As for a brother beloved wending on woefullest way?How was the marrow of thee consumedly wasted by sorrow!So clean forth of thy breast, rackt with solicitous care,Mind fled, sense being reft! But I have known thee for certainE'en from young virginal years lofty of spirit to be. Hast thou forgotten the feat whose greatness won thee a royalMarriage—a deed so prow, never a prower was dared?Yet how sad was the speech thou spakest, thy husband farewelling!(Jupiter!) Often thine eyes wiping with sorrowful hand!What manner God so great thus changed thee? Is it that loversNever will tarry afar parted from person beloved?Then unto every God on behalf of thy helpmate, thy sweeting,Me thou gayest in vow, not without bloodshed of bulls,If he be granted return, and long while nowise delaying,Captive Asia he add unto Egyptian bounds.Now for such causes I, enrolled in host of the Heavens,By a new present, discharge promise thou madest of old:Maugrè my will, 0 Queen, my place on thy head I relinquished,Maugrè my will, I attest, swearing by thee and thy head;Penalty due shall befall whoso makes oath to no purpose.Yet who assumes the vaunt forceful as iron to be? E'en was that mount o'erthrown, though greatest in universe, where throughThía's illustrious race speeded its voyage to end,Whenas the Medes brought forth new sea, and barbarous youth-hoodUrged an Armada to swim traversing middle-Athos. What can be done by Hair when such things yield them to Iron?Jupiter! Grant Chalybon perish the whole of the race,Eke who in primal times ore seeking under the surfaceShowed th' example, and spalled iron however so hard.Shortly before I was shorn my sister tresses bewailèdLot of me, e'en as the sole brother to Memnon the Black,Winnowing upper air wi' feathers flashing and quiv'ring,Chloris' wing-borne steed, came before Arsinoë,Whence upraising myself he flies through aëry shadows,And in chaste Venus' breast drops he the present he bears.Eke Zephyritis had sent, for the purpose trusted, her bondsman,Settler of Grecian strain on the Canopian strand.So willed various Gods, lest sole 'mid lights of the HeavensShould Ariadne's crown taken from temples of herGlitter in gold, but we not less shine fulgent in splendour,We the consecrate spoils shed by a blond-hued head,Even as weeping-wet sought I the fanes of Celestials Placed me the Goddess a new light amid star-lights of old:For with Virgo in touch and joining the furious Lion'sRadiance with Callisto, maid of Lyc´on beloved, Wind I still to the west, conducting tardy Boötes,Who unwilling and slow must into Ocean merge. Yet though press me o'night the pacing footprints of Godheads,Tethys, hoary of hair, ever regains me by day. (Lend me thy leave to speak such words, Rhamnusian Virgin,Verities like unto these never in fear will I veil; Albeit every star asperse me with enemy's censure,Secrets in soothfast heart hoarded perforce I reveal.) Nowise gladdens me so this state as absence torments me,Absence doomëd for aye ta'en fro' my mistress's head,Where I was wont (though she such cares unknew in her girlhood)Many a thousand scents, Syrian unguents, to sip. Now do you pair conjoined by the longed-for light of the torches,Earlier yield not selves unto unanimous wills Nor wi' the dresses doft your barèd nipples encounter,Ere shall yon onyx-vase pour me libations glad,Onyx yours, ye that seek only rights of virtuous bed-rite.But who yieldeth herself unto advowtry impure,Ah! may her loathed gifts in light dust uselessly soak,For of unworthy sprite never a gift I desire.Rather, 0 new-mated brides, be concord aye your companion,Ever let constant love dwell in the dwellings of you. Yet when thou sightest, 0 Queen, the Constellations, I pray thee,Every festal day Venus the Goddess appease;Nor of thy unguent-gifts allow myself to be lacking,Nay, do thou rather add largeliest increase to boons. Would but the stars down fall! Could I of my Queen be the hair-lock,Neighbour to Hydrochois e'en let Oarion shine.
DIALOGUE CONCERNING CATULLUS AT A HARLOT'S DOOR.Quintus.0 to the gentle spouse right dear, right dear to his parent,Hail, and with increase fair Jupiter lend thee his aid,