If, when fortune's wrong with bitter misery whelms thee,
Thou thy sad tear-scrawl'd letter, a mark to the storm,
Send'st, and bid'st me to succour a stranded seaman of Ocean,
Toss'd in foam, from death's door to return thee again;
5 Whom nor softly to rest love's tender sanctity suffers,
Lost on a couch of lone slumber, unhappily lain;
Nor with melody sweet of poets hoary the Muses
Cheer, while worn with grief nightly the soul is awake:
Well-contented am I, that thou thy friendship avowest,
10 Ask'st the delights of love from me, the pleasure of hymns;
Yet lest all unnoted a kindred story bely thee,
Deeming, Mallius, I calls of humanity shun;
Hear what a grief is mine, what storm of destiny whelms me.
Cease to demand of a soul's misery joy's sacrifice.
15 Once, what time white robes of manhood first did array me,
Whiles in jollity life sported a spring holiday,
Youth ran riot enow; right well she knows me, the Goddess,
She whose honey delights blend with a bitter annoy.
Henceforth dies sweet pleasure, in anguish lost of a brother's
20 Funeral. O poor soul, brother, O heavily ta'en,
You all happier hours, you, dying brother, effaced;
All our house lies low mournfully buried in you;
Quench'd untimely with you joy waits not ever a morrow,
Joy which alive your love's bounty fed hour upon hour;
25 Now, since thou liest dead, heart-banish'd wholly desert me
Vanities all, each gay freak of a riotous heart.
How then obey? You write 'Let not Verona, Catullus,
Stay thee, if here each proud quality, Rome's eminence,
Freely the light limbs warms thou leavest coldly to languish,'
30 Infamy lies not there, Mallius, only regret.
So forgive me, if I, whom grief so rudely bereaveth,
Deal not a joy myself know not, a beggar in all.
Books—if they're but scanty, a store full meagre, around me,
Rome is alone my life's centre, a mansion of home,
35 Rome my abode, house, hearth; there wanes and waxes a life's span;
Hither of all those choice cases attends me but one.
Therefore deem not thou aught spiteful bids me deny thee;
Say not 'his heart is false, haply, to jealousy leans,'
If nor books I send nor flatter sorrow to silence.
40 Trust me, were either mine, either unask'd should appear.
Goddesses, hide I may not in how great trial upheld me
Allius, how no faint charities held me to life.
Nor shall time borne fleetly nor years' oblivion ever
Make such zeal to the night fade, to the darkness, away.
45 As from me you learn it, of you shall many a thousand
Learn it again. Grow old, scroll, to declare it anew.
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
50 So to the dead increase honour in year upon year.
Nor to the spider, aloft her silk-slight flimsiness hanging,
(50) Allius aye unswept moulder, a memory dim.
Well you wot, how sore the deceit Amathusia wrought me,
Well what a thing in love's treachery made me to fall;
55 Ready to burst in flame, as burn Trinacrian embers,
Burn near Thermopylae's Oeta the fiery springs.
(55) Sad, these piteous eyes did waste all wearily weeping,
Sad, these cheeks did rain ceaseless a showery woe.
Wakeful, as hill-born brook, which, afar off silvery gleaming,
60 O'er his moss-grown crags leaps with a tumble adown;
Brook which awhile headlong o'er steep and valley descending,
(60) Crosses anon wide ways populous, hastes to the street;
Cheerer in heats o' the sun to the wanderer heavily fuming,
Under a drought, when fields swelter agape to the sky.
65 Then as tossing shipmen amid black surges of Ocean,
See some prosperous air gently to calm them arise,
(65) Safe thro' Pollux' aid or Castor, alike entreated;
Mallius e'en such help brought me, a warder of harm.
He in a closed field gave scope of liberal entry;
70 Gave me an house of love, gave me the lady within,
Busily there to renew love's even duty together;
(70) Thither afoot mine own mistress, a deity bright,
Came, and planted firm her sole most sunny; beneath her
Lightly the polish'd floor creak'd to the sandal again.
75 So with passion aflame came wistful Laodamia
Into her husband's home, Protesilaus, of yore;
(75) Home o'er-lightly begun, ere slaughter'd victim atoning
Waited of heaven's high-thron'd company grace to agree.
Nought be to me so dear, O Maid Ramnusian, ever,
80 I should against that law match me with opposite, I.
Bloodless of high sacrifice, how thirsts each desolate altar!
(80) This, when her husband fell, Laodamia did heed,
Rapt from a bridegroom new, from his arms forced early to part her.
Early; for hardly the first winter, another again,
85 Yet in many a night's long dream had sated her yearning,
So that love might wear cheerly, the master away;
(85) Which not long should abide, so presag'd surely the Parcae,
If to the wars her lord hurry, for Ilion arm.
Now to revenge fair Helen, had Argos' chiefs, her puissance,
90 Set them afield; for Troy rous'd them, a cry not of home,
Troy, dark death universal, of Asia grave and Europe,
(90) Altar of heroes Troy, Troy of heroical acts,
Now to my own dear brother abhorred worker of ancient
Death. Ah woeful soul, brother, unhappily lost,
95 Ah fair light unblest, in darkness sadly receding,
All our house lies low, brother, inearthed in you,
(95) Quench'd untimely with you, joy waits not ever a morrow,
Joy which alive your love's bounty fed hour upon hour.
Now on a distant shore, no kind mortality near him,
100 Far all household love, every familiar urn,
Tomb'd in Troy the malign, in Troy the unholy reposing,
(100) Strangely the land's last verge holds him, a dungeon of earth.
Thither in haste all Greece, one armed people assembling,
Flock'd on an ancient day, left the recesses of home,
105 Lest in a safe content, unreach'd, his stolen adultress.
Paris inarm, in soft luxury quietly lain.