Conradus Celtis: Odes

Primus per auras saxa volantia
Ardente torquens concita pulvere
     Quique igne sternaci sonoro
       Aera commovefecit ictu,
Is regis olim ficta tonitrua
Et vera struxit cum Iove fulmina,
     Dum mille momento per unam
       Corpora comminuit ruinam.
Uno tumulto fortia moenia
Molitur urbes celsa culmina
     Cum turribus casura, tristes
       Machina dum iaculatur orbes.
Nostro sub axe indignus erat mori
Germana nullis nomina saeculis
     Laturus, indignus scelestam
       Carminibus meruisse vitam,
Riphaea dignus frigora perpeti
Et saxa semper ferre natantia
     Symplegadum vel distrahendus
       Caucasiis scopulis sub Arcto
Aut Sisypheum impellere montibus
Saxum relabens impetuosius
     Aut Siculis urenda flammis
       Corpora contumulare in aevum.

First through the airs the flying stones
Twisting with blazing, whipped-up dust
     And those who with sonorous thrust of fire
       Shook the bronze by the struck impulse,
He once the king’s feigned thunder
And with true Jove-fulmina constructed,
     While in a thousandth of a moment through one
       He shattered bodies into ruin.
With a single tumult he labors great walls,
He drives up cities’ lofty summits
     With towers about to fall, mournful
       While the engine hurls its spheres.
Unworthy under our axis was to die
A German bearing no names for ages
     Fated, unworthy to have deserved
       Life by accursed songs,
Worthy to endure Riphaean cold
And to bear the ever-floating stones
     Of the Symplegades or to be sundered
       Beneath Caucasian crags under the Bear
Or to be driven like Sisyphus by mountains
A stone sliding back more impetuous,
     Or to be buried by Sicilian flames
       Bodies consumed into eternity.

Traiectus essem quam prope plumbea
Pila, furentum nuper ut agmina
     Suevorum inarmatus viderem
       Vindelicis recubare campis,
Fatalis olim qui fuerat locus
Varo perempto cum legionibus
     Hunisque torvis, quos cruento
       Karolus edomuit triumpho.
Quam laeta prisco tempore saecula
Ignara belli, cum neque vulnera
     Norant viri nec saevus ensis
       Pendiderat lateri minaci!
Tunc nulla stabant moenia machinis
Oppleta nec tormenta furentibus
     Funesta longis explicabant
       Cornibus ignivomum foramen,
Felix sed agris turba novalibus
Errabat aptans vimina vitibus,
     Muris nec ullis implicati
       Pervigiles timuere noctes.

I had been struck how near by by a leaden
ball, just as I saw the recently raging ranks
     of the Suevi unarmed reclining
       upon the Vindelician plains,
That place once fatal when Varus was slain with his legions
     and to the stern Huns, whom bloody
       Karolus subdued in triumph.
How joyful the ages in the old time,
ignorant of war, when men knew neither wounds
     nor the savage sword
       hung at a threatening flank!
Then no walls stood bristling with engines,
nor were siege‑machines deployed by the frantic,
     deadly, stretching out long
       horns that vomited forth fire into a breach,
But happy the folk in newly turned fields
wandered, fitting wicker to the vines,
     nor, entangled in any walls,
       did the vigilant fear the nights.

Sed praeda postquam mentibus impiis
Incessit, arces mox sibi condidit
     Et montium praerupta scandens
       Insidias struit et rapinas.
Hinc nostra cernens saecula Iuppiter,
Quod tela tractent iam sua caelica,
     Nostram deus vitam perosus
       Proelia continuata versat
Et bella saevis Martia regibus
Inspirat, orbem qui rabidum movent,
     Nullamque servant inde sanctam
       Saecula deteriora pacem.

But when plunder once set upon impious minds
It soon founded strongholds for itself
     And, scaling the sheer of mountains
       It contrives ambushes and rapines.
Whence Jupiter, beholding our ages,
Because the heavenly ones now wield their weapons,
     The god, hating our life,
       Turns it into unbroken battles
And breathes Martian wars into savage kings
Who set the world into madness,
     And thence no later ages keep holy
       Nor preserve peace, but grow the worse.

Ode 3,9

ODE 3.9

Laudat
Germanum inventorem
artis impressoriae.

He praises
Germanus, the inventor
of the printing art.

Quid tantis strepidat Graecia laudibus
Invenisse suis ingeniis canens,
Qua natura potens lege coerceat
     Caeli fulgida sidera?
Non est inferior, credite, Daedalo
Aut, qui Cecropias protulerat notas,
Ex Monguntiacis civibus editus,
     Nostri gloria nominis,
Qui sculpsit solidos aere characteres
Et versis docuit scribere litteris,
Quo nasci utilius non potuerat magis
     Cunctis, credite, saeculis.
Iam tandem Italici non poterunt viri
Germanos stolida carpere inertia,
Cum nostris videant crescere ab artibus
     Romanis saecula litteris.

Why does Greece thunder with such great praises
singing that she discovered with her own genius,
where nature, powerful by law, restrains
     the bright stars of heaven?
Believe me, not inferior is Daedalus
nor he who brought forth the Cecropian notes,
born of Monguntiacan citizens,
     the glory of our name,
who carved solid characters in bronze
and taught writing with turned letters,
by which it could not more usefully have been born
     for all, believe me, the ages.
At last Italic men will no longer be able
to taunt the Germans for dull inertia,
when they see our ages grow from our arts
     into Roman letters.

Quae tand(em) Aemilio gratia Maximo
Solvenda (e)st, genitus qui patre Caesare,
Sub quorum imperio creverat inclito
Nostris ingenium viris.

Which at last must be paid to Aemilius Maximus by gratitude,
who, born of a father Caesar,
under whose renowned command had grown
the genius of our men.