talis ad umbrarum ludibria nautica pubes
Ambiguis fruitur ueri falsique figuris.

When the sun has drenched them with Hyperionian heat,
it gives back nautical forms beneath the glassy gulf
and renders the curved shadows of the inverted body.
And as they make frequent agile motions to right and left
and, the oars exchanged, alternate the weights,
the wave returns other sailors—moist simulacra:
the nautical youth rejoices in its own likeness,
marveling that deceptive figures return in the river.
Thus, when about to show off her arranged hair,
as soon as the nurse applied to her dear alumna
the broadly shining luster of the exploring mirror,
the little maiden, happy, enjoys the unrecognized game
and thinks she beholds the form of a sister-girl:
she gives kisses not to be returned by the gleaming metal,
or tries beforehand the fixed pins, or at the border of the brow
strives with her fingers to stretch the vibrated tresses:
so the nautical youth, at the mockeries of shadows,
enjoys the ambiguous figures of true and false.

lam uero accessus faciles qua ripa ministrat,
Scrutatur toto populatrix turba profundo
Heu male defensos penetrali flumine pisces.
Hic medio procul amne trahens umentia lina
Nodosis decepta plagis examina uerrit;
Ast hic, tranquillo qua labitur agmine flumen,
Ducit corticeis fluitantia retia signis;
Ille autem scopulis deiectas pronus in undas
Inclinat lentae conexa caeumina uirgae
Inductos escis iaciens letalibus hamos.
Quos ignara doli postquam uaga turba natantum
Rictibus inuasit patulaeque per intima fauces
Sera occultati senserunt uulnera ferri,
Dum trepidant, subit indicium crispoque tremori
Vibrantis saetae nutans consentit harundo:
Nec mora et excussam stridenti uerbere praedam
Dexter in obliquum raptat puer; excipit ictum
Spiritus, ut fractis quondam per inane flagellis
Aura crepat motoque assibilat aere uentus.

Now indeed where the bank supplies easy approaches,
the raiding crowd scrutinizes the whole deep—
alas for the fish ill-defended in the inmost river!
Here, drawing far off in midstream the dripping lines,
he sweeps the swarms deceived by knotted meshes;
but here, where the river glides with tranquil column,
he leads the floating nets by cork-signs;
but that one, leaning forward where from the rocks the waves are cast down,
inclines the tops connected to a pliant rod,
casting hooks smeared with lethal baits.
Which, after the wandering crowd of swimmers, unaware of the trick,
has invaded with gaping jaws, and deep within the wide throat
they have late felt the wounds of the hidden iron—
while they start in alarm, the sign appears, and to the crisp tremor
the nodding reed agrees with the quivering bristle;
nor is there delay, and with a strident lash the dexterous boy
snatches the shaken prey to the slant; the breath catches the stroke,
as once through the void the air cracks with whips that are cracked,
and the wind sibilates in the moved aether.

Exultant udae super arida saxa rapinae
Luciferique pauent letalia tela diei,
Cuique sub amne suo mansit uigor, aere nostro
Segnis anhelatis uitam consumit in auris.
Iam piger inualido uibratur corpore plausus,
Torpida supremos patitur iam cauda tremores,
Nec coeunt rictus, haustas sed hiatibus auras
Reddit mortiferos expirans branchia flatus.
Sic ubi fabriles exercet spiritus ignes,
Accipit alterno cohibetque foramine uentos
Lanea fagineis alludens parma cauernis.

The wet spoils exult over the dry rocks,
and they dread the lethal darts of light-bringing day,
each whose vigor remained beneath its own river; in our air
a sluggish life consumes itself in panting airs.
Now a slothful beat is quivered by a feeble body,
the torpid tail now suffers its last tremors,
nor do the jaws come together, but, the airs having been gulped into the gapes,
the gills, breathing out, give back death-bringing blasts.
Thus, when the smithy-breath exercises the fires,
it receives and restrains the winds by an alternating orifice,
the woolen buckler playing against the beechwood caverns.

Vidi egomet quosdam leti sub fine trementes
Collegisse animas, mox in sublime citatos
Cernua subiectum praeceps dare corpora in amnem
Desperatarum potientes rursus aquarum.
Quos impos damni puer inconsultus ab alto
Impetit et stolido captat prensare natatu.
Sic Anthedonius Boeotia per freta Glaucus,
Gramina gustatu postquam exitialia Circes
Expertus carptas moribundis piscibus herbas
Sumpsit, Carpathium subiit nouus accola pontum.

I myself saw certain ones, trembling at death’s end,
to have gathered their spirits, soon, lifted on high,
to give their bodies headlong, headfirst, into the river lying beneath,
regaining the waters they had despaired of.
Whom the boy, heedless of the loss, unadvised, from on high
assails, and with stolid swimming tries to grasp and seize.
Thus the Anthedonian Glaucus, through the Boeotian straits,
after, by tasting, the death-dealing grasses of Circe,
having discovered the herbs plucked for dying fishes,
took them, and as a new dweller entered the Carpathian Pontus.

Ille hamis et rete potens, scrutator operti
Nereos, aequoream solitus conuerrere Tethyn,
Inter captiuas fluitauit praedo cateruas.
Talia despectant longo per caerula tractu
Pendentes saxis instanti culmine uillae,
Quas medius dirimit sinuosis flexibus errans
Amnis, et alternas comunt praetoria ripas.
Quis modo Sestiacum pelagus, Nepheleidos Helles
Aequor, Abydeni freta quis miretur ephebi?

He, mighty with hooks and with net, a searcher-out of hidden Nereus,
accustomed to sweep Tethys of the sea,
floated as a raider among captive crowds.
Such scenes are looked down upon along a long tract over the blue
by villas hanging from rocks with an overhanging summit,
which a river, wandering with sinuous windings, divides down the middle,
and praetoria adorn the alternating banks.
Who now would admire the Sestian sea, the plain of Nephele’s Helle,
the straits of the Abydenian youth—who would marvel at them?

Quis Chalcedonio constratum ab litore pontum,
Regis opus magni, mediis euripus ubi undis
Europaeque Asiaeque uetat concurrere terras?
Non hic dira freti rabies, non saeua furentum
Proelia caurorum; licet hic commercia linguae
Iungere et alterno sermonem texere pulsu.
Blanda salutiferas permiscent litora uoces
Et uoces et paene manus: resonantia utrimque
Verba refert mediis concurrens fluctibus echo.

Who would marvel at the sea overlaid from the Chalcedonian shore,
the work of a great king, where the euripus amid the waves
forbids the lands of Europe and of Asia to run together?
Not here the dread rage of the strait, not the savage battles of the raging
Cauri; here it is permitted to join the commerce of tongue
and to weave discourse with an alternating pulse.
The kindly shores commingle salutiferous voices,
both voices and almost hands: echo, running together on either side
amid the waves, returns the resounding words.

Quis potis innumeros cultusque habitusque retexens
Pandere tectonicas per singula praedia formas?
Non hoc spernat opus Gortynius aliger, aedis
Conditor Euboicae, casus quem fingere in auro
Conantem Icarios patrii pepulere dolores;
Non Philo Cecropius, non qui laudatus ab hoste
Clara Syracosii traxit certamina belli.
Forsan et insignes hominumque operumque labores
Hic habuit decimo celebrata uolumine Mareei
Hebdomas, hic clari uiguere Menecratis artes
Atque Ephesi spectata manus uel in arce Mineruae
Ictinus, magico cui noetua perlita fuco
Allicit omne genus uolucres perimitque tuendo.

Who is able, unweaving the innumerable adornments and outfits, to lay open the architectonic forms through each several estate?
Let not this work be scorned by the Gortynian wing-bearer, builder of the Euboean shrine, whom, as he was attempting to fashion in gold the Icarian mishaps, the paternal griefs drove away;
not Philo the Cecropian, nor he who, lauded by the foe, drew out the illustrious contests of the Syracusan war.
Perhaps too the Hebdomad, famed in the tenth volume of Mareus, held here the distinguished labors both of men and of works;
here the renowned arts of Menecrates flourished,
and the hand beheld at Ephesus or in the citadel of Minerva, Ictinus’s—whose owl, steeped in magical dye, lures every kind of bird and destroys them by its gazing.

Conditor hic forsan fuerit Ptolomaidos aulae
Dinochares, quadro cui in fastigia cono
Surgit et ipsa suas consumit pyramis umbras.
Iussus ob incesti qui quondam foedus amoris
Arsinoen Pharii suspendit in aere templi;
Spirat enim tecti testudine corus achates
Amatamque trahit ferrato crine puellam.
Hos ergo aut horum similes est credere dignum
Belgarum in terris scaenas posuisse domorum
Molitos celsas fluuii decoramina uillas.

Here perhaps there was the Founder of the Ptolemaic court, Dinocrates, for whom a pyramid rises from a square into a conical summit and even consumes its own shadows.
Ordered once on account of the foul pact of incestuous love, he suspended Arsinoe in the air of the Pharian temple; for beneath the roof’s vault the flashing agate breathes and draws the beloved maiden by her iron-plaited hair.
Therefore it is worthy to believe that these men, or men like them, set the scenes of homes in the lands of the Belgae, having wrought lofty villas, adornments of the river.

Haec est natura sublimis in aggere saxi,
Haec procurrentis fundata crepidine ripae,
Haec refugit captumque sinu sibi uindicat amnem.
Illa tenens collem, qui plurimus imminet amni,
Vsurpat faciles per culta, per aspera uisus
Vtque suis fruitur felix speculatio terris.
Quin etiam riguis humili pede condita pratis
Compensat celsi bona naturalia montis
Sublimique minans irrumpit in aethera tecto
Ostentas altam, Pharos ut Memphitica, turrim.

This one has its nature sublime upon a rampart of rock,
this one founded on the projecting ledge of the bank,
this one draws back and with its bosom claims the captured river for itself.
That one, holding a hill which in great mass overhangs the river,
usurps easy views over the cultivated and the rugged,
and a happy lookout enjoys its own lands.
Nay even, set with a low foot in watered meadows,
it compensates the natural advantages of a lofty mountain,
and, menacing with its lofty roof, bursts into the ether,
you display a high tower, as the Memphitic Pharos.

Huic proprium clausos consaepto gurgite pisces
Apricas scopulorum inter captare nouales.
Haec summis innixa iugis labentia subter
Flumina despectu iam caligante tuetur.
Atria quid memorem uiridantibus assita pratis
Innumerisque super nitentia tecla columnis?

Proper to this is to catch fish, penned in an enclosed eddy, among the sun-warmed rocks, newly-bred.
This, leaning on the topmost ridges, keeps watch over the rivers gliding below, as the outlook is already growing dim.
Why should I recount the atria set beside verdant meadows, and the roofs gleaming aloft upon innumerable columns?

Quid quae fluminea substructa crepidine fumant
Balnea, feruenti cum Mulciber haustus operto
Voluit anhelatas tectoria per caua flammas
Inclusum glomerans aestu expirante uaporem?
Vidi ego defessos multo sudore lauacri
Fastidisse lacus et frigora piscinarum,
Vt uiuis fruerentur aquis, mox amne refotos
Plaudenti gelidum flumen pepulisse natatu.
Quod si Cumanis huc afforet hospes ab oris,
Crederet Euboicas simulacra exilia Baias
His donasse locis: tantus cultusque nitorque
Allicit et nullum parit oblectatio luxum.

What of the baths that, built upon a fluvial embankment, smoke,
when Mulciber, the draught taken in with the cover shut,
rolls the panting flames through the hollow plasterwork,
massing the enclosed vapor as the heat breathes it out?
I myself have seen those wearied by much sweat of the bath
grow disdainful of the pools and the chills of fishponds,
so that they might enjoy living waters; soon, refreshed by the river,
they have beaten the gelid stream with applauding stroke.
And if a guest from the Cumaean shores were here,
he would believe that Euboean Baiae had bestowed slight likenesses
upon these places: such cultivation and splendor
allure, and the delight engenders no extravagance.

Sed mihi qui tandem finis tua glauca fluenta
Dicere dignandumque mari memorare Mosellam,
Innumeri quod te diuersa per ostia late
Incurrunt amnes? quamquam differre meatus
Possent, sed celerant in te consumere nomen.
Namque et Promeae Nemesaeque adiuta meatu
Sura tuas properat non degener ire sub undas,
Sura interceptis tibi gratificata fluentis,
Nobilius permixta tuo sub nomine, quam si
Ignoranda patri confunderet oslia ponto.

But what end at last for me to tell your glaucous streamings,
and to recount the Moselle as deemed worthy of the sea,
because countless rivers run into you far and wide through diverse mouths?
Although they could differ in their courses,
yet they hasten in you to consume their name.
For even the Sura, aided by the flow of the Promea and the Nemesa,
hastens, not degenerate, to go beneath your waves—
the Sura, with intercepted streams, having gratified you by its flowings,
more nobly, mingled under your name, than if
it should confound its mouths in the father sea to be unknown.

Te rapidus Celbis, te marmote clarus Erubris
Festinant famulis quam primum allambere lymphis:
Nobilibus Celbis celebratus piscibus, ille
Praecipiti torquens cerealia saxa rotatu
Stridentesque trahens per leuia marmora serras
Audit perpetuos ripa ex utraque tumultus.
Praetereo exilem Lesuram tenuemque Drahonum
Nec fastiditos Salmonae usurpo fluores:
Nauiger undisona dudum me mole Sarauus
Tota ueste uocat, longum qui distulit amnem,
Fessa sub Augustis ut uolueret ostia muris.
Nec minor hoc, tacitum qui per sola pinguia labens
Stringit frugiferas felix Alisontia ripas.

The rapid Celbis, the marble-famous Erubris hasten to lap at you with servant waters as soon as possible:
the Celbis celebrated for noble fishes; that one, twisting the cereal stones with a headlong whirling
and dragging saws screeching through smooth marbles,
hears perpetual tumults from each bank.
I pass by the meager Lesura and the slender Drahonum,
nor do I usurp the not-despised blossoms of the Salmona:
the Saar, navigable, wave-resounding with its mass long since,
calls me with his whole vesture—he who delayed a long river,
so that, wearied, he might roll his mouths beneath the Augustan walls.
Nor is the happy Alisontia less than this, which, gliding silent through fat solitudes,
skims the fruit-bearing banks.

Mille alii, prout quemque suus magis impetus urget,
Esse tui cupiunt: tantus properantibus undis
Ambitus aut mores. Quod si tibi, dia Mosella,
Smyrna suum uatem uel Mantua clara dedisset,
Cederet Iliacis Simois memoratus in oris,
Nec praeferre suos auderet Thybris honores.
Da ueniam, da, Roma potens!

A thousand others, as each one is more urged by his own impulse,
desire to be yours: so great the ambit or the mores of your hastening waves.
But if for you, divine Moselle,
Smyrna had given its own poet or famous Mantua,
the Simois, remembered on the Iliac shores, would yield,
nor would the Tiber dare to prefer its own honors.
Grant pardon, grant it, mighty Rome!

pulsa, oro, facessat
Inuidia et Latiae Nemesis non cognita linguae:
Imperii sedem Romae tenuere parentes.
Salue, magne parens frugum uirumque, Mosella!
Te clari proceres, te bello exercita pubes,
Aemula te Latiae decorat facundia linguae.

Driven off, I pray, let Envy and the Nemesis not known to the Latin language depart:
our forefathers held the seat of the Empire at Rome.
Hail, great parent of fruits and of men, Mosella!
You are adorned by illustrious nobles, you by a youth trained in war,
and an eloquence, emulous of the Latin language, adorns you.

Quin etiam mores et laetum fronte serena
Ingenium natura tuis concessit alumnis;
Nec sola antiquos ostentat Roma Catones,
Aut unus tantum iusti sectator et aequi
Pollet Aristides ueteresque illustrat Athenas.
Verum ego quid laxis nimium spatiatus habenis
Victus amore tui praeconia detero? conde,
Musa, chelyn pulsis extremo carmine netis.

Nay, even morals and a cheerful genius with a serene brow
has nature granted to your nurslings;
nor does Rome alone display her ancient Catos,
or does Aristides, a lone follower of the just and the equitable,
prevail and illustrate old Athens.
But why do I, ranging too far with loosened reins,
conquered by love of you, wear down my panegyrics? Lay away,
Muse, the lyre, the strings struck at the song’s end.

Tempus erit, cum me studiis ignobilis oti
Mulcentem curas seniique aprica fouentem
Materiae commendet honos; cum facta uiritim
Belgarum patriosque canam, decora inclita, mores:
Mollia subtili nebunt mihi carmina filo
Pierides tenuique aptas subtemine telas
Percurrent: dabitur nostris quoque purpura fusis.
Quis mihi tum non dictus erit? memorabo quietos
Agricolas legumque catos fandique potentes,
Praesidium sublime reis; quos curia summos
Municipum uidit proceres propriumque senatum,
Quos praetextati celebris facundia ludi
Contulit ad ueteris praeconia Quintiliani,
Quique suas rexere urbes purumque tribunal
Sanguine et innocuas illustrauere secures,
Aut Italum populos aquilonigenasque Britannos
Praefecturarum titulo tenuere secundo;
Quique caput rerum, Romam, populumque patresque
Tantum non primo rexit sub nomine, quamuis
Par fuerit primis: festinat soluere tandem
Errorem fortuna suum libataque supplens
Praemia iam ueri fastigia reddat honoris
Nobilibus repetenda nepotibus.

There will be a time, when the honor of the subject will commend me as I, with the studies of inglorious leisure, soothe my cares and, sun-warmed, cherish old age;
when I shall sing, one by one, of the deeds of the Belgae and their ancestral customs, renowned distinctions:
the Pierides will spin for me soft songs with a fine thread,
and will run through looms fitted with a slender weft; purple too will be granted to our spindles.
Who then will not be named by me? I will recall the peaceful
farmers, and those wise in laws and powerful in speaking,
the lofty defense for defendants; those whom the curia saw as the highest
proceres of the municipes and as its own senate,
those whom the famed eloquence of the praetextate school
has conveyed to the encomia of old Quintilian,
and those who have ruled their own cities and made the tribunal pure
of blood and made the axes harmlessly illustrious,
or who have held the peoples of Italy and the north-born Britons
with the title of prefectures of the second rank;
and he who has ruled Rome, the head of affairs, and the people and the Fathers,
all but under the first name, although he was equal to the first: fortune
hastens at last to discharge her error and, making up the skimmings
of rewards, now may restore the summits of true honor,
to be sought again by noble descendants.

At modo coeptum
Detexatur opus, dilata et laude uirorum
Dicamus laeto per rura uirentia tractu
Felicem fluuium Rhenique sacremus in undas.
Caeruleos nunc, Rhene, sinus hyaloque uirentem
Pande peplum spatiumque noui metare fluenti
Fraternis cumulandus aquis. Nec praemia in undis
Sola, sed Augustae ueniens quod moenibus urbis
Spectauit iunctos natique patrisque triumphos
Hostibus exactis Nicrum super et Lupodunum
Et fontem Latiis ignotum annalibus Histri.

But now let the begun
work be woven to its end, and with the praise of men deferred
let us speak, in a glad course through the verdant fields,
of the happy river, and let us consecrate it to the waves of the Rhine.
Now, Rhine, unfold your cerulean bays and your robe greening with crystal,
and measure out a space for the new flow to be heaped with fraternal waters.
Nor are the rewards in the waves alone, but that, coming to the walls of the August city,
it beheld the joined triumphs of son and father,
the enemies driven back beyond the Neckar and Lupodunum,
and the source of the Danube unknown to Latin annals.

Haec profligati uenit modo laurea belli,
Hinc alias aliasque feret. Vos pergite iuncti
Et mare purpureum gemino propellite tractu.
Neu uereare minor, pulcherrime Rhene, uideri:
Inuidiae nihil hospes habet; potiere perenni
Nomine: tu fratrem famae securus adopta.

This laurel of a war brought to a close has just come,
hence it will bear others and still others. You, go on united
and propel the purple sea with a twin stroke.
Nor be afraid to seem the lesser, most beautiful Rhine:
a host has nothing of envy; you will gain a perennial
name: do you, secure as to fame, adopt a brother.

Diues aquis, diues Nymphis, largitor utrique
Alueus extendet geminis diuortia ripis
Communesque uias diuersa per ostia fundet.
Accedent uires, quas Francia quasque Chamaues
Germanique tremant: tunc uerus habebere limes.
Accedet tanto geminum tibi nomen ab amni,
Cumque unus de fonte fluas, dicere bicornis.

Rich in waters, rich in Nymphs, a lavish giver to each,
the channel will stretch out the partings with twin banks,
and will pour out common ways through diverse mouths.
Strengths will be added, which Francia and the Chamaves
and the Germans may tremble at: then you will be held a true boundary.
A twin name will be added to you from so great a river,
and though you flow as one from the spring, to be called bicorn.

Haec ego, Viuisca ducens ab origine gentem,
Belgarum hospitiis non per noua foedera notus,
Ausonius, nomen Latium, patriaque domoque
Gallorum extremos inter celsamque Pyrenen,
Temperat ingenuos qua laeta Aquitanica mores,
Audax exigua fide concino. Fas mihi sacrum
Perstrinxisse amnem tenui libamine Musae.
Nec laudem affecto, ueniam peto.

These things I, tracing my people from Viuisca in origin,
known among the Belgae by hospitalities, not by new treaties,
Ausonius, Latian by name, and by fatherland and by home
between the farthest Gauls and the lofty Pyrenees,
where joyous Aquitania tempers ingenuous manners,
bold, with slender credit, sing. It is sacred right for me
to have just grazed the river with a thin libation of the Muse.
Nor do I seek praise, I ask pardon.

Sunt tibi multi,
Alme amnis, sacros qui sollicitare fluores
Aonidum totamque solent haurire Aganippen.
Ast ego quanta mei dederit se uena liquoris,
Burdigalam cum me in patriam nidumque senectae
Augustus, pater et nati, mea maxima cura,
Fascibus Ausoniis decoratum et honore curuli
Mittent emeritae post munera disciplinae,
Latius Arctoi praeconia persequar amnis.
Addam urbes, tacito quas subter laberis alueo,
Moeniaque antiquis te prospectantia muris;
Addam praesidiis dubiarum condita rerum,
Sed modo securis non castra, sed horrea Belgis;
Addam felices ripa ex utraque colonos
Teque inter medios hominumque boumque labores
Stringentem ripas et pinguia culta secantem.

There are for you many, nourishing river, who are accustomed to stir the sacred springs of the Aonids and to drain Aganippe entire.
But I, so far as the vein of my own liquor has offered itself,
when to Burdigala, my fatherland and the nest of old age,
the Augustus, the father and the sons, my greatest care,
adorned with Ausonian fasces and the curule honor,
shall send me after the services of a discipline honorably discharged,
I shall more broadly pursue the proclamations of the northern river.
I will add the cities, beneath which you glide with silent channel,
and the walls that look out upon you with ancient ramparts;
I will add those founded as protections for things in doubt,
but now, with the Belgae secure, not camps, but granaries;
I will add the happy settlers from each bank,
and you, amid the labors of both men and oxen,
skimming the banks and cleaving the rich, well-tilled fields.

Non tibi se Liger anteferet, non Axona praeceps,
Matrona non, Gallis Belgisque intersita finis,
Santonico refluus non ipse Carantonus aestu.
Concedet gelido Durani de monte uolutus
Amnis, et auriferum postponet Gallia Tarnen,
Insanumque ruens per saxa rotantia late
In mare purpureum dominae tamen ante Mosellae
Numine adorato Tarbellicus ibit Aturrus.
Corniger externas celebrande Mosella per oras,
Nec solis celebrande locis, ubi fonte superno
Exeris auratum taurinae frontis honorem
Quaque trahis placidos sinuosa per arua meatus
Vel qua Germanis sub portibus ostia soluis:
Si quis honos tenui uolet aspirare Camenae,
Perdere si quis in his dignabitur otia Musis,
Ibis in ora hominum laetoque fouebere cantu.

Not to you will the Liger prefer itself, nor the headlong Axona,
nor the Matrona, set as a boundary between Gauls and Belgae,
nor the Carantonus himself, ebbing with the Santonic tide.
The river rolled down from the icy mount of the Duranus will yield,
and Gaul will postpone the auriferous Tarn,
and the Tarbellic Aturrus, rushing insanely through rocks rolling far and wide
into the purple sea, will nevertheless go before the Lady Moselle,
her divinity having been adored. Horn-bearing Moselle, to be celebrated through foreign shores,
and not only to be celebrated in those places where, from your lofty source,
you raise the gilded honor of a taurine brow,
and where you draw placid courses through the fields in your sinuous fold,
or where beneath German gates you loosen your mouths:
if any honor will be willing to breathe upon the slender Camena,
if anyone will deem it worthy to spend his leisure on these Muses,
you will go into the mouths of men and be cherished with joyful song.

Te fontes uiuique lacus, te caerula noscent
Flumina, te ueteres, pagorum gloria, luci,
Te Druna, te sparsis incerta Druentia ripis
Alpinique colent fluuii duplicemque per urbem
Qui meat et Dextrae Rhodanns dat nomina ripae;
Te stagnis ego caeruleis magnumque sonoris
Amnibus, aequoreae te commendabo Garunnae.

You the springs and living lakes, you the dark-blue will know
rivers, you the ancient groves, the glory of the villages,
you the Druna, you the Druentia with scattered, uncertain banks,
and the Alpine rivers will revere you, and the one which flows through the twin city
and gives a name to the right bank of the Rhone;
to blue pools and to great, sonorous
rivers I will commend you, to the oceanic Garonne.