conubiale tuis, si te iam dicere patrem!
tempus erit, cum tu trans Rheni cornua victor,
Arcadius captae spoliis Babylonis onustus
communem maiore toga signabitis annum;
crinitusque tuo sudabit fasce Suebus, 655
ultima fraternas horrebunt Bactra secures.
Heaven grant thou mayest be our perpetual consul and outnumber Marius[168] and old Augustus. Happy universe that shall see the first down creep over thy cheeks, and the wedding-night that shall lead forth for thee the festal torches. Who shall be consecrated to such a couch; who, glorious in purple, shall pass, a queen, to the embraces of such a husband? What bride shall come to be the daughter of so many gods, dowered with every land and the whole sea? How gloriously shall the nuptial song be borne at once to farthest East and West! O may it be mine to sing thy marriage-hymn, mine presently to hail thee father! The time will come when, thou victorious beyond the mouths of the Rhine, and thy brother Arcadius laden with the spoil of captured Babylon, ye shall endow the year with yet more glorious majesty; when the long-haired Suebian shall bear the arms of Rome and the distant Bactrian tremble beneath the rule of thyself and thy brother.
[168] Marius was consul seven, Augustus thirteen, times.