(1577-1660)
he life of Jacob Cats falls within the golden age of Dutch literature, represented in the north by Hooft, Roemer Visscher, and Joost van den Vondel, and in the south by the Zeeland circle of poets, among whom Cats was undoubtedly the greatest. There have been times when Cats's was the one name among Dutch poets; in homes where no other books were found, one might at least be sure of finding the Bible and "Father Cats." But it is doubtful whether he would be considered great outside of Holland. He is the most prosaic of poets, has limited power of language and a still more limited choice of versification; with these drawbacks he is, however, most characteristically Dutch, partly on account of his practical moral teachings and partly on account of the monotonous tic-tac of his verse. The erection of a monument in his honor in his native city, and the painting of his portrait by Rembrandt in 1635, were therefore well-deserved tributes to a man strangely representative of his nation. Yet, even in Holland, voices have been raised against his popularity. Busken Huet has called him "a miserable character, a personified mediocrity, a vulgar and vulgarizing spirit."
Jacob Cats
Jacob Cats, the youngest of four children, was born in Brouwershaven on the 10th of November, 1577. His mother died when he was only a few years old, and his father, member of the council in Brouwershaven, soon gave his children a stepmother. Cats praises her "good deeds and good management" in his verses; but it would seem as if her management were not in accordance with what the family considered beneficial to the children. One of the uncles adopted little Jacob, and sent him to the school of Master Dirk Kemp in Zierikzee. Here he met a young boy from Brabant who was cultivating poetry, and their daily comradeship awakened the same tastes in Cats. Master Kemp was a man who, although of good intentions, had not the power to carry them out; Jacob's uncle accordingly took him out of school and sent him to the University of Leyden to study law.
From Leyden he went to Orleans, where he took his degree, and then to Paris. When he had been here for some time, his uncle thought it wisest to call him back; and Cats's career dates from his return to The Hague, where he settled as a lawyer. Very soon after he had taken up his practice he succeeded in saving a woman accused of witchcraft, and won the case of a young man who, in defending his father from a murderous attack, had killed the assailant. These cases called attention to Cats; he soon made a name for himself. His activity was then suddenly interrupted by a severe illness. He was forced to leave the damp climate of Holland, and went to England to seek the counsel of Queen Elizabeth's famous physician Butler. The treatment gave him no relief, however; and he did not improve until after his return to Holland, where he met a learned alchemist, to whose skill he ascribed his cure. In 1603 he moved to Middelburg, and began life with new strength. He tells in one of his poems of his meeting in the French church with a young girl, with whom he fell in love at first sight; of his growing affection for her and his intention to marry her; of the report that her father had just lost all his money in a speculation; and he confesses with a most naïve and rather cynic frankness:—
"For her in very truth, with but the least of cause
And with a joyful heart, I'd given up the ghost.—
Look ye, this evil lot that to the father fell
Has in an instant's time my heart of love bereft!"
Immediately after this incident, Cats married Elizabeth van Valkenburg, a rich girl from Antwerpen. Her good sense, faithfulness, and housewifely virtues found a warm expression in the following words:—
"She was a worthy woman,
A foundation for a home, a model of truth."
This period of Cats's life, almost coincident with the twelve-years' armistice ending in 1621, when the war with Spain was resumed, was one of varied activity. Aside from the duties of his practice, he gave much time to the diking of grounds neglected during the war, now in great danger from the sea; and while at his country-place Grijpskerke near Middelburg, where his "flock of children played under the trees," he wrote the poems 'Emblemata of Sinnebeelden' (Emblemata or Emblems); 'Maeghdeplicht' (Maiden Duty), in 1618; 'Selfstryt' (Inward Strife), 1620; 'Toonel der Mannelycke Achtbaerheyd' (Scene of Manly Respectability), and 'Houwelyck' (Marriage).
With the beginning of the war his own peace was at an end. Several of the grounds reclaimed from the sea were once more flooded to prevent the advance of the enemy. In 1621 he accepted the office of pensionary of Middelburg, his first step toward official statesmanship. In 1623 he was elected pensionary of Dordrecht, and although he hesitated in leaving Zeeland, he finally decided to accept the office. In 1625 he added to his duties those of Curator of Leyden University. His literary work was consequently laid aside.
In 1627 Cats accompanied Albert Joachimi as ambassador to London to open negotiations for a navigation treaty. He was only partly successful in his mission, but was met with much consideration by Charles I., who decorated him with the order of St. Jovis. Shortly after his return he lost his wife after a brief illness.
While he was writing 'Trouwring' (Wedding Ring), a collection of epic and lyric poems, he was elected Secretary of State in 1636, and in 1645 Keeper of the Great Seal and Governor. But he had the experience in his public life that a crown may often be a crown of thorns; and in 1651 he begged to be released from his burdensome office. His demand was granted, and on this occasion Cats fell on his knees in the presence of the States-General and thanked God for taking away his heavy burden. He was once more persuaded to join an embassy to England. Cromwell had meanwhile come to power; Cats and his fellow-travelers returned with but little accomplished, and the old statesman and poet saw himself free to spend the last years of his life on his place Zorgvliet, which he had built outside of The Hague on the way to Scheveningen, in the midst of the Dunes. Although he may not have been a great statesman, he had felt the responsibility of his calling. He was never quite equal to it, and often felt himself helpless and small against the encroachment of the Powers. But honesty and patriotism were his to the fullest extent.
The last eight years of his life he spent in Zorgvliet in undisturbed peace. He returned to his literary labors and wrote 'Onderdom en Buitenleven' (Age and Country Life), 'Hofgedachtess' (Court Thoughts), and his rhymed autobiography 'Twee-entaghtig-jarig Leven' (A Life of Eighty-two Years). He seems to have kept his warm interest and joy in life to the very last.
FEAR AFTER THE TROUBLE
Awhile ago I read a tale methinks is curious.
Perhaps to every one the story may be useful;
Therefore in timeliness unto the light I drag it,
In hope that all who read, in it will find a pleasure.
A lord once lived of old, whose joy it was to wander
In field and flowery mead, quite to his heart's contentment.
A horse he had withal, so sage that, slept the rider,
It home would wisely go, without the knight to waken.
And so it came to pass that one day forthward faring,
To dine, the cavalier by a good friend was bidden.
He met with welcome glad; good wine went freely flowing.
At last, for all such cheer, the guest must take his leave.
Himself then he prepared to climb into his saddle,
And turned his beast about, that home were soon attained.
The day was bleak and raw; the sun of light was chary;
Through clouds before its face, a pallid light descended.
The wise steed careful stepped onward along the highway,
Its sober rider borne, as custom was, unwearied.
Anon the usual drowse closed up the rider's eyelids:
His beast walked calmly on, in faithfulness of service;
The man, profoundly sleeping, traveled as he was wonted;
The time at last brought near when he should reach his dwelling.
But lo! a friend is met, who questions him in wonder:—
"How possible it was his steed had brought him thither?"
The knight responded straight—"Why, I the way have ridden
That, during seven years, I constantly have come;
My beast on which I sit hath borne me duly houseward—
The midnight's dark itself makes not his foot unsteady."
"How, friend?" his questioner cried, "even when the bridge is broken?
The stream to cross at all, no other means I know:
This wondrous horse of thine old Perseus must have owned,
Who fought the dragon once, and cut its head to pieces.
Things sure are as they were! You came not flying hither!
It seems to me, belike, a ghost has been your cheater.
To take it otherwise, the joke to me seems pointless.
Not possible it is, this story that you tell me.
But that o'er such a thing no wrangling be between us,
Come to the bridge with me; I gladly will be escort.
The spot and fact themselves, in proof I straight will disclose,
That you may note how ill goes with your word the matter."
Whereto so long a speech? The Knight was well persuaded;
The flood is reached again, the truth of things lies open!
Bridge is there none indeed—rests but a strip of planking,
Crossing the rushing wave, narrow and all unsteady.
The foot of man must needs with prudence o'er it tiptoe,
The nerve and will be firm to reach that further goal.
The foot that is not true, that left or right shall waver,
Drowns in the flood below the passenger unlucky.
When now the man of naps marks all at once the bridge,
Notes well the narrow path, marks the too slender footway,
His shock in truth is great; loud his poor heart goes beating.
In fear and shudders cold, the scene he stands and pictures;
Sees with a frightened eye just how his path has served him.
And more and more his soul sickens with tardy terror,
More to his heart the blood, driven away, goes rushing;—
That hour of fear to him brought him an endless illness.
Look now, how odd it seems! He well in peace had ridden,
Suffering no mishap, spared from the thing all mischief—
Utterly downcast is, whereas his danger's over!
Fear makes him sick at heart, deep in his being centred.
Questions now any one what be this tale's life-lesson?
Him shall I gladly give what in it lies, methinks;
Speak out as best I can what as a maxim's plainest:—
Friendly is never he sparing of bread and counsel.
The man who rode his way safely and lost in slumber,
He unto whom occurred just this strange bit of fortune,
Like is he (it meseems) unto the lustful mortal,
Evil in earthly course, given to sottish living,
Wandering on, shut-eyed, lost in the way of pleasure,
Taking no slightest notice of the abyss so open:
Never with heed made blessed, not with his conscience warned:
How at his side is Death, prompt to cut off the living!
But with our Lord God's grace, suddenly on him bestowed,
Opening wide his eye—then, not till then, he's awakened.
Terror absorbs his soul, holy the fear that takes it;
Now is the sinner roused, sees for the first his doings.
Wondering see him stand, uttering loud his outcry:—
"Awful has been my blindness, dreadful my soul's delusion.
How could I be so tricked? how could my sleep so grip me?
I who, in touch with death, careless my ease was taking!"
Happy in truth the man fallen in no such peril,
Since with a careful eye watches he every footstep,
Blessed in that God himself insight to him has granted
What was his danger to feel; how he has made escapement.
Translation through the German by E. Irenæus Stevenson.
"A RICH MAN LOSES HIS CHILD, A POOR MAN LOSES HIS COW"
Come hither, pray, O friends! Let me my sorrow tell you.
Wordless such loss to bear, my heart indeed endures not:
All that the soul downweighs seems to a man less bitter,
If to the friendly ear sorrow can be but uttered.
Dead is my neighbor's child: dead is my only cow.
Comfort has fled from him; fled from me every joying.
So do we sorrow, both, reft of our peace each bosom:
He that his child is dead—I that my cow is taken.
Look you now, friends! how strange ay, and how sad Fate's dealings!
I well had spared a child—one cow he well had wanted.
Turn things about, thou Death! Less evil seem thy doings.
Full is my house—too full: surely is full his cow-house!
Death, take his stalls for prey, or choose from out my seven!
There have you, Death, full room; less to us too the trouble.
Certain the pain's forgot—ay, and forgotten quickly,
When, in the greater herd, one little wolf's a robber!
What do I murmur thus? Ever is Death one earless.
Lost on him good advice, argument on him wasted.
Onward he moves, this Death, pallid and wholly blindly.
Oftenest he a guest just where his call's least needed.
Ah, who can calm my grief; who, pray, shall still my neighbor's?
Just as we would not choose, so unto each it happens!—
He who is rich must lose all that means nearest heirship,
I, the poor man, O God! stripped of my one possession!
Translation through the German by E. Irenæus Stevenson.
CATULLUS
(84-54 B.C.?)
BY J. W. MACKAIL
he last thirty years of the Roman Republic are, alike in thought and action, one of the high-water marks of the world's history. This is the age of Cicero and of Julius Cæsar. This brief period includes the conquest of Gaul, the invasion of Britain, the annexation of the Asiatic monarchies founded by Alexander's marshals; the final collapse of the Roman oligarchy which had subdued the whole known world; the development of the stateliest and most splendid prose that the world has ever seen or is ever likely to see; and lastly, a social life among the Roman upper classes so brilliant, so humane, so intimately known to us from contemporary historians, poets, orators, letter-writers, that we can live in it with as little stretch of imagination as we can live in the England of Queen Anne. Among the foremost figures of this wonderful period is Valerius Catullus, the first of Latin lyric poets, and perhaps the third, alongside of Sappho and Shelley, in the supreme rank of the lyric poets of the world.
Valerius Catullus
He represents in his life and his genius the fine flower of his age and country. He was born at Verona of a wealthy and distinguished family, while Italy was convulsed by the civil wars of Marius and Sulla; he died at the age of thirty, while Cæsar was completing the conquest of Gaul, and the Republic, though within a few days of its extinction, still seemed full of the pride of life. The rush and excitement of those thrilling years is mirrored fully in the life and poetry of Catullus. Fashion, travel, politics, criticism, all the thousandfold and ever-changing events and interests of the age, come before us in their most vivid form and at their highest pressure, in this brief volume of lyrics. But all come involved with and overshadowed by a story wholly personal to himself and immortal in its fascination: the story of an immense and ill-fated love that "fed its life's flame with self-substantial fuel," and mounted in the morning glories of sunrise only to go down in thunder and tempest before noon.
There are perhaps no love poems in the world like these. Of Sappho, seemingly the greatest poet of her sex, we can only dally with surmise from mutilated fragments. No one else in the ancient world comes into the account. The Middle Ages involved love inextricably with mysticism. When Europe shook the Middle Ages off, it had begun to think. Exquisite reflections on love, innocent pastorals, adorable imagery,—these it could produce; in the France of the Pleiade for instance, or in the England of Greene and Campion: but thought and passion keep ill company. Once only, a century ago, a genius as fierce and flame-like as that of Catullus rose to the height of this argument. An intractable language, sterilizing surroundings, bad models, imperfect education, left Burns hopelessly distanced; yet the quintessential flame that he shares with Catullus has served to make him the idol of a nation, and a household word among many millions of his race.
Clodia, the "Lady of the Sonnets" in Catullus, whom he calls Lesbia by a transparent fiction, has no ambiguous or veiled personality. She was one of the most famous and most scandalous women of her time. By birth and marriage she belonged to the innermost circle of that more than royal Roman aristocracy which had accumulated the wealth of the world into its hands, and sent out its younger sons carelessly to misgovern and pillage empires. When Catullus made her acquaintance, she was a married woman some six or seven years older than himself. "Through a little arc of heaven" the poems show his love running its sorrowful and splendid course. Rapture of tenderness, infatuation, revolt, relapse, re-entanglement, agonized stupor, the stinging pain of reviving life, fierce love passing into as fierce a hatred, all sweep before us in dazzling language molded out of pure air and fire.
So far, Burns alone, and Burns only at his rarer heights, can give a modern reader some idea of Catullus. But Burns had little education and less taste; and so when he leaves the ground of direct personal emotion,—that is to say, in nineteen-twentieths of his poetry,—he is constantly on the edge, and often over it, of tawdriness, vulgarity, commonplace. Catullus was master of all the technical skill then known to poetry. Without anything approaching the immense learning of Virgil or Milton, he had, like Shelley among English poets, the instincts and training of a scholar. It is this fine scholarship—the eye and hand of the trained artist in language—combined with his lucid and imperious simplicity, like that of some gifted and terrible child, that makes him unique among poets. When he leaves the golden fields of poetry and dashes into political lampoons, or insolent and unquotable attacks on people (men or women) who had the misfortune to displease him, he becomes like Burns again, Burns the satirist; yet even here nimbler witted, lighter of touch, with the keenness of the rapier rather than of the Northern axe-edge.
His scholarliness—like that of most scholars—was not without its drawbacks. His immediate literary masters, the Greeks of the Alexandrian school, were a coterie of pedants; it would be idle to claim that he remained unaffected by their pedantry. In the last years of his life he seems to have lost himself somewhat in technical intricacies and elaborate metrical experiments; in translations from that prince in preciosity, the Alexandrian Callimachus; and idyllic pieces of overloaded ornament studied from the school of Theocritus. The longest and most ambitious poem of these years, the epic idyl on 'The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis,' is full of exquisite beauties of detail, but taken in its whole effect is languid, cloying, and monotonous. He makes a more brilliant success in his other long poem, the famous 'Atys,' the single example in Latin of the large-scale lyric so familiar to Greece and England.
But indeed in every form of lyric poetry attempted by him, his touch is infallible. The lovely poems of travel which he wrote during and after a voyage to Asia are as unequaled in their sunny beauty as the love-lyrics are in fire and passion. Alongside of these there are little funny verses to his friends, and other verses to his enemies which they probably did not think funny in the least; verses of occasion and verses of compliment; and verses of sympathy, with a deep human throb in them that shows how little his own unhappy love had embittered him or shut him up in selfish broodings. Two of these pieces are pre-eminent beyond all the rest. The one is a marriage song written by him for the wedding of two of his friends, Mallius Torquatus and Vinia Aurunculeia. In its straightforward unassuming grace, in its musical clearness, in the picture it draws, with so gentle and yet so refined and distinguished a touch, of common household happiness, it is worthy of its closing place in the golden volume of his lyrics.
The other is a brief poem, only ten lines long, written at his brother's grave near Troy. It is one of the best known of Latin poems; and before its sorrow, its simplicity, its piteous tenderness, the astonishing cadence of its rhythms, praise itself seems almost profanation.
"Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen hundred years ago—" so Tennyson in one of his own beautiful lyrics addresses Catullus; and it is this unsurpassed tenderness that more than all his other admirable qualities, than his consummate technical skill, than his white heat of passion, than his "clearness as of the terrible crystal," brings him and keeps him near our hearts.
That wonderful Ciceronian age has left its mark as few ages have, deep upon human history. The conquests and legislation of Julius Cæsar determined the future of Europe and laid the foundation of the modern world. The prose invented by Cicero became and still remains the common language of civilized mankind. Among the poems of Catullus are verses addressed to both of these men; but his own young ivy-crowned brows shine out of the darkness and the distance, with no less pure a radiance and no less imperishable a fame.
Note.—In Mr. Mackail's closing phrase the lover of Ovid will note an echo from that poet's famous elegy suggested by the premature death of still another Roman singer, Tibullus. Among the kindred spirits—says Ovid—who will welcome the new-comer to the Elysian fields,—
"Thou, O learned Catullus, thy young brows ivy-encircled,
Bringing thy Calvus with thee, wilt to receive him appear."
Ed.
DEDICATION FOR A VOLUME OF LYRICS
This dainty little book and new,
Just polished with the pumice, who
Shall now receive?—Cornelius, you!
For these my trifles even then
You counted of some value, when
You only of Italian men
Into three tomes had dared to cast
The story of all ages past,—
Learned, O Jupiter, and vast!
So take it, prize it as you may.
—And, gracious Virgin, this I pray:
That it shall live beyond our day!
Translation of William C. Lawton.
A MORNING CALL
Varus would take me t'other day
To see a little girl he knew,—
Pretty and witty in her way,
With impudence enough for two.
Scarce are we seated, ere she chatters
(As pretty girls are wont to do)
About all persons, places, matters:—
"And pray, what has been done for you?"
"Bithynia, lady!" I replied,
"Is a fine province for a prætor;
For none (I promise you) beside,
And least of all am I her debtor."
"Sorry for that!" said she. "However,
You have brought with you, I dare say,
Some litter-bearers; none so clever
In any other part as they.
"Bithynia is the very place
For all that's steady, tall, and straight;
It is the nature of the race.
Could you not lend me six or eight?"
"Why, six or eight of them or so,"
Said I, determined to be grand;
"My fortune is not quite so low
But these are still at my command."
"You'll send them?"—"Willingly!" I told her,
Although I had not here or there
One who could carry on his shoulder
The leg of an old broken chair.
"Catullus! what a charming hap is
Our meeting in this sort of way!
I would be carried to Serapis
To-morrow!"—"Stay, fair lady, stay!
"You overvalue my intention.
Yes, there are eight ... there may be nine:
I merely had forgot to mention
That they are Cinna's, and not mine."
Paraphrase of W. S. Landor.
HOME TO SIRMIO
Dear Sirmio, that art the very eye
Of islands and peninsulas, that lie
Deeply embosomed in calm inland lake,
Or where the waves of the vast ocean break;
Joy of all joys, to gaze on thee once more!
I scarce believe that I have left the shore
Of Thynia, and Bithynia's parching plain,
And gaze on thee in safety once again!
Oh, what more sweet than when, from care set free,
The spirit lays its burden down, and we,
With distant travel spent, come home and spread
Our limbs to rest along the wished-for bed!
This, this alone, repays such toils as these!
Smile, then, fair Sirmio, and thy master please,—
And you, ye dancing waters of the lake,
Rejoice; and every smile of home awake!
Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.
HEART-BREAK
With your Catullus ill it fares, alas!
O Cornificius, and most wearily;
Still worse with all the days and hours that pass.
And with what greeting do you comfort me?
The least of boons, and easiest to bestow;
Wroth am I, that my love is answered so.
A word of greeting, pray you; what you please;
More sad than tear-drops of Simonides!
Translation of W. C. Lawton.
TO CALVUS IN BEREAVEMENT
If there be aught, my Calvus, that out of our sorrowing proffered
Unto the voiceless dead grateful or welcome may be,
When we revive with insatiate longing our ancient affection,
When for the ties we lament, broken, that once have been ours,
Though Quintilia grieve for her own untimely departure,
Yet in thy faithful love greater, be sure, is her joy.
Translation of W. C. Lawton.
THE PINNACE
This pinnace, friends, which here you see,
Avers erewhile she used to be
Unmatched for speed, and could outstrip
Triumphantly the fastest ship
That ever swam, or breasted gale,
Alike with either oar or sail.
And this, she says, her haughty boast,
The stormy Adriatic coast,
The Cyclad islands, Rhodes the grand,
Rude Thrace, the wild Propontic strand,
Will never venture to gainsay;
Nor yet the Euxine's cruel bay,
Where in her early days she stood,
This bark to be, a shaggy wood;
For from her vocal locks full oft,
Where o'er Cytorus far aloft
The fitful mountain-breezes blow,
She piped and whistled loud or low.
To thee, Amastris, on thy rocks,
To thee, Cytorus, clad with box,
Has long been known, my bark avers,
This little history of hers.
In her first youth, she doth protest,
She stood upon your topmost crest,
First in your waters dipped her oars,
First bore her master from your shores
Anon unscathed o'er many a deep,
In sunshine and in storm to sweep;
Whether the breezes, as she flew,
From larboard or from starboard blew,
Or with a wake of foam behind,
She scudded full before the wind.
Nor to the gods of ocean e'er
For her was offered vow or prayer,
Though from yon farthest ocean drear
She came to this calm crystal mere.
But these are things of days gone past.
Now, anchored here in peace at last,
To grow to hoary age, lies she,
And dedicates herself to thee,
Who hast alway her guardian been,
Twin Castor, and thy brother twin!
Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.
AN INVITATION TO DINNER
If the gods will, Fabullus mine,
With me right heartily you'll dine.
Bring but good cheer—that chance is thine
Some days hereafter;
Mind, a fair girl too, wit, and wine,
And merry laughter.
Bring these—you'll feast on kingly fare;
But bring them—for my purse—I swear
The spiders have been weaving there;
But thee I'll favor
With a pure love, or what's more rare,
More sweet of savor,
An unguent I'll before you lay
The Loves and Graces t'other day
Gave to my girl—smell it—you'll pray
The gods, Fabullus,
To make you turn all nose straightway.
Yours aye, Catullus.
Translation of James Cranstoun.
A BROTHER'S GRAVE
Brother! o'er many lands and oceans borne,
I reach thy grave, death's last sad rite to pay;
To call thy silent dust in vain, and mourn,
Since ruthless fate has hurried thee away:
Woe's me! yet now upon thy tomb I lay—
All soaked with tears for thee, thee loved so well—
What gifts our fathers gave the honored clay
Of valued friends; take them, my grief they tell:
And now, forever hail! forever fare thee well!
Translation of James Cranstoun.
FAREWELL TO HIS FELLOW-OFFICERS
The milder breath of Spring is nigh;
The stormy equinoctial sky
To Zephyr's gentle breezes yields.
Behind me soon the Phrygian fields,
Nicæa's sun-beat realm, shall lie.
To Asia's famous towns we'll hie.
My heart, that craves to wander free,
Throbs even now expectantly.
With zeal my joyous feet are strong;
Farewell, dear comrades, loved so long!
Afar together did we roam;
Now ways diverse shall lead us home.
Translation of W. C. Lawton.
VERSES FROM AN EPITHALAMIUM
And now, ye gates, your wings unfold!
The virgin draweth nigh. Behold
The torches, how upon the air
They shake abroad their gleaming hair!
Come, bride, come forth! no more delay!
The day is hurrying fast away!
But lost in shame and maiden fears,
She stirs not,—weeping, as she hears
The friends that to her tears reply,—
Thou must advance, the hour is nigh!
Come, bride, come forth! no more delay!
The day is hurrying fast away!"
Dry up thy tears! For well I trow,
No woman lovelier than thou,
Aurunculeia, shall behold
The day all panoplied in gold,
And rosy light uplift his head
Above the shimmering ocean's bed!
As in some rich man's garden-plot,
With flowers of every hue inwrought,
Stands peerless forth with drooping brow
The hyacinth, so standest thou!
Come, bride, come forth! no more delay!
The day is hurrying fast away!
Soon my eyes shall see, mayhap,
Young Torquatus on the lap
Of his mother, as he stands
Stretching out his tiny hands,
And his little lips the while
Half-open on his father smile.
And oh! may he in all be like
Manlius his sire, and strike
Strangers, when the boy they meet,
As his father's counterfeit,
And his face the index be
Of his mother's chastity!
Him, too, such fair fame adorn,
Son of such a mother born,
That the praise of both entwined
Call Telemachus to mind,
With her who nursed him on her knee,
Unparagoned Penelope!
Now, virgins, let us shut the door!
Enough we've toyed, enough and more!
But fare ye well, ye loving pair,
We leave ye to each other's care;
And blithely let your hours be sped
In joys of youth and lustyhed!
Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.
Note.—The remaining poems of our selection are all associated with the famous passion for Lesbia.
LOVE IS ALL
Let us, Lesbia darling, still
Live our life, and love our fill;
Heeding not a jot, howe'er
Churlish dotards chide or stare!
Suns go down, but 'tis to rise
Brighter in the morning skies;
But when sets our little light,
We must sleep in endless night.
A thousand kisses grant me, sweet:
With a hundred these complete;
Lip me a thousand more, and then
Another hundred give again.
A thousand add to these, anon
A hundred more, then hurry one
Kiss after kiss without cessation,
Until we lose all calculation;
So envy shall not mar our blisses
By numbering up our tale of kisses.
Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.
ELEGY ON LESBIA'S SPARROW
Loves and Graces, mourn with me,
Mourn, fair youths, where'er ye be!
Dead my Lesbia's sparrow is,
Sparrow that was all her bliss,
Than her very eyes more dear;
For he made her dainty cheer;
Knew her well, as any maid
Knows her mother; never strayed
From her bosom, but would go
Hopping round her to and fro.
And to her, and her alone,
Chirruped with such pretty tone.
Now he treads that gloomy track
Whence none ever may come back.
Out upon you, and your power,
Which all fairest things devour,
Orcus's gloomy shades, that e'er
Ye took my bird that was so fair!
Ah, the pity of it! Thou
Poor bird, thy doing 'tis, that now
My loved one's eyes are swollen and red,
With weeping for her darling dead.
Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.
"FICKLE AND CHANGEABLE EVER"
Never a soul but myself, though Jove himself were to woo her,
Lesbia says she would choose, might she have me for her mate.
Says—but what woman will say to a lover on fire to possess her,
Write on the bodiless wind, write on the stream as it runs.
Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.
TWO CHORDS
I Hate and love—the why I cannot tell.
But by my tortures know the fact too well.
Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.
LAST WORD TO LESBIA
O Furius and Aurelius! comrades sweet!
Who to Ind's farthest shore with me would roam,
Where the far-sounding Orient billows beat
Their fury into foam;
Or to Hyrcania, balm-breathed Araby,
The Sacian's or the quivered Parthian's land,
Or where seven-mantled Nile's swoll'n waters dye
The sea with yellow sand;
Or cross the lofty Alpine fells, to view
Great Cæsar's trophied fields, the Gallic Rhine,
The paint-smeared Briton race, grim-visaged crew,
Placed by earth's limit line:
To all prepared with me to brave the way,
To dare whate'er the eternal gods decree—
These few unwelcome words to her convey
Who once was all to me.
Still let her revel with her godless train,
Still clasp her hundred slaves to passion's thrall,
Still truly love not one, but ever drain
The life-blood of them all.
Nor let her more my once fond passion heed,
For by her faithlessness 'tis blighted now,
Like flow'ret on the verge of grassy mead
Crushed by the passing plow.
Translation of James Cranstoun.