Sannazaro: de Partu Virginis

Magne parens, custosque hominum, cui jus datur uni
claudere caelestes et reserare fores:
occurrent si qua in nostris male firma libellis,
deleat errores aequa litura meos.
Imperiis, venerande, tuis submittimus illos:
Nam, sine te, recta non licet ire via.
Ipse manu, sacrisque potens Podalirius herbis
ulcera Paeonia nostra levabis ope.

Great parent, and guardian of men, to whom alone the right is given
to close and to unbar the celestial doors:
if any things not well-founded should occur in our little books,
let a fair erasure blot out my errors.
To your commands, venerable one, we submit them:
For, without you, it is not permitted to go by the straight way.
You yourself by your hand, and, powerful with sacred herbs, a Podalirius,
you will relieve our ulcers by Paeonian aid.

Quippe mihi toto nullus, te praeter, in orbe
triste salutifera leniet arte malum.
Rarus honos summo se praeside posse tueri:
Rarior a summo praeside posse legi.

For to me in the whole world no one, except you, will soothe the sad evil by salutiferous art.
Rare the honor to be able to be safeguarded under the supreme President:
Rarer to be able to be read by the supreme President.

ACTII SYNCERI SANNAZARII NEAPOLITANI

OF ACTIUS SINCERUS SANNAZARIUS NEAPOLITAN

DE PARTU VIRGINIS

ON THE CHILDBIRTH OF THE VIRGIN

LIBER PRIMUS

BOOK ONE

Virginei partus, magnoque aequaeva Parenti
progenies, superas caeli quae missa per auras
antiquam generis labem mortalibus aegris
abluit, obstructique viam patefecit Olympi,
sit mihi, Caelicolae, primus labor: hoc mihi primum
surgat opus: vos, auditas ab origine causas,
et tanti seriem, si fas, evolvite facti!
Nec minus, o Musae, vatum decus, hic ego vestros
optarim fontes, vestras nemora ardua rupes:
quandoquidem genus e caelo deducitis, et vos
virginitas, sanctaeque juvat reverentia famae:
vos igitur, seu cura poli, seu Virginis hujus
tangit honos, monstrate viam, qua nubila vincam,
et mecum immensi portas recludite caeli.
Magna quidem, magna, Aonides, sed debita posco,
nec vobis ignota: etenim potuistis et antrum
aspicere et choreas, nec vos orientia caelo
signa, nec Eoos Reges latuisse putandum est.

The Virgin-birth, and the progeny coeval with the great Parent,
who, sent through the upper airs of heaven,
washed away the ancient stain of the race for ailing mortals
and opened the path of obstructed Olympus—
let this, Heaven-dwellers, be my first labor: let this work first
arise for me: you, who have heard the causes from the origin,
and the sequence of so great a deed, unfold it, if it be lawful!
No less, O Muses, glory of bards, here I would desire your
springs, your groves, your lofty crags and rocks:
since you derive your lineage from heaven, and virginity,
and the reverence of holy fame, delights you as well:
you therefore, whether the care of the pole, or the honor of this Virgin,
touches you, show the way by which I may conquer the clouds,
and with me unclose the gates of the immense heaven.
Great indeed, great, Aonides, yet I ask what is owed,
nor unknown to you: for you could both look upon the cave
and the dances, nor should it be thought that the signs rising in the sky
or the Eastern Kings were hidden from you.

Tuque adeo, spes fida hominum, spes fida Deorum.
Alma Parens, quam mille acies, quaeque aetheris alti
militia est, totidem currus, tot signa, tubaeque,
tot litui comitantur, ovantique agmina gyro
adglomerant: niveis tibi si solemnia templis
serta damus, si mansuras tibi ponimus aras
exciso in scopulo, fluctus unde aurea canos
despiciens celso se culmine Mergilline
adtollit, nautisque procul venientibus offert,
si laudes de more tuas, si sacra, diemque
ac coetus late insignes, ritusque dicamus,
annua felicis colimus dum gaudia partus:
tu vatem ignarumque viae, insuetumque labori,
Diva, mone, et pavidis jam laeta adlabere coeptis.
Viderat aetherea superum Regnator ab arce,
undique collectas vectari in Tartara praedas:
Tisiphonemque imo conantem cuncta profundo
vertere, et immanes stimulantem ad dira sorores:
nec jam homini prodesse, alto quod semina caelo
duceret, aut varios animum excoluisset ad usus:
tantum letiferae poterant contagia culpae!

And you indeed, faithful hope of men, faithful hope of the Gods.
Nourishing Mother, whom a thousand battle-lines, and all the militia of the high aether,
just as many chariots, so many standards, and trumpets,
so many clarions accompany, and in ovation mass their columns in a circling ring:
if in snowy-white temples we give you festal garlands, if for you we set enduring altars
on a hewn crag, whence, looking down on the hoary waves, golden,
from the lofty summit Mergilline lifts itself
and offers itself to sailors coming from afar,
if we proclaim your praises according to custom, your sacred rites, and the day
and the assemblies widely distinguished, and the rites,
while we keep the yearly joys of the happy Birth:
you, Goddess, advise the bard, ignorant of the way and unaccustomed to toil,
and gladly glide to undertakings now timorous.
The Ruler of the celestials had seen from the ethereal citadel
the spoils gathered from every side being carried to Tartarus:
and Tisiphone striving to overturn all things in the lowest deep,
and goading her monstrous sisters to dire deeds:
and that it no longer profited man that he drew his seeds from high heaven,
or had cultivated his mind for diverse uses:
so great were the lethal contagions of guilt!

Tum pectus Pater, aeterno succensus amore,
sic secum: "Ecquis erit finis? tantisne parentum
prisca luent poenis seri commissa nepotes?
ut quos victuros semper, superisque crearam
pene pares, tristi patiar succumbere leto,
informesque domos, obscuraque regna subire?

Then the Father, his breast kindled with eternal love,
thus with himself: "Will there be any end? Will late-born
descendants pay with such great penalties the ancient offenses committed by their parents?
that those whom I created to live forever, and almost peers to the supernal powers,
should I suffer to succumb to sad death,
and to go down to formless homes and obscure realms?"

Non ita, sed divum potius revocentur ad oras,
ut decet, et manuum poscunt opera alta mearum:
desertosque foros, vacuique sedilia caeli
actutum complere parent: legio unde, nefandis
acta odiis, trepidas ruit exturbata per auras.
Cumque caput fuerit, tantorumque una malorum
femina principium, lacrimasque, et funera terris
intulerit: nunc auxilium ferat ipsa, modumque
qua licet, afflictis imponat femina rebus."
Haec ait, et celerem stellata in veste ministrum,
qui castae divina ferat mandata puellae,
adloquitur, facie insignem et fulgentibus alis:
"Te, quem certa vocant magnarum exordia rerum,
fide vigil, pars militiae fortissima nostrae,
te decet ire, novumque in saecula jungere foedus:
nunc animurn huc adverte atque haec sub pectore serva.
Est urbes Phoenicum inter, lateque fluentem
Jordanem, regio nostris sat cognita sacris;
Judaeam appellant, armisque et lege potentem.

"Not so, but rather let the gods be recalled to the shores,
as is fitting, and they demand the lofty works of my hands:
and let them make ready at once to fill the deserted forums and the empty benches of heaven:
whence the legion, driven by unspeakable hatreds,
cast out, rushes through the trembling airs. And since the head, and the single beginning of such great evils,
has been a woman, and she has brought tears and funerals upon the lands:
now let she herself bring help, and, in whatever way it is permitted, let a woman impose a bound upon afflicted affairs."
He said these things, and he addresses the swift minister in a starry robe,
who may bear the divine mandates to the chaste maiden,
notable in face and with gleaming wings:
"You, whom sure beginnings of great things summon,
watchful in faith, the bravest part of our militia,
it befits you to go, and to join a new covenant for the ages:
now turn your mind hither and keep these things under your breast.
There is, among the cities of the Phoenicians and the broadly flowing
Jordan, a region well enough known to our sacred rites;
they call it Judaea, powerful in arms and in law.

Hic claris exorta atavis, vatumque ducumque
antiquum genus, et dignis licet aucta hymenaeis,
pectoris inlaesum Virgo mihi casta pudorem
servat adhuc, nullos non servatura per annos,
(mirus amor!) seniumque sui venerata mariti
exiguis degit thalamis et paupere tecto,
digna polo regnare, altoque effulgere divum
concilio, et nostros aeternum habitare penates.
Hanc mihi virginibus jampridem ex omnibus unam
delegi, prudensque animo interiore locavi:
ut foret, intacta sanctum quae numen in alvo
conciperet, ferretque pios sine semine partus.
Ergo age, nubivagos molire per aera gressus,
deveniensque locum, castas haec jussus ad aures
effare: et pulchris cunctantem hortatibus imple:
quandoquidem genus e Stygiis mortale tenebris
eripere est animus, saevosque arcere labores."
Dixerat.

Here, sprung from illustrious forefathers, an ancient stock of prophets and leaders,
and though augmented by worthy hymeneals,
the chaste Virgin still keeps for me the uninjured modesty of her breast,
and will keep it through all years, (wondrous love!) and, reverencing the old age
of her own husband, she passes her days in scant bridal-chambers and beneath a poor roof,
worthy to reign in heaven, and to shine forth in the high council of the gods,
and to dwell forever among our Penates. Of her, long since, out of all virgins, this one alone
I chose for myself, and, wisely, I lodged her in my inmost soul:
that she might be she who, untouched, would conceive the holy Numen in her womb,
and would bear pious offspring without seed. Therefore come, set cloud-wandering steps in motion through the air,
and, descending to the place, speak these things, as commanded, to her chaste ears:
and fill the hesitating one with fair exhortations:
since indeed my purpose is to snatch the mortal race from Stygian darkness
and to ward off savage labors." He had spoken.

Ille altum Zephyris per inane vocatis
carpit iter, scindit nebulas, atque aera tranat
ima petens, pronusque leves vix commovet alas.
Qualis, ubi ex alto notis Maeandria ripis
prospexit vada, seu placidi stagna ampla Caystri,
praecipitem sese candenti corpore cycnus
mittit agens: jamque implumis, segnisque videtur
ipse sibi, donec tandem potiatur amatis
victor aquis: sic ille auras, nubesque secabat.
Ast ubi palmiferac tractu stetit altus Idumes:
Reginam haud humiles volventem pectore curas
adspicit; atque illi veteres de more Sibyllae
in manibus: tum siqua aevo reseranda nepotum
fatidici casto cecinerunt pectore vates.

He, having called the Zephyrs, through the high void
treads his path, cleaves the clouds, and swims the air,
seeking the depths, bowed forward, and scarcely stirs his light wings.
Just as, when from on high, from the well-known Maeandrian banks,
he has looked out upon the shallows, or the broad pools of placid Cayster,
the swan, with gleaming body, hurls himself headlong in driving descent;
and now to himself he seems unfeathered and sluggish,
until at last, victor, he gains the beloved waters:
so he was cutting the breezes and the clouds.
But when he stood over the tract of palm-bearing high Idumea,
he beholds the Queen revolving in her breast no lowly cares;
and in her hands the ancient Sibyls, according to custom—
then, whatever things were to be unsealed for the age of descendants
the prophetic bards sang with chaste breast.

Ipsam autem securam animi laetamque videres
auctorem sperare suum: namque adfore tempus,
quo Sacer aethereis delapsus Spiritus astris
incorrupta piae compleret viscera Matris,
audierat. Proh, quanta alti reverentia caeli
virgineo in vultu est! Oculos dejecta modestos
suspirat: matremque Dei venientis adorat:
felicemque illam, humana nec lege creatam
saepe vocat: nec dum ipsa suos jam sentit honores,
cum subito ex alto juvenis demissus Olympo
purpureos retegit vultus, numenque professus
incessuque habituque, ingentes explicat alas,
ac tectis late insuetum diffundit odorem.

But you would have seen her herself secure in mind and glad,
to hope for her own author; for she had heard that a time would be at hand,
when the Holy Spirit, dropped down from the aetherial stars,
would fill the uncorrupted viscera of the pious Mother;
Ah, how great a reverence of the high heaven
is on the virginal countenance! With modest eyes cast down
she sighs, and she adores the mother of the coming God;
and often calls that one happy, not created by human law;
nor yet does she herself feel her own honors,
when suddenly from on high a youth, sent down from Olympus,
uncovers his rosy face, and, professing his numen
in his gait and his habit, he spreads his vast wings,
and throughout the roofs he pours a wide unwonted odor.

Mox prior haec: "Oculis salve lux debita nostris,
jampridem notum caelo jubar, optima Virgo:
cui sese tot dona, tot explicuere merenti
divitiae superum: quidquid rectique, probique
aeterna de mente fluit: purissima quidquid
ad terras summo veniens Sapientia caelo
fert secum, et plenis exundans Gratia rivis.
Te Genitor stabili firmam sibi lege sacravit,
perpetuos genitor cursus qui dirigit astris,
mansuramque tuo fixit sub pectore sedem.
Idcirco coetus inter veneranda pudicos
una es, quam latis caeli in regionibus olim
tot divum celebrent voces.

Soon the first said these: "Hail, light owed to our eyes,
a radiance long since known to heaven, most excellent Virgin:
to whom so many gifts, so many the riches of the supernal ones
have unfolded themselves for the deserving: whatever of the right and the good
flows from the eternal mind; whatever the most pure
Wisdom, coming to the lands from the highest heaven,
brings with her, and Grace overflowing with full streams.
The Begetter has consecrated you to himself, firm by a stable law,
he, the begetter who directs everlasting courses to the stars,
and has fixed beneath your breast an abode that will endure.
Therefore among the modest, venerable assemblies
you are the one whom, in the broad regions of heaven, of old
so many voices of the divine celebrate.

Proh gaudia terris
quanta dabis! quantis hominum succurrere votis
incipies!" Stupuit confestim exterrita Virgo,
demisitque oculos, totosque expalluit artus.
Non secus ac conchis si quando intenta legendis
seu Micone parva, scopulis seu forte Seriphi,
nuda pedem virgo, laetae nova gloria matris,
veliferam advertit vicina ad litora puppim
adventare, timet: nec jam subducere vestem
audet, nec tuto ad socias se reddere cursu:
sed trepidans silet, obtutuque immobilis haeret.

Oh, what joys you will give to the earth! to how many prayers of men you will begin to succor!" Straightway the terrified Virgin was astounded,
and she lowered her eyes, and all her limbs grew pale.
Not otherwise than when, intent on gathering shells,
either on tiny Myconos, or by chance on the crags of Seriphos,
a maiden with bare foot, the new glory of her happy mother,
perceives a sail-bearing stern making for the neighboring shores,
she is afraid; nor now does she dare to draw up her garment,
nor to betake herself in safety to her companions at a run:
but trembling she is silent, and, motionless in her gaze, she clings fast.

Illa Arabum merces, et fortunata Canopi
dona ferens, nullis bellum mortalibus infert:
sed pelago innocuis circum nitet armamentis.
Tum rutilus caeli alipotens, cui lactea fandi
Copia, divinique fluunt e pectore rores
ambrosiae, quibus ille acres mulcere procellas
possit, et iratos pelago depellere ventos:
"Exue, Dia, metus animo, paritura verendum
caelitibus Numen, sperataque gaudia terris,
aeternamque datura venis per saecula pacem.
Haec ego, siderea missus tibi nuncius arce,
sublimis celeres vexit quem penna per auras,
vaticinor, non insidias, non nectere fraudes
edoctus: longe a nostris fraus exulat oris.

That one, bearing the merchandise of the Arabs and the fortunate gifts of Canopus,
wages war on no mortals:
but upon the sea it shines all around with harmless rigging.
Then the ruddy, heaven wing-mighty one, to whom a milky
Abundance of speaking, and divine dews of ambrosia flow from his breast,
by which he could soothe sharp tempests
and drive the winds angered at the sea away:
“Put off, Dia, fears from your spirit, you who are about to bear a venerable
Numen for the heaven-dwellers, and the hoped-for joys for the lands,
and are destined to give through your veins an eternal peace through the ages.
These things I, a nuncio sent to you from the starry citadel,
whom a swift wing has borne aloft through the breezes,
vaticinate, taught not to lay ambushes, not to weave frauds
in any way: fraud is far exiled from our shores.

Quippe tui magnum magna incrementa per orbem
ipsa olim partus, Virgo, sobolisque beatae
adspicies: vincet proavos, proavitaque longo
extendet jura imperio, populisque vocatis
ad solium, late ingentes moderabitur urbes:
nec sceptri jam finis erit, nec terminus aevi;
quin justis paulatim animis pulcherrima surget
relligio: non monstra, piis sed numina templis
placabunt castae diris sine caedibus arae".
Dixerat. Illa animum sedato pectore firmans,
substitit, et placido breviter sic ore locuta est:
"Conceptusne mihi tandem, partusque futuros,
Sancte, refers? mene attactus perferre viriles
posse putas?

Indeed, you yourself, O Virgin, will one day behold through the great orb the great augmentations of your own—of the birth and blessed progeny:
he will surpass forefathers, and will extend ancestral rights with long dominion, and, with peoples called to the throne,
he will widely govern vast cities: nor will there now be an end of the scepter, nor a terminus of age;
nay rather, in just minds a most beautiful religion will gradually arise: not monsters, but divinities will chaste altars,
in pious temples, appease, without dire slaughters."
He had spoken. She, steadying her spirit with her breast calmed,
halted, and with a placid mouth briefly spoke thus:
"Are you at last reporting to me conception, and the coming birth,
O Holy One? Do you think that I am able to bear to endure masculine touches?

cui vel nitenti matris ab alvo
protinus inconcussum, et ineluctabile votum
virginitas fuit una: nec est cur solvere amatae
jura pudicitiae cupiam, aut haec foedera rumpam."
"Immo istas (quod tu minime jam rere) per aures,
excipit interpres, foecundam Spiritus alvum
influet, implebitque potenti viscera partu,
flammifero veniens caelo, atque micantibus astris.
At tu, virgineum mirata tumescere ventrem,
haerebis pavitans: demum, formidine pulsa,
gaudia servati capies inopina pudoris.
Neve haec vana putes, dictis aut territa nostris
indubites, serae dudum concessa senectae
dona oculos pone ante tuos; nam sanguine avito
juncta tibi mulier (sterilis licet illa gravique
pressa aevo) haudquaquam speratum hoc tempore pignus
fert utero, et felix sexto sub mense laborat.

"for whom even from the shining mother's womb
straightway virginity was the one unshaken and ineluctable vow:
nor is there cause why I should wish to loosen the laws of beloved
chastity, or break these covenants."
"Rather—through these ears (which you now least suppose),
the Interpreter replies—the Spirit will flow into a fecund womb,
and will fill your inmost parts with a potent offspring,
coming from flame-bearing heaven and from the gleaming stars.
But you, amazed that a virgin belly swells,
will hang back, trembling: at last, fear banished,
you will take unexpected joys of preserved modesty.
And lest you think these things vain, or, frightened by our words,
hesitate, set before your eyes the gifts long since granted to late
old age; for the woman joined to you by ancestral blood (though she be sterile and weighed down by heavy
years) bears in her womb at this time a pledge by no means hoped for,
and, happy, is in travail under the sixth month.

Usque adeo magno nil non superabile caelo est!"
His dictis, Regina oculos ad sidera tollens
caelestumque domos superas, atque aurea tecta,
adnuit, et tales emisit pectore voces:
"Jam jam vince; fides, vince, obsequiosa voluntas:
en adsum: accipio venerans tua jussa, tuumque
dulce sacrum, Pater omnipotens; nec fallere vestrum est,
Caelicolae: nosco crines, nosco ora, manusque
Verbaque, et aligerum caeli haud variantis alumnum."
Tantum effata, repente nova micuisse penates
luce videt: nitor ecce domum complerat; ibi illa,
ardentum haud patiens radiorum, ignisque corusci,
extimuit magis. At venter (mirabile dictu!
non ignota cano) sine vi, sine labe pudoris,
arcano intumuit verbo: Vigor actus ab alto
irradians, vigor omnipotens, Vigor omnia cornplens
descendit, Deus ille, Deus, totosque per artus
dat sese, miscetque utero.

So far, indeed, in the great heaven nothing is unconquerable!"
With these things said, the Queen, lifting her eyes to the stars
and to the upper homes of the celestials, and the golden roofs,
nodded assent, and sent forth such voices from her breast:
"Now, now prevail; faith, prevail; obedient will:
lo, I am here: I receive, with veneration, your commands, and your
sweet sacrament, All-powerful Father; nor is it yours to deceive,
you heaven-dwellers: I know the locks, I know the faces, and the hands
and the words, and the winged fosterling of the unvarying heaven."
Having said only so much, suddenly she sees that the household has flashed
with new light: behold, brilliance had filled the house; there she,
not enduring the burning rays and the flashing fire,
was more thoroughly afraid. But the womb (wonderful to say!
I sing not unknown things) without force, without stain to modesty,
swelled by a secret word: the Vigor driven from on high,
irradiating, the omnipotent vigor, the Vigor filling all things,
descended, that God, God, and through all the limbs
he gives himself, and he mingles with the womb.

Quo tacta repente
viscera contremuere: silet Natura, pavetque
adtonitae similis; confusaque turbine rerum
insolito, occultas conatur quaerere causas.
Sed longe vires alias, majoraque sentit
numina: succutitur tellus, laevumque sereno
intonuit caelo, rerum cui summa potestas,
adventum Nati Genitor testatus, ut omnes
audirent late populi, quos maximus ambit
Oceanus, Tethysque et raucisona Amphitrite.
Hos inter medios caeli, terraeque fragores,
aequatis properans volucer pulcherrimus alis,
(omnia dum trepidant) discesserat, altaque nabat
per loca, cum Virgo celsis in nubibus illum
alternantem humeros videt, atque immensa secantem
ventorum spatia, et jam versicolore per auras
fulgentem pluma ac caeli convexa petentem.

Whereupon, touched by this, her viscera suddenly trembled: Nature is silent, and she fears, like one thunder-struck; and, confused by an unusual whirlwind of things, she tries to seek hidden causes. But she senses forces far other, and greater numina: the earth is shaken, and from a serene sky the left-hand side thundered—He to whom is the supreme power of things, the Begetter attesting the Advent of the Son—so that all peoples far and wide might hear, whom the greatest Ocean encompasses, and Tethys and hoarse-sounding Amphitrite. Amid these crashes of sky and earth, the most beautiful Winged One, hastening with balanced wings, (while all things quiver) had departed, and was floating through high places, when the Virgin sees him in the lofty clouds alternating his shoulders, and cleaving the immense spaces of the winds, and now, with variegated plume, shining through the airs and making for the vaults of heaven.

Quem demum tali adspectans sermone secuta est:
"Magne ales, celsi decus aetheris, invia rerum
qui penetras, longeque et nubila linquis, et Euros
antevolans, laeto seu te felicia tractu
sidera, quaeque suos volvuntur signa per orbes
exspectant redeuntem: alti seu certa reposcit
crystalli domus, et vitrei plaga lucida regni:
seu propiora vocant supremo tecta Tonanti,
qua patet in summum regio flammantis Olympi
teque amor, et liquidis flagrans alit ignibus aura:
i, precor, i, nostrum testis defende pudorem."
Nec plura his. Tum vero aciem deflectit, et omnes,
haud mora, sollicito percurrit lumine montes:
agnatamque animo, conceptaque pignora versat,
multa putans, serumque uteri miratur honorem.
Interea Manes descendit Fama sub imos,
pallentesque domos veris rumoribus implet:
optatum adventare diem, quo tristia linquant
Tartara, et evictis fugiant Acheronta tenebris,
immanemque ululatum, et non laetabile murmur
tergemini canis: adverso qui carceris antro
excubat insomnis semper, rictuque trifauci
horrendum, stimulante fame, sub nocte profunda
personat et morsu venienteis adpetit umbras.

Whom at last, beholding, she addressed with such speech:
“Great winged one, ornament of the high aether, you who pierce the pathless things, and leave far behind even the clouds, and outfly the East winds, whether in a glad course the happy stars, and the constellations which roll their signs through their orbits, await you returning; or the sure house of the lofty crystal calls you back, and the shining region of the glassy kingdom; or the nearer roofs to the supreme Thunderer summon you, where the region of flaming Olympus lies open to the highest, and love, and a breeze flaming with limpid fires, sustains you: go, I pray, go, defend as witness our modesty.”
Nor more than this. Then indeed she bends aside her gaze, and without delay runs over all the mountains with an anxious light; and in mind she turns over her kinswoman and the pledges conceived, thinking many things, and she marvels at the late honor of the womb. Meanwhile Rumor descends down to the lowest Shades, and fills the pallid homes with true rumors: that the longed-for day is approaching, on which they will leave sad Tartarus, and, the darkness conquered, will flee Acheron, and the monstrous ululation, and the unjoyous murmur of the three‑throated dog, who, sleepless, always keeps watch at the opposing cave of the prison, and, dreadful with his three‑throated gape, with hunger goading him, under the deep night he resounds and with his bite he attacks the coming shades.

Tum vero Heroes laetati, animaeque piorum
ad caelum erectas coeperunt tendere palmas.
Atque hic insignis funda, citharaque decorus,
insignis sceptro senior, per opaca locorum
dum graditur, nectitque sacros diademate crines:
dum legit effoetos Lethaeo in gramine flores,
qua tacitae labuntur aquae, mutaeque volucres
ducunt per steriles aeterna silentia ramos:
adtonita subitos concepit mente furores,
divinamque animam; et consueto numine plenus,
intorquens oculos, venientia fata recenset:
"Nascere, magne Puer, nostros quem solvere nexus,
et tantos Genitor voluit perferre labores;
magne Puer, cui se haec tandem spolianda reservant
regna, tot, heu! miseris hominum ditata ruinis:
nascere, venturum si te mortalibus olim
pectore veridico promisimus, igneus ut nos
viribus adflatos caelestibus ardor agebat
insinuans: si sacra peregimus, et tua late
jussa per immensum fama vulgavimus orbem.

Then indeed the Heroes rejoiced, and the souls of the pious
began to stretch their palms, upraised, toward heaven.
And here one, notable with the sling and adorned with the cithara,
an elder notable for the scepter, while he goes through the dim places
and ties his sacred hair with the diadem:
while he gathers spent flowers on Lethean grass,
where the silent waters glide, and mute birds
lead eternal silences through barren branches:
with astonished mind he conceived sudden furies,
and a divine spirit; and, full with the accustomed numen,
rolling his eyes, he recounts the coming fates:
“Be born, great Boy, you whom the Father willed to unloose our bonds,
and to endure such great labors;
great Boy, for whom these realms at last reserve themselves to be despoiled—
so many, alas! enriched by the ruins of wretched men:
be born, if once we promised you would come to mortals
with a truth-telling breast, as a fiery ardor,
instilling itself, drove us, breathed upon with celestial forces:
if we have accomplished sacred rites, and far and wide your
commands through the immense orb we have broadcast by fame.”

En ridet Pax alma tibi: simul ecce potentes
impulsi caelo, divisque auctoribus acti,
orbe alio properant Reges. Salvete, beati
Aethiopes, hominum sanctum genus, astra secuti:
scilicet huc vestris adfertis munera regnis.
Accipe dona, Puer, tuque, o sanctissima Mater,
sume animos: jam te populique, ducesque frequentant
litore ab extremo et odoriferis Nabathaeis.

Behold, nurturing Peace smiles upon you:
at the same time, look, the mighty,
driven by heaven, and urged on with the gods as authors,
hasten from another orb, the Kings.
Hail, blessed
Ethiopians, a holy race of men, having followed the stars:
surely hither you bring gifts from your kingdoms.
Accept the gifts, Child, and you, O most holy Mother,
take heart: now both peoples and leaders throng to you
from the farthest shore and from the odoriferous Nabathaeans.

Ille autem aurata fulgens in veste sacerdos
jam canus, jam maturo venerabilis aevo,
quid sibi vult? sacras Puerum qui sistit ad aras,
sic venerans, laetoque inspectans aethera vultu?
Seque dehinc facili clausurum lumina fato
Exclamat: quod speratum per saecula munus,
promissamque diu pacem, certamque salutem
terrarum exorta liceat sibi luce tueri
optanti, seniumque ideo, Parcasque trahenti.

But that priest, shining in a golden garment,
now hoary, now venerable in mature age—
what is he about? who sets the Boy at the sacred altars,
thus venerating, and gazing upon the ether with a joyful countenance?
And he cries out that from here on he will close his eyes with an easy fate:
that the gift hoped for through the ages,
and the long-promised peace, and the sure salvation
of the lands, since the light has arisen, it may be permitted him to behold—
to the one desiring it, and for that reason dragging out old age and the Fates.

Sed quid ego, heu! dira conspersos caede penates
Infantum, et subito currenteis sanguine rivos
adspicio? tristisque meas vagitus ad aures
fertur?

But what do I, alas!—the Penates spattered with dire slaughter
of infants, and rivulets suddenly running with blood—
do I behold? and is a mournful wailing to my ears
borne?

io, scelus est partus jugulare recentes!
Crudelis, quid agis? nihil hi meruere: neque illum
quem petis, insano dabitur tibi perdere ferro.

ah, it is a crime to jugulate newborns!
Cruel one, what are you doing? these have merited nothing; nor him
whom you seek will it be granted you to destroy with insane iron.

Nunc nunc, o matres, scelerata abscedite terra,
dum licet, inque sinu pueros abscondite vestros:
nam ferus hostis adest. Propera jam, regia Virgo,
inque Paraetonias transfer tua pignora terras:
admonet hoc magnum Genitor qui temperat orbem.
Tuta domus tutique illic tibi, Dia, recessus.

Now, now, O mothers, depart the accursed land,
while it is permitted, and hide your boys in your bosom:
for the fierce enemy is at hand. Hasten now, royal Virgin,
and transfer your pledges into the Paraetonian lands:
the great Begetter who governs the orb warns this.
Safe is the house, and safe there for you, O Dia, the retreats.

Verum ubi bis senas hiemes bis senaque nati
solstitia, et tantos superaveris anxia casus:
ingentes imo duces de pectore questus,
aureaque adsiduis pulsabis sidera votis.
Nam Puerum, quamvis per compita saepe vocatum,
saepe expectatum consuetae ad gaudia mensae,
perquires nequicquam amens: nec cara petentem
oscula, nec sera redeuntem nocte videbis.
Tresque illum totos moerenti pectore soles,
et totidem trepidas somni sine munere noctes
omnia lustrantes, questu omnia confundentes,
flebitis, indigno perculsi corda dolore
tuque senexque tuus; quarto sed Lucifer ortu
purpureos tremulo cum tollet ab aequore vultus,
inventum dabit, et quaerentibus offeret ultro.

But when twice six winters and the twice six solstices of the Boy
have passed, and you, anxious, have overcome such great misfortunes:
you will lead huge laments from the inmost breast,
and you will pound the golden stars with incessant vows.
For the Boy, though often called through the crossroads,
often awaited at the joys of the accustomed table,
you will search for in vain, out of your mind: nor him seeking dear
kisses, nor returning late at night will you see.
And for three whole suns with a grieving breast, and just so many
nights, anxious, without the gift of sleep,
scanning everything, confounding everything with lament,
you will weep, you and your old man, hearts struck by unworthy pain;
but at the fourth rising of Lucifer, when he shall lift his crimson
faces from the trembling sea,
he will give him as found, and will of his own accord offer himself to those seeking.

O quas tunc lacrimas, o quae tunc oscula, Mater,
quos dabis amplexus, misto inter gaudia fletu!
cum Natum ante aras Patris et delubra sedentem,
mulcentemque senes dictis, animosque trahentem
adspicies gavisa, ipso admirante senatu
primitias Pueri ingentes, nec inane sagacis
pectoris indicium nataeque ad grandia mentis.
Tu vero quid in arma ruis, scelerata juventus?

O what tears then, O what kisses then, Mother,
what embraces you will give, with weeping mixed amid joys!
when you will behold the Son sitting before the altars of the Father and the shrines,
soothing the elders with words, and drawing souls,
rejoicing, with the senate itself admiring
the mighty first-fruits of the Boy, and the not empty indication of a sagacious
breast and of a mind born for grand things.
But you indeed, why do you rush to arms, accursed youth?

quid galeas, ensesque virum, et fulgentia cerno
agmina? scutatasque procul sub nocte cohortes
obscura, et crebris radiantes ignibus hastas?
totne unum telis petitur caput?

why do I behold helmets and the swords of men, and gleaming ranks?
and shield-bearing cohorts afar beneath the dark night,
and spears radiating with frequent fires?
is a single head sought with so many weapons?

heu furor, heu mens
caeca hominum semperque odiis adcincta nefandis!
Jamque oleas, montemque sacrum circumque supraque
cinxere, et longa lucum obsedere corona.
Quo feror?

alas, fury, alas the mind
of men, blind and always begirt with nefarious hatreds!
And now the olive trees, and the sacred mount, around and above
they have encircled, and with a long crown they have besieged the grove.
Whither am I carried?

ecce trahunt manibus post terga revinctis
Insontem: modo quem latas mira illa per urbes
edentem, Patrisque palam praecepta docentem
adtoniti stupuere, illum regemque Deumque
humanaeque ducem vitae, fontemque salutis
haud veriti populo circum plaudente fateri.
Heu facinus! mortemne etiam, et crudele minantur
Supplicium?

behold, they drag the Innocent, with hands bound behind his back:
he whom but now, setting forth those miracles through the broad cities,
and openly teaching the precepts of the Father,
astonished they stood stupefied at—him, King and God,
and the guide of human life, and the fount of salvation—
not fearing to confess, with the people around applauding.
Alas, the crime! do they even threaten death, and a cruel Punishment?

saevos stringunt in vulnera fasces,
horrentesque parant paliuro intexere dumos,
tormenti genus, et capiti premere inde coronam
vulnificam: viden' alternos ut arundinis ictus
incutiunt? geminantque truci convicia lingua?
Parte alia ingentes video de stirpibus imis
everti palmas, altas ad sidera palmas,
infelix opus: unde hominum lux illa, decorque
pendeat: ah trepidis dirum et miserabile terris!

they draw the savage fasces for wounds,
and they prepare to interweave bristling brambles with paliurus,
a kind of torment, and then to press upon the head a wound-making crown:
do you see how they inflict alternating blows of the reed?
and how they double revilings with a fierce tongue?
Elsewhere I see huge palms being uprooted from their deepest stocks,
palms high to the stars, an unlucky work: whence that light of men and ornament
may hang: ah, dire and pitiable for the trembling lands!

cum Patri aethereo moriens liventia pandet
brachia, turpatosque atra de morte capillos,
oraque, demissosque oculos frontemque cruore
jam madidam, et lato patefactum pectus hiatu.
At Mater, non jam mater sed flentis et orbae
infelix simulacrum, aegra ac sine viribus umbra,
ante crucem demissa genas, effusa capillum,
stat lacrimans, tristique irrorat pectora fletu.
Ac si jam comperta mihi licet ore profari
omnia: defessi spectans morientia Nati
lumina, crudeles terras, crudelia dicit
sidera, crudelem sese (quod talia cernat
vulnera) saepe vocat; tum luctisono ululatu
cuncta replens, singultanti sic incipit ore:
incipit, et duro figit simul oscula ligno,
exclamans: Quis me miseram, quis culmine tanto
dejectam subitis involvit, Nate, procellis?

when, dying, he will spread to the ethereal Father his livid arms,
and the hair disfigured, black from death,
and the face, and the downcast eyes, and the forehead now drenched
with blood, and the breast laid open by a broad yawning.
But the Mother, now no longer a mother but the unhappy simulacrum of one weeping and bereft,
a sick and strengthless shade, with cheeks cast down before the cross, with hair let loose,
stands weeping, and bedews her breast with a sad weeping.
And if now it is permitted me to proclaim with my mouth all things that have been learned:
gazing upon the dying lights of her wearied Son,
she calls the lands cruel, the stars cruel, and often calls
herself cruel (because she beholds such wounds); then, filling all things with a lugubrious ululation,
with a sobbing mouth she thus begins:
she begins, and at the same time fixes kisses upon the hard wood,
crying out: Who has wrapped me, wretched, who, cast down from so great a pinnacle,
has entangled me, O Son, in sudden tempests?

Nate, Patris vires, sanguis meus, unde repente
haec fera tempestas? quis te mihi fluctus ademit?
quae manus indignos foedavit sanguine vultus?

Son, the Father's might, my blood, whence suddenly
this fierce tempest? which wave has taken you from me?
what hand has defiled with blood your undeserving features?

cui tantum in superos licuit? bella impia caelo
quis parat? hunc ego te post tot male tuta labores
postque tot infelix elapsae incommoda vitae
adspicio?

To whom has so much been allowed against the gods above? Who prepares impious wars against heaven? Do I behold you thus—you, after so many precarious labors—and I, unhappy, after so many incommodities of an elapsed life?

tune illa tuae lux unica Matris?
tune animae pax, et requies, spesque ultima nostrae
sic raperis? sic me solam exanimemque relinquis?

Are you then that only light of your Mother?
Are you the peace of my soul, and repose, and the ultimate hope of ours,
thus are you snatched away? thus do you leave me alone and lifeless?

O dolor, exstincto jam te pro fratre sorores,
pro natis toties exoravere parentes:
ast ego pro Nato, pro te dominoque Deoque
quem misera exorem? quo tristia pectora vertam?
cui querar?

O sorrow, with you now extinct, sisters have implored for a brother,
parents so many times for their offspring:
but I—for the Son, for you, both Lord and God—
whom, wretched, shall I entreat? whither shall I turn my sad breast?
to whom shall I complain?

o tandem dirae me perdite dextrae?
me potius, siqua est pietas, immanibus armis
obruite: in me omnes effundite pectoris iras!
vel tu (si tanti est hominum genus) eripe Matrem
quae rogat et Stygias tecum duc, Nate, sub umbras.

o at last, dire right hands, destroy me?
me rather, if there is any piety, overwhelm with monstrous arms;
upon me pour out all the wrath of your breast!
or you (if the race of men is of such worth), snatch the Mother who begs
and lead her with you, Son, beneath the Stygian shades.

Ipsa ego te per dura locorum, inamoenaque vivis
regna sequar: liceat rumpentem cernere portas
aeratas, liceat pulchro sudore madentem
eversorem Erebi materna abstergere dextra.
Hos illa, et plures fundet de pectore questus.
Quod scelus Eois ut primum cernet ab undis
sol, indignantes retro convertere currus
optabit: frustraque suis luctatus habenis,
quod poterit tandem, auratos ferrugine crines
inficiet, moestamque diu sine lumine frontem
ostendet terris, ut qui jam ploret ademptum
auctorem Regemque suum; quin ipsa nigranti
fratris ab ore timens, et tanto concita casu
Cynthia caeruleo vultus obnubet amictu
avertetque oculos, lacrimasque effundet inanes.

I myself will follow you through the hard places of the regions, and the unlovely realms of the living:
let it be permitted to see you bursting the brazen gates,
let it be permitted to wipe with a maternal right hand
the overthrower of Erebus, dripping with beauteous sweat.
These complaints, and more, she will pour from her breast.
As soon as the Sun shall behold this crime from the Eastern waves,
he will desire to turn his indignant chariots back;
and, having struggled in vain with his own reins,
what he can at last, he will do—he will dye his aurate tresses with ferruginous stain,
and will show to the lands his brow mournful for a long time without light,
as one who already weeps his taken-away Author and King; nay rather, Cynthia herself,
fearing from her brother’s blackening face, and stirred by so great a fall,
will veil her countenance with a cerulean mantle,
and will turn away her eyes, and will pour out ineffectual tears.

At contra horrisono tellus concussa tremore,
cum gemitu fremet, et ruptis excita sepulcris
emittet simulacra. Quid, o, quid abire paratis,
illustres animae? Non omnibus haec data rerum
conditio: paucis remeare ad lumina vitae
concessum, sed tempus erit cum Martia rauco
mugitu caelum quatiet tuba: cumque repente
corpora per terras omneis late omnia surgent.

But on the contrary, the earth, shaken by a dread-sounding tremor,
will roar with a groan, and, roused with the tombs broken,
will send forth phantoms. What, O, what are you preparing to depart,
illustrious souls? This condition of things has not been given to all:
to a few it has been granted to return to the lights of life;
but there will be a time when the Martial trumpet, with hoarse
bellowing, will shake heaven; and then suddenly
bodies will rise, all of them, far and wide over all the lands.

Nunc autem sat Tartarei si claustra tyranni
effringat Rex ille et caligantia pandat
atria: diffugiant immisso lumine dirae
Eumenidum facies jactis in terga colubris.
Quas atro vix in limo Phlegethontis adustum
accipiat nemus, et fumanti condat in ulva.
Tum variae pestes, et monstra horrentia Ditis
ima petant, trepident Briareia turba, Cerastae,
semiferumque genus Centauri, et Gorgones atrae,
Scyllaeque, Sphingesque, ardentisque ora Chimaerae,
atque Hydrae, atque Canes, et terribiles Harpyiae.

Now, however, enough if that King should break the bars of the Tartarean tyrant
and lay open the darkling atria: let the dire faces of the Eumenides scatter in flight
with the light let in, their snakes cast back upon their shoulders.
Which the scorched grove of Phlegethon may scarcely receive in its black slime,
and may hide in the smoking sedge.
Then let the various plagues, and the bristling monsters of Dis,
seek the deepest depths; let the Briareian throng tremble, the Cerastae,
and the half-feral race of Centaurs, and the black Gorgons,
and the Scyllas, and the Sphinxes, and the burning mouths of the Chimaera,
and the Hydras, and the Dogs, and the terrible Harpies.

Ipse catenato fessus per Tartara collo
ducetur Pluton, tristi quem murmure circum
Inferni fractis maerebunt cornibus amnes.
At nos virginea praecincti tempora lauru,
signa per extentos caeli victricia campos
tollemus, laetoque ducem clamore sequemur:
Victor, io, bellator io, tu regna profunda,
tu Manes, Erebumque, Potestatesque coerces
aerias, Letumque tuo sub numine torques.
Ille alto temone sedens, levibusque quadrigis
lora dabit, volucresque reget placido ore jugales,
non jam cornipedum ductos de semine equorum,
nec qui consuetas carpant praesepibus herbas.

Pluto himself, weary with a chain-bound neck, will be led through Tartarus,
around whom the rivers of the Infernal will mourn with a sad murmur,
their horns broken.
But we, our temples girded with virginal laurel,
will lift victorious standards through the outstretched fields of heaven,
and with joyful clamor we will follow the leader:
Victor, io, warrior, io, you coerce the deep realms,
you the Manes, and Erebus, and the airy Powers you restrain,
and you turn Death beneath your numen.
He, sitting on the high chariot-pole, and with light four-horse team
will give the reins, and with a placid face will guide the wing-swift yoke-mates,
no longer drawn from the seed of hoof-footed horses,
nor such as crop their accustomed herbs in the stalls.

Primus enim valido subnixus eburnea collo
fert juga, formosi pecoris custodia Taurus:
stellatus minio Taurus, cui cornua fronti
aurea, et auratis horrent palearia setis,
perque pedes bifidae radiant nova sidera gemmae.
Torva Bovi facies, sed qua non altera caelo
dignior, imbriferum quae cornibus inchoet annum,
nec quae tam claris mugitibus astra lacessat.
Et juxta nemorum terror, rexque ipse ferarum
magnanimus nitet ore Leo: quem fusa per armos
convestit juba, pectoribus generosa superbit
majestas, non jam ut caedes aut proelia saevus
adpetat (innocuis armantur dentibus ora
grataque tranquillo ridet clementia vultu),
sed caelo ut spatietur et alta ad sidera tendat.

First, indeed, propped by a stout ivory neck,
he bears the yokes, the Taurus, guardian of the beautiful herd:
Taurus starred with vermilion, whose horns upon his brow
are golden, and his dewlaps bristle with gilded bristles,
and about his cloven feet new star-gems shine.
Grim is the face to the Bull, yet than which no other is more
worthy of heaven, who with his horns begins the rain-bringing year,
nor any that with such clear lowings provokes the stars.
And next, the terror of groves, and the very king of wild beasts,
the high-souled Leo shines in countenance: whom a mane, poured over his shoulders,
clothes, and upon his breast a noble majesty exults;
no longer savage to seek slaughters or battles
(armed with harmless teeth are his jaws, and gracious clemency smiles with a tranquil face),
but that he may take his walk in heaven and stretch toward the lofty stars.

Hos post insequitur pulcros pennata per artus
alituum Regina, sacrae cui vertice plumae
adsurgunt: flavoque caput diademate fulget.
Ipsa, ingens alis, ingentis fulminis instar,
supra hominum tecta, ac montes, supraque volucres
fertur, et obstantes cursu petit obvia nubes.
Ultimus humana sociat cervice laborem
alatus tergo juvenis: cui lutea laevo
ex humero chlamys, Eois inspersa lapillis
pendet: eam variant centum longo ordine reges,
antiquum genus, et Solymae primordia gentis,
ostro intertexti: veros cognoscere vultus
est illic: veros montes et flumina credas:
et vera extremo Babylon nitet aurea limbo.

After these there follows, feathered through her limbs, the Queen of the winged ones,
on whose crown sacred plumes rise up: and her head gleams with a golden diadem.
She herself, vast in wings, like a mighty thunderbolt,
is borne above the roofs of men and mountains, and above the birds,
and seeks the clouds that meet and obstruct her course.
Last, a winged youth, winged upon his back, joins in the toil with his human neck,
from whose left shoulder a saffron chlamys, sprinkled with Eastern little gems,
hangs: a hundred kings in long array variegate it,
an ancient stock, and the beginnings of the nation of Solyma, interwoven in purple:
there one may recognize true faces: you would think the mountains and rivers real:
and at the outer hem true Babylon shines golden.

Tali sidereas curru subvectus in auras
indutos referens spoliis pallentibus axes,
perveniet: recto qua panditur orbita tractu
lactea, et ad sedes ducit candentis Olympi.
Illic auratae muros mirabimur urbis,
auratasque domos, et gemmea tecta, viasque
stelliferas, vitreosque altis cum montibus amnes.
Atque ibi, seu magni celsum penetrale Tonantis
sive alios habitare lares, ac tecta minorum
caelicolum dabitur, stellas numerare licebit:
surgentemque diem pariter, pariterque cadentern
sub pedibus spectare, et longos ducere soles:
longaque venturis protendere nomina saeclis."
Haec ubi dicta, Patres plausu excepere frequentes
fatidicum vatem; sublatumque aggere ripae
adtollunt humeris, laetumque per avia ducunt.

Thus, borne up by chariot into the sidereal breezes,
bringing back axles clad with pallid spoils,
he will arrive: where the milky orbit is spread out in a straight course
and leads to the seats of gleaming Olympus.
There we shall marvel at the walls of the gilded city,
and the gilded houses, and gemmy roofs, and star-bearing ways,
and vitreous rivers with lofty mountains.
And there, whether it shall be granted to inhabit the high inner shrine of the great Thunderer,
or other homes and roofs of the lesser celestials,
it will be permitted to number the stars:
and to behold alike the day rising, and alike falling,
beneath our feet, and to draw out long suns (days):
and to stretch forth long names to the ages to come."
When these things were spoken, the Fathers in throngs received with applause
the fatidic seer; and, lifted from the embankment of the bank,
they raise him on their shoulders and lead the glad one through the pathless places.

Intremuere Erebi sedes, obscuraque Ditis
limina; suspirans imo de corde Megaera
dat gemitum, et torvas spectat sine mente sorores.
Tum caudam exululans sub ventre recondidit atram
Cerberus, et sontes latratu terruit umbras:
commotisque niger Cocytus inhorruit antris:
et vaga Sisyphiis haeserunt saxa lacertis.

The seats of Erebus trembled, and the dark thresholds of Dis;
Megaera, sighing from the deepest heart, gives a groan, and mindless gazes at her grim sisters.
Then Cerberus, ululating, hid his black tail beneath his belly,
and with his barking terrified the guilty shades: black Cocytus shuddered in its stirred caves:
and the wandering stones clung to Sisyphian arms.

LIBER SECUNDUS

BOOK TWO

Regina ut subitos imo sub pectore motus
Sensit, et adflatu divini Numinis aucta est:
haud mora, digressu volucris suspensa ministri,
exsurgit; montesque procul contendit in altos
festinans; ea cura animo vel prima recursat,
matronam defessam aevo, cui nulla fuissent
dona uteri (mirum dictu!) jam segnibus annis
foecundam, sextique gravem sub pondere mensis
protinus adfari, vocemque audire loquentis,
et spectare oculis sterili data pignora matri.
Ergo adcincta viae, nullos studiosa paratus
induitur, nullo disponit pectora cultu:
tantum albo crines injectu vestis inumbrans,
qualis stella nitet, tardam quae circuit Arcton,
hiberna sub nocte: aut matutina resurgens
Aurora: aut ubi jam Oceano Sol aureus exit.
Quaque pedes movet, hac casiam terra alma ministrat,
pubentesque rosas, nec jam moestos hyacinthos,
narcissumque, crocumque, et quidquid purpureum ver
spirat hians, quidquid florum per gramina passim
subgerit, immiscens varios natura colores.

The Queen, when she felt sudden motions deep beneath her breast,
and was augmented by the afflatus of the divine Numen:
no delay, poised upon the departure of her wing-swift minister,
she rises; and hastening she makes for the high mountains far away;
this care returns as first to her mind—
straightway to address the matron weary with age, to whom there had been
no gifts of the womb (wonderful to say!), now in sluggish years
fecund, and heavy under the weight of the sixth month;
and to hear the voice of her speaking,
and to behold with her eyes the pledges given to the sterile mother.
Therefore girded for the road, intent she puts on no outfittings,
with no adornment does she dispose her breast:
only shading her hair with the throw of a white garment,
as a star shines, which circles the tardy Bear,
beneath the winter night: or the morning Dawn rising again,
or when now from Ocean the golden Sun goes forth.
And wherever she moves her feet, there the kindly earth provides cassia,
and downy roses, and no longer the mournful hyacinths,
and the narcissus and the crocus, and whatever purple spring
breathes, gaping; whatever flowers Nature everywhere beneath the grasses
brings forth, intermixing various colors.

Parte alia celeres sistunt vaga flumina cursus:
exsultant vallesque cavae, collesque supini:
et circumstantes submittunt culmina pinus;
crebraque palmiferis erumpunt germina silvis.
Omnia laetantur: cessant Eurique, Notique:
cessat atrox Boreas: tantum per florea rura
regna tenent Zephyri, caelumque tepentibus auris
mulcent, quaque datur, gradientem voce salutant.
Ut ventum ad sedes, vultu longaeva verendo
obcurrit conjux justi senis: atque repente
plena Deo, subitoque uteri concussa tumultu,
excipit amplexu venientem, ac talibus infit:
"O decus, o laudis, mulier, dux praevia nostrae,
caelitibus sola humanum quae digna reperta es
conciliare genus, coetusque adtollere ad astra
femineos: gremium cujus divinus obumbrat
palmes, inexhaustis terras qui compleat uvis:
quis me, quis tanto superum dignatur honore?

In another part they halt the swift courses of the wandering rivers:
the hollow valleys exult, and the gently-sloping hills as well:
and the surrounding pines lower their summits;
and frequent shoots burst forth in the palm-bearing woods.
All things rejoice: both Eurus and Notus cease:
grim Boreas ceases: only through the flowery fields
the Zephyrs hold their realms, and with warming airs
they soothe the sky, and, wherever it is permitted, with their voice salute the one advancing.
When they came to the dwelling, the long-lived woman with a reverend countenance
runs to meet them, the consort of the just old man: and suddenly,
full of God, and her womb suddenly shaken with a commotion,
she receives the one coming with an embrace, and thus begins:
"O glory, O boast, woman, our guide going before,
you who alone have been found worthy by the celestials
to conciliate the human race, and to raise to the stars the feminine assemblies:
whose lap a divine vine-shoot overshadows, that it may fill the lands with inexhaustible grapes:
who, who of the supernal ones deigns me such an honor?

Tune procul visura humiles, Regina, penates
venisti? tune illa mei pulcherrima Regis
Mater ades? viden' ut nostra puer excitus alvo,
(cum mihi vix primas vocis sonus ambiat aures)
jam salit, et Dominum (ceu praecursurus) adorat?

Have you come, O Queen, to behold from afar the humble Penates?
Are you present—are you she, the most beautiful Mother of my King?
Do you see how our boy, roused in my womb,
(when to me the sound of your voice scarcely surrounds my ears with its first tones)
already leaps, and adores the Lord (as if about to run ahead)?

Felix, Virgo, animi, felix, cui tanta mereri
credulitas dedit una: in te nam plena videbis
omnia, quae magni verax tibi dixit Olympi
aliger, arcano delapsus ab aethere cursu."
Illa sub haec: "Miranda alti quis facta Tonantis,
o mater, meritas caelo quae tollere laudes
vox queat? Exsultant dulci mea pectora motu
auctori tantorum operum: qui me ima tenentem,
indignamque humilemque suis respexit ab astris.
Munere quo gentes felix ecce una per omnes
jam dicar: nec vana fides: ingentia quando
ipse mihi ingenti cumulavit munera dextra
Omnipotens, sanctumque ejus per saecula nomen,
et quae per magnas clementia didita terras
exundat, qua passim omnes sua jussa verentes
usque fovens, nullo neglectos deserit aevo.

Happy, Virgin, in soul, happy, to whom alone credence gave to merit such great things:
for in you you will see fulfilled all things which the veracious wing‑bearer of great Olympus
said to you, having descended in his course from the secret ether."
She in reply to this: "The wondrous deeds of the High Thunderer, O mother, what voice
is able to lift to heaven with deserved praises? My breast exults with a sweet motion
toward the Author of such great works: who, while I clung to the lowest things,
unworthy and humble, looked upon me from his stars.
By whose gift, behold, by all peoples one and all
I shall now be called happy: nor is the faith vain: since the Omnipotent himself
has heaped upon me immense gifts with his immense right hand,
and holy is his name through the ages, and the clemency which, spread through great lands,
overflows, whereby, everywhere, cherishing all who revere his commands continually,
he at no time leaves them neglected.

Tum fortem exsertans humerum, dextramque coruscam,
insanos longe fastus, mentesque superbas
dispulit, adflixitque super: solioque potentes
deturbans dedit in praeceps, et ad ima repressit.
Extollensque humiles, aliena in sede locavit:
pauperiemque, famemque fugans, implevit egenos
divitiis: vacuos contra nudosque reliquit,
qui nullas opibus metas posuere parandis.
Postremo Sobolem (neque enim dare majus habebat),
aeternam Genitor Sobolem, saeclisque priorem
omnibus, aequalemque sibi, de sanguine fidi
suscepit pueri, tantis quod honoribus unum
deerat adhuc, non ille animi, morumque suorum
oblitus.

Then, putting forth a brave shoulder and a coruscant right hand,
he scattered far the insane haughtinesses and the proud minds,
and struck them down from above: and, dethroning the powerful
from the throne, he gave them headlong and pressed them down to the depths.
And exalting the humble, he placed them in an alien seat:
and, banishing poverty and hunger, he filled the needy
with riches: by contrast he left empty and naked
those who set no bounds to wealth’s procuring.
At last the Offspring (for indeed he had not a greater to give),
the eternal Offspring of the Begetter, earlier than all ages
and equal to himself, she received from the blood of a faithful boy—
that which alone was still lacking to such great honors—
he not forgetful of his spirit and his morals.

Quippe id meditans promiserat olim
sacrificis proavorum atavis, stirpique nepotum."
Haec virgo. At senior, nullus cui vocis ademptae
usus erat, supplex nunc gressum observat euntis,
virgineosque pedes, tactaeque dat oscula terrae:
nunc laetus tollit duplices ad sidera palmas,
quoque potest, solo testatur gaudia nutu:
ostenditque manu vatum tot scripta priorum:
quae quis, agente Deo, quondam, dum vita manebat,
edidit, et populis liquit celebranda futuris.
Scilicet effusum tacitis de nubibus imbrem
lanigerum in tergus: germenque e stirpe vetustae
arboris exsurgens: incombustumque sonoro
igne rubum: et priscis stellam de patribus ortam.

Indeed, meditating this he had once promised to the priests, the forefathers’ forefathers, and to the stock of descendants."
Thus the maiden. But the elder, to whom there was no use of the voice taken away,
as a suppliant now attends the step of her going, and he gives kisses to the maidenly feet and to the ground she has touched:
now glad he lifts his double palms to the stars,
and, so far as he can, by nod alone he attests his joys:
and with his hand he points out so many writings of the former seers:
which certain men, with God acting, once, while life remained,
brought forth, and left to the peoples of the future to be celebrated.
Namely, the rain poured from the silent clouds upon the fleecy back,
and the shoot rising from the stock of an ancient tree,
and the bush unburned by the sonorous fire,
and the star arisen from the ancient fathers.

Quae dum cuncta gravi venturi haud inscia visu
percurrit relegens, alto cum corde volutat
conceptus Virgo insolitos, et ab aethere lapsam
progeniem, pluviae in morem, quae vellere molli
excepta, haud ullos sonitus, nec murmura reddit.
Seque rubum, virgamque, alto se denique missam
sidus grande mari prorsum agnoscitque videtque:
non tamen ausa loqui tanto aut se ducere dignam
munere: sed tacito affectu tibi, maxime divum,
grates, Rector, agit, mentemque ad sidera tollit.
Et jam Luna cavum ter luce repleverat orbem,
ter solitas de more intrarat caeca latebras:
cum Virgo in patriam reditum parat, omnia quando
certa videt.

While she, with a grave gaze not unaware of what is to come,
runs through rereading all these things, the Virgin with her deep heart turns over
unusual conceptions, and the progeny fallen from the aether,
after the manner of rain, which, received on soft fleece,
gives back no sounds nor murmurs.
And she recognizes and sees herself as the bush and the rod, and finally as a great
star sent straight down to the deep sea: yet she did not dare to speak
or to deem herself worthy of so great a gift: but with silent affection to you,
greatest of the gods, O Ruler, she gives thanks, and lifts her mind to the stars.
And now the Moon had thrice filled her hollow orb with light,
thrice had entered, as is the custom, the blind hiding-places:
when the Virgin prepares a return to her fatherland, since she sees
all things certain.

Subeunt dilectae grata parentis
adloquia, adsuetaeque piis sermonibus aedes:
quaeque salutantis voces ac verba ministri
audiit, et primos excepit cella volatus:
cella choris superum lustrata, et cognita caelo.
Ergo iter inceptum, caris digressa propinquis,
Accelerat: relegitque viam per nota locorum.
Nec mora, nec requies usquam: nec lumina flectit,
(Caelicolum quamvis sacro circumdata coetu)
donec ad optatum pervenit sedula limen.

Up come the beloved parent’s welcome addresses,
and the halls accustomed to pious sermons:
and the voices of greeting and the words of the minister
she heard, and the cell that received the first flights:
the cell lustrated by the choirs of the supernal ones, and known to heaven.
Therefore, the journey begun, having parted from dear kinsfolk,
Accelerates: and she retraces the way through the well-known places.
No delay, no rest anywhere: nor does she turn her eyes,
(although encompassed by the sacred company of the heaven-dwellers)
until she, sedulous, reaches the longed-for threshold.

Atque ibi, dum consueta suo cum pectore versat
gaudia, paulatim maturi tempora ventris
adventare videt: scires jam Numen in illa
grande tegi; nullos adeo sentire dolores
dat superum Genitor, nullaque ex parte gravari.
Interea terra parta jam pace, marique,
Augustus pater aeratis bella impia portis
clauserat, et validis arctarat vincta catenis:
dumque suas regnator opes, viresque potentis
imperii, exhaustasque armis civilibus urbes
nosse cupit; magnum censeri jusserat orbem,
describi populos late, numerumque referri
cunctorum ad sese capitum, quae maxima tellus
sustinet, et rapido complectitur aequore Nereus.
Ergo omnes lex una movet: sua nomina mittunt,
qui montes, Aurora, tuos, regna illa feracis
Armeniae, qui convalles, atque alta Niphatae
saxa tenent, longe pictis gens nota pharetris,
gens fines lustrare suos non segnis, et arcu,
qua vagus Euphrates, qua devius exit Araxes,
felices tractus, et late munere divum
concessos defendere agros bene olentis amomi.

And there, while she turns over with her own heart her accustomed joys,
she sees little by little the times of the ripe womb drawing near: you would now know
that a great Numen is veiled within her; the Sire of the supernal beings grants that she feel
no pains at all, and be burdened in no part. Meanwhile, with peace already established
on land and sea, Augustus the father had shut impious wars with brazen gates,
and had tightened them, bound with stout chains: and while the ruler desires to know
his own resources and the forces of a mighty imperium, and the cities exhausted
by civil arms, he had ordered the great orb to be assessed by census, the peoples to be described far and wide,
and the number of all heads to be reported to himself, which the greatest earth sustains,
and which Nereus embraces with his swift water. Therefore one law stirs all: they send their names,
those who hold your mountains, Aurora, those realms of fertile Armenia, those who hold the valleys
and the high rocks of Niphates, a nation far known for painted quivers,
a nation not slow to traverse its own borders with the bow, where the wandering Euphrates,
where the wayward Araxes flows forth, to defend the happy tracts and the fields
far and wide granted by the gift of the gods, of well-scented amomum.

Censetur Tauri passim, censetur Amani
Incola: praedatorque Cilix: et Isaurica quisquis
rura domat: quicumque tuas, Pamphylia, silvas:
quique Lycaoniam, felicia jugera, quique
flaventem curvis Lyciam perrumpit aratris.
Jam clari bello Leleges, populique propinqui
jussa obeunt: gens quaeque suo dat nomina ritu.
Qui Ceramon, bimaremque Gnidon: quique alta tuentur
moenia, dispositis ubi circumsepta columnis
tollit se nivei moles operosa sepulcri,
barbara quam rapto posuit regina marito:
et quos Maeandri, toties ludente recursu,
unda rigat, rigat ipse suo mox amne Cayster,
herboso niveos dum margine pascit olores:
quosque metalliferis veniens Pactolus ab antris
circuit, et rutila non parcior Hermus arena:
Mysorum manus omnis, Apollineaeque Celenae:
Idaque, Rhoetaeaeque arces, celebrataque Musis
Pergama, Sigaeumque jugum, Priameia quondam
regna armis, ducibusque, ducum nunc nota sepulcris:
Quae nauta, angustum dum praeterit Hellespontum,
ostendens sociis: "Hoc, inquit, litore flentes
Nereides steterant, passis cum moesta capillis
ipsa suum de more Thetis clamaret Achillem."
His et Bithynae classes, et Pontica late
accedit regio: paret scopulosa Carambis:
parendi studio fervet simul alta Sinope:
fervet Halys: quique immensis procul amnibus auctus
Cappadocum medios populos discriminat Iris:
Thermodonque, Halybesque, adtritaque saxa Prometheo.

The dweller of Taurus is enrolled everywhere, the dweller of Amanus is enrolled;
and the Cilician marauder; and whoever tames the Isaurian fields;
and whoever, Pamphylia, [masters] your forests;
and whoever ploughs Lycaonia, the fertile acres, and whoever
breaks through golden-flaxen Lycia with curved ploughs.
Now the Leleges famed in war, and the neighboring peoples,
obey the commands: each tribe gives in names according to its own rite.
Those who [inhabit] Ceramon, and sea-bifronted Cnidus: and those who watch the lofty
walls, where, enclosed with columns set in order all around,
the toilsome mass of the snowy sepulcher lifts itself,
which a barbarian queen set up for her husband snatched away:
and those whom the wave of the Maeander, in its so-often playful return,
waters, and whom Cayster soon waters with his own stream,
while on his grassy bank he pastures snow-white swans:
and those whom Pactolus, coming from metal-bearing caverns,
encircles, and Hermus, no more sparing of ruddy sand:
the whole band of the Mysians, and Apollinean Celaenae:
Ida, and the Rhoetean citadels, Pergama celebrated by the Muses,
and the Sigean ridge, Priam’s realms once by arms and leaders,
now known by the tombs of leaders:
which a sailor, while he passes the narrow Hellespont,
pointing out to his comrades: “On this shore,” he says, “weeping
the Nereids had stood, with hair let loose, when sorrowing Thetis herself
according to custom cried out for her Achilles.”
To these there is added as well Bithynian fleets, and the wide
Pontic region: craggy Carambis obeys:
lofty Sinope burns at once with zeal for obeying:
the Halys seethes: and the Iris, increased far off by immense rivers,
divides the midmost peoples of the Cappadocians:
and the Thermodon, and the Chalybes, and the rocks worn by Prometheus.

Praeterea qua se Thracum Mavortia tellus
Pandit, et algentem Rhodope procurrit in Haemum:
qua Macetum per saxa ruit torrentibus undis
Axius, umbrosaeque tegunt Halyachmona ripae:
quaque jacet diris omen Pharsalia bellis,
et bis Romana ferales clade Philippi,
conveniunt populi certatim, et jussa facessunt.
Vos etiam vestros his adjunxistis alumnos,
vicinae passim vacuis jam moenibus urbes,
antiquae Graiorum urbes, gens optima morum
formatrix, clara ingeniis et fortibus ausis:
seu quae litoreos tractus, montesque tenetis:
seu quae per medias dispersae exsurgitis undas.
Tum latus Epiri, qua formidabile nautis
adtollunt summo caput Acroceraunia caelo.

Moreover, where the Mavortian land of the Thracians spreads itself open,
and chilly Rhodope runs out into Haemus;
where the Axius rushes through the rocks of the Macedonians with torrential waves,
and the shady banks overshadow the Haliacmon;
and where Pharsalia lies, an omen of dire wars,
and Philippi, twice for the Romans a place of funereal slaughter,
peoples assemble in rivalry and fulfill the commands. You too have joined your own alumni to these,
neighboring cities whose walls now everywhere stand empty,
ancient cities of the Greeks, a race the best shaper of morals,
renowned for talents and for brave undertakings:
whether you hold littoral tracts and mountains,
or you who, scattered, rise up through the midst of the waves.
Then the side of Epirus, where to sailors the Acroceraunian heights
lift their head to the highest sky in dread.

Urget opus: jamque Alcinoi dat regia censum:
Illyricaeque manus; impacatique Liburni,
litoraque Ionio passim pulsata profundo.
Nec tu, cui late imperium terraeque, marisque
bellatrix peperit virtus, et Martius ardor,
non populos, non ipsa tuas, terra inclyta, gentes
describis, terra una armis, et foeta triumphis,
una viris longe pollens, atque aemula caelo:
nubiferae quam praeruptis anfractibus Alpes
praecingunt, mediamque pater secat Apenninus,
et geminum rapido fluctu circumtonat aequor.
Descripsere suos (quamvis non axe sub uno)
hinc Rhenus pater indigenas, hinc latior undis
Danubius, qu, silvarum per vasta volutus,
pascere non populos, non lambere desinit urbes,
donec ad optatam rapido venit agmine Peucen.

The work presses; and now Alcinous’ palace renders the census:
and the Illyrian bands; and the unpeaceful Liburni,
and the shores everywhere beaten by the Ionian deep.
Nor do you, to whom wide dominion of land and sea
warlike valor and Martial ardor have engendered,
illustrious land, fail to set forth peoples, not your own nations themselves,
a land unique in arms, and teeming with triumphs,
unique, far mighty in men, and a rival to the sky:
which the cloud-bearing Alps with precipitous windings
gird around, and Father Apennine cleaves through the middle,
and a twin sea thunders around with rapid surge.
Their own have described (though not beneath one axis)
here Father Rhine the natives, here the Danube broader in its waves,
which, rolled through the vastnesses of forests,
ceases not to feed peoples, nor to lick cities,
until with rapid column it comes to longed-for Peuce.

Quin et proceras scrutatur Gallia silvas,
Gallia Caesareis Latio dignata triumphis:
quam Rhodanus, quam findit Arar, quam pemeat ingens
Sequana, piscosoque interluit amne Garumna.
Tum quas piniferis gentes praerupta Pyrene
rupibus Herculeas prospectat ad usque columnas,
cogit Anas, cogit ripa formosus utraque
Duria, et albenti Baetis praecinctus oliva,
auratamque Tagus volvens sub gurgite arenam,
quique suo terras insignit nomine Iberus.
Parte alia, vastas circumvocat Africa vires:
Getuli, Maurique duces rimantur opaci
Atlantis nemora, et dispersa mapalia silvis.

Nay, even Gaul scrutinizes the lofty forests,
Gaul deemed worthy of Latium by Caesarean triumphs:
which the Rhodanus, which the Arar cleaves, which the huge
Sequana permeates, and the Garumna bathes between with its fish-rich stream.
Then the peoples whom precipitous Pyrene with pine-bearing
crags looks out upon all the way to the Herculean Columns,
are gathered by the Anas, are gathered by the Duria, fair on either bank,
and by the Baetis girdled with whitening olive,
and the Tagus rolling golden sand beneath its surge,
and the Iberus, who marks lands with his own name.
In another quarter, Africa summons vast forces:
the Getulians and Moorish leaders probe the groves of shadowy
Atlas, and the huts scattered through the woods.

Scribitur et vacuis ut quisque inventus arenis,
seu pastor, seu subcinctis venator in armis
observans saevos latebrosa ad tesqua leones.
Massylum quicumque domos, quicumque repostos
Hesperidum lucos, munitaque montibus arva
incolit, et ramis nativum decutit aurum,
et qui vertentes immania saxa juvencos
flectit arans, qua devictae Carthaginis arces
procubuere, jacentque infausto in litore turres
eversae. Quantum illa metus, quantum illa laborum
urbs dedit insultans Latio et laurentibus arvis!

It is written also how, as each one is found on empty sands,
whether a shepherd, or a hunter with girded arms,
watching the savage lions at the lair-filled wastes.
Whoever inhabits the Massylian homes, whoever the remote
groves of the Hesperides, and the fields fortified by mountains,
and shakes down native gold from the branches,
and he who, ploughing, bends the young bulls as they turn the enormous rocks,
where the citadels of conquered Carthage have sunk down,
and the towers lie overturned on the ill-omened shore.
How much fear, how many labors did that city, insulting Latium and the Laurentine fields, give!

nunc passim vix relliquias, vix nomina servans,
obruitur propriis non agnoscenda ruinis.
Et querimur, genus infelix, humana labare
membra aevo, cum regna palam moriantur et urbes.
Jamque Macas idem ardor habet: venere volentes
Barcaei: venere suis Nasamones ab arvis:
navifragas qui per Syrtes, infidaque circum
litora, moerentum spoliis onerantur, et altos
insiliunt nudi cumulos exstantis arenae,
inque suas vertunt aliena pericula praedas.

now everywhere, scarcely preserving the relics, scarcely the names,
it is overwhelmed by its own ruins, unrecognizable.
And we complain, unhappy race, that human limbs totter
with age, when kingdoms and cities die openly.
And now the same ardor holds the Macae: the Barcans came willing;
the Nasamones came from their own fields;
who through the ship-wrecking Syrtes, and around the treacherous
shores, are laden with the spoils of mourners, and naked they leap upon the high
heaps of jutting sand, and they turn others’ dangers into their own plunder.

Postremo Psylli, Garamanticaque arva tenentes:
quique Cyrenaeas suspendunt vomere glebas,
laudatasque legunt succis praestantibus herbas.
Quique Jovis palmeta, Hasbytarumque recessus:
Marmaricas qui late oras, qui pascua servant
Aegypti, Meroesque, sacer quos Nilus inundat,
Nilus ab aethereo ducens cunabula caelo.
Nec minus et casta senior cum Virgine custos
ibat, ut in patria nomen de more genusque
ederet, et jussum non segnis penderet aurum.

At last the Psylli, and those holding the Garamantian fields:
and who raise with the ploughshare the Cyrenaean clods,
and gather the herbs praised for their excellent juices.
And who tend Jove’s palm-groves, and the recesses of the Hasbytans:
who far and wide keep the Marmaric shores, who the pastures
of Egypt, and of Meroë, whom the sacred Nile floods,
the Nile drawing its cradle from the aetherial heaven.
No less too the elder guardian with the chaste Virgin
was going, so that in his fatherland he might declare, according to custom, name and lineage,
and, not slothful, weigh out the commanded gold.

Ille domum antiquam, et regnata parentibus arva
invisens, secum proavos ex ordine reges,
claraque facta ducum, pulchramque ab origine gentem
mente recensebat tacita: numerumque suorum,
(quamvis tunc pauper, quamvis incognitus ipsis
agnatis) longe adveniens explere parabat.
Jam fines, Galilaea, tuos emensus, et imas
Carmeli valles, quaeque altus vertice opacat
rura Thabor, sparsamque jugis Samaritida terram
palmiferis; Solymas a laeva liquerat arces:
cum simul e tumulo muros, ac tecta domorum
prospexit, patriaeque agnovit moenia terrae.
Continuo lacrimis urbem veneratur obortis
intenditque manus, et ab imo pectore fatur:
"Bethlemiae turres, et non obscura meorum
regna Patrum, magnique olim salvete penates,
tuque o terra, parens regum, visuraque Regem,
cui Sol et gemini famulantur cardinis axes,
salve iterum: te vana Jovis cunabula, Crete
horrescet, ponetque suos temeraria fastus:
moenia te Dircaea trement: ipsamque pudebit
Ortygiam geminos Latonae extollere partus.

He, visiting the ancient home and the fields ruled by his parents,
within himself was silently reviewing his forefathers in order, kings,
and the renowned deeds of leaders, and the fair nation from its origin;
and he was preparing to fill up the number of his own,
(though then poor, though unknown even to his own agnates)
arriving from afar. Now, Galilee, having traversed your borders, and the lowest
valleys of Carmel, and the fields which lofty Tabor with its summit shades,
and the Samaritan land scattered on palm-bearing ridges;
he had left the citadels of Solyma on the left:
when at once from a mound he looked out upon the walls, and the roofs of the houses,
and recognized the ramparts of his fatherland’s land.
Straightway with tears springing he venerates the city,
and stretches forth his hands, and from the depth of his breast he speaks:
“Towers of Bethlehem, and the not obscure realms of my Fathers,
and you great Penates of old, hail;
and you, O land, parent of kings, and destined to see the King,
to whom the Sun and the twin axes of the hinge are in service,
hail again: before you Crete, the vain cradle of Jove,
will shudder, and its reckless haughtiness will lay aside:
the Dircaean walls will tremble at you; and it will shame
Ortygia herself to extol the twin births of Latona.”

Parva loquor: prono veniet diademate supplex
illa potens rerum, terrarumque inclyta Roma,
et septemgeminos submittet ad oscula montes."
Dixit, et extrema movit vestigia voce:
maturatque viam senior, tardumque fatigat
vectorem, et visas gressum molitur ad oras.
Et jam prona dies fluctus urgebat Iberos,
purpureas pelago nubes aurumque relinquens.
Ecce autem magnis plenam conventibus urbem
protinus, ut venere, extremo e limine portae
adspiciunt: mistum confluxerat undique vulgus,
turba ingens: credas longinquo ex aequore vectas
ad merces properasse: aut devastantibus arva
hostibus, in tutum trepidos fugisse colonos.

I speak small: as a suppliant, with her diadem bent down, that potent mistress of affairs, Rome renowned of lands, will come, and will submit her sevenfold hills for kisses."
He spoke, and with his last word set his steps in motion:
and the elder hastens the way, and wearies his slow bearer, and works his stride toward the shores he had seen.
And now the slanting day was pressing the Iberian billows,
leaving to the sea purple clouds and gold.
Behold, moreover, a city full of great gatherings
straightway, as they came, from the far threshold of the gate
they behold: a mingled crowd had flowed together from every side,
a huge throng: you would think that those borne from the distant level of the sea
had hastened to merchandise; or, with enemies devastating the fields,
the frightened farmers had fled into a safe place.

Cernere erat, perque anfractus, perque arcta viarum,
cuncta replesse viros, confusoque ordine matres:
permistos pecori agricolas; hos jungere plaustra:
hos intendere vela: alios discumbere apertis
porticibus: resono compleri cuncta tumultu:
accensos variis lucere in partibus ignes.
Quae pater admirans, tacito dum singula visu
percurrit, circumque domos, et limina lustrat,
nec superesse locum tecto videt: "Ibimus, inquit,
quo Deus, et quo sancta vocant oracula patrum."
Est specus haud ingens parvae sub moenibus urbis;
Incertum, manibusne hominum, genione potentis
naturae formatus, ut haec spectacula terris
praeberet, tantosque diu servatus in usus,
hospitio caelum acciperet; cui plurima dorso
incumbit rupes, pendentibus undique saxis
aspera: et exesae cingunt latera ardua cautes:
defunctis operum domus haud ingrata colonis.
Huc heros tandem, superata ambage viarum,
sic monitus, ducente Deo, cum Conjuge sancta
devenit, multaque senex se nocte recepit.

It could be seen that, through the windings and through the narrow parts of the roads,
men had filled everything, and mothers in a confused order:
farmers mingled with the herd; some to yoke wagons;
others to stretch awnings; others to recline in the open
porticoes; that all things were filled with resounding tumult;
that kindled fires shone in various quarters.
Which things the father admiring, while with a silent gaze he runs through each,
and surveys around the houses and thresholds,
and sees that no place is left for a roof, says: “We shall go,
whither God, and whither the holy oracles of the fathers call.”
There is a not-great cave beneath the walls of the small city;
uncertain whether fashioned by the hands of men, or by the generative power of mighty
Nature, so that it might offer these sights to the earth,
and, long kept for such great uses, might receive Heaven as a guest;
upon whose back a very massy rock leans, rough
with rocks hanging on every side; and gnawed crags gird its steep flanks:
a house not unwelcome to husbandmen when their labors are finished.
Hither the hero at length, the circuit of the roads overcome,
thus admonished, with God leading, with his holy Spouse
arrived, and the old man betook himself to rest for much of the night.

Ac primum siccis ramalibus excitat ignem:
stramineoque toro comitem locat: aegra cubantis
membra super vestem involvens: mox adligat ipsos
permulcens, jam non duros, jam sponte sequentes
quadrupedes, ut forte aderat foenile saligna
subfultum crate, et palmarum vimine textum.
Nunc age, Castaliis quae nunquam audita sub antris,
Musarumve choris celebrata, aut cognita Phoebo,
expediam: vos secretos per devia calles,
Caelicolae, vos (si merui) monstrate recessus
intactos. Ventum ad cunas, et gaudia caeli,
mirandosque ortus, et tecta sonantia sacro
vagitu.

And first with dry brushwood he kindles a fire:
and on a straw-stuffed couch he sets his companion, wrapping the ailing
limbs of the one reclining in a garment: soon he tethers the very
quadrupeds, soothing them, now no longer unyielding, now of their own accord following,
since there chanced to be at hand a hayrack propped with a willow hurdle,
and woven with the withe of palms.
Now come, things never heard beneath the Castalian caverns,
nor celebrated by the choirs of the Muses, nor known to Phoebus,
I will unfold: you, Heaven-dwellers, guide me through remote byways,
you show (if I have merited) the hidden, untouched recesses.
We are come to the cradle, and the joys of heaven,
and the wondrous births, and the roofs resounding with the sacred
wail.

Stat ferre pedem, qua nulla priorum
obvia sint oculis vatum vestigia nostris.
Tempus erat, quo nox, tardis invecta quadrigis,
nondum stelliferi mediam pervenit Olympi
ad metam, et tacito scintillant sidera motu:
cum silvaeque, urbesque silent, cum fessa labore
accipiunt placidos mortalia pectora somnos:
non fera, non volucris, non picto corpore serpens
dat sonitum, jamque in cineres consederat ignis
ultimus: et sera perfusus membra quiete
scruposo senior caput adclinaverat antro.
Ecce autem nitor ex alto novus emicat, omnemque
exsuperat veniens atrae caliginis umbram
auditique chori superum, et caelestia curvas
agmina pulsantum citharas, ac voce canentum.

It stands fixed to carry my step, where no vestiges of the former bards are encountered by our eyes.
It was the time when Night, borne in by her slow chariots, had not yet reached the turning-post of the midmost of star-bearing Olympus, and the stars scintillate with silent motion:
when forests and cities are silent, when mortal breasts, weary with toil, receive placid slumbers:
no beast, no bird, no serpent with painted body gives a sound, and now the last fire had settled into ashes:
and the elder, his limbs steeped in late repose, had leaned his head to the rugged cave.
But behold, a new brightness flashes from on high, and, as it comes, it surpasses every shadow of black gloom,
and the choirs of the Supernal Ones are heard, and the heavenly companies striking curved citharas, and singing with the voice.

Agnovit sonitum partusque instare propinquos
haud dubiis Virgo sensit laetissima signis.
Protinus erigitur stratis, caeloque nitentes
adtollit venerans oculos, ac talia fatur:
"Omnipotens Genitor, magno qui sidera nutu,
aeriosque regis tractus, terrasque, fretumque,
ecquid adest tempus, quo se sine labe serenam
efferat in lucem Soboles tua? quo mihi tellus
rideat et teneris depingat floribus arva?

The Virgin recognized the sound and, by no doubtful signs, felt that the near labors of childbirth were pressing.
At once she is raised from her couch, and to heaven she lifts, in veneration, her shining eyes, and speaks such words:
"Almighty Begetter, who by a great nod the stars,
and the airy tracts, and the lands and the sea you rule,
is the time at hand, when your Offspring, without stain, serene,
may bring itself forth into the light? when for me the earth
may smile and paint the fields with tender flowers?

En tibi maturos fructus, en reddimus ingens
depositum: tu, ne qua pio jactura pudori
obrepat, summo defende, et consule caelo.
Ergo ego te gremio reptantem, et nota petentem
ubera, care puer, molli studiosa fovebo
amplexu: tu blanda tuae dabis oscula matri
adridens: colloque manum, et puerilia nectes
brachia, et optatam capies per merabra quietem."
Sic memorat, fruiturque Deo: comitumque micanti
Agmine, divinisque animum concentibus explet.
Atque olli interea, revoluto sidere, felix
hora propinquabat.

Lo, for you the ripe fruits; lo, we render back the vast deposit: you, lest any loss creep upon pious modesty, defend, and take counsel from the highest heaven.
Therefore I will cherish you, dear boy, as you crawl in my lap and seek the familiar breasts, with a soft, studious embrace: you, smiling, will give your mother coaxing kisses, and you will lay your hand upon her neck and entwine childish arms, and you will take the longed‑for rest through your limbs."
Thus she speaks, and she delights in God, and in the glittering line of companions, and fills her spirit with divine harmonies.
And meanwhile for her, the star having revolved, the happy hour was drawing near.

Quis me rapit? Accipe vatem,
Diva, tuum; rege, Diva, tuum: feror arduus altas
in nubes: video totum descendere caelum
spectandi excitum studio. Da pandere factum
mirum, indictum, insuetum, ingens: absistite, curae
degeneres, dum sacra cano.

Who snatches me up? Receive your vates, Goddess, your own; guide, Goddess, your own: I am borne, towering, into the high clouds;
I see the whole heaven descend, roused with zeal for beholding.
Grant me to unfold a deed wondrous, unsaid, unwonted, immense: withdraw, degenerate cares,
while I sing sacred things.

Jam laeta laborum,
jam non tacta metu, saecli Regina futuri
stabat adhuc, nihil ipsa suo cum corde caducum,
nil mortale putans: illam Natusque Paterque
quique prius quam Sol caelo, quam Luna niteret,
Spiritus obscuras ibat super igneus undas,
stant circum, et magnis permulcent pectora curis.
Praeterea redeunt animo quaecumque verendus
dixerat interpres: acti sine pondere menses,
servatusque pudor: clausa cum protinus alvo
(o noctem superis laetam, et mortalibus aegris!),
sicut erat foliis, stipulaque innixa rigenti,
divinum, spectante polo, spectantibus astris,
edit onus. Qualis rorem cum vere tepenti
per tacitum matutinus desudat Eous:
et passim teretes lucent per gramina guttae:
terra madet, madet adspersa sub veste viator
horridus, et pluviae vim non sensisse cadentis
admirans, gelidas udo pede proterit herbas.

Now glad of labors,
now no longer touched by fear, the Queen of the age to come
was still standing, herself deeming nothing in her own heart perishable,
thinking nothing mortal: her both the Son and the Father,
and He who, before the Sun shone in the sky, before the Moon glittered,
the Spirit, fiery, was going over the dark waves,
stand around, and with great cares soothe her breast.
Furthermore there return to mind whatever the venerable
interpreter had said: the months borne without burden,
and modesty preserved: while with the womb closed forthwith
(O night joyful to the supernal beings and to ailing mortals!),
just as it was, resting on leaves and leaning on rigid stubble,
the divine burden, with the pole looking on, with the stars looking on,
she brings forth. Just as when in warming spring
the matutinal Morning-star sweats out the dew through the silent dawn:
and everywhere the rounded drops shine across the grasses:
the earth is wet, and the wayfarer, rough, aspersed beneath his cloak,
is wet, and marveling that he has not felt the force of the falling rain,
with wet foot he treads down the icy grasses.

Mira fides! Puer aethereas jam lucis in auras
prodierat: foenoque latus male fultus agresti,
impulerat primis resonum vagitibus antrum.
Alma Parens nullos intra praecordia motus,
aut incursantes devexi ponderis ictus
senserat; haerebant immotis viscera claustris.

Wondrous to believe! The Boy had now come forth into the ethereal airs of light
had come forth: and, his side poorly propped on rustic hay,
he had set the echoing cavern in motion with his first wails.
The Nurturing Mother had felt no motions within her inmost heart,
nor the onrushing blows of a descending weight had she sensed; the viscera were clinging to motionless closures.

Haud aliter, quam cum purum specularia Solem
Admittunt: lux ipsa quidem pertransit, et omnes
irrumpens laxat tenebras, et discutit umbras;
illa manent inlaesa, haud ulli pervia vento,
non hiemi, radiis sed tantum obnoxia Phoebi.
Tunc Puerum tepido Genitrix involvit amictu,
exceptumque sinu, blandeque ad pectora pressum
detulit in praesepe: hic illum mitia anhelo
ore fovent jumenta. O rerum occulta potestas!

Not otherwise than when specular panes admit the pure Sun:
the light itself indeed passes through, and, bursting in, loosens all
the darkness and scatters the shades; they remain unharmed, accessible to no wind,
not to winter, but only subject to the rays of Phoebus.
Then the Mother wrapped the Boy in a warm mantle,
and, received into her bosom and gently pressed to her breast,
she carried him to the manger: here the gentle beasts of burden with panting
mouth warm him. O hidden power of things!

Protinus agnoscens Dominum procumbit humi bos
cernuus, et mora nulla, simul procumbit asellus
submittens caput, et trepidanti poplite adorat.
Fortunati ambo! non vos aut fabula Cretae
Polluet, antiqui referens mendacia furti,
Sidoniam mare per medium vexisse puellam:
aut sua dum madidus celebrat portenta Cithaeron,
infames inter thyasos, vinosaque sacra
arguet obsequio senis insudasse profani:
solis quippe Deum vobis, et pignora caeli
nosse datum, solis cunabula tanta tueri.

At once, recognizing the Lord, the ox falls prostrate to the ground,
face-down; and, with no delay, at the same time the little ass falls prostrate,
lowering its head, and with a trembling knee adores.
Fortunate both! Not you will the tale of Crete
pollute, recounting the lies of an ancient theft,
that a Sidonian girl was borne through the midst of the sea;
nor, while dripping Cithaeron celebrates his own portents,
amid infamous thiasoi and wine-soaked rites,
will he arraign you of having sweated in attendance upon a profane old man:
for to you alone it has been given to know God, and the pledges of heaven,
to you alone to guard so great a cradle.

Ergo dum refugo stabit circumdata fluctu
terra parens; dum praecipiti vertigine caelum
volvetur; Romana pius dum templa sacerdos
rite colet; vestri semper referentur honores:
semper vestra fides nostris celebrabitur aris.
Quis tibi tunc animus, quae sancto in corde voluptas,
o Genitrix, cum muta tuis famulantia cunis,
ac circum de more sacros referentia ritus
adspiceres Domino genua inclinate potenti,
et sua commotum trahere ad spectacula caelum?
Magne Pater, quae tanta rudes prudentia sensus
leniit?

Therefore, so long as the parent earth, encompassed by the receding wave, shall stand;
so long as the heaven shall be rolled with headlong vertigo; so long as the pious Roman priest
shall duly cultivate the temples; your honors shall ever be recounted:
ever shall your faith be celebrated at our altars.
What feeling then for you, what delight in the holy heart,
O Genitrix, when the mute things ministering to your cradle,
and around, according to custom, carrying out the sacred rites,
you would behold knees bent to the mighty Lord,
and the heaven, stirred, draw to the spectacle that was its own?
Great Father, what such prudence has softened the rude senses
made gentle?

informi tantos quis pectore motus
excivit calor, et pecudum in praecordia venit?
ut quem non reges, non accepere tot urbes,
non populi, quibus una aras et sacra tueri
cura fuit; jam bos torpens, jam segnis asellus
auctorem late possessoremque salutent?
Vocibus interea sensim puerilibus heros
Excitus, somnum expulerat, noctemque fugarat
ex oculis, jamque Infantem videt, et videt ipsam
majorem adspectu, majori et lumine Matrem
fulgentem, nec quoquam oculos, aut ora moventem,
sublimemque solo, superum cingente caterva
aligera.

from a shapeless breast what heat stirred such great motions,
and came into the precordia of the cattle?—that him whom not kings,
not so many cities received, not the peoples, whose single care
was to guard altars and sacred rites; now the torpid ox, now the sluggish ass
should salute the Author and far-and-wide Possessor?
Meanwhile, by boyish voices little by little the hero,
roused, had driven out sleep and had put night to flight
from his eyes; and now he sees the Infant, and he sees her herself,
the Mother, greater in aspect and shining with a greater light,
not moving her eyes or features anywhere, and aloft from the ground,
with a winged company of the heavenly ones encircling.

Qualis, nostrum cum tendit in orbem,
purpureis rutilat pennis nitidissima Phoenix,
quam variae circum volucres comitantur euntem:
illa volans, Solem nativo provocat auro
fulva caput, caudam et roseis interlita punctis
caeruleam: stupet ipsa cohors plausuque sonoro
per sudum strepit innumeris exercitus alis.
Miratur lucem insolitam, miratur ovantes
Caelicolum cantus senior: tum victus, et amens,
adtonitusque animi, tantisque ardoribus impar
corruit, et geminas vultum demisit in ulnas:
adfususque diu telluri immobilis haesit.
Hic illum superi juxta videre jacentem,
vidit Dia Parens: nec longum passa seniles
obduci tenebris oculos: dat surgere, et aegrum
substentare genu, tremulisque insistere plantis,
divinosque pati vultus, superique nitorem
ignis, et aethereas vibrantia lumina flammas.

Such as, when she stretches toward our orb,
the most shining Phoenix reddens with purpureous wings,
whom diverse birds accompany as she goes around:
she, flying, with native gold provokes the Sun—
tawny is the head, and the tail blue, interlarded with rosy dots:
the cohort itself is amazed, and with sonorous applause
through the clear sky an army clatters with innumerable wings.
He marvels at the unusual light, he marvels at the exultant
chants of the Heaven-dwellers, the elder: then conquered, and out of his mind,
thunderstruck in spirit, and unequal to such ardors,
he collapsed, and let his face sink into his twin forearms;
and, poured upon the earth, he clung motionless for a long time.
Here the Supernal Ones saw him lying close by,
the Divine Parent saw him: nor did she allow his aged
eyes to be shrouded by darkness for long: she grants him to rise, and, sick,
to prop himself by the knee, and to set his feet upon trembling soles,
and to endure the divine faces, and the brightness of the supernal
fire, and eyes quivering with aetherial flames.

Ille, ubi paulatim vires, animumque resumpsit;
nodoso incumbens baculo, modulantia primum
agmina, Reginamque deum de more salutat.
Mox ipsum accedens praesepe ulvaque palustri
impositum spectans Dominum terraeque, marisque,
(o timor, o mentis pietas!) puerilia membra
non ausus tractare manu, cunctatur: ibi auram,
insperatam auram divino efflantis ab ore
ore trahens, subito correptus numinis haustu,
adflatusque Deo, sic tandem voce quieta
incipit, et lacrimis oculos subfundit obortis:
"Sancte Puer, non te Phariis operosa columnis
atria, non variata Phrygum velamina textu
excepere (jaces nullo spectabilis auro),
angustum sed vix stabulum, male commoda sedes,
et fragiles calami, lectaeque paludibus herbae
fortuitum dant ecce torum: laqueata tyrannos
tecta, et regifico capiant aulaea paratu:
te Pater aeterno superum ditavit honore
illustrans: tibi siderei domus aurea caeli
plaudit, inexstinctosque parat Natura triumphos.
Et tamen hanc sedem Reges, haec undique magni
antra petent populi: longe quos caerula Calpe
litore ab occiduo, nigrisque impellet ab Indis
Sol oriens: quos et Boreas et fervidus Auster
diverso inter se certantes cardine mittent.

He, when gradually he had resumed his strength and spirit;
leaning upon a knotted staff, first he salutes, according to custom,
the modulating ranks and the Queen of the gods. Soon, approaching the very manger
and seeing the Lord of earth and sea laid upon marshy sedge,
(O fear, O pietas of mind!) not daring to touch the childish limbs
with his hand, he hesitates: there, drawing with his mouth the unhoped-for
breeze from the divine-breathing mouth, suddenly seized by a draught of numen,
and breathed-upon by God, thus at last with a quiet voice
he begins, and suffuses his eyes with tears that had arisen:
“Holy Boy, not halls laborious with Pharian columns,
not coverings of the Phrygians varied in weaving,
have received you (you lie remarkable with no gold),
but a narrow byre with difficulty, a hardly fitting seat,
and fragile reeds, and grasses gathered from the marshes
behold, provide a chance couch: let coffered roofs and hangings
in regal array take in tyrants: you the Father has enriched
with the eternal honor of the supernals, illuminating: for you the golden house
of the starry heaven applauds, and Nature prepares unextinguished triumphs.
And yet kings will seek this seat, great peoples from every side these caves:
whom from far the blue Calpe from the western shore, and from the black Indians
the rising Sun will drive: whom both Boreas and the fervid Auster,
contending with each other from opposite quarters, will send.”

Tu pastor, tu dispersas revocare per agros
missus oves late, pectusque obferte periclis.
Prodigus ah nimium vitae, per tela, per hostes
obscurum nemus irrumpens, rabida ora luporum
compesces, saturumque gregem sub tecta reduces.
O mihi certa fides superum, decus addite terris,
Nate Deo, Deus ipse, aeterno e lumine lumen:
te te ego, te circum Genitrix, laetique ministri
concinimus, primique tuos celebramus honores,
longaque perpetuis indicimus orgia fastis."

You, shepherd, you, sent to recall the scattered sheep far and wide through the fields,
and with your breast offered to perils.
Too prodigal, ah, too much, of life, through missiles, through enemies,
bursting into the dark grove, you will restrain the rabid jaws of wolves,
and you will lead the sated flock back beneath the roofs.
O for me a sure faith of the supernal ones, an ornament added to the lands,
Son to God, God himself, light from the eternal Light:
you, you— I, and around you the Genitrix and the glad ministers—
we sing in concord, and we first celebrate your honors,
and we proclaim long rites for the everlasting Fasti."

LIBER TERTIUS

BOOK THREE

Auratum interea culmen bipatentis Olympi
conscendit Genitor, rerum inviolata potestas,
laeta fovens tacito sub pectore. Mox jubet omnes
ad sese acciri superos, quique atria longe
observant, quique arcanis penetralibus adstant:
praeterea quos Eoos Aurora per ortus,
et quos occiduae propior videt Hesperus orae:
namque ferunt olim, leges cum conderet aequas
Rex superum, et valido mundum suspenderet axe,
diversas statuisse domos, diversaque divis
hospitia, et dignos meritis tribuisse penates,
ordine cuique suos. Illi data tecta frequentant:
armaque, et aeratis adfigunt nomina valvis.

Meanwhile the Father climbs the golden summit of twofold-open Olympus, the inviolate power of things, fostering gladness beneath his silent breast. Soon he orders all the supernals to be summoned to himself, both those who from afar keep watch over the atria, and those who stand in the arcane penetralia: besides those whom Aurora sees through the Eoan risings, and those whom Hesperus, nearer to the western shore, beholds: for they say that once, when the King of the supernals was founding equitable laws and was hanging the world upon a stout axle, he established separate homes and diverse hostels for the gods, and bestowed Penates worthy of their merits, to each his own in order. They frequent the roofs that were given: and they affix their arms, and their names, to the bronze-plated valves.

Haud mora fit: celerant jussi: volat aethere toto
Caelicolum glomerata manus: pars igne corusco
tota rubens, pars stelliferis innexa coronis.
Ipse sedens, humeris chlamydem fulgentibus aptat
ingentem, et caelum pariter terrasque tegentem.
Quam quondam (ut perhibent) vigilans noctesque, diesque
ipsa suo nevit rerum Natura Tonanti:
adjecitque sacrae decus admirabile telae,
per medium, perque extremas subtegminis oras
immortale aurum intexens, grandesque smaragdos.

No delay is made: the bidden hasten: through the whole aether there flies
the massed band of the celestials: part, with coruscant fire,
wholly glowing red, part enwreathed with stelliferous crowns.
He himself, seated, fits to his gleaming shoulders a chlamys
immense, covering sky and earth alike.
Which once (as they report), keeping vigil nights and days,
Nature herself of things wove for the Thunderer with her own hand:
and she added to the sacred web a marvelous adornment,
through the middle, and along the outer borders of the weft,
interweaving immortal gold, and great emeralds.

Illic nam varia mundum distinxerat arte
gnara operum mater, certisque elementa figuris,
et rerum species, animasque, et quidquid ab alta
fundit mente Pater. Generis primordia nostri
cernere erat limum informem: jam praepete penna
deferri volucres liquidum per inane videres:
jam silvis errare feras, pontumque natari
piscibus, et vero credas spumescere fluctu.
Hic postquam aligeros gemmata sedilia coetus
Accepere; Pater solio sic infit ab alto:
"Aetherei proceres (neque enim ignoratis et ausus
infandos, dirumque acies super astra frementes),
si mecum juvat antiquos ab origine motus
inspicere, et veterum pariter meminisse laborum:
quandoquidem haec vobis peperit victoria laudem;
huc animos, huc pacatas advertite mentes.

There, for the knowing mother of works had variegated the world with diverse art,
and the elements with fixed figures,
and the species of things, and souls, and whatever the Father pours forth from his high
mind. The first-beginnings of our kind
could be discerned as shapeless mud: already with nimble wing
you would see the birds borne through the limpid void:
already the wild beasts roaming the woods, and the sea being swum
by fishes, and you would believe it to foam with a true billow.
Here, after the jeweled seats received the winged cohorts,
the Father thus begins from his lofty throne:
"Ethereal princes (for neither are you ignorant both of the unspeakable audacities
and of the dire battle-lines roaring above the stars),
if it pleases you with me to inspect the ancient motions from the origin,
and equally to remember the toils of the men of old:
since this victory has begotten praise for you;
hither turn your spirits, hither your pacified minds.

Vos, cum omne arderet caelum servilibus armis,
arctoumque furor pertenderet impius axem
scandere et in gelidos regnum transferre Triones;
fida manus mecum mansistis: et ultima tandem
experti, caelo victricia signa tulistis:
aeternumque alta fixistis in arce trophaeum.
Quos ego pro meritis insigni munere palmae
donavi, regnique in partem, operumque recepi:
praecipuosque habui, lectosque ad jussa ministros:
usque adeo fixa antiqui stat gratia facti.
Nec minus et nostras audistis saepe querelas:
vidistisque graves flammati pectoris aestus:
tunc cum prima novas egit dementia gentes
arboris auricomae caelestia carpere poma:
poma gravi seros gustu laesura nepotes.

You, when all heaven was blazing with servile arms,
and impious frenzy was stretching to scale the arctic axis
and to transfer the kingdom into the icy Triones;
a faithful band, you remained with me: and at last,
having endured the utmost, you bore victorious standards in the sky,
and you fixed an eternal trophy on the high citadel.
Whom I, for your merits, endowed with the signal gift of the palm,
and I received into a share of the kingdom and of works:
and I have held you preeminent, and chosen ministers for commands:
so firmly stands fixed the favor of that ancient deed.
Nor less have you often heard our complaints,
and you have seen the grave heats of an inflamed breast:
then, when primal madness drove new peoples
to pluck the celestial apples of the golden-tressed tree—
apples that with grievous taste would wound late descendants.

Munere quin superum indignas spoliastis, et umbra
sacrorum late nemorum: adsiduoque labore
multastis miseras, vitae et brevioribus annis.
Quid repetam veteri sumptas de crimine poenas?
exsiliumque informe Erebi, tenebrasque repostas?

Nay rather, you have despoiled the unworthy of the gift of the gods above, and of the shade of the sacred groves far and wide:
and with assiduous labor you have mulcted the wretched, and with briefer years of life.
Why should I repeat the penalties exacted for the ancient crime?
and the shapeless exile of Erebus, and the withdrawn darkness?

quae tacito mecum spectastis lumine, et iidem
terrarum sortem maesti indoluistis acerbam.
Aut etiam ut nostri longo post tempore tandem
pectoris indomitas clementia vicerit iras?
visque arcana leves sensim demissa per auras
foecundam intactae complerit Virginis alvum?

you who with silent light have watched with me, and you the same, sad, have mourned the bitter lot of the lands.
Or even how, after a long time at last, the clemency of our breast has conquered the indomitable wraths?
and how the arcane force, lightly, little by little sent down through the airs, has filled the fruitful womb of the untouched Virgin?

an temere hoc, nullaque actum ratione putatis?
Quippe ita mansuras decuit me ponere leges:
quo terraeque, polusque, homines, divique vicissim
foederibus starent certis, et pignore tanto
servarent memorem cognatae stirpis amorem.
Quare agite, et jam nunc humana capessite fata;
ac primum duris parvi sub cautibus antri
gramineos lustrate toros: lustrate beatam
pauperibus sedem calamis: cunctique recentes
submissi cunas adcedite, dum pia Mater
complexu in molli Natum fovet, ubera pernox
indulgens teneris Pueri rorantia labris:
nec procul in stipula demisso pectore mutum
procumbit pecus: et Domini vestigia lambens
pervigilat, longos fundit dum tibia cantus.

Or do you think this was done rashly, and by no reason?
Indeed, it was fitting that I set laws to endure thus:
whereby earth and heaven’s vault, men and gods in turn
would stand by fixed covenants, and by so great a pledge
would preserve a mindful love of the cognate stock.
Wherefore come, and even now take up human destinies;
and first beneath the hard rocks of a small cave
visit the grassy couches: visit the blessed seat
fashioned with humble reeds for the poor: and all of you, newly meek,
draw near the cradle, while the pious Mother
in a soft embrace warms the Son, granting her breasts through the whole night
to the dewy lips of the Boy: nor far off, upon straw with lowered breast,
the mute cattle sink down: and, licking the footsteps of the Lord,
it keeps sleepless vigil, while the pipe pours forth long songs.

Hic faustos ortus Pueri, noctemque verendam
discursu per inane levi, passimque canoris
laudibus excipite, et plausu celebrate faventes
omnia felicem ventura in saecula pacem,
certatimque renascentis cunabula mundi,
victum anguem, victumque anguis furiale venenum.
Sic placitum, sic aversos conjungere terris
Caelicolas: sic ferre homines ad sidera certum est."
Haec ubi dicta: novum superis inspirat amorem;
quo subito veteres deponant pectoris iras,
obliti scelerum; Patrisque exempla secuti,
terrarum flagrent studio, et mortalia curent.
Nec mora: Laetitiam choreis tum forte vacantem
advocat: haec magni motusque animosque Tonantis
temperat, et vultum discussa nube serenat,
Laetitiam, quae Caelicolum per limina semper
Discursat, raroque imas petit hospita terras:
curarumque expers, lacrimasque exosa virago,
exsultat, totoque abigit suspiria caelo.

Here receive with tuneful praises the auspicious birth of the Boy, and the night to be revered,
with a light coursing through the void, and everywhere, favoring, celebrate with applause
the happy peace destined to come for all ages upon all things,
and, vying with one another, the cradle of the reborn world,
the serpent conquered, and the serpent’s furial venom conquered.
Thus it has been decreed, thus to join the Heaven-dwellers, once averse, to the lands;
thus it is fixed to bear men to the stars."
When these things were spoken, he breathes into the supernal ones a new love;
whereby suddenly they lay down the old angers of the heart,
forgetful of crimes; and, following the Father’s examples,
they burn with zeal for the lands, and care for mortal things.
No delay: Joy, then by chance at leisure for dances,
he calls: she tempers the movements and the spirit of the great Thunderer,
and, the cloud dispelled, makes his countenance serene,
Joy, who ever runs through the thresholds of the Heaven-dwellers,
and, a guest, rarely seeks the lowest lands;
free of cares, a maiden who loathes tears,
she exults, and drives away sighs from the whole heaven.

Ut stetit ante Patrem, terrasque accedere jussa est,
mobilibus pictas humeris accomodat alas:
lenimenque viae comites vocat. Ilicet adsunt
jucundae visu facies, Cantusque, Chorique
Gaudiaque, Plaususque, et honestis ignibus ardens
rectus Amor, quem nuda Fides, Spesque inscia luctus
vadentem, mira unanimes pietate sorores
observant: sequitur mox inculpata Voluptas,
Gratiaque, et niveam suadens Concordia pacem.
Cumque propinquasset portae quae maxima caelo
dicitur, aeternumque micat radiata coruscis
astrorum signis: quando mortalibus aegris
dant nimbos aliae, et damnant caligine terras,
subcinctae occurrunt Horae properantibus alis,
insomnes Horae: namque his fulgentia divum
limina, et ingentis custodia credita caeli.

As she stood before the Father, and was bidden to approach the lands,
she accommodates to her mobile shoulders the painted wings:
and she calls as companions the leniment of the way. Forthwith there are present
faces gladsome to the sight, and Song, and Choirs,
and Joys, and Applause, and Upright Love burning with honest fires,
whom naked Faith, and Hope ignorant of grief,
as he goes, the sisters unanimous in wondrous piety,
attend upon: soon Blameless Pleasure follows,
and Grace, and Concord persuading snow-white peace.
And when she had drawn near to the gate which is called the greatest in heaven,
and which eternally gleams, irradiated with the coruscant
signs of the stars: when others give clouds to ailing mortals,
and doom the lands with murk, the Hours, girt up, with hurrying wings
run to meet her, the sleepless Hours: for to them the shining thresholds of the gods,
and the guardianship of the vast heaven has been entrusted.

Protinus aeratos impulso cardine postes
cum sonitu, magnoque polos quassante fragore
praepandunt, obnixae humeris: volat illa per auras
obscura sub nocte nitens: gratantur eunti
sidera: jam festas meditatur Luna choreas,
exsultant Hyades: gaudet mutata Bootes
plaustra auro, totosque auro fulgere juvencos.
Tunc primum visa est, miseri post fata parentis,
risisse Erigone, et longum posuisse dolorem,
armatoque ensis subducitur Orioni.
Ut vero umbrosis posuit vestigia silvis,
culmina conscendit pastorum; atque omnia late
perlustrans tacitis oculis loca, concutit alas
applaudens: pictosque sinus sub nocte coruscans,
subrisit laetum, puraque in luce refulsit.

Straightway they throw wide the bronze doors, the hinge driven back, with a sound, and with a great crash shaking the poles, straining with their shoulders:
she flies through the airs, gleaming beneath dark night:
the stars congratulate her as she goes;
now the Moon meditates festal choruses (dances),
the Hyades exult:
Boötes rejoices, his wagons changed to gold, and the young bulls all to glitter with gold.
Then for the first time, after the fate of her wretched parent, Erigone was seen to have smiled, and to have set aside her long sorrow,
and the sword is withdrawn from armed Orion.
But when she set her footsteps in the shadowy woods,
she climbs the shepherds’ summits; and, widely surveying all the places with silent eyes,
she shakes her wings in applause:
and, her painted folds coruscating under night,
she smiled joyfully, and re-shone in pure light.

Primi illam sensere canes: sensere jacentes
haedorum passim per dura cubilia matres:
balatuque ovium valles sonuere propinquae,
saxaque, et adtoniti caput erexere magistri.
Tunc ait: "O parvi vigiles gregis, o bona pubes
silvarum, superis gratum genus, ite, beati
pastores, ite, antra novis intendite sertis:
Reginam ad cunas, positumque in stramine Regem
(certa fides) alti jam jam moderator Olympi
cernere dat: properate, novique tepentia lactis
munera, cumque suo date condita subere mella:
insuetum et silvis stipula deducite carmen."
Nec plura effata, in nubes taciturna recessit:
et penitus nigra noctis se condidit umbra.
Olli inter sese vario sermone volutant;
quid superum mandata velint, quas quaerere cunas,
quos jubeant reges, quae cingere frondibus antra.

The dogs first sensed her: the lying mothers of the kids, everywhere through the hard pens, sensed her:
and the nearby valleys resounded with the bleating of sheep,
and the rocks—and the astonished masters raised their heads.
Then she said: "O little vigilant ones of the flock, O good youth
of the woods, a race pleasing to the supernal ones, go, blessed
shepherds, go, hang the caves with new garlands:
to the Queen at the cradle, and the King laid on straw
(sure faith) it is granted even now to behold the ruler of high Olympus:
make haste, and the warm gifts of new-drawn milk,
and give honey stored with its own comb:
and with the reed lead forth a song unwonted to the woods."
And, having said no more, silent she withdrew into the clouds:
and wholly hid herself in the black shadow of night.
They among themselves roll in varied discourse;
what the mandates of the supernal ones may mean, what cradles to seek,
what kings they bid, what caves to wreathe with leaves.

Continuo variis innectunt tempora ramis:
nectitur et lentiscus, opacaeque arbutus umbrae,
rosque maris, buxusque, et densa comas terebinthus:
cunctaque frondenti redimitur turba corona.
Mox silvam exquirunt omnem: saltusque repostos
flammiferis lustrant taedis: ardere putare
arva procul, totumque incendi lumine montem.
Tandem inter dumos fessi sub rupe cavata
speluncam adspiciunt; vocemque rudentis aselli
auribus accepere, vident ipsumque bovemque
longaevumque senem, stantemque ad lumina Matrem
insomnem, et pressis refoventem pignus in ulnis.

Immediately they entwine their temples with various branches:
and lentisk is woven, and the arbutus of shadowy shade,
and rosemary, and boxwood, and the terebinth with dense locks;
and the whole throng is wreathed with a leafy crown.
Soon they search out the whole wood: and the retired glades
they traverse with fire-bearing torches: you would think
the fields to blaze afar, and the whole mountain to be kindled with light.
At length, among the brambles, wearied, beneath a hollowed crag
they espy a cave; and the voice of a braying little ass
they catch with their ears, and they see him and the ox as well,
and an aged old man, and the Mother standing by the lights,
sleepless, and re-warming the babe in her clasped arms.

Ergo insperatae gavisi munere sortis,
ocyus ingentem procero stipite laurum
avulsamque solo palmam ab radicibus imis
adtollunt humeris: perque intervalla canentes
cum plausu, choreisque, et multisono modulatu
vestibuli ante aditum statuunt: omnemque coronant
fronde locum, grandes oleas cedrosque comantes
affigunt: longisque advelant limina sertis
et late Idaliam spargunt cum baccare myrtum.
Quos bonus ex antro, dictis ingressus amicis,
compellat senior, placidaque haec voce profatur:
"Dicite, pastores (neque enim sine numine, credo,
tam certum tenuistis iter), cui tanta paratis
munera? cui virides ramis frondentibus umbras
texitis?

Therefore, rejoicing in the gift of unhoped-for fortune,
quickly a huge laurel with a tall trunk,
and a palm-tree torn from the soil from its deepest roots,
they lift upon their shoulders: and, singing at intervals,
with applause, and dances, and multi-sounding modulation,
they set them before the entrance of the vestibule: and they crown all
the place with frondage, they fasten great olives and leafy-tressed cedars,
and they veil the thresholds with long garlands,
and far and wide they strew Idalian myrtle with baccar.
Whom the good elder, from the cave, approaching with friendly words,
addresses, and with a placid voice speaks these things:
“Say, shepherds (for not without a numen, I believe,
have you held so sure a path), for whom do you prepare such great
gifts? for whom do you weave green shades with leafy branches
coverings?”

anne aliquis superum Patre missus ab alto
has docuit sedes, locaque haec accedere jussit?"
Sic memorans, sese laetum venientibus obfert.
Illi autem: "Nova per tenebras, nova lucis imago,
o genitor, media visa est modo lumina silva
spargere, et in nostras diffundere gaudia mentes:
sive Deus caelo veniens, seu forte Deorum
nuntius, in dubio est: nos vultum, habitumque loquentis
vidimus: et motas per noctem audivimus alas."
Sic fati, jungunt dextras: mox ordine longo,
antrum introgressi, calathis silvestria plenis
dona ferunt: Matrem et laeto simul ore salutant.
Tum Puero adstantes Lycidas et maximus Aegon,
Aegon, Getulis centum cui pascua campis,
centeni per rura greges Massyla vagantur:
ipse caput late, qua Bagrada, qua vagus errat
Triton, Cinyphiae qua devolvuntur arenae,
ingens agricolis, ingens pastoribus Aegon.

“Or was someone of the gods, sent by the Father from on high,
who taught these seats, and ordered that we approach these places?”
Thus speaking, he presents himself joyful to those coming. But they: “A new thing through the darkness, a new image of light,
O father, has just now seemed in the midst of the wood
to scatter beams, and to pour joys into our minds:
whether a God coming from heaven, or perhaps a messenger of the gods,
it is in doubt: we saw the face and the habit, the bearing, of the speaker;
and we heard wings moved through the night.”
Thus having spoken, they join right hands: soon, in a long line,
having entered the cavern, they bring woodland gifts in brimming baskets:
and at once with a glad countenance they greet the Mother.
Then, standing by the Boy, Lycidas and great Aegon—
Aegon, for whom in the Getulian fields a hundred pastures,
a hundred herds wander through the Massylian countrysides—
he himself a chief far and wide, where the Bagrada, where wandering strays
Triton, where the Cinyphian sands are rolled down,
Aegon, mighty to farmers, mighty to shepherds.

At Lycidas vix urbe sua, vix colle propinquo
cognitus, aequoreas carmen deflexit ad undas:
et tamen hi non voce pares, non viribus aequis,
inter adorantum choreas, plaususque deorum,
rustica septena modulantur carmina canna:
"Hoc erat, alme Puer, patriis quod noster in antris
Tityrus adtritae sprevit rude carmen avenae,
et cecinit dignas Romano consule silvas:
ultima Cumaei venit jam carminis aetas!
magna per exactos renovantur saecula cursus.
Scilicet haec Virgo, haec sunt Saturnia regna:
haec nova progenies caelo descendit ab alto,
progenies, per quam toto gens aurea mundo
surget, et in mediis palmes florebit aristis.

But Lycidas, scarcely known in his own city, scarcely on the proximate hill,
bent his song toward the sea-like waves:
and yet these are not equal in voice, nor with matched strengths,
amid the choruses of the adorers and the applauses of the gods,
they modulate songs with a rustic seven-piped cane:
"This it was, kindly Boy, for which our Tityrus in his native caves
spurned the rough song of the worn oat-reed,
and sang woods worthy of a Roman consul:
the last age of the Cumaean song has now come!
great cycles are renewed through courses completed.
Surely this is the Virgin, these are the Saturnian realms:
this is the new progeny that descends from heaven on high,
a progeny through whom the golden race will rise through the whole world,
and in the midst of the standing ears the vine-shoot will blossom.

Qua duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri,
irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras:
et vetitum magni pandetur limen Olympi:
occidet et serpens, miseros quae prima parentes
elusit, portentificis imbuta venenis.
Tune deum vitam accipies? divisque videbis
permistos heroas, et ipse videberis illis?

Under whose leadership, if any vestiges of our crime remain,
they shall be nullified and will release the lands from perpetual fear:
and the forbidden threshold of great Olympus will be thrown open:
and the serpent shall perish, who first deluded our wretched parents,
imbued with portent-bearing venoms.
Then will you receive the life of the gods? and will you behold
heroes commingled with the divinities, and you yourself be seen among them?

pacatumque reges patriis virtutibus orbem?
Adspice felici diffusum lumine caelum,
camposque, fluviosque, ipsasque in montibus herbas:
adspice, venturo laetentur ut omnia saeclo.
Ipsae lacte domum referent distenta capellae
Ubera: nec magnos metuent armenta leones:
agnaque per gladios ibit secura nocentes:
bisque superfusos servabit tincta rubores.

and will kings pacify the world by their ancestral virtues?
Look upon the sky spread with felicitous light,
and the fields, and the rivers, and the very herbs on the mountains:
look, how all things rejoice in the coming age.
The she-goats themselves will bring home udders distended
with milk: nor will the herds fear great lions:
and the lamb will go safe through harmful swords:
and the dyed fleece will preserve the reds poured over it twice.

Interea tibi, parve Puer, munuscula prima
Contingent, hederaeque, intermistique corymbi.
Ipsa tibi blandos fundent cunabula flores
et durae quercus sudabunt roscida mella:
mella dabunt quercus: omnis feret omnia tellus.
At postquam firmata virum te fecerit aetas
et tua jam totum notescent facta per orbem:
alter erit tum Tiphys, et altera quae vehat Argo
delectos heroas: erunt etiam altera bella:
atque ingens Stygias ibis praedator ad undas.

Meanwhile to you, little Boy, the first little gifts
will fall to your lot, and ivies, and intermingled corymbs.
Your very cradle will pour forth charming flowers
and the hard oaks will sweat dewy honeys:
oaks will give honeys: the whole earth will bear all things.
But after, when a strengthened age shall have made you a man
and your deeds already will become known through the whole orb:
then there will be another Tiphys, and another Argo to convey
the chosen heroes: there will also be other wars:
and as a huge predator you will go to the Stygian waves.

Incipe, parve Puer, risu cognoscere Matrem,
cara Dei Soboles, magnum caeli incrementum."
Talia dum referunt pastores: avia longe
responsant nemora, et voces ad sidera jactant
intonsi montes: ipsae per confraga rupes,
ipsa sonant arbusta: "Deus, Deus ille, Menalca."
Hic subito magnum visi per inane volatus
caelestum, cursusque alacres, alacresque recursus:
auditaeque procul voces, sonitusque rotarum.
Scilicet innocuis per sudum exercitus armis
ibat ovans: divisae acies, terna agmina, ternis
instructa ordinibus, belli simulacra ciebant.
Ter clypeis jam cedentes invadere nubes
Adspiceres: vacuas ter mittere tela per auras:
ter clamare ducem: mox dissita cogere signa:
atque unam laetae faciem praeferre phalangis:
rursus et aerios percurrere milite campos:
semotosque alios constanti incedere passu
nubila per latasque vias: et jungere nexu
brachia, perpetuis quatientes motibus alas,
gestantesque manu nostrae argumenta salutis,
spinasque, clavosque, horrenti et vimine fasces,
haesuramque hastam lateri, medicataque felle
pocula, sublimemque crucem, immanemque columnam.

Begin, little Boy, to recognize your Mother with a smile,
dear Offspring of God, the great increment of heaven."
While the shepherds report such things: the pathless groves reply from afar,
and the unshorn mountains hurl the voices to the stars;
the rocks themselves through the rugged steeps, the orchards themselves resound:
"God, that God, Menalcas."
Here suddenly great flights of the celestials were seen through the void,
and swift courses, and swift returns;
voices were heard from far off, and the sound of wheels.
Evidently an army with innocuous arms
was going exultant: divided battle-lines, triple battalions, equipped
in triple orders, were stirring up simulacra of war.
Thrice you would behold them with shields attack the clouds now yielding;
thrice hurl weapons through the empty airs;
thrice call upon the leader; soon gather the scattered standards;
and present the single face of a joyful phalanx;
and again run across the airy fields with soldiery;
and others, set apart, advance with steadfast step
through the clouds along broad ways; and join with a nexus
their arms, shaking their wings with perpetual motions,
and bearing in hand the proofs (arguments) of our salvation,
the thorns, and the nails, and the bundles with bristling osier,
and the spear that would stick in the side, and the cups medicated with gall,
and the lofty cross, and the immense column.

Ibant, et dulci mulcebant aethera cantu.
Innumeras alii laudes, et magna Parentis
facta canunt: ut prima novi fundaverit orbis
moenia, telluremque vagis discluserit undis:
ut passim varios caelo suspenderit ignes,
lunamque, stellasque: ut magni lumina Solis,
jam late extremo tenebris Oriente fugatis,
protulerit. "Tu belligeras, metuende, cohortes
dejicis, exturbasque polo: tu fulmine quassas
cum duce signa suo, nigroque involvis Averno,
Cocytumque jubes, tristesque habitate lacunas.

They went, and soothed the ether with sweet song.
Others sing countless praises, and the great deeds of the Parent:
how he founded the first ramparts of the new orb,
and disclosed the earth from the wandering waves:
how he hung various fires everywhere in the sky,
the moon and the stars: how the luminaries of great Sol,
now far and wide, with the darkness in the far Orient put to flight,
he brought forth. "You, O dread one, cast down the war-bearing cohorts,
and drive them out from the sky: you shatter with the thunderbolt
the standards with their leader, and wrap them in black Avernus,
and you bid them to inhabit Cocytus and the gloomy pools.

Te gemini cecinere axes, te maxima tellus:
victorem cecinit vastis cum fluctibus aequor.
Nec te hominum fraudes, non avertere nefanda
crimina: sed laeto spectas mortalia vultu:
dignatasque tuo solaris numine terras.
Salve, magne opifex caeli, Rex maxime divum,
terrarumque, hominumque salus, quem sidera, quem Sol,
quem metuunt reges tenebrarum, et Tartarus ingens:
cui late humanum servit genus: omnia solus
qui regis: omnia amas pariter: tibi nomina mille,
mille potestatum, regnorum insignia mille!

You the twin poles sang, you the greatest earth:
the sea sang you victor with its vast billows.
Nor did the deceits of men, nor abominable
crimes turn you away: but with a joyful countenance you look upon mortal things:
and you console the lands deemed worthy by your numen.
Hail, great craftsman of heaven, greatest King of the gods,
the salvation of lands and of men, whom the stars, whom the Sun,
whom the kings of darkness fear, and vast Tartarus:
to whom far and wide the human race serves: you who alone
rule all things: you love all things equally: to you a thousand names,
a thousand of powers, a thousand emblems of kingdoms!

Salve, auctor: salve, immensi dominator Olympi,
et nobis felix, terrisque labantibus adsis."
Ingeminant plausum nubes lateque per auras
discursat vox, et caeli convexa resultant.
Herboso tum forte toro, undisonisque sub antris
venturas tacito volvebat pectore sortes
caeruleus Rex, humentum generator aquarum
Jordanes; quem juxta hilari famulantia vultu,
agmina densentur natae, pulcherrima Glauce,
Dotoque, Protoque, Galenaque, Lamprothoeque,
nudae humeros, nudis discincta veste papillis:
Callirhoe, Byroque, Pherusaque, Dinameneque,
Asphaltisque adsueta leves fluitare per undas:
ipsaque odoratis perfusa liquoribus Anthis:
Anthis, qua non ulla novos miscere colores
doctior aut pictis caput exornare coronis.
Mox Hyale, atque Thoe, et vultu nitidissima Crene,
Gongisteque, Rhoeque, et candida Limnoria,
et Dryope, et virides Botane resoluta capillos.

Hail, author; hail, dominator of boundless Olympus,
and be favorable to us, and be present to the tottering lands."
They redouble applause; through the airs far and wide
the voice runs about, and the convex vaults of the sky resound.
Then by chance on a grassy couch, and beneath wave-sounding caverns,
the cerulean King, Jordan, generator of humid waters,
was turning over in his silent breast the fates to come;
near whom, attendant with cheerful visage,
the bands of daughters are thickened, the most beautiful Glauce,
and Doto, and Proto, and Galene, and Lamprothoe,
with shoulders bare, their garment ungirded from their bare breasts:
Callirrhoe, and Byro, and Pherusa, and Dinamene,
and Asphaltis, accustomed to float lightly over the waves;
and Anthis herself, perfused with fragrant liquids—
Anthis, than whom no one is more skilled to mix new colors,
or to adorn the head with painted garlands.
Soon Hyale, and Thoe, and Crene most shining in countenance,
and Gongiste, and Rhoe, and bright Limnoria,
and Dryope, and Botane with green hair loosed.

Ore omnes formosae, albis in vestibus omnes,
omnes puniceis evinctae crura cothurnis.
Ipse antro medius, pronaque acclinis in urna
fundit aquas. Nitet urna novis variata figuris
crystallo ex alba, et puro perlucida vitro,
egregium decus, et superum mirabile donum.

In countenance all comely, all in white garments,
all with their legs bound by crimson‑purple buskins.
He himself in the midst of the cave, and leaning forward upon the urn,
pours out the waters. The urn gleams, variegated with new figures,
from white crystal, and pellucid with pure glass,
a distinguished ornament, and a wondrous gift of the gods above.

Umbrosis hic silva comis, densisque virebat
Arboribus. Cervi passim, capreaeque fugaces
aestivum viridi captabant frigus in umbra.
In medio, auratis effulgens fluctibus, amnis
errabat campo, et cursu laeta arva secabat.

Here the forest with umbrageous tresses was verdant with dense trees.
Stags everywhere, and fleet roe-deer were catching the estival coolness in the green shade.
In the midst, effulgent with aurate billows, a river
wandered over the plain and with its course was cleaving the glad fields.

Hic juvenis, fulvis velatus corpora setis,
stans celso in scopulo, Regem Dominumque deorum
vorticibus rapidis, medioque in fonte lavabat.
At viridi in ripa, lecti de more ministri
subcincti exspectant: pronisque in flumina palmis
protendunt niveas, caelestia lintea, vestes.
Ipse Pater caelo late manifesta sereno
signa dabat, Natoque levem per inane Columbam
insignem radiis mittebat et igne corusco.

Here the youth, his body clothed with tawny bristles,
standing on a lofty crag, was washing the King and Lord of the gods
amid swift vortices and in the midst of the spring.
But on the green bank, chosen ministers, according to custom,
girt up, await: and with palms bent toward the river
they stretch forth the snow-white, heavenly linens, the garments.
The Father himself in the serene heaven was giving signs
widely manifest, and to the Son he was sending through the void a light Dove,
distinguished by rays and by coruscant fire.

Adtonitae circum venerantur numina Nymphae,
et fluvius refugas ad fontem convocat undas.
Talia caelata genitor dum spectat in urna
fatorum ignarus, oculosque ad singula volvit
admirans: videt insolitos erumpere fontes:
ingentemque undate domum: cavaque antra repleri
fluctibus, atque novum latices sumpsisse saporem.
Dumque haeret, pavitatque simul, dum sublevat undis
muscosum caput, et taurino cornua vultu:
adspicit insuetas late florescere ripas,
claraque per densas discurrere lumina silvas
pastorum ludo: et laetos ad sidera cantus
divinasque audit voces, et numina passim
advenisse Deum testantia.

Astonished, all around the Nymphs venerate the divinities,
and the river calls the runaway waters back to the font.
While the sire beholds such things engraved on the urn,
unaware of the fates, and, marveling, he turns his eyes to each thing:
he sees unaccustomed springs bursting forth:
and a vast billowy dwelling; and hollow caverns filled
with waves, and that the waters have taken on a new savor.
And while he hangs in suspense and at once quails, while he lifts above the waves
his mossy head, and the horns on a taurine brow:
he beholds the unwonted banks blooming far and wide,
and bright lights running through the dense forests
at the shepherds’ play: and he hears glad songs to the stars
and divine voices, and everywhere presences
attesting that God has arrived.

Protinus ambas
ad caelum palmas hilaris cum voce tetendit:
"O maris, o terrae, divumque, hominumque Repertor,
quis tua vel magno decreta incognita caelo
detulit huc audax, mediisque abscondit in undis?
Ipse mihi haec quondam (memini), dum talia mecum
saepe agitat, repetitque volens, narrare solebat
caeruleus Proteus: mendax si caetera Proteus,
non tamen hoc vanas effudit carmine voces:
"Adveniet tibi, Jordanes, properantibus annis,
adveniet, mihi crede, inquit: (certissima caelum
signa dedit: nec me delusum oracula fallunt)
qui te olim Nili supra septemplicis ortus,
supra Indum, et Gangen, fontemque binominis Istri
adtollet fama: qui te Tyberique, Padoque
praeferet, atque tuos astris aequabit honores.
Cujus in adventu tristes discedere morbi
corporibus passim incipient.

At once he stretched both palms toward heaven with a cheerful voice:
"O Discoverer of sea and land, and of gods and men,
who, bold, has carried hither your decrees unknown even to the great heaven,
and has hidden them in the midst of the waves? He himself once (I remember),
the cerulean Proteus, while he often revolved such things with me and gladly repeated them,
used to tell me these things: if Proteus is mendacious in other matters,
yet in this he did not pour out empty words in song:
'There will come to you, Jordan, with the years hastening,
there will come, believe me,' he says: (heaven has given the surest signs;
nor do the oracles deceive me, deluded)
one who by his fame will one day raise you above the sources of the sevenfold Nile,
above the Indus and the Ganges, and the source of the two-named Ister;
who will prefer you to the Tiber and the Po,
and will make your honors equal to the stars.
At whose arrival sad diseases will begin to depart
from bodies everywhere."

Jam victa repente
cessabit, turpes squamas maculasque remittet
dira lues: lacerosque elephas effusus in artus,
ulcera sanguineo sistet manantia tabo.
Quin et letales (dictu mirabile!) febres
diffugient jussae, possessaque membra relinquent:
cedet et infestae violentior ira Dianae:
ira nocens, quae fulminea velut icta ruina,
corpora cum gemitu ad terram prosternit, et igni
interdum, nunc perdere aqua (miserabile visu)
festinat: Stygio nimirum armata veneno
exsuperat vis, et spumas agit ore tumentes.
Nec jam ultra longo vires minuente veterno,
tabificus per operta impune vagabitur hydrops,
exitio obrepens miserorum: atque omnia late
viscera per varios perdet tumefacta dolores.

Now, suddenly conquered,
the dire pestilence will cease, and will remit foul scales and spots;
and the elephantiasis, poured into torn limbs,
will stay ulcers dripping with sanguineous gore.
Nay more, even lethal (marvelous to say!) fevers
will scatter when bidden, and will leave the possessed limbs:
and the more violent wrath of hostile Diana will yield—
a harmful wrath, which, like a thunderbolt-stricken collapse,
throws bodies to the ground with a groan, and at times hastens to destroy with fire,
now with water (pitiable to see):
surely a force armed with Stygian venom overmasters,
and it churns foams swelling at the mouth.
Nor any longer, with a long torpor diminishing the strengths,
will the wasting hydrops wander unpunished through hidden recesses,
creeping to the ruin of the wretched; and no longer will it far and wide
lay waste all the viscera, swollen with various dolors.

Non alias vinctae tam crebra silentia linguae
Abrumpent: noctem aut toties, tenebrasque priores
excutient oculi, qui nunquam sidera, nunquam
ardentem magni viderunt lampada Solis.
Multa quidem majora fide, sed vera, sed ipsos
quae teneant spectantum oculos, possum ore referre:
sed propero: ventura tamen mirabitur aetas.
Cernere erit, claudos passim genua aegra trahentes
firmato subitos extendere poplite gressus.

At no other time will tongues bound break such frequent silences,
nor will eyes so often shake off night and earlier darkness—
eyes which never saw the stars, never
the burning lamp of the great Sun.
Many things indeed beyond credence, yet true, and such as
hold the very eyes of the spectators, I can recount by mouth;
but I hasten: yet the coming age will marvel at them.
It will be seen that the lame, everywhere dragging sick knees,
suddenly, the popliteal joint made firm, extend their strides.

Tum nervis labefacta, diuque trementia membra
(quis credat, nisi certa meus mihi cantet Apollo?)
restringi, et validas cum robore sumere vires.
Atque alius rapto jussus consurgere lecto,
haud mora, prosiliet: passuque in templa citato
contendens, onus ipse humeris portabit. Ibi ingens
clamor, et innumerae circum donaria voces
spectantis populi, et rerum novitate paventis.

Then limbs, shaken in the nerves and long trembling
(who would believe it, unless my own Apollo should sing certainties to me?)
are tightened again, and take on potent strength with robustness.
And another, bidden to rise with the couch snatched away,
without delay will leap forth: and, hastening with quickened step into the temples,
making his way, he himself will carry the burden upon his shoulders. There a huge
clamor, and innumerable votive voices all around
of the watching people, awestruck at the novelty of the events.

Parte alia exstinctam penitus, sensuque carentem
ad sua jam cernes revocari munera dextram.
Nec minus et tacta compesci veste cruorem
Femineum: exsanguesque artus, pallentiaque ora
ilicet obstructis calefacta rubescere venis.
Ipsas quin etiam Furias sub Tartara pelli,
immanes Erebi Furias: tum fessa levari
pectora, vexatosque malis cruciatibus artus:
hinc vacuas late impleri stridoribus auras
dirarum frustra clamantum, ac saeva trementum
verbera, perque cavas conantum evadere nubes.

In another part you will see a right hand utterly extinct and lacking sense now recalled to its own functions.
No less also the feminine blood to be restrained by the garment touched;
and bloodless limbs, and paling faces straightway, the once-obstructed veins being warmed, to grow red.
Nay even the Furies themselves to be driven down beneath Tartarus,
the immense Furies of Erebus: then weary breasts to be lightened,
and limbs vexed by evil torments to be eased: from here the empty airs far and wide to be filled with the shrieks
of the dire ones crying in vain, and with the savage lashes of the trembling,
and with their trying to escape through the hollow clouds.

Jam deploratis vitam post funera reddi
corporibus video: jam moestam incedere pompam:
feralemque anteire tubam: mox gaudia matrum
insperata, patrumque hilares verso ordine fletus,
et circumfusam populis laetantibus urbem.
Huic tu nutantes quoties adsurgere montes
et (mirum!) insuetas curvare cacumina silvas
adspicies; quoties humenti in gramine ripae
aut solantem aestus, aut lenes pectore somnos
carpentem, tenui adsuesces mulcere susurro!
Macte tuis merito ripis, macte omnibus undis.

Now, with lamentations finished, I see life after funerals returned to bodies:
now the mournful procession advances; and the funereal trumpet goes before:
soon the unhoped-for joys of mothers, and the cheerful tears of fathers, the order reversed,
and the city encompassed by peoples rejoicing. To this one you will behold how often the mountains,
nodding, rise up, and—marvel!—the forests, unaccustomed, curve their tree-tops;
as often as, on the dewy grass of the bank, whether someone assuaging the heats, or plucking gentle slumbers
to his breast, you will grow accustomed to soothe with a thin whisper! Hail in your deserved banks, hail in all your waves.

Ad te deposito properabunt numina fastu:
nudabuntque sacros artus, et carmina dicent
ad numerum: cum tu felix jam flumine sancto
Auctorem rerum, divumque, hominumque Parentem
(tantus honos, laus tanta tuo, rex maxime, fonti)
exutum veste accipies: atque hospite tanto
adtonitus, trepidas hortabere voce Napaeas:
"Ite citae, date thura pias adolenda per aras,
caeruleae comites, viridique sedilia musco
instruite: et vitreis suspendite serta columnis.
Purpureas miscete rosas: miscete hyacinthos
Liliaque, et pulchro Regem conspergite nimbo."
Tunc nomen late clarum Jordanis ad auras
adtollent montes, Jordanem maxima circum
aequora, Jordanem silvaeque, amnesque sonabunt.
llla autem humanis quamvis latura ruinis
auxilium, finemque dies, gratissima quamvis
urbibus adveniat, totumque optanda per orbem:
fluminibus tamen, et nostris felicior undis
(si qua fides, si qua est veri prudentia Proteo)
ostendet roseos stellis ridentibus ortus.

To you, with haughtiness laid aside, the numina will hasten:
and they will bare their sacred limbs, and will speak songs to the measure;
when you, happy now in the holy river,
will receive the Author of things, and the Parent of gods and of men
(so great an honor, so great a praise to your fount, greatest king),
stripped of garment; and, astonished at so great a guest,
you will urge with your voice the trembling Napaeae:
"Go swift, give incense to be burned upon the pious altars,
cerulean companions, and set up seats with green moss,
and hang garlands on the vitreous columns.
Mix purple roses: mix hyacinths
and lilies, and sprinkle the King with a beautiful cloud."
Then the name of Jordan, famous far and wide, to the breezes
the mountains will lift up; around the Jordan the greatest waters,
the forests and rivers will resound Jordan.
But that day, although destined to bring aid
to human ruins, and an end, although most welcome it may come
to cities, and be to be desired throughout the whole orb:
yet to the rivers, and to our waves more felicitous
(if there is any faith, if there is any prudence of truth in Proteus),
will show rosy risings with the stars smiling.

Quandoquidem non divitias, non quaeret honores
ille Patris decus, ac virtus; mortalia postquam
membra sibi, et fragiles jam sponte induxerit artus.
Non sceptrum invadet Cyri: non Caspia regna
diripiet: non exuviis Babylona superbam
eruet: aut alto scandet Capitolia curru
militibus circum, et laeto comitante senatu.
Sed maris undisoni tractus, et litora longe
curva secans, media socios sibi quaeret in acta:
dispersosque mari nautas, nudosque colonos
undarum, sinuosa fretis jactare parantes
retia, vexatas aut jam reparare sagenas
sollicitos, Patris ad solium, ac sua tecta vocabit.

Since he will not seek riches, nor honors, that glory and virtue of the Father; after he has of his own accord assumed for himself mortal limbs and now fragile joints.
He will not invade the scepter of Cyrus; he will not plunder the Caspian realms; he will not tear proud Babylon down for spoils; nor will he climb the Capitoline in a lofty chariot, with soldiers around and the joyful senate accompanying.
But cutting the tracts of the wave-sounding sea and the far-curving shores, he will seek for himself companions on the midst of the strand: sailors scattered on the sea, and naked tillers of the waves, preparing to cast their sinuous nets in the straits, or anxious now to repair their worn seines—he will call them to the Father’s throne and to his own abode.

Atque ollis jus omne, potestatemque medendi
adjiciet: pellent morbos, dentesque retundent
vipereos: Orcique acies, ac monstra fugabunt.
Quin et custodes foribus radiantis Olympi
praeficiet: servare aditus, et claustra jubebit
aurea: queis non ulla queat vis saeva nocere
Eumenidum, durique umbrarum obsistere postes.
Tum sedes passim emeritis duodena per astra
instituet: distincta suos de more sequetur
turba duces: illi leges et sancta vocatis
jura dabunt, plausu sociorum, atque agmine laeti.

And to them he will add every right, and the power of healing:
they will drive away diseases, and will blunt the viperine teeth;
and they will rout the battle-line of Orcus and the monsters.
Nay more, he will set custodians over the doors of radiant Olympus:
he will command them to guard the approaches and the golden bars;
against which no savage force of the Eumenides can do harm,
nor can the hard doorposts of the shades stand in the way.
Then he will institute seats here and there for the emeriti,
twelve throughout the stars: the distinct throng will follow
their own leaders according to custom: they will give laws and sacred
rights to the called, with the applause of their companions, and happy in their band.

Felices, qui jam cymba, remisque relictis,
alta serenati conscendent culmina caeli.
Praeterea (si certa fides, nec vana futuri
gaudia) cognatas etiam spectabimus undas
lenaeos verti in latices: ea prima deum Rex
arcana, hos primos per signa ostendet honores
accepti late imperii. Mirabitur auctus
lympha suos, jussa insuetum spumare capaces
per pateras, largeque novum diffundere nectar,
et mensas hilarare, et felices hymenaeos.

Happy they who now, the skiff and oars left behind,
serenely will climb the high summits of heaven.
Moreover (if there is sure faith, and not vain the joys
of what is to come) we shall even behold the kindred waves
to be turned into Lenaean liquors: by these first arcana the King
of the gods will show, through signs, these first honors
of an empire received far and wide. The water, augmented,
will marvel at itself, bidden, unaccustomed, to foam
through capacious bowls, and to pour out lavishly the new nectar,
and to gladden the tables and the happy hymenaeals.

Nec semel ille altum remis evectus in aequor,
cum jam frustrato socios rediisse labore
accipiet, praeda ingenti ditabit et udos
squamigerum strata cumulos exponet in alga.
Iratos etiam fluctus, tumidasque procellas,
miscentesque imo turbatam gurgite arenam,
jamque superjecto mersuras aequore puppim,
imperio premet increpitans: cadet arduus undae
impetus: atque audisse minantis jussa putares
Eurosque, Zephyrosque, et ovantes turbine Coros.
Quid loquar, ut gemino numerosas pisce catervas
munere et exiguo Cereris, miserabile vulgus,
matres, atque viros pariter per gramina pascet:
ut jam bis senis redeant fragmenta canistris?

Nor only once will he, borne by oars out upon the deep level sea,
when he learns that his comrades have returned with their labor frustrated,
enrich them with enormous booty and expose upon the wet seaweed
scaly heaps, piled high, in rows.
He will even, by his command rebuking, subdue the angry waves
and the swollen storms, and the sand, confused, mixing at the bottom by the surge,
and the stern now about to be sunk by the sea heaped over it:
the steep onrush of the wave will fall; and you would have thought the Euros,
and the Zephyrs, and the Cori exulting in the whirlwind had heard the orders
of one who threatens.
Why should I tell how, with the twin gift of fish and with a meager portion of Ceres,
he will feed the pitiable crowd, mothers and men alike, over the grasses:
how now the fragments come back in 12 baskets?

aut intempesta gradiens ut nocte per altum
libera substrato ponet vestigia ponto:
vixque undas sicco tanget pede? scilicet olli
adnabunt blandae Nereides: humida passim
sternent se freta, tum fundo Neptunus ab imo
excitus agnoscet Dominum, positoque tridente
cum Phorco, Glaucoque, et semifero comitatu
prosiliet, trepidusque sacris dabit oscula plantis.
Sed quid ego exili vectus super alta phaselo
cuncta sequor memorans?

or, striding in the dead of night across the deep,
free he will place his footsteps upon the sea spread beneath:
and will he scarcely touch the waves with a dry foot? Assuredly to him
the coaxing Nereids will swim up: the moist
seas will everywhere lay themselves flat, then Neptune from the bottommost
depth, roused, will recognize the Lord, and with his trident set aside
together with Phorcus and Glaucus, and a semi-beast retinue
he will spring forth, and trembling will give kisses to the sacred soles.
But why do I, borne in a slender skiff over the high seas,
pursue everything, recounting?

Non si Parnassia Musae
antra mihi sacrosque aditus, atque aurea pandant
limina, sufficiam: non si mihi ferrea centum
ora sonent centumque aerato e gutture linguae
vocibus exspument agitantem pectora Phoebum,
laudatos valeam venturi Principis actus
enumerare novoque amplecti singula cantu."
Haec senior quondam felici pectore Proteus
Vaticinans (ut forte meo diverterat antro)
praemonuit: nunc eventus stat signa futuri
exspectare. Nitor roseo sed fulsit ab ortu
clarior: et radiis dux praevia matutinis
Oceani procul extremo se litore tollit
exoriens Aurora: sinusque induta rubentes,
ante diem citat auricomos ad frena jugales.
Et jam consuetis tempus me currere ripis
Undantem, magnosque lacus, et prata secantem
Vorticibus: viden' ut nostros agit impetus amnes?

Not even if the Muses should open to me the Parnassian caves,
and the sacred approaches and the golden thresholds, would I suffice: not even if a hundred
iron mouths should sound for me and a hundred tongues from a brazen throat
should foam forth voices, as they stir the breast of Phoebus,
could I avail to enumerate the praised deeds of the coming Prince
and to embrace each detail with a new song."
These things once the elder Proteus, with a happy breast,
prophesying (as by chance he had turned aside to my cave),
forewarned: now the outcome stands to await the signs of the future.
But a splendor has shone from the rosy east more bright:
and as a leader going before with morning rays,
Dawn arising lifts herself far off from the farthest shore of Ocean,
and, having put on blushing folds, before day she summons to the reins her golden-haired yoke-mates.
And now it is time for me to run along my accustomed banks,
billowing, and cutting through great lakes and meadows
with my eddies: do you see how my rush drives my streams?

Jordanemque vocat tumidarum murmur aquarum?"
Sic fatus, confestim humeris circumdat amictus
Insolitos: quos pulchrae udis nevere sub antris
Naiades, molli ducentes stamina musco;
Sidonioque rudes saturantes murice telas,
aurea consperso variarunt sidera limbo:
atque ita se tandem currenti reddidit alveo
spumeus, et motas adspergine miscuit undas.
Hactenus, o Superi, partus tentasse verendos
sit satis: optatum poscit me dulcis ad umbram
Pausilypus, poscunt Neptunia litora, et udi
Tritones, Nereusque senex, Panopeque, Ephyreque
et Melite, quaeque in primis mihi grata ministrat
ocia, Musarumque cavas per saxa latebras,
Mergillina: novos fundunt ubi citria flores,
citria Medorum sacros referentia lucos:
et mihi non solita nectit de fronde coronam.

“And does the murmur of the swelling waters call it the Jordan?”
Thus he spoke, and at once he wraps around his shoulders unusual mantles,
which fair Naiads wove beneath their damp caverns,
drawing the threads with soft moss;
and, saturating the raw webs with Sidonian murex-purple,
they variegated golden stars on the sprinkled hem:
and so at last he returned himself, foamy, to the running channel
and mixed the stirred waves with spray.
Thus far, O Supernal Ones, let it be enough to have ventured the venerable births;
sweet Pausilypus calls me to the longed-for shade,
the Neptunian shores call, and the wet
Tritons, and Old Man Nereus, and Panope, and Ephyre,
and Melite, she who especially supplies for me
leisures, and Mergillina, the hollow hiding-places of the Muses through the rocks,
where citron-bright new blossoms pour forth,
recalling the sacred groves of the Medes;
and she weaves for me from foliage an unaccustomed crown.

FINIS.

THE END.