^— >>: ,>"2*0 * . •LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. >2*> 5 2JK> ^ I <^£ ^/^ ^H KQBB UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, f ^X !^»MmO>r >::: 2:2J>^ }^ii£X01i> >>!»}) »J>2* ))" ; :)) jl ^> AjibT^ ^^ L> 31 >p :^ T»^affiiE» TRANSLATION OF v OVID'S FASTI INTO ENGLISH PROSE,. miitft Notes, BY WILLIAM THYNNE. PART I. CONTAINING THE FIRST THREE BOOKS. ( DUBLIN : JOHN CUMMING, 16, LOWER ORMOND QUAY. 1833. J. D. Scott and Co. Printers. £6, Great Strand-street. PREFACE. When I had undertaken to prepare an edition of Ovid's Fasti, my publisher thought that it would be imperfect without a translation of the text. I must own that I do not think that many difficulties can arise in the study of the original to be removed by translation. The ordinary distich of elegiac verse closes the sentiment, and leaves little room for complicated struc- tures. The work abounds, it is true, in diffi- culties ; but these are, for the most part, difficulties which can be met onlv by comment. If, however, any one conceives that he can derive advantage from a translation, it is at his service. IV PREFACE. To wander wide of the structure of mj text, in order to uphold the spirit, was no part of my task. To uphold the spirit of poetry in prose, and to excite my reader's interest in the theology of pagan Rome appeared too quixotic an enterprise : and I have contented myself A T ith the more sober aim of utility. Literal translations are usually prepared with a view of fostering indolence ; and even al- though the translator, which is notoften the case, be a much better scholar than those whom he affects to instruct, he seldom casts about how he may w T in his reader to the founts of know- ledge. But there is one circumstance in which he could at once improve the air of the trans- lation, and, without greatly alarming the reader, his mind too — If he would carefully note the ancient idiom, by declining from it in his version. There are indeed few Latin idioms which are not sometimes adopted by our most chaste writers ; and it is only in their constant recur- PREFACE. V rence that we detect the stiffness of the ver- sion : while the strictness of our translation of the Bible has rendered many Greek and Oriental idioms so familiar to our language, that it is only by the discerning reader that they are perceived to be idioms at all. I have attached several notes : but as they consist, with the exception of some few after- thoughts, of matter which appeared below the dignity of a commentary, I fear to recommend them to the notice of the scholar. When I heard that Mr. Butt had undertaken a Translation of the Fasti, I hoped that he would render that part of my engagement un- necessary. He was for many years my pupil ; and I had a full opportunity of appreciating those powers which, with discretion, cannot fail of raising him to the highest rank to which abilities can be expected to raise their possessor in the profession to which he pro- poses to devote himself. When I had per- ceived, however, from an inspection of some VI PREFACE. sheets of his work which he submitted to me, that he followed no chosen text, and, perhaps, least of all that which was the principal basis of mine, the text of Krebs ; I conceived that his translation could only perplex those for whom a translation is necessary ; and was de- cided hastily to produce the present work. OVID'S FASTI. BOOK I, I shall sing of the days of observance, as dis- tributed in order through the Latian year, with the reasons ; and of the sinking of the heavenly bodies below the earth, and their rising. Greet, O Csesar Germanicus,* this composition with kind looks, and guide the course of a timid bark : and not spurning the honours of my attentions as trivial, favour me during this my task, which is dedicated lo there, an offering to yourself ! You will here retrace the holy rites picked from out the heap of the olden annals? and by what service each day has deserved to be marked out : there you will also find the festivals peculiar to your house ; and shall have often to read of your father, often of your grandfather; and 10 * ver. 3. Drusus Nero, stepson of Augustus, having died in his Germanic expedition, the Senate, besides other honours, con ferred the title of Germanicus upon him and his descendants. It is to his son, a distinguished scholar, and an amiable man, that Ovid dedicates his work. Augustus on adopting his stepson, Tiberius Nero, required of him to adopt this his nephew, although Tiberius had a son of his own, named Drusus. Germanicus, from his superior age, merits, and popularity, was thought to cast a shade over his adoptive brother, and to excite the jealousy of Tiberius, by whose machinations, and the poison of Piso, it was supposed to be that Germanicus died at an early age. His son Caligula, the third Germanicus, came to the Roman thronp, where he disappointed all the expectations of him to which his father's merits had given rise. 2 ovir/s fasti, i. 26. whatever honours they obtain, marking the variegated calendar; you also shall obtain, with your brother Drusus.* Let others sing of Csesar's deeds in arms, we shall sing of his sacred institutions, and whatever days he has added to our holy religion. Favour me while I attempt to go through the subject of your family's praise, and from my heart dash out its anxious fears. Lend yourself gentle to me, — you will have thus communicated vigour to my verses : my genius or rises or sinks with your looks. A work is attempted which is about to undergo the criticism of a prince and a scholar, as though it 20 were sent to be read by the Clarian Apollo. For we have felt what is the eloquence of those polished lips, as he waged the wordy war of litigation for his trembling clients:f and we know, when the rush of inspiration has borne him into our own depart- ment of poetry, how deep flows the tide of your talents.^ If it be allowable and right to ask, a poet guide a poet's reins, that under your onduct the whole year may proceed favourably. § When the founder of the city was regulating the * 12. It was a great honour to be mentioned in the Fasti, or pub- lic annals: and sometimes names were erased from them for punishment and degradation. 1 22. Every young man of any pretensions to ability pleaded for his friends ; and Germanicus is said to have distinguished himself in this way. X 24. Germanicus was a poet, and his poetical version of Aratus' Phenomena is extant. He also wrote some Greek plays. § 26. This may be more freely rendered — ' That under your command the whole year's campaign may prove victorious* — Auspex and felix carrying a military allusion, and Ovid likening his labours to a military service. The allusion of annus lies in a play upon its literal signification, of time spent in service, and its secondary one, as being the subject of description. ovid's fasti, i. 46. 3 calendar, he appointed that there should be, in his year, twice five months. The truth is, Romulus, you were more familiar with arms than the stars, and had more concern to subdue your borderers. 30 And yet, Csesar, there is a consideration to have in- fluenced him, and he has wherewith to defend his departure from usage — what interval is sufficient, ere the infant should issue from his mother's womb, that period he resolved should be in his year. During as many months after her husband's death, the widow supports in her house the emblems of her sorrow. This, then, the thoughtfulnesss of the trabea-clad Quirinus regarded, when he was en- gaged in giving to his uninformed clans the constitu- tion of the civil year. The first month was that of Mars, and the second of Venus : she was the foun- der of his house, his own father he.* The third 40 month was named from the elders ; the fourth from the name of the juniors ; and the crowd which fol- lows were distinguished by their order. But Numa overlooks neither Janus nor the shades of the dead, and he has attached two to the former months. f That you should not, however, be ignorant of the distinctions of different days : every day-star has not the same routine of duties. That day shall be nefastus, during which certain three words are * 40. Venus was the mother of JEneas, and thus the origin of Romulus' house, while Mars was his immediate father. t44. ' March was named from Mars; April from Aphrodite or Venus; May and June from the Majores and Juvenes, into which the people were divided by Servius ; Quintilis, the old name of July, Sextilis, the old name of August, September, October, &c, from their order reckoned from March ; January from Janus ; and February from the februa offered in it to the manes. 4 ovid's fasti, i, 65. not named ; that fastus on which it shall be al- lowed people to proceed by law. And that you should not imagine that its distinction endures through the whole day, that which shall presently 50 be fastus, was at his commencement ne fastus ; for soon as the victims have been given to the god, you may express any word, and the worshipful praetor has his forms unobstructed.* There is also the day on which it is permitted by law to enclose the people in polling-booths ;t and that which ever recurs on the ninth day. J Juno's guardianship claims for itself the Ausonian calends ; on the ides a white lamb somewhat grown falls to Jove ; the patronage of the nones is destitute of a divinity. After each of these, see that it does not escape you, the next day shall be unlucky. The omen is from the result, since on these days Rome sustained melancholy 60 defeats in adverse battle. § These circumstances, at- tached to the whole calendar, shall have been said by me once for all, that I be not compelled to break the order of my subject. Lo ! Germanicus, Janus announces to you a happy year, and is here the first in my verse. O *50. Some days were court days ; some law holidays ; and some intercisi, or, part-holidays, in the middle of which the praetor sat, but not in the morning or evening. f53. Some days were marked out as comitiales, or fit days to hold meetings of the people to pass laws or elect magistrates. In Ovid's time the people were polled in the Septa Julia, built by Agrippa, and named in honour of the imperial house. + 54. The whole year was distributed into nundines, or sets of eight days, as with us into weeks of seven. §60. The days after the Calends Nones and Ides were atri, that is, no divine sendees took place upon them : not because, as Ovid would seem to say, the Romans suffered defeat upon them, but because they suffered defeat after sacrificing upon them, and inferred4hat sacrifices were not acceptable on those days. ovid's fasti, i. 83. 5 doubleheaded Janus, commencement of the stilly- gliding year, who alone of the gods above see your back, favourably attend our leaders,* by whose toils the fertile earth enjoys peaceful repose, the sea repose : favourably attend both on your senators and on the community of Quirinus, and with your approbation unbolt the glistening temples. 70 A happy day now dawns : forward the holy aspirations both with tongues and spirits; now, on a blessed day, blessed words are to be uttered. Be our ears relieved from litigation, and let all in- temperate altercation be straightway removed : post- pone, malignant tongue, your task. See you not, how the heavens blaze with scented flames, and crackles upon kindled hearth Cilician spikenard? The flame with its brightness reverberates on the gold of the temples, and scatters its quivering beam on the sacred ceilings. With pure dresses they go to the Tarpeian heights, and the very multitude wears the colour harmonizing with the gay occasion. 80 And now precede new fasces, new purple glistens behind, and the ornamented chairs of ivory bear new burthens. Steers unacquainted with the far- *67. Duces, the same as imperator es, properly military com- manders. This title was made permanent to Augustus, who is thus pre-eminently entitled imperator, and thus we call him and his descendants emperors. Duces the imperial house, as Livy uses reges for the imperial family of Tarquin. Strictly speak- ing, the title of imperator only denotes the prince in his military capacity : and Tiberius was wont to say that he was the dominus of his slaves, the imperator of his soldiers, and the princeps of his people. The last was the title by which he and Augustus wished their civil power to be denoted. Thus the text includes the three orders of the duces, or imperial house, the patricians, and the populus, or commons, which included the equites and plebs. b3 6 ovid's fasti, i. 106. mer's task, which Faliscan herbage fed upon its- plains, submit their necks to the stroke. Jupiter, as he looks from his height over the whole globe, has nothing to see which is not Rome's. Hail, joyous day ! and ever return better and better, worthy to be honoured by a people who lord the world ! But what divinity shall I describe you to be, doubleshaped Janus ? For Greece has no god like 90 to you.* Tell, at the same time, the reason, why you alone, of the dwellers in the sky, see both what is at your back and what is before. While I was revolving thus in my mind, with tablet in hand, the house seemed brighter than before it was : then holy Janus, wondrous with his two-headed form, suddenly presented to my sight his double features. I was confounded, and felt my hair to stand on end with awe, and my breast was frozen with a sudden chill. Holding in his right hand a staff, and a key in his left, he uttered these sounds to me, from 100 his front mouth. " Laying aside your apprehensions, poet who re- cord the days, learn what you ask, and catch with all your mind my words. Ma the ancients, for I am an old thing, called Chaos. See you of how remote a period I sing the occurrences. This light- some air, and the three elements which are besides, f fire, water, earth, were all one undistinguished heap. Soon as this pile parted by the dissension * 90. The Romans, whenever they could, were fain to trace their mythology from Greece, which has produced inextricable confusion in the Roman system. t 105. The ancients usually reckoned four elements — fire, air, earth, and water ; which were originally commingled in chaos, when ' the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was ovid's fasti, i. 129. 7 of its materials, and resolving, withdrew into new departments, fire soared aloft, the nearer situation received the air, the earth and fretful sea sank to a middle position. Then I, who had been a globe, HO and bulk without feature, passed into a shape and limbs becoming a god. Even at this day, a slight character of my former indistinctness of outline, what is before me, and what behind me, appear the same. " Hear what is the second reason of the shape, about which you inquire, that you may at the same time learn this and my province. Whatever you any where see, heaven, sea, mist,* lands, all have been pent up and are opened by my hand. With me alone rests the charge of the vasty universe, and the province of revolving the hinge is wholly mine. 120 When it has pleased my fancy to discharge peace from my tranquil roof, she freely walks the unobstructed ways. The whole globe shall be thrown into con- fusion in deadly bloodshed, unless bolts of steel confine the imprisoned wars. I sit before heaven's portals with the gentle Hours, and Jove himself passes and repasses at my wardship. I am thence named Janus : to whom when the priest offers on my altar the cake of bread ? and flour mixed with salt, you will smile at the names. For at times I, one and the same person, am entitled Patulcius, at upon the face of the deep.' Janus was the Chaos, or rather the brooding spirit of it. Like other gods, he is confounded with his department, or, at least, supposed to have some resemblance to it. * 117. Xubila, mist, used for air, the region of mist and clouds. 1 126. Officio meo, dum ego officium facio, I waiting as janitor. 8 ovid's fasti, i. 154. 130 times Clusius, by the lips of my worshipper.* To account for which, that uneducated antiquity de- signed by the several names to denote my contrary offices. My power has been related. Now learn the cause of my shape : yet this you already see in some degree at least. Every gate has, on this side and that, two faces, one of which looks out upon the public, the other in upon the household : and as your gate-keeper, seated at the entrance of the first part of the house, sees the outgoings and incom- 140 ings ; so I, doorkeeper of the court of heaven, see be- fore me the eastern regions and the western together. You see the faces of Hecate turned toward three quar- ters, that she may watch the three ways: I, likewise, that I may not waste time in turning round my neck, can take two views without moving my per- son." He had done ; and with his looks owned that he would not be churlish to me, if I chose to inquire further. I took spirit, and undaunted I returned thanks to the god, and looking on the ground, I spoke a few words : — " Say, pray, why the new year begins in winter, f 150 which had better been begun in spring ? Then all things flower, then is the youthful time of the year, and the young bud swells from the teeming vine * 130. It was usual to repeat all the names of a divinity in prayers to him, lest his favourite one should be omitted. Among Janus 's titles were Patulcius or Opener, and Clusius or Shutter. t 149. The Bruma or winter solstice/when the sun begins to re- turn toward our hemisphere, and the days to lengthen, occurs with us on the 20th December, and with Julius Cesar about the 24th, and probably, when the Roman year was first appointed to com- mence on January 1st, this solstice took place on that day. ovid's fasti, i. 172. 9 shoot, and the tree is enwrapped by the newly de- veloped foliage, and the herbage finds its way to the surface of the soil, and the birds with their har- mony sweeten the warming air, and the cattle dis- port and frolic in the meads. Then is the sunshine grateful, and the stranger swallow comes forward, and pecks his mud work at the bottom of a lofty beam. Then the land suffers culture, and is renewed by the plough. This should have been in reason named the youthful time of the year." \qq I had inquired at full length ; he, not detaining at any length, threw his answer thus into two verses : — " The winter solstice is the commencing day of the new, and last of the old sun : Phoebus and the year take the same beginning." After this I was wondering why the first day should not be exempt from litigation.* " Hear the reason," says Janus. " I have assigned the birth-day of the year to the transaction of business, that from the precedent the whole year may be not inactive. Every one, for the same reason, lightly essays his calling, by doing a little in it, and does no more than merely give an evidence of his ordinary occupations." 170 Soon I : — " why, although I appease the godship of others, do I, O Janus, present incense and wine to you first ?"f *165. But, although January 1st was notanefastus dies, yet the pleaders were not expected to engage in any serious cause, but only to skirmish for form and omen's sake. t 172. The first prayers were always given to Janus, by way of bespeaking a good word from him with the other gods. *He thus came to be called Matutinus. 10 ovid's fasti, i. 192. " That by me, who guard the doors, you may have" says he, " a passage forward to whatever gods I will.** " But why are gladsome vows uttered on your calends, and do we give and receive good wishes in return ?" Then the god, resting on the staff which his right hand bore, says : — " Presumptions of the future are used to attend the commencement. You turn your fearful ears to the first sounds ; and the augur takes his auspices from 180 the bird first seen. The temples lie open, and the ears of the gods: and no tongue fashions idle prayers, and sayings have weight." He had ended in few words : and I made no long silence, but followed with my words close on the last of his. " What means the present of the date, I said, and the shrivelled fig, and the white honey in its snow- coloured jar?"* " Omen, says he, is the motive, that that sweet- ness may attend one's affairs, and that the year may go on through its course sweet as when that course began." " I see why sweets are given : add the meaning of the small coin, that no detail of your festival may 190 be imperfect on my mind." He smiled, and "O," said he, "how little do you know of your own times, when you think that honey is sweeter than the receipt of a little cash ! I hardly * 186. Presents of sweet things were made on n£w year's day, by way of omen that the whole year may be sweet and pleasant. Among these sweets was a little money, one of the sweetest of sweet things. ovid's fasti, i. 214. 11 knew any one, even when Saturn reigned, to whose heart gain was not sweet. With time progressed the love of acquiring, which is now at its height. It scarcely has further room to advance. Wealth is now an object of more regard than in the years of olden time, while the community was poor, w T hile Rome was new, while a scanty cottage contained the Mars-begotten Quirinus, and the sedge of the river furnished a scanty couch. A whole Jupiter hardly 200 stood in his narrow temple, and in the right arm of Jove was a thunderbolt of earthenware. They were used to adorn the Capitolium with branches, as now with jewels ; and the senator used himself to tend his own sheep ; and it was no shame to have taken a quiet nap in straw, and to have pil- lowed the head with hay. The consul gave laws to the people, when he had just left the plough,*and a light vessel of silver was a ground of accusation. But after the Fortune of this placet lifted her head, and Rome reached with her top high as the gods supreme, both riches and their mad desire in- 210 creased, and it is when men possess most they desire more. They live in a constant stuggleto obtain that they may lavish, to re-obtain what they have lavished : and the very reciprocations prove nurture to the * 207. Agriculture was the most respectable pursuit of an ancient Roman ; who would be for ever disgraced by commerce. Some patricians, however, were secretly engaged in commercial specu- lations. 1 209. -FortuwaRomaB, for Rome itself, or perhaps for the patron divinity of Rome, whose name was kept a profound secret lest she should be wheedled away by the arts of some enemy, if it should be known. One man was struck dead by heaven for breathing it : moderns are not afraid to tell us that it was Valentia j but I do not know who had the boldness to tell them. 12 ovid's fasti, i. 237. vices. So by those whose chest has swollen with the suffusion of water, the more water is drunk the more it is thirsted for. Value now is valued : pos- sessions confer honours, possessions friends : the poor man every where grovels. But you ask, how the omen of the small coin is serviceable, and why 220 old brass is welcome to our hands. In former times they gave brass money : at present there is better omen in gold, and the ancient coinage has left the field to the new. Us also, although we think pretty well of our old temples, gilded ones delight : that dignity becomes a god. We praise the ancients, but we go with the present current. However, each custom deserves equally to be respected." He had ended his instructions ; then thus again, in gentle tone, as before, I address the staff-bearing god : — " Many points, I own, I have learned ; but why is the form of a ship one of those which are stamped upon the brass piece, and the other double- 230 headed?" " You might," said he, " recognise me in the double form, had not many a long day worn away the workmanship.* The reason of the vessel remains to be told. The bill-bearing god, having previously wandered through the globe, came in a bark into the Tuscan river. I remember the reception of Saturn in this land : he had been expelled by Jove from the empire of heaven. Thence the name of Saturnian long attached itself to this nation : the * 232 On the ancient stips there was stamped the figure of a ship, as well as of a double-faced head : but the coin was so old that the resemblance in the features of the latter to the statue of Janus could scarcely be traced. ovid's fasti, i. 258. 13 country was also named Latium, from the conceal- ment of the god. But pious posterity retained the ship on the brass piece, recording the arrival of the visiting deity. I myself inhabited the soil, whose 240 left verge the very placid wave of the sandy Tiber sweeps along. Here, where Rome at present stands, there flourished an ancient wood, and a place so great was a pasture for a few oxen. My com- manding position was the hill which this age in respect calls by my name, and entitles the Janicu- lum.* I was in the possession of royal power in those days when the earth was capable of sustaining gods, and divinities were commingled with the situations occupied by mankind. No deed of blood had yet scared away Justice, — she was the last of the gods who left the earth, — and the very respect 25Q for public opinion, without compulsion, ruled the community, instead of the terrors of the law; and there was no difficulty to render justice among a just people. I had no concern with war, I super- intended peace and door-posts:" — and showing a key, "these are the arms," says he, "which I bear." The God had closed his lips : then thus I open mine, my words enticing forth those of the God : — " When there are so many januses,f why do you stand consecrated in one alone, here where you possess a temple conjoined to two forums V* * 246. Janus dwelt on the Janiculum at the Etrurian side of iheTiber, and Saturn at the LaCian side on the Capitolium, where he is thought to have founded an ancient town named Saturnia. The ancient Italians, or at least their chieftains, dwelled on heights : and even in Rome the citizens of rank lived on the hills, and are always said descendere, when they mingled with the crowd. t 257. Covered passages were named jani, but only one of all these was a temple tothegod, although he had other temples not C 14 ovid's fasti, i. 278. With his hand stroking his beard, which hung down to his breast, forthwith he related the war of (Eba- 260 lian Titus; and how the giddy ward, taken with the Sabine armlets, conducted Tatius to the ap- proach of the summit of the Arx. " From that," said he, " there was, as there still is, the steep descent into the vallies and forums, through which ye go down. And he had just reached the gate, whose resisting bolts the treache- rous Juno had withdrawn : when avoiding, through respect, to raise conflict with so high a divinity, I myself, crafty as I was, exerted a task of my own calling : and I opened the fountain's gush, in which sort of aid I have power, and jetted out a sudden 270 stream. Previously, however, I had mixed sulphur with the hot current, that the boiling water should obstruct the progress of Tatius. And when the ad- vantage of this had been appreciated in the repulse of the Sabines, and the form which it had was restored to the place unimpaired, an altar was erected to me, conjoined to a small chapelry. This consumes in its flames flour with a cake of peculiar form." " But why are you shut in during peace ; and when war is stirred up, thrown open ?" Without any delay, the cause of the circumstance inquired after was returned to me : — jani. This consecrated j anus was the temple indicative of war and peace, and contained a statue of the god, five cubits high — not five feet, as the herd of commentators, including myself, re- peat one after another. It stood between the Forum Romanum and Forum Caesaris. Duillius built a temple to Janus in the forum olitorium, or herb-market, which does not appear to have any connection with a second forum, so as to come under the description of the text : and it is certain that the temple at the head of the Roman forum was a janus. ovid's fasti, i. 300. 15 "In order that a return may lie open to the people after having' gone forth to war, my whole gate lies open with its bolt removed. In peace I close 280 my doors, that they may no where depart : and under the Cesarean house long time shall I be shut in." He spoke : and raising his eyes, which took oppo- site views, he beheld whatever was on the entire globe. There was peace ; and the Rhine, the sub- ject of your triumph, Germanicus, had yielded up to you her humbled waters. O Janus, make peace everlasting and the servants of peace ; and provide that the institutor may not forsake his own under- taking. But, what it was in my power to learn from the Fasti themselves, the senate consecrated two tem- ples upon this day : the island, which the stream 290 compresses by its parted waters, received the son of Phoebus and of the nymph Coronis. Jupiter is in part-possession ; one place received them both, and the temple of his grandson is conjoint with the mighty grand sire.* What forbids to mention also the stars, how each both rises and sets ? that was a part of my engage- ment. Happy spirits, who first had the concern to learn these matters, and ascend into the mansions on high ! It is worthy of belief that they put forth their heads both above the corroding cares and the habitations of man : nor lust and wine enfeebled their 300 * 294. Besides the temples of uEsculapius and Jupiter, the Insula contained also a temple of Faunus, consecrated in the same year as Jupiter's, and apparently conjoined into one struc- ture with it. 16 OVID r S FASTI. I. 319. exalted minds, or the obliging labours of the Forum,* or the toils of warfare : nor did ^iddv ambition, and fame overspread with a false glare, or the craving Gf great riches, disquiet them. They applied their eyes to the stars far remote from earthyf and subjected to their powerful minds the regions of sether. This is the way to seek heaven ; not that Olympus should support Ossa, and Pelion's peak reach the stars on high. % Under the guidance of these we also shall plan out the skies, and set down at the fixed con- 310 stellations their days. When, then, the third night shall be close upon the approaching nones, and the earth shall grow damp, sprinkled with the dews of heaven ; in vain will the claws of the eight-legged Crab be sought out : sinking he will have gone beneath the western wave. Should the nones be just come, showers sent from dark clouds shall give intimations,, as the lyre rises. Add four days to the nones, going on in order — Janus will be to be atoned to on the day of the ago- nalia. You may be the source of the name, aproned assistant, by whose blow the victim fails to the gods * 302. Flippant and shallow scholars may think that officium fori is sufficiently rendered by * professional labours :' but orn- cium implies kindness, and applies in this case because the ancient Romans did not plead for hire and profession, but for friendship and kindness. f 305. The text makes a transposition of government, saying that *■ people apply stars to their eyes/ instead of saying, that *they apply their eyes to the stars.' Some few such confusions occur, doubtless not made by the writer, but adopted from usage, which is the chief rule of right in regard of language. + 307. Otus and Ephialtes, to get into close combat with Jupiter, set Parnassus on Olympus and on Parnassus rolled the peaky Pelion. ovid's fasti, i. 336. 17 on high :• who always, when prepared to tinge your 320 bare knife inthe reekingblood, ask 'Am I to proceed?' Nor proceeds he, unless ordered. Some conceive that the agonalia derives its name from actus, or driving, because the cattle do not come to the sacri- fice, but are driven. Some suppose that this fes- tival was named agnalia by the ancients — so that one letter be taken from its place. Or, because the victim dreads the knives seen ready for use in the water, was the day named from the agony of the cattle ? Some, too, imagine that the day obtained a Greek name, from the games and exercises used to be performed in the times of our fathers. Also an- 330 cient usage called cattle agonia ; and this last is, in my opinion, the true cause of the name. And this is so far clear that the king of sacred duties is under an obligation to appease the gods by the male of the fleecy sheep, and what falls by the victorious arm is named victim, but has the title of hostia if the enemy had been withdrawn.f * 320. Ovid assigns five origins for the name of Agonalia, given to the 8th or 9th of Jan.— lo, the inquiry of the popa to the rex sacrificulus, agatne, whether he should knock the victim on the head (harsh words being avoided in religious ceremonies) : 2o, the actus, or driving, of the victim, as in most cases the victim was driven to the sacrifice and not led : 3o, the agna, or victim, quasi agnalia : 4o, the agony of the victim in seeing the knives steeping in the water basins : 5<>, uyuv, Indus : 6<>, agonia, an ancient name of cattle. t 336. Hostia and Victima imply any thing sacrificed, but properly and anciently that which was offered on the agonalia. The sacrifice on this day had reference to the hostile relations of the city. The rex sacrorum, the religious successor of the ancient kings, represented the executive in a religious point of view ; while the sacrifice represented the enemy of the previous cam- paign, and was entitled victima, if the enemy became a victus hostis ; and hostia, if he only drew off his forces for the winter season, and there continued a hostia still. c3 18 ovid's fasti, i. 362. Originally corn could reconcile the gods to man, and the shining grain of holy salt. Not yet had the stranger ship, impelled through the ocean's waters, imported the myrrh wept from the trickling 340 bark : nor had Euphrates sent his frankincense, nor India her costum, nor had the thread-like shoots of the reddish crocus been known. The altar gave its smoke, content with savine, and the laurel burned with no scanty crackling. If any one could add violets to the chaplets wrought from the flowers of the mead, he was a man of riches. This blade, which now rips up the stomach of the stricken bull, had in those times no office in sacred duties, Ceres first exulted in the blood of the ravenous swine, taking satisfaction for her supplies in the 350 condign death of the injur er. For she ascertained that the corn sown in early spring, milky with tender juice, was rooted up by the snout of the bristly swine. The swine had paid the penalty : warned by her example you should have spared the vine-shoot, goat, whom people seeing impelling his tooth into the vine, uttered such saying with no silent indignation — < Nibble the vine, Mr. Goat ; yet here- after, when you shall stand at the altar, there will be somewhat to be sprinkled on your horns/ Confir- mation follows the saying — the foe given up to you, Bacchus, for the damage, has his horns besprinkled 360 ^7 tne P on ™g on of wine. Her malpractices injured the swine, her malpractices the goat too — What did you, ox, to deserve death,* what ye gentle tempered * 362. Ovid affects to give a reason for the sacrifice of that useful and deserving animal, the ox : but only gives a reason why the ox was killed, not sacrificed — that from his putrefaction bees may be produced. ovid's fasti, i. 387. 19 sheep ? Aristseus wept, because he had seen his bees, cut off with their stock, to have left unfinished the commenced honey-combs : whom his mother of the bluish waters, consoling, while he painfully grieved, added to her sayings these concluding ad- monitions — ' Check your tears, boy. Proteus will alleviate your losses ; and show by what process you are to recover what has been lost. That, however, he may not delude you by changing his shapes, let strong ties confine both his hands. The youth 370 comes to the seer ; and seizing the arms of the marine sage, relaxed in sleep, ties them together. Shifting his shape by his peculiar art, he assumes a different make : soon overpowered by the bonds, he returns to his natural features : and lifting up his countenance dripping with a bluish beard, he said, " Seek you by what contrivance to restore your bees ? Bury in the earth the carcass of a slaughtered steer : after being buried he shall fur- nish you what you require from us." The shepherd executes the orders : swarms glow from the tainted ox : the death of a single life has furnished thou- sands. 380 Fate demands the sheep : wretch, she crop- ped vervain, which a religious old lady was accus- tomed to offer to the gods of her farm. What re- mains safe, when the fleece-bearing sheep and the farm-tilling kine lay down their lives at the altars?* Persia by the horse appeases Hyperion girded with beams of light, that a slow victim be not offered * 384. When sacrifice has gone so far as to involve the ox and sheep, it is scarcely necessary to account for its further ex- tension. No animal can expect, after their sacrifice, to escape. 20 ovid's fasti, i. 41L to the rapid god. As it was once slain to the triple Diana for a virgin, now also, for no virgin, falls the deer. I have seen the Sapsei, and whoever borders, Haemus, on your snows, to offer the entrails of dogs 390 to Trivia.* The ass too is slain to the stiff guardian of the farm field : the origin is, indeed, indelicate ; but in keeping with this deity. Greece thronged the so- lemnities of the ivy-berried Bacchus, which the third winter solstice restores at the established period. The gods also, who pay respect to Lyoeus, came together, and whoever was not an enemy to frolic : the Pans, and the youth of the Satyrs given to lechery; and whatever goddesses inhabit the streams and the lonely fields. Therehad also come the elderly Silenus, on his bending ass, and he who with red pole scares 400 the startled birds. Who, having got a suitable grove for their jolly carousal, lay on couches strown with grass. Bacchus furnished the wine ; each had brought a chaplet for himself; a stream rolled its waters, to be scantily mixed. The N aids were there, some with their locks scattered without the luxuryf of a comb, others with their hair adjusted with art and labour : one waits with her dress tucked up to the middle of her legs, another has her bosom un- covered with disparted garment. One bares her shoulders, another trails her gown along the grass : 400 no sandal ties bind her delicate feet. Others on one side supply the insinuating flame to the satyrs, some * 390. Ovid learned this in his exile at Patmos. Such allu- sions show that the present work was not finished until after his exile. There is no good reason to think that Ovid ever com- pleted more than the six books which we have. t 404. Usus often implies a comfort, convenience, or luxury. ovid's fasti, i. 438. 21 to you, who bear your temples entwined with pine : you also they inflame, Silenus, of uncooled passion — It is downright lewdness, which does not allow you to be an old man. But the red Priapus, glory and keeper of the gardens, was captivated by Lotis from them all — her he desires, her he longs for, sighs for her alone, and gives his hints by leers, and en- deavours to gain her by sly insinuations. Haughti- ness is natural to the fair, and disdain attends beauty — she sneers on him, and conveys her con- tempt in her looks. 420 It was night, and wine producing sleep, their bodies lay, overcome by deep slumber, in various places. Lotis, as she had been wearied by play, lay on the grassy earth, the furthest off, under the boughs of a maple. The lover rises, and holding in his breath, advances stealthily his silent steps, his posi- tion resting on tiptoe. When he reached the remote bed of the snow-fair nymph, he takes care lest the very current of his breath should sound. And now he was balancing his body on the nearest grass, yet she was still full of deep sleep. He is delighted ; 430 and after drawing up her garments from her feet, he began to proceed toward the fulness of his wishes, along the path of fortune — lo ! braying with hoarse throat, the ass, that bore Silenus, uttered unseasonable cries. The nymph rising terrified both flings back Priapus with her hands, and flying raises the whole grove. But the god, too far pre- pared even in the part which modesty forbids us to name, was a subject of laughter to all by the light of the moon. By death the author of the outcry 22 ovid's fasti, i. 462. paid the penalty ; and hence is an acceptable victim 440 to the god of the Hellespont. Ye had been safe, birds, charmers of the fields, a class used to the woods and harmless — who make your nests, who keep warm your eggs with down, and with tuneful throat give forth delightful strains. But this avails you nought — for you incur the charge of loquacity ; and the gods conceive that you disclose their intentions. Nor, however, is that charge unfounded : for as being the very nearest* things to the gods, ye give true hints, one time with your flight, another with your cries. Long was the race of birds secure ; then at length they were slain, and the entrails of their informer gratified the 450 gods.J Oft, therefore, burns on the glowing hearth the white ring-dove, the consort torn from her mate. Nor does the defence of the Capitolium avail that the goose should not furnish her liver for your dish, luKurious daughter of Inachus. In the night,f to goddess Night, is slain the crested cock, because with watchful throat he calls for the warm day. In the interval the Dolphin, a bright assemblage of stars, rises over the main ; and puts forth his head above his native waters. The succeeding day distinguishes the winter by a 4gQ division in the middle : and the part which will re- main will be equal to the past. After leaving Ti- thonus his bride shall next behold the pontifical ceremonies to the Arcadian goddess. You also, * 447. Quisque with a superlative degree is used idiomatically for emphasis' sake — proxima quceque, the very nearest things to. t 455. In the night of this day. ovid's fasti, i. 485. 23 sister of Turnus, the same day received in your temple, here where the Plain of Mars is traversed by the virgin's aqueduct.* Whence shall I derive the source and the man- ner of these rites ? Who shall direct my sail in the open sea? Do you yourself inform me, who derive your name from song ; and favour my pur- pose, that your honour be not subject to uncer- tainty. Born before the Moon, if you trust them respecting themselves, the land derives its name from the great Areas : here was Evander, who 47O although high born on both sides, yet was higher by the line of his sacred mother : who, soon as she had caught the fire of Heaven in her spirit, was used to utter from unerring lips verse full of divinity. She had said that troubles impended over her son and herself ; and many things beside, which gained fulfilment in time. For the youth, with his too true mother, exiled, leaves Arcadia andhisParr- hasian home. To whom weeping his mother says, " Check those tears, boy — your fortunes should 48 be borne by you manfully. It was thus in the fates : and no guilt of your own has exiled you, but a god, — by the displeasure of a god have you been driven from your city.f You do not suffer the * 464. The aqueduct called Aqua Virgo was constructed in the reign of Augustus by Agrippa, when he was aedile. t 482. Ovid appears to be thinking more of his own exile than Evander's. In a piece of his Tristia he represents himself as exiled by the displeasure of a divinity, meaning Augustus. The cause of his exile is a mystery. It is supposed to be connected with the profligacy of Julia ; and to have only consisted in some indiscreet exposures of the family affairs of Augustus. It does not, at least, appear to have been anything of deep turpitude. Augustus affected to refer it to the loose morality of Ovid's poems. 24 ovid's fasti, i. 510. penalty of desert, but the anger of divinity : it is something that guilt do not accompany your great distresses. As every man's mind is conscious, so he conceives within his bosom both the hopes and fears suited to his acts. Nor grieve, however, as if you were the first to suffer such evils : — that storm has sunk mightv men. The same suffered Cadmus, who driven once from the shores of Tyre, settled 490 an outcast m Aonian soil. Tycleus suffered the same, and the same Jason of Pagasse, and persons, moreover, whom it were tedious to recount. Every soil is the brave man's home; as every sea the fishes'^ as to the bird whatever stretches over the open heavens. Nor, however, does the wild tempest shiver for the whole year; and you, trust me, shall have a season of spring." His mind strengthened by his parent's words, Evander cuts the waves with his bark, and makes Hesperia. And now, at the suggestion of his under- standing mother, he had driven his vessel into the current, and he was proceeding against the Tuscan 500 stream. She spies the river's bank, on which the shallows of Terentus border, and the cottages dis- persed over the lonely place : and as she was, with her hair all loose, she stood before the poop, and with stern look withheld his hand while he guided the vessel's course : and stretching her arms toward the right bank afar, she strikes the pine wood deck thrice with no sane foot : and hardly, and hardly, was she stopped by the hand of Evander, from springing in her eagerness to stand upon the land. " Gods," said she, " of the sought for country, 510 hail, and you, land, hereafter to give new gods to ovib's fasti, i. 536. 25 Heaven, and you streams and you fountains, of which this friendly land makes use, and ye god- desses of the groves, and companies of Na'ids; be you seen with good omen both by my son and me ; and be that your bank touched with fortunate foot. Am I misled ; or will these heights become vast fortifications? and will the rest of the world derive their ordi- nances from this land ? The whole globe is promised one day to these mountains : who would suppose that the place had so large a share of destiny ! And just now the Dardan ships shall touch these shores : here also a woman shall be the cause of fresh war. My dear grandson, my Pallas, why put 520 you on fatal armour ?— Put it on — you shall fall with no humble avenger. Troy, although van- quished, yet you shall vanquish ; and overthrown, rise up again : that your downfall shall overwhelm the homes of the enemy. Burn ye, triumphant flames, Neptunian Pergamus : — whether are those ashes the less exalted above the whole globe ? Just now shall the fond iEneas bring his sacred charge, and his father a second one : entertain, O Vesta, the gods of Ilium. There will be a time when the same person shall superintend you and the world ; and sacred rites be performed as a god himself worships : and with the Augustan house shall rest 530 the wardenship of the country. It is the will of Heaven that this family hold the reins of power. Thence the grandson and the son of a god, though he should himself decline it, shall sustain his father's burden with heavenly intelligence. And as I shall be one day consecrated on an eter- D 26 ovid's fasti, i. 555. nal altar, so shall Augusta Julia be a new divi- nity."* When with such sayings she came down to our times, her prophetic tongue stopped short in the midst of her strain. Landing from his ship, the exile stood on Latian herbage: — happy man, to 540 whom that place was his foreign home ! And there was no long delay, until new dwellings rose ; and none was superior to the Arcadian on the hills of Auso- nia. Lo, the club-bearing hero drives thither the oxen of Erythea, having traversed the journey of distant lands : and while the Arcadian house is his- baiting place, the oxen wander unguarded through . luxuriant fields. It was dawn ; and startled from slumber, the Tirynthian guest perceives that two bulls are missing from the count. He seeks and sees no traces of the stealthy theft : Cacus had 550 drawn the beasts backward into his cave : Cacus, the terror and shame of the Aventine wood, no small mischief to his neighbours and strangers. The man had a frightful figure, strength propor- tioned to his body, that body huge : — Mulciber was this monster's sire : and for a home a vast cave * 536. Roman ladies were named by the Gentile name, that is, usually, the middle name of their father : and when there were several daughters, they were distinguished by ordinals, piima, secunda, &c. or, if two only, as senior and junior. Augustus married Seribonia, whom he divorced after she had given birth to a daughter ; when he married the wife of Drusus, to whom she had borne one son, and, three months after her union with Augustus, a second. She was adopted, as a compliment, into the Julian house ; and is therefore named Julia, Augusta seems to be a title of the poet's invention, as a fit one under which to be deified ; for although her husband was entitled Augustus, she was not to be entitled on that account Mrs. Augustus. Her deif? ca- tion did take place many years after. ovid's fasti, i. 581. 27 hidden in a long recess, hardly to be found even by beasts. Human heads and arms hang nailed aver the door ; and the ground is white, hideous with bones of men. After so ill preserving a part of his oxen, the son of Jove was on his departure : 560 the oxen thieved lowed with hoarse cry. " I ac- cept the recal," says he ; and following the cry, comes vengeful through the woods to the horrid cavern. The other had obstructed the approach by a barrier of a fractured mountain : hardly would twice five yokes of oxen have moved that work. He exerts himself with his shoulders — even the Heavens had rested upon them — and with a shake disjoints the vasty load : and soon as it was uptorn, the crash startled the very sky, and the earth sunk down, stricken by the mass's weight. Cacus, locking hand in hand, excites the com- mencing conflict ; and fiercely conducts the strife with rocks and stumps. Whereby when nothing 570 is effected, with little strength he resorts to the contrivances of his sire, and throws up flames from his roaring throat : which oft as he puffs forth, you would think that Typhoeus breathed, and that winged lightning was flung from iEtna's fire. Alcides is too quick for him, and the triple knotted club drawn down thrice and four times rested on the face of the opposing warrior. He falls, and vomits smoke mixed up with blood ; and dying beats the soil with his broad chest. The conqueror offers one bull from those to you, O Jove ; and invites Evander and the rustics : and builds an altar to himself which 580 is entitled Maxima, here where a part of the city 28 ovid's fasti, i. 608. has its name from an ox.* Nor is the mother of Evander silent, that the time is near, in which the earth shall have made sufficient use of Hercules as its own. But the blessed prophetess, as she lived most acceptable to the gods, so, as a goddess, holds this day in the month of Janus. On the ides a pure priest in Jove's temple offers the entrails of a wether on the flames : and every province was delivered back to our people : and 590 your grand-father called by the title of Augustus. Read over the waxes distributed through illustrious halls ; to no man had resulted so high titles. Africa calls one conqueror after herself ; another records the defeat of Isaurian power, or of the resources of the Cretans ; the Numidians render one proud, Messana another ; another has derived his distinction from the city of Numantia ; Germany gave to Drusus both death and a title : — ah me unhappy, how short was the career of that heroism ? If he seeks titles from the vanquished, let Coesar assume as many as 600 the mighty globe has nations. Some celebrated by one circumstance, possess the title, or of breast chain won or aiding raven : O you entitled " the Great," your title is the measure of your deeds : but he, who subdued you, was above a title. And there is no degree of surname beyond the Fabii : that house was entitled " the Greatest" by their ser- vices. But, however, all are celebrated by human honours, he has a title in common with supreme Jove. The ancients name holy things august ; * 582. The ara maxima was on the corner of the forum , Boarium, and just taken in by Romulus' walls. ovid's fasti, i. 633. 29 temples are called august, duly consecrated by the hands of priests. From the source of this word is 610 derived augury too, and whatever Jupiter enlarges by his aid.* May he enlarge the power of our chief, enlarge his years ; and may the oaken chaplet ever shade your door : and under the guidance of the gods, may the inheritor of so high a title undertake the world's weight with the same omen as his father. When the third Titan shall look back upon the past ides, the reproduced ceremonies shall be per- formed to the Parrhasian goddess. For erst car- penta bore the Ausonian matrons — these too I con- ceive to be named from Evander's parent — after- 620 wards the honour is torn from them ; and every matron resolves by no issue to renew the image of their odious lords ; and that she may yield no off- spring, daring with secret stroke, she loosed from her womb the growing burden. They say that the senate reprimanded the wives who had dared these harsh deeds, but restored the wrested privilege. And now they order two courses of sacred services to be performed together to the Tegesean mother, for boys and for girls. It is not allowed to bring into that holy place aught made from hide, lest dead things violate the sacred hearth. If you love an- 630 cient rites, f stand by the worshipper ; you shall catch names not known by you before. Porrima, and Pos- tovrta are besought, whether your sisters, Manalian * 612. Ovid thinks that Augustus and augurium are derived from the same word, augere ; and apply to whatever the gods bless and increase. f 631. It is difficult to imitate in our language the form of the original — si quis amas, if you, any one, love, if any one loves. D 3 30 ovid's fasti, i. 659. nymph, or partners of your flight. The one is sup- posed to have predicted what had been far off ; the other whatever was about to turn up hereafter. The next day placed you in snow white temple, glistening Concord, where high Monetabears her steps aloft. Now you shall have a good view of the Latian 640 crowd ; now have august hands replaced you. Furius of old, triumphant over an Etrurian commu- nity, had vowed it, and had anciently discharged the obligations of his vow . The occasion was that the multitude had taken up arms and seceded from the patricians ; and Rome was dreading herself her own strength. The late occasion is the better : — Germany, under your military conduct, honoured chief, extends her scattered hair. Thence you have offered in favour the first fruits of the nation triumphed over ; and constructed a temple to the goddess 650 whom you yourself cultivate. This your mother set up both by her life and an altar, alone found worthy the bed of high Jove. When these things shall have passed over, having left Capricorn, O Phoebus, you will run through the constellation of the youth who rules the waters. When the seventh rising sun from this shall have plunged itself in the waves, now no Lyre shall sparkle in the whole heavens. In the night coming after this constellation, the fire shall be sunk, which twinkles in the lion's breast. Thrice, four times, have I rolled over the Calen- dar marking the seasons of observance ; and no where was any seed sown — day found ; when the Muse, for she understood, says to me — " This day OVID ? S FASTI. I. 686. 31 is announced — Why seek you from the Calendar a moveable festival ? And as the day is unfixed, so qqq the occasion is fixed — when the land is impregnated after the seed is thrown." Stand chapleted, you steers, at the full stall; your task shall return with the warming spring. Let the farmer rest by a stake his plough discharged the ser- vice : the cold earth shrinks from any incision.* Over- seer, give repose to the land, when the sowing is done, give repose to the men who have tilled it. Let the townland make a holiday : purify the townland, swains, and to the townland altars give the yearly cakes. f Be the mothers of corn worshipped, both 670 Tellus and Ceres, with their appropriate spelt and the entrails of a pregnant sow. Ceres and Terra keep a common charge ; the one furnishes an origin for corn, the other a situation. Fellow sharers in the toils of husbandry, by whom the ancients were im- proved, andthe acorn of the oak was replaced byhappier food; glut the dissatisfied husbandmen withboundless produce, that they may get worthy returns for their til- lage. Give to the tender seed continual increase ; and be not the new blade nipped during the cold snows. q$q While we sow, open the air with calm winds ; when it is covered in, sprinkle the seed with heaven's rain. And see that the birds, injurious to tillage, plunder not, in mischievous flight, the Cereal favours. You also, ants, spare the buried grain ; you shall have fuller stores of plunder after the harvest. Mean- 666 . This seems to make a confused allusion to the effect of cold on wounds. t 670. It seems to be from the pertinacity of this pagan wor- ship, that pagan came to have its later sense. 32 ovid's fasti, i. 708, time let it grow free from deforming mildew, and let not the sickly blade pale by the intemperate heat of the weather. And may it neither come short by poverty ; nor, more abundant than is tit, perish lux- 59 o uriant by its own superfluity.* And be the fields clear of darnel, weakening the eyes, and may not the barren wild oat rise in the tilled soil. May the field with vast interest return produce of wheat, and spelt twice to sustain the fire, and barley. These wishes I make for you, these make yourselves, ye husbandmen; and may each goddess render the prayers availing. Wars long engaged men ; the sword was more fitted than the share, and the ploughing bull gave way to the charger. Hoes were idle, and spades made into pikes, and the headpiece wrought from the weighty 700 narrow ' Thanks to the gods and your house ! Bound up with chains wars lie, now longtime, beneath our feet. Let the ox come under the yoke, the seed under the ploughed soil. Peace nurtures Ceres : Ceres is the nursling of Peace. But what day goes the sixth before the coming Calends, on this was their temple consecrated to the Ledean gods. To the brothers the divine bro- thers of the race of the gods built it by Juturna's lake.f Of itself our song conducts us to the altar of * 690. Corn was usually said luxuriare, when it ran up into blade, and with all its luxurious show, gave no harvest. t 708. There seem to be two Juturnae lacus, one in the forum, and another near the river Xumicius. It is also at the latter that Castor and Pollux are said to have been seen cooling their horses aftertheir hard day's fighting at the Regillus. Perhaps there was a temple built to them at the place ; and to this Ovid refers. In this supposition we could dispense with the for- mer lacus altogether, whose existence is very questionable. ovid's fasti, i. 724. 33 Peace. This shall be the second day from the end of the month. Having your adjusted locks encircled 710 by Actian boughs, Peace, attend: and continue gentle through the entire globe. Provided there be no enemy, be there also no occasion for triumph : you shall be to the imperial house a greater boast than war. May the soldiers bear arms whereby to re- strain arms ; and be nought, save pageant, sounded by wild trumpet. Let the globe both far and near dread the iEneadoe ; and if any land shall, perhaps, not fear Rome, may she love her. Priests add in- cense to the flames of Peace, and let the white vic- tim fall with stricken front. And that the house, 720 which affords her, may live long with peace, entreat the gods, glad to hear dutiful prayers. But now the first division of my task is completed And with its month concludes my little book. EXD OF BOOK I. 34 ovid's fasti. ii/20. BOOK II. Janus has an end ; with my poem encreases also the year : as a second month progresses, so let a second book proceed. Now for the first time, elegiac verse, do you sweep with fuller sail : you were lately, I remember, a flimsy structure. I have myself employed you a ready agent in love, when early youth frolicked in appropriate song.* I, the same, sing of religious subjects, and the days of observance marked on the calendar. Who would think that a transition lay from the former subject to the new ! This is my military service : I bear the arms I can, and my arm is not devoid of public duty 10 altogether. If javelins are not whirled by me with nervous arm, nor the back of war steed pressed ; nor am I covered by the helmet and girded with sharp sabre — any one may be fitted to these arms — yet I follow up your honours, O Ceesar, with ear- nest bosom, and enter on the subject of your titles. Favour, me, then, and with benign look regard a little time my offerings, if you have any leisure from the pacification of the enemy. The ancient Romans called expiations februa : 20 and now too very many traces confirm the expression, f * 6 Elegiac verse, composed of hexameters and pentameters, were not employed, like pure hexameters, on dignified subjects. Ovid composed his amatory poems, as well as his subseo^ent Tristia, in elegiacs. t 20. That is, this signification of the expression. OVID S FASTI. II. 43. 35 The pontiffs require of the king and the flamen wool- len threads, which, in the old dialect, had the name of febrna. And whatever cleansings the lictor takes for certain houses, parched corn with a grain of salt, they have the same name. The same the branch, which cut from off a pure tree* covers with leaves the holy temples of the priests. I have myself seen the flaminica requiring februa, and as she required them a rod of pine was presented to her. In short, whatever it is with which our hearts are purified, it had with our unshaven ancestors this name. 30 From this the month was named ; because the Luperci, after cutting up a hide, purify the whole country, and consider that atonement : or because the season is pure, after quieting the dead, when the days are passed over in which offerings are made to the shades. f Our fathers conceived that purification removed all guilt and every cause of evil. Greece began the custom : she imagines that the guilty put off their horrid deeds when they are cleansed. Peleus released the son of Actor, as Acastus by the waters of Thessaly Peleus himself from the blood of Phocus. The easily persuaded 40 iEgeus sheltered, with aid she little merited, the Col- chian woman, borne on bridled serpents through the empty air. The son of Amphiaraus said to Ache- * 25 That is, a pine tree, as appears from verse 28. t 35. The feralia took place near the end of Febr. : but whether they were one or many days is not clear. The plural form before us may be a mere amplification, occasioned the more readily by the plural form feralia. For days of observances usually took the plural names, which belonged properly to the observances themselves. <36 ovid's fasti, ii. 58. lous of Naupactus,* "Absolve my guilt;" and he absolved it. Ah too weak mortals, to imagine that the dire crime of bloodshed could be removed by a river's waters ! But, however, — that you should not be perplexed in an ignorance of the ancient arrangement — January, as it now is, so formerly also was the first month. What follows Janus was the final month of the ,50 olden year : you, too, Terminus, were the conclu- sion of religious ceremonies. For the month of Janus was first, because the janua, or gate, is first ; the lowest month that, which is seme coated to the manes below. + The decemvirs are thought to have afterwards set in succession these periods parted by so long an interval. On the first day of the month Juno Sospita, neighbouring on the Phrygian Mother, is said to have been honoured by a new chapel. Where now, you ask, is the temple consecrated to the goddess * 43. Achelous, the person from whom the river was said to be named, which divided ^Etolia from Epirus. Possibly the poet is confused, as the ancients ever are, between the person and the river. This river is said to have sprung from the earth im- mediately after the deluge, and its waters were reputed to be par- ticularly sacred. The epithet of Naupactoan merely denotes iEtolian, Naupactus appearing to have no closer connection with Achelous, man or river. t 54. Ovid is the only writer who records that Numa called the month, which succeeded January, March ; and that which succeeded December, February ; and that the decemvirs so far altered this as to introduce the name of February between Janu- ary and March. It is usually said that Numa subjoined both January and February to December ; and sometimes that he prefixed them both to March. Although in the arrangement attributed by Ovid to Numa, January of one year should succeed February of the preceding year, yet January and February of any one year were parted by the intervention of all the other ten months. 60 ovid's fasti, ii. 78. 37 on th« present calends: — it has fallen by age.* That the rest of our temples should not tumble tottering with like downfall, the watchful care of our inviolate chief has provided ; under whom our temples feel no age : and it is not enough that he places mankind under obligations, he obliges the gods too. Founder of temples, of our temples the holy restorer, may the gods, I pray, have a reciprocal care of you. May the dwellers in the skies give to you the length of years which you give to them : and may they remain on guard be- fore your doors. On the same day is the grove thronged of the Asylum, near to where the stranger Tiber wends . his course to the waters of the main. At Numa's court a sheep of two years is slain, and the Thun- derer's of the CapitoTium, and on Jove's topmost height. The southwind oft, enwrapped in clouds, 70 excites the heavy rains, or the earth is hidden under lodging: Snow- ed © When the next sun, ready to retire into the western waves, removes from his glowing steeds the jewelled yoke ; on that night people, lifting their looks to the stars, shall say — " where is to-day the Lyre, which shone yesterday?'' and while they shall look out for the Lyre, they shall mark the sudden plunge of the back of mid Leo too into the flowing waters, f * 58. It is usually thought that Sospita is named from sospes : but we find the form Sispita on an ancient coin. The plural form templa, like delubra, has regard only to the single temple of Juno Sospita. f 77. Medii terga Leonis, the hinder half of it ; not including Hegulus, which is in the breast. 80 38 qyid's fasti, ii. 104. The Dolphin, whom lately you saw all embel- lished with stars, he shall fly your sight next night. Whether he was a successful spokesman in con- cealed love, or bore, with its master, the Lesbian lyre. What sea knows not, what land is ignorant of Arion ? He was used with song to check the running river : oft time the wolf, chacing the lamb, was stayed by that voice ; and the lamb stopped short in her flight from the voracious wolf : oft hound and hare lay under the shade of the same tree ; and the deer paused near the destructive lioness : and without strife sat the chattering crow in company 90 with the bird of Pallas : and the pigeon was recon- ciled to the hawk. Cynthia is said to have often been amazed at your strains, tuneful Arion, as if they were her own brother's. The name of Arion had filled all the cities of Sicily, and the coast of Ausonia* had been capti- vated by the tones of his lyre. From that return- ing homeward, Arion went on board, and was bring- ing with him the riches thus won by his skill. Pos- sibly, unhappy man, you were in fear of the winds and the sea ; but the ocean was less dangerous to you than your own vessel. And now the helms- man with naked sword stood over him, and the rest of the conspired crowd with arms in their hands. What have you to do with the sword ! guide, sailor, your unsteady bark ; these are not the arms to be grasped by your fingers. Struck with terror he says, "I do not pray off death : but let me be allowed to take up my lyre and repeat a short * 94. Magna Graecia. 100 ovid's fasti, ii. 126. 39 chaunt." They give permission, and smile at the vain delay. He assumes a chaplet, which may be- come your locks, Phoebus; and puts on a robe twice dipped in Tyrian purple — stricken by his thumb the chord has returned its usual tones : as the swan sings in melancholy air, when he has his white temples pierced by the rigid feather. In- HO stantly, in his bright array, he springs into the midst of the waters : the azure poop is sprinkled by the dashing brine. Then, beyond all belief, they say that the dolphin, with raising back, placed himself beneath the extraordinary burthen. Seated he both holds his harp, and pays by song the recom- pense of his conveyance, and calms by his strains the waters of the sea. The gods witness the humane act : Jupiter admitted the dolphin among the con- stellations, and ordered him to hold nine stars. Now could I wish that I had a thousand voices, and possessed your genius, Mseonian bard, where- with Achilles was celebrated ; while I sing in al- 120 ternate verses the sacred nones.* Hence is heaped upon our calendar its proudest honour. My abi- lities fail, and a subject weighs me down too great for my strength. This day must I sing in par- ticular strain. Why was I mad enough to lay on eligiac measure so great weight ? that was a subject of heroic metre. Sacred father of your people, to * 121. Sacer, and more usually sacratus, from implying devoted to the gods, and thence condemned to sacrifice or death ; came to apply to any thing protected by such a sanction, as the plebeian tribunate. Perhaps it was from engrossing this with his other offices, that the emperor was regarded as Sacratus, and every thing associated with him. Thus the epithet in the text denotes much the same as " imperial." 40 ovid's fasti, ii. 150. you the commons, to you the senate gave this title, this title we of equestrian rank. Yet fact conferred 1 30 it before, you obtained but your true title, late even : long since were you the father of the globe. You hold here on earth that title which Jove holds in the heavens above ; you are the father of the human race, he of the gods. Romulus, submit : he makes your fortifications great by defending them, which you had left to be overleaped by Remus — You Tatius felt, and humble Cures, and Caenina ; under this chief each border of the sun is Rome's — You possessed some trifling stretch* of conquered soil ; Cossar holds whatever is beneath high Jove — You force away maidens ; he compels wives to be virtuous under hi* rule — You receive them into a 140 an asylum ; he repels the guilty — Violence was your delight ; under Caesar flourish the laws — You possess the title of master, he of princef — Remus charges you ; he has granted pardon to his very enemies — Your father deified you, his father he. Already protrudes the Idaian youth, so far as the waist, and pours out liquid waters with commingled nectar. Lo, also, if any one was used to shudder at the northern blast, let him be delighted ; a softer breeze comes from the zephyr. The fifth morning star has raised from ocean's wave his glittering beam, and the season of opening ] 50 spring progresses. Be not deceived, however ; * 137. Kescio quid is perhaps a form expressive of contempt r not unlike as with us to affect to forget a person's name is a species of insult. t 142. ' You were a king, he is only the first of our citizens.* ovid's fasti, ii. 178. 41 cold remains for you, it remains ; and departing winter has left deep traces. Be the third night come ; — forthwith you will see the keeper of the Bear put forth both his legs. Among the Hamadryads and the archer Diana, Callisto was a member of the sacred company. Laying her hand on the bow of the goddess, she says, " Be the bow, which I touch, witness of my celibacy." Cynthia approved, and said, " Keep your pledged contract, and you shall be with me the first of all my train." She would have kept the contract, 160 had she not been fair ; she was on her guard against mortals : from Jove she incurs guilt. Phoebe w T as on her return, after coursing through the woods thousands of wild beasts ; while the sun occupies or more, or, at least, mid-day. When she gained a grove — the grove was dark with many an oak; in the midst was a deep fountain of ice- cold water, — " In this wood, Arcadian maid," says she, " let us bathe." She blushed at the untrue name of maid. She said so also to the nymphs ; the nymphs doff their dress ; she is ashamed, and gives unhappy tokens of lingering delay. She had 170 put off her garments ; convicted by the size of her womb, she is betrayed, unhappy girl, by the evi- dence of her own burthen. To whom the goddess — " Forsworn daughter of Lycaon, quit the virgin troop, " says she, " nor stain the pure waters." The moon had ten times filled up her orb with horns ; she was a mother who had been thought a maid. Tie offended Juno storms, and changes the girl's shape. What do you ? It was with reluctant e 3 42 ovid's fasti, ii. 200. soul she received Jupiter. And when she has seen the hideous looks of the concubine, " Let Jupiter," 180 says she, " go into her arms now." The squalid bear was wandering over the lonely mountains, who had lately been an object of fondness to su- preme Jove. Her son, conceived in secret, was just passing three times five years, when the mother was thrown in the way of her child. She, indeed, stood bewildered, as if she knew him, and moaned : the moan was a parent's words. The boy, unknowing, would have pierced her with a sharp javelin, had not each been snatched into dwellings above. They twinkle adj acent constellations : before is she whom we entitle the Bear, * the Bearward has the attitude 190 °f one pressing her rere. Still rages Saturn's daughter, and requests the grey-headed Tethys not to lave the Arcadian Bear by arrival at her waters. On the ides smokes the altar of rustic Faunus, where the island cleaves the parted waters. This was that day on which 306 Fabii fell on the Vejentine fields. One house had undertaken to supply soldiers and the burthens of the city. Sol- diers of the same family name take up arms, a vo- lunteer troop. f From one camp issues the high- born soldiery, any one of whom was calculated to 200 be appointed a commander. { The nearest route is * 189. This is the Great Bear, called also the Plough, and Charles "Wain. The less Bear is nearer to the pole, and indeed thelast star of its tail is now the polar star. t 198. Profiteri militiam implies to volunteer ; and arma equivalent to militiam, seems to be here understood after prqfessa from arma, which precedes. + 200. It is not easy to decide whether quels is relative to castris, or to miles equivalent to milites. Ovid seems to confound ovid's fasti, ii. 227. 43 by the right janus of Carmenta's gate. Pass not through this, whoever you are ; it has an omen ; report is that the three hundred Fabii passed out by it. The gate is free from blame ; but yet it has an omen. When they reached with quick step the rapid Cremera, — troublous it ran with the rains of winter — they pitch their camp on the plain : with naked swords they break in vigorous battle through the Tyrrhene troops : no otherwise than when lions from Libyan cliff rush on the herds scattered over the broad fields. The foe fly in all directions, and 210 on their rere receive inglorious wounds : the earth reddens with Tuscan blood. Thus a second time, thus many times they fall. When it is not in their power to prevail in open fight, they set themselves for ambush and concealed array. There was a plain : hills shut in the extremities of it, and woods, calculated to harbour the savages of the mountains. About the middle they leave a few men and dispersed cattle : the rest of the mul- titude lurks concealed by the underwood. Behold, 990 as a torrent, swollen by rain, or by snow, which flows melting by the warmth of the zephyr, is im- pelled over tillage, over roads ; nor, as before it was used, does it bound its waters, shut in by the borders of its banks : so the Fabii fill the valley in wide dispersion ; and whom they see, they overthrow ; nor have they any apprehensions further. Whi- ther rush ye, noble house ? ye rely unwisely on the the date of their departure from Rome with that of their mas- sacre, the latter happening July 18th, a year and a half, at least, after the former. It is not at all plain whether this janus was a part of the Caxmental gate, or only contiguous to it. 44 ovid's fasti, it, 248. foe : artless nobles, guard against the weapons of treachery. Valour falls by guile ; the enemy spring from all sides into the open plains, and oc- cupy the whole frontier. What are a few brave 230 men to do against so many thousands ? or what re- mains for them in this distressing crisis ? As a boar, chased in Laurentine woods afar, with tusk, as lightning quick, scatters the nimble dogs, yet soon after dies himself; so they perish not una- venged ; and they deal and suffer wounds with mu- tual blow. One day had sent to war the whole Fabii, one day cut off those sent. Yet it is to be supposed, that the gods themselves provided that seed of the Herculean house should remain. For a youth be- low puberty, and unfitted yet for arms, alone of the 240 Fabian house survived : with a view, doubtless, that you, O Maximus, should be one day born, by whom the country should be re-established by drawing out the war. Conjoined in situation, three constellations, the Raven and Snake, and the Cup lies in the midst between both — On the ides they are hidden ; they rise on the following night : and why these three should be connected, one with another, I shall sing. It happened that Phoebus was preparing a solemn festival to Jove — my story shall occasion no long delay* — " Go," says he, " my bird, that nothing re- * 248. It is not known where Ovid got this fable : but it is not badly devised to link together points of natural history. The miikiness of the fig before its ripening, its sweetness when ripe, its rapid maturization, the sickness of the raven about the time, in consequence of which it abstained from water, are all men- tioned by Pliny. ovid's fasti, ii. 272. 45 tard the holy ceremonies, and bring a little water from the running fountain. " The raven lifts with 250 his hooked claws the gilded cup, and flies his airy course on high. A fig- tree stood crowded full with fruit still hard : he tries it with his bill ; it was not fit to be plucked.* Thoughthless of his com- mands, he is said to have seated himself under the tree, in slow waiting until the fruit should become sweet. And now satisfied, he seizes a long water snake in his black claws, and returns to his lord, and he gives a false tale — " This was the occasion of my delay, besetting the running waters ; he has obstructed the fountain and my duty." " Do you," 260 says Phoebus, " add falsehood to fault, and dare to show a willingness to delude by your words a pro- phetic god ? But while the milky fig shall be firm on the tree, be the cold water drunk by you from no spring." He said, and as a lasting memorial of the ancient deed, the snake, the bird, the cup, twinkle conjoined stars. The third dawn after the ides beholds the bare Luperci : and the ceremonies proceed of the two-horned Faunus. Say, Muses, what is the source of the ceremonies : and whence they were derived when they reached the abodes of Latium.f The an- 270 cient Arcadians are reported to have worshipped Pan as god of cattle ; he was very frequent on the * 254. Ovid seems to use Jicus in both its senses, of the tree and the fruit : the former sense attending Jicus as used in verse 253, and the latter as referred to by earn in the present verse. t 270. The construction of the text is an idiomatic confusion of two clauses : as if we should say, " we spent the day a long one," instead of " the day which we spent was a long one." 46 otid's fasti, ii. 298. hills of Arcadia. Pholoe shall be witness, witnesses the waters of Stymphalus, and Ladon, who runs into the sea with rapid current ; and the hills of the Nonacria's grove encircled by pine forests, and high Cyllene, and Parrhasia's snows.* Pan was the guardian of the drove, Pan the god of mares, he obtained offerings for the safety of the sheep. Evan- der removed with him the woodland divinities. Here, where now the city is, there was then the city's 280 site. Thence we respect the god, and the rites in- troduced by the Pelasgi : the Dial Flamen was ap- pointed to these by ancient usage. Why then they run, and why — for it is the cus- tom thus to run — putting off their dress, they have their persons naked, ask you ? The fleet god him- self loves to run at large over the high hills, and starts on a sudden the savage beasts. The god, himself naked, naked bids his priests to go : and dress was not convenient enough for running. The Arcadians are said to have been on the earth before 290 the birth of Jove, and that nation was before the moon. Their mode of life resembled the savage beasts, spent amid no comforts : the multitude was as yet shut out from improvement, and uninformed. Instead of houses, they knew nothing but leaves ; in- stead of corn vegetables : their nectar was water raised in both hands. No steer panted under the crooked plough ; no land was under the control of the hus- bandman : as yet there was no luxury of a horse ; each bore himself. The sheep walked, having his * 276. " Parrhasian snows/' for " the snowy Parrhasia," The Ladon joined the Alpheus before it reached the sea. ovid's fasti, ii. 322. 47 body clothed by his own fleece.* They spent their days under heaven's canopy, and had their bodies naked, trained to endure the heavy rains and the southern blast. Now, too, uncovered, they exhibit 300 a memorial of the old habits, and offer testimony to the worldly condition of the ancients. But why Faunas particularly shuns clothing, a tale is handed down full of old humour. The Tirynthian youth was going in the train of his mis- tress. Faunus from a high hill saw them both. He saw and caught the flame. " Mountain god- desses,'' said he, " I have nothing to do with you — yonder lass shall be my swee.theart." Tvieeonia's queen proceeded, having her shoulders covered by her perfumed tresses, distinguished by a gilded robe. Golden umbrellas repelled the hot 310 sunbeams, which, notwithstanding, the hands of Hercules bore. And now she occupied the grove of Bacchus, the vine-fields of Tmolus : and the dewy Hesperus was running his course on dusky steed. She enters a grotto, whose roof was fretted with tufo and natural pumice : at the very entrance was a prattling streamlet. While the attendants prepare the feast and the wines for the carousal, she arrays Alcides in her own attire. She gives him her gown of fine texture, dyed in Afric purple ; gives her tapering cincture, with which she had been lately girdled. The cine- 320 ture was all too small for his breast ; she undoes the ties of the gown, that he may put through his * 298. The sheep wore her own wool, instead of its being shorn and manufactured into clothing for mankind, who went naked in these days. 48 ovib's fasti, ii. 345. bulky hands ; the armlets he had broken, never made with a view to those arms ; the scanty sandal pinched his big feet. She takes from him both his ponderous club and his lion's skin ; and her own smaller arrows were stowed in the quiver.* Thus dining, thus they commit themselves to sleep : and they lay asunder on contiguous beds. The reason was, that they were preparing solemn rites to the institutor of the vine, to perform them purely when 330 the day should be risen. It was the middle of the night — what does not restless passion dare ? Faunus came through the darkness to the dew-sprinkled grotto. And when he sees the attendants relaxed in sleep and wine, he catches hopes that the same depth of sleep at- tends their superiors. He enters ; and the daring debauchee wanders to this side and that, and stretches forth his wary hands, and follows after them. He had arrived at the groped out bedding of a covered couch, and was on the very point of being successful in his first venture. When he touched the hide shaggy with coarse hair of tawny lion, 340 he was alarmed, and lifted his hand, and terrified, he shuddered through fear, asf when the wayfaring man has recovered his startled step on seeing a ser- pent. He next feels the soft covering of the couch, which was close by, and is deceived by the false token. He mounts it, and lays him down on the frame * 326. This line presents great difficulties, and is probably corrupted. f 341. Ut saepe, ceu saepe, ut quondam, ceu quondam, ut olim, ceu olim, and other such forms are frequent in poetical comparisons, where the force of saepe, olim, or quondam, is not easily seen. ovid's fasti, n. 374. 49 near him. Meantime he draws up the covering from the bottom : the legs were bristled all rough with thick hair. As he explores further, the Tiryn- thian hero has suddenly flung him back : he tumbles from the top of the couch. A crash is made : the 350 Mseonian summons the attendants, and calls for light. When it was brought in, the whole transaction is exposed. Thrown heavily from the high bed, he groans, and with difficulty lifts his limbs from the hard ground. Both Alcides laughs, and those who saw him sprawling : the Lydian lass laughs at her gallant. Deceived by dress, the god is no favourer of dress that mocks the eye ; and he summons offi- cials naked to his rites. To foreign sources add, my Muse, the Latin ones ; and let our courser run on his native dust. 360 A goat was slain after the usage to horny-footed Faunus, and a crowd came by invitation to the scanty feast ; and while the priests prepare the tit- bits transfixed with ozier spits, the sun being in the midst of his course, Romulus and his brother and the shepherd youths were exposing their persons to the sunbeams and the plain, and in a course of ex- ercise strengthening their arms by the gauntlet, and spear, and the mass of the casting- stone. A shepherd from the height — " Romulus," said he, " and Re- mus, the steers, — rescue, — the robbers are driving them through the trackless fields." It would take time 3 70 to arm themselves : they break out both on different sides ; the plunder was recovered by the speed of Remus. When he has returned, he snatches the hissing dainties off the spits; and he says, " This at least 50 ovid's fasti, ii. 393. none, save a victor, shall eat." As he says he does and with him the Fabii. Romulus comes there too late, and sees the dishes and the bones all empty. He smiled ; and was annoyed that the Fabii could conquer, and Remus ; that his own Quinctilii could not. The fame of the action remains — they put off their garments to run ; and it has an abiding cele- 380 brity because it resulted favourably. Perhaps too you would require why that place is named the Lupercal, or what cause denotes the day by a similar name.* The vestal Ilia had given birth to her heavenly issue, when her uncle held sovereign sway. He or- ders the babes to be borne away, and thrown to perish in the stream. What do you ? One of these shall be Romulus. His servants reluctantly execute his melancholy orders : yet they drop a tear, and convey the twins to a lonely place. The Albula, which the drowning of Tiberinus in its waters changed to Tiber, by chance was swollen by the 390 floods of winter. Where the forumsf are now, you might see boats to wander about, and where lies your valley, Circus Maximus. When they came so far, for they could not pass further, one or other * 382. The force of the original is best seen by rendering it, * if you should inquire, as perhaps you will, why that ["particular place under the Palatium is named Lupercal, and the festival in question Lupercalia.' t 391. There were two sorts of forums in Home, the one kind chiefly designed for litigation, and the other mere market places. Of the former sort there were in Ovid's time three, the Great or Roman forum, and those of Julius Caesar and Augustus, to which were afterwards added the forums of Nerva and Trajan. Tho market forums were comprised under the title of Macellum, and were principally the forum Boarium, Olitorium, and Pisca- rium ; to which were added the forum Suarium and others. ovid's fasti, ii. 417. 51 of them says, " But how like they are ! how lovely both are ! yet of the two that one has more life in him. If paternity is to be proved by look, if the likeness deceive not, I suspect I know not what god to be your father. But if any god were the author of your birth he should bring relief to you in this hour of peril. Relief he doubtless would bring, if 400 your mother did not also need relief — who has be- come aparent and bereft of her children in one day.* Born together, to die together, go ye together be- neath the waters." He had done talking, and he laid them down from his arms. They screamed with like cry, you would think they had sense. With moist cheek these return to their homes. The hollow trough, in which they were placed, supports them on the surface of the water. Alas, how much of destiny does one slight board convey. The trough, driven up into the dark wood, settles in the mud, as the river gradually sinks. There was ^|q a tree, its remains continue : and what is now called the Ruminal fig-tree, was the Romulan. A nursing she-wolf came, strange circumstance, to the twins, when they had fallen out of the trough. f Who could think that the savage did no injury to the boys ? To have done no injury is not enough : she even does them service. The hands of a relation * 402. Perhaps the sense of this passage may be thus developed — * If I may judge from your looks some god is your worthless father. But he should assist you just now at least ; and I should think that he would, if I did not see your mother to be in equal distress.' t 413. Expositos may denote 'exposed,' as at iii. 54; or may be opposed to impositos of verse 407, implying that they had fallen out of the trough as it upset. — Compare, iii. 600. 52 OVID^S FASTI. II. 438. could expose whom a she-wolf feeds ! She stood, and with her tail she fawns upon the tender nurs- lings, and with her tongue licks the shape of both the bodies. You might know that they were the sons of Mars — they had no fear. They draw her udder, and are nurtured by the supply of the milk 420 afforded to them* She occasioned the name of the place, the place itself that of the Luperci: the nurse has a high reward for the milk she gave. What hinders that the Luperci were named from Arcadia's mountain ? Lycsean Faun has a temple in Arcadia.* Married girl, what wait you ? Never by strong herbs, nor by prayer, nor by wizard chaunt will you become a mother. Submissively receive the strokes of the fructifying arm ; soon the father-in-law shall hear the title of grandfather, so longed for. For it was that time when wives by painful lot were afford- 430 ing but few pledges of their womb. " What does it profit me," cried Romulus, " to have carried off the Sabine women !" — ij was he who was then in possession of the regal sceptre — " if my violence has produced me not soldiers, but only war. It had been better not to have had daughters-in-law." At the base of the Esquilise there was a grove, un- cut for many years ? under the name of great Juno. When they came to this, both the wives and their husbands together bent their knees, and lay suppli- ant on their faces : when on a sudden the tops of * 424. Ovid implies that Faunus was named Lyceus, from Lyceum in Arcadia: and that hence his priests were named Luperci, by a translation of the supposed root of Lyceum into lupus. ovid's fasti, ii. 462. 53 the wood shook tremblingly, and the goddess uttered these wondrous sounds through her grove — " Let a 440 sacred goat," says she, " enter the Italian wives." The terrified crowd was confounded by the dark saying. There was an augur : his name is lost by time : he had lately come an exile from Etruria.* He offers up a goat : the girls, as they were ordered, submitted their backs to be stricken by the hide, which had been cut into thongs. The moon was recovering her horns in her tenth round : and soon the husband was a father, and a mother the wife. Thanks were offered up to Lucina:f the lucus, or grove, conferred upon you this title : or because you, O goddess, have the commencement of light. Spare, I beg you, 450 easy Lucina, the pregnant girls, and gently bring forth from the womb the matured burthen. Should the day be risen, cease you to rely on the winds : the breeze of this time has lost credit. The blast is irregular : and for six days the gate of the iEolian prison, unbolted, lies quite open. The eased Aquarius now sinks on his knees, with his urn sloped. Piscis, next receive the heavenly steeds. They tell that you and your brother, — for ye twinkle conjoined! constellations, — bore two di- vinities on your back. Dione once flying the fright- 460 ful Typhon, at the time when Jove made battle for the skies, came to the Euphrates, attended by the * 444. The Romans obtained all their early interpretations of augury from Etruria, except on some more important occasions, when they resorted to the Delphic oracle. t 450. That is, ' As a testimony of their gratitude to Juno they gave her the title of Lucina.' + 459. By a string which runs over a large space, and the star on whose knot was much observed. 54 ovid's fasti, ii. 588. infant Cupid, and sat on the border of Palestine's stream. Poplar and reeds covered the tops of the banks, and the sallows, too, gave promise that they could be concealed. While she hides, the grove has resounded with the wind : she turns pale with terror, and fancies that the forces of the enemy are near. And while she held her son to her bosom, " goddesses of the waters," says she, ." aid us, and 470 give relief to two divinities." And there is no pause : she has already sprung forward : the two fishes sus- tained her ; for which now they possess constel- lations as a merited service. In consequence the superstitious Syrians esteem it a crime to place this sort of animal on the table, nor assail with tooth the finny race.* The next day is unoccupied ; but the third is de- voted to Quirinus. Who holds this name, was Ro- mulus of old : whether because the spear was en- titled cur is by the ancient Sabines — the warrior god came from the spear to the skies — or the Quirites conferred their own name on the king ; or because 480 he had joined Cures to the Romans. For the father, who rules the fight, when he has seen the new for- tifications, and many a war achieved by the hand of Romulus, says — " Jupiter, the Roman power has strength ; it needs not the services of my blood. Restore to a father his son : though one is lost, there will be one to remain to me both for himself and for Remus. — ; There will be one, whom you shall exalt to heaven's blue skies/ — These words you used to me : be Jove's words confirmed." Jove had * 474. But they offered fishes, or at least metallic representa- tions of them, to their goddess Atergatis. ovid's fasti, ii. 511. 55 assented : at his nod each pole was shaken, and Atlas felt the heaven's pressing weight. 490 There is a place ; the people of old named it the marsh of the gazelle. There Romulus, you happened to be laying down the laws to your subjects. The sun vanishes, and interposing mists blot out the skies, and a heavy shower falls with pouring rains. It thunders ; the heavens are rent asunder with shooting flames : they fly :* the king on his father's horses sought the stars. There was wailing, and the Senate was under a charge of false murder, and pos- sibly that persuasion had fixed itself in men's minds : butProculus Julius was coming from Longa Alba;f and the moon was shining, nor was there any use of a torch : when with sudden commotion the clouds 500 rumbled on the left. He stept back, and his hair stood on end. Graceful, and larger than life, and adorned with the trabea, Romulus seemed to stand before him in the middle of his way ; and at the same time to have said : — " Forbid the Romans to wail ; and let them not offend my godhead with their tears. Let the duteous crowd offer incense, and ap- pease the new Quirinus : and let them cultivate the profession of their fathers, and a life of war." He en- joined, and disappeared from his sight into subtile air. He calls the citizens together, and repeats the words enjoined upon him. A temple is raised to the god, 5^® the hill too named from him, J and appointed days * 496. Fitfuga — We must not confound this with the popu- lifugia, on the day after the nones of July, commemorative of a panic in battle. t 500. Proculus was a native of Longa Alba. X 511. Some derive the name of the hill directly from the Sabines, who are related to have obtained the Capitolium and 56 ovid's fasti, ii. 536. reproduce the religious services to the Roman father. Why the same day is named also the festival of Fools learn. There is wrapped up in it a trifling reason, I own, but a suitable one. The land of old had no skilful agriculturists : rugged wars jaded those active men. There was more of renown in the use of the falchion than of the curved plough : the neglected field bore little to its owner. Yet the an- cients sowed their spelt, reaped spelt ; and gave to 520 Ceres, as first fruits, the spelt, her own discovery. Warned by the advantage of it, they parched their corn : and by their errors suffered many losses. For at one time instead of corn, they swept off black ashes, at another they set their cottage on fire. They constituted a goddess of the kiln : delighted with her the husbandmen entreat that she should proportion the heat to their corn. Still the chief curio* proclaims the fornacalia in words of form, and appoints no fixed festival : and in the forum, where many a slab hangs around, each curia is de- 530 noted by a stated mark : and the foolish part of the community knows not what is their curia : but per- forms on the last day the returning rites. Honour is paid also to the graves of the dead : ap- pease the spirits of your ancestors, and offer on the cold pyres small presents. Dutiful attention is acceptable in place of rich offerings : subterranean Styx holds no greedy gods. To enwrap the tomb-stone Quirinal for their residence. Niebuhr goes so far as to assume that the Sabines founded a town there, to which they gave the name of Quirium. * 518. There were thirty curiones, of whom one was entitled curio maximus. ovid's fasti, ii. 562. 57 with cast-off wreathes is sufficient, and to scatter meal and the sparing grain of salt ; and bread soaked in wine, and loose violets : let all these be contained in a potsherd thrown out in the middle of the street. Nor do I prohibit richer offerings : but 540 even by that may the phantom be appeased : add prayers and suitable words, after raising an altar. This usage iEneas, no unsuitable teacher of duteous feeling, just Latinus, brought into your lands. He was in the habit of making annual offerings to his father's spirit ; hence the people learned off the dutiful ceremonies. But at one time, while with contentious arms they maintain long wars, they have neglected the parental holidays. It was not without its bad consequences ; for Rome is said, by reason of that ominous circum- stance, to have felt the heat of the funeral fires in its vicinity. For my part I scarcely believe it : — 550 but they are said to have come forth from their tombs, and uttered their complaints in the hour of still night : and they report that, through the streets of the city and the fields of Latium, hideous spec- tres howled, a ghostly multitude. After that the ne- glected honours are restored to the graves, and a moderation resulted to the strange sights and deaths. While, however, these things shall take place, linger unwedded, ye lasses ; let the torch of pine- wood await days more pure : nor let the inverted spear adjust your virgin locks, who shall appear to your impatient mother already marriageable. Con- ^qq ceal your torch, Hymenseus, and remove it from the melancholy fires ; other torches have the 58 ovid's fasti, ii. 586. mourning tombs. Be the gods also concealed, with the doors of their temples closed. Be the altars without incense, and let the hearths have no fires. Now unsubstantial spirits wander about, and bodies furnished with tombs : now the spectre feeds on the food set before them. Nor however holds all this, longer than that there remain of the month as many days, as my verses have feet. This day, because on it they make offerings to the dead, they have entitled 570 feralia — This is the last day for propitiating the dead. See, an old woman, full of years, sitting in the middle of the girls, performs rites to Tacita, yet is any thing but tacit herself; and places, with three fingers, three stalks of frankincense under the threshold, where the lowly mouse has made itself a secret passage. She then binds together enchanted threads with a dark reel ; and rolls in her mouth seven black beans : and after sealing a pilcher's head with pitch, and piercing it with a needle of brass, she stitches it up, and roasts it in the fire. She also drops wine on it ; and whatever wine is left either she drinks herself, or her attendants, but herself the 580 greater portion. — " The tongue of the foe we have tied up, and the mouths of our enemies, " says she, departing; and the old woman makes her exit staggering drunk. You will soon ask us, who is the Dumb goddess ? Hear all that I have learned through the old men of former times. Jupiter, taken with the irresistible love of Juturna, endured much, which so great a god should not ovid's fasti, ii. 600. 59 have suffered. She would at one time coneeal herself in the wood among the hazel copses, at another time spring into the waters which bore her own name. He calls together the water goddesses, as many as Latium held ; and in the midst of them all speaks words to this effect: — " This your sister 590 stands in her own light ; and shuns what is her advantage, to lock herself in the embrace of the highest god. Provide ye for us both ; for that which will be my great delight, shall be your sister's great benefit. Do ye oppose her, as she flies, at the very bank, that she plunge not in the river's waters." He had spoken. All the water goddesses of the Tiber assented, and they who occupy your chambers, holy Ilia. There happened to be a maid named Lara : but her old name, given her from her infirmity, was the former syllable repeated.* Full many a time had 600 Almo said to her, " Daughter, hold thy tongue" — Nor does she, notwithstanding, hold it. She, soon as she arrived at the marsh of sister Juturna, says — " Fly clear of the banks ;" and repeats the words of Jupiter. She also went to Juno, and expressing her pity for the wife, she says — " That husband of yours is wenching after the naid Juturna." Jupiter was furious, and deprived her of that tongue, which he employed so immoderately ; and charges Mercury : — " Lead her to the shades below — proper place that for the still : she shall be a water goddess, but it shall be of an infernal marsh." Jove's com- 610 * 600. The poet implies that Lara was only a corruption of Lala, which implied Talkative. 60 ovid's fasti, ii. 632. mands are being executed ; a grove received them in their journey : she is said on that occasion to have appeared fair in the eyes of the escorting god. He applies force : with her looks she entreats him, instead of words, and in vain exerts herself to speak w 7 ith dumb mouth. And she becomes pregnant, and gives birth to twins, the Lares, who watch the town wards, and are ever on wakeful guard in our city. The affectionate kinsfolk have named the next day the Caristia, and the crowd of relations come3 to the family feast. The reason is, that from the graves, and the relations who have died, it is a grati- 620 flcation to go directly to the living : and after the loss of so many, to see whatever remains of the stock, and to count up the degrees of kindred.* Let the innocent come : far away from this, far away be the unnatural brother, and the mother unkind to her own child ; he in whose eyes his father is tough- lived, who calculates his mother's days; the mother- in-law, whohates and unfairly oppresses her daugh- ter-in-law. Be there no brothers present of the line of Tantalus, no wife of Jason, nor she who gave to the husbandmen parched seed corn ; nor her sister, nor Progne, nor Tereus, who wronged both ; nor any one who swells his possessions by a course 53Q of wrong to his own kindred. Give incense, gay companions, to the gods of the house : Concord is thought to attend particularly favourable on this * 622. The Caristia followed the feralia, that people may re- move the gloomy impressions made on their spirits by the con- templation of death, and see how many of their relations were still on the land of the living. ovid's fasti, ii. 653. 61 day. And give the first offerings of the after course, that the presented platter, testimony of the grateful honour, may feed the cinctured Lares. And just now when the last hour of night shall recommend calm slumbers, take in your hands copious wine, about to ask a blessing, and say, " a health to ourselves, to you our country's father, great Ceesar, health :" and as you pour out the wine let your words be holy. When the night shall have passed over, be the god with his usual honours resorted to, who partitions by his evidence the fields. You, O Ter- 640 minus, whether you are a stone, or a stock buried in the field by the ancients, yet, even so, possess divinity. You the two owners adorn with chaplets on their opposite sides, and present you with two sets of garlands, and two of cakes. An altar is raised: to this the country dame herself brings, in broken* pot, fire taken from the warm hearth. The old man himself cuts up the fire wood, and piles it- together when chopped, and exerts some force to drive the branches into the stubbornf earth. While he excites the first blaze with dry bark, a lad stands beside him, and holds in his hands the broad basket. Thence when he has thrice thrown the 650 produce of the soil into the midst of the fire, the little daughter stretches out to him the sliced honey combs. Others hold wine ; all are severally * 645. It is not necessary to take curtus out. of its usual sense of stumpy or mutilated. "Heinsius, although he conceives that curtus sometimes denotes parvus merely, yet does not assign that sense here. This fire pot seems to have been the prop°er thing in which to convey fire, and probably to burn it too. t 648. The ground being still frozen. 62 ovid's fasti, ii. 674. thrown as offerings on the fire : the remaining crowd* look on, and maintain religions silence. The common Terminus is sprinkled also by the blood of a lamb : nor is he dissatisfied when a sucking pork is offered to him. The artless neighbours come together, and throng the feast ; and they sing, holy Terminus, your praises. You bound free states, and cities, and vast monarchies : every field shall 660 be without you in litigation. You have no solici- tation; are corrupted by no gold : preserve by law and integrity the farms committed to you. Had you formerly marked out the land of Thyrea, three hundred bodies had not been sent to the land of forgetfulness : nor had Othryades been enveloped in the piled armour. f Ah, how much blood did he pour out to his country ! What, when the Capitolium was being formed at first ? namely, the whole crowd withdrew, and gave place to Jove ; Terminus, as the ancients tell, remained conjoined in the temple; and occupies the sacred site with 670 mighty Jove. Now, too, that he may see nothing but the stars above him, in the roof the place has a small aperture. After that, Terminus, no unsteadi- ness is allowed you : whatever post you have been once set on, there abide. And make no allowances to * 654. The turba casse, all the family except the old man. t 666. The armour of which he despoiled the enemy and which he borne into his own camp to erect a trophy. The con- jectural reading lectus carries great probability : which may be either interpreted, picked out, chosen ; in which sense legere is often used, and which applies here with great propriety because these 300 were, of course, picked men. Another sense of lectus is suggested by Statins, who, alluding to the inscription of Othryades' name on the trophy in his own blood, writes — Et Laccdamonium Thyre lectura cruorem. ovid's fasti, ii. 700. 63 a neighbour's entreaty, that you seem not to set man before Jove : and whether you be struck by plough share or by harrow, cry aloud, " Mine is this land, that yours." There is a road which leads the citizens to the land of Laurentum, the seat of sovereignty, for which the Dardan chief once made : there, Termi- 680 nus, under the shape of the sixth mile stone from Rome, you see sacrifice made to you of the entrails of the fleecy herd. To other nations territory has been assigned under its limits — the globe's wide stretch and Rome's are one. Now must I tell the flight of Tarquin's royal house : from this the sixth day from the end of the month has derived its name. Tarquin held the last sovereign rule over the Roman people ; a man who outraged laws, but brave m battle. He had taken some cities by capitulation, stormed others : and Gabii he made his own by a shameful artifice. For the youngest of three, plainly 690 a son of the tyrant's, came in the stilly night into the midst of the enemy. They had drawn their swords — " Strike," said he, "an unarmed man : that my brothers would be glad of, and my father Tar- quin, who has torn my back with merciless lash" — That he may be able to say this, he had undergone stripes. The moon shone ; they look upon the youth, and sheath their swords : and when his dress was drawn down, they see his back marked. They weep even, and beg that he would superintend the management of the war on their side : he craftily concurs with these inexperienced men. 700 64 ovid's fasti* ii. 725. And now possessed of power, he sends a friend, and inquires of his father what course he would point out to him of handing over Gabii. There was near the house a garden in a high state of cultivation , with flowers of sweet scent, having its soil divided by a streamlet of gently purling water : there Tarquin hears the secret commands of his son ; and with his staff strikes off one by one the towering lilies. When the envoy has returned, and told of the decapitation of the lilies, the son says — u I un- derstand my father's bidding." And no delay is suffered. — The chief men of Gabii are cut off, and the fortifications given up, stripped of their com- 710 manders. Lo, shocking to be seen, from the midst of the akar issues a snake, and putting out the fire, snatches up the entrails. Phoebus is inquired of. The answer is thus given : " Who first shall kiss his mother, he shall rule." They brought hasty kisses to their mother, each of them, the crowd trusting without understanding the god. Brutus was a wise affecter of the fool, that he might be safe, dire tyrant, from your wiles : he lying on his face kissed mother earth, while he was supposed to have fallen 720 by striking his foot against an obstacle. Sometime Ardea is beleaguered by the standards of Rome, and under blockade endures weary delay. While they are unoccupied, and the enemy fear to join battle, the soldiery laid up in camp spend a life of indolence. The young Tarquin* entertains his * 725. It would seem from various passages of this book, that the title of Tarquinius belonged properly to the heir ovid's fasti, ii. 749. 65 associates both with feasting and wine ; and the king's son addresses them : — " While this stubborn Ardea detains us in indolent warfare, and permits us not to restore our arms to our native gods ; think you are the partners of our bed faithful ? And are we a subject of responsive anxiety to our wives ?" 730 they extol each his own : the argument gets hot by faction ; and both tongue and heart are warm with much wine. He rises, to whom Collatia had given an honoured name : — " There is no occasion for words ; trust facts," says he ; " abundance of the night remains — Let us mount our steeds, and make for the city." The proposal meets a ready accep- tance : the horses are bridled. They had borne their masters : forthwith they seek the royal palace : there was no warder at the door. Behold they find the royal daughter-in-law, chaplets scattered on her neck, to be spending the night on with wine before her. 740 From that, with quick pace, they seek Lucretia : she was spinning ; before her couch were the work- basket and soft wool. Her maidens by the frugal lamp were spinning the assigned tasks : amid whom she herself speaks thus in silvery tones — " There must be sent to your lord — Now, now hasten you, girls — as soon as possible a cloak wrought by our hands. But what have you heard ? for you are wont to hear more : how much of the war do they say re- mains ? You shall yet be defeated and fall : plaguy Ardea, you hold out against braver warriors, who apparent. Possibly this was an Etrurian usage preserved in that family ; but I do not venture to follow it in my translation. G 3 66 OVID'S FASTI, n. 771. 750 compel our husbands to be from home. Only may they return ! But / have my fears, for he my hus- band is rash, and rushes any where with naked sword. My senses leave me, and I faint, often as the image of him as engaged in the fight occurs to my mind : and an icy dullness pervades my breast/' she concludes by bursting into tears , and relaxes the tight thread ; and she has hidden in her bosom the expression of her countenance.* Even this became her ; tears became the virtuous matron ; and her countenance was worthy, and in keeping with her gentle nature. — "' Drop your alarms, I come/' says the husband. She has caught new life ; and 760 from her husband's neck has hung, a sweet burthen, f All this time the royal youth catches impassioned flames, and hurried off by blind desire he loses all control of himself. Her figure wins him, and her fair complexion, and her yellow locks ; and that grace which accompanied her, resulting from no training. Her words gain upon him, and her tone, and that she cannot be seduced : and the less hope there is, the more does he desire. Now the cock, preannouncing the dawn, had given his larum ; when the young men are on their return to their camp. He has his absorbed thoughts devoured by the likeness of the absent fair : and as ^70 he retraces more points and more engage him — Thus she satj — Thus she was attired — Thus she spun the * 756. In gremio deposuit vultum — Hid her tears in her Tobe. t 760. The excitement of her feelings left her no strength to stand : but it was sweet to the husband to sustain the dear weight, as she hung fondly from his neck. $ 774. Sic, . .hie — referring to the image which his passionate imagination called up. ovid's fasti, ii. 790. 67 warp — Her neglected tresses thus lay loosed upon her neck — She had that expression of countenance — thai complexion — that make — that loveliness of feature. As the billow is used to abate after a high storm, but yet from the wind which has been, the wave is swollen : so although the reality of the loved form was no longer near, the love abided which the living form had raised. He burns, and impelled by the stimulus of a tyrant's love, he me- ditates both violence and guile for the unmeriting wife — " The end is doubtful : we shall dare the 780 utmost/' said he ; " he may see to it, whether it is god or chance who aids the daring.* It was by daring that we won Gabii, too." Having said this, he has girded himself with his sword, and pressed his charger's back. Collatia re- ceives the youth in brass bound gate, just as the sun prepares to hide his face. A foeman, in the guise of a visiter, enters the halls of Collatinus. He is courteously entertained ; — he was connected in family. f How much mistake is there in the human mind ! Unknowing the world, unhappy thing, she prepares to entertain her enemy. J He had finished 790 * 782. " Something always aids the bold, be it God or chance ; and to it I commit the event of my present bold design." t 788. When Tarquin Prisons took Collatia he appointed his nephew Egerius, lieutenant of it ; who thus got the title of Collatinus. The present Collatinus was son of Egerius, as the present king son, according to some authors, of Priscus. $ 790. Perhaps the plural form of hostibus is not merely poetical : for even in prose, and in the very Bible, we meet such forms, where the writer would suggest that the particular in- stance falls under a general case — " She entertains, as people have often done their worst enemies — such is their inability to see into men's bosoms." 68 ovid's fasti, ii. 814. the entertainment : slumbers require their own hour. It was night, and there were no lights in the whole house — he rises, and from the scabbard draws the gilded blade ; and he comes, virtuous wife, to your chamber. And when he has thrown himself on the bed, he says : — " Lucretia my sword is in my hand : I, who speak to you, am the king's son, and Tarquin." She makes no reply : for she has no voice, no power of speech, or any understanding in her whole breast : but she trembles, as when the little lambkin, seized upon after leaving the pen, 800 lies at the mercy of the unsparing wolf. What would you have her do ? Is she to resist ? Feeble woman shall be defeated in the struggle. Is she to cry out ? But he has in his right hand a swoid to slay her. Is she to fly ? Laying his hand upon her breast he holds her down, a breast never touched be- fore by a strange hand. A lover and a foe he presses her with entreaties, and promises, and threats : nor by prayer, promise, or threat does he shake her firm- ness — " You avail little said he ; I will deprive you of life for the purpose of accusing you. The gallant shall be a false evidence of gallantry. I will slay a slave, in whose company you shall be said to have been detected. " The woman overcome by her fears, 810 yielded herself up to her sense of character. Why exult you, victor ? This victory shall be your des- truction. Ah, at what a price has one night's plea- sure stood to your throne ! And now day had risen : she sits with her hair in disorder, as a mother is used, when about to go to ovid's fasti, ii. 838. 69 her son's funeral pyre. She summons her aged father, with her constant husband from the camp : and waving all detainments, each is come : and when they see her state, they ask what is the sub- ject of her distress ; for whom she prepares a funeral; or with what calamity she is afflicted. For a long time she is silent, and covered with shame she conceals her face in her dress: her tears flow like running water. On one side her father, on the 820 other her husband console her tears, and entreat she would tell : and they both weep and feel the alarm of an undefined fear. Having made three efforts to speak, thrice she failed ; and venturing a fourth time, even so she lifted not her eyes. — " Shall we owe this, too, to Tarquin ? I shall publish," says she, e I shall publish, unhappy woman, myself my degradation ;" — and what she can, she relates : the conclusion remained : she wept, and the matron's cheeks were flushed. Her father and her husband excuse her, as being forced :* — " The par- don, which you give," said she, " I myself deny me." Nor is there any pause : she pierces her 830 bosom with a knife, which she had concealed, and falls, covered with blood, on her father's feet. Then too, on the very point of death, she has a concern not to fall in an unseemly manner : these were her thoughts even at the moment of her fall. Lo, over her body bewailing their common loss, both her father and her husband lose all energy. Brutus is by, and at last by his vigour belies his name, and snatches from her dying body the * 829. Coactx is governed by the phrase dant veniam facto, equivalent to ignoscunt, 850 70 ovid's fasti, ii. 861. piercing blade ; and holding it dripping with noble blood, he uttered with threatening accents these 840 bold words : — " I swear to you by this blood, mag- nanimous and pure, and by your disembodied spirit, which shall be to me a divinity, that Tarquin shall give vengeance, with his exiled race : now long enough has my native vigour been concealed.' ' She turned her glazing eyes, as she lay, toward the voice, and seemed to approve the words by bowing her head. The matron of a heroic spirit is borne to her burial, and draws after her tears and the popular hatred. Her gaping wound lies open.* Brutus by his cries excites the citizens, and relates the horrid acts of the king. Tarquin, with his children, flies. The consul undertakes the annual jurisdiction. That was the last day of mo- narchy. Am I deceived ? or is the swallow come, har- binger of spring? and does she fear lest winter revertingf trace back her course ? Often, however, Progne, will you complain that you made too great haste, and your husband Tereus shall be delighted at your shivering. And now two nights remain of the second month ; and Mars presses his steeds with yoked car. The name of Equiria has adhered, given by the circum- g@0 stance;! which the god witnesses in his own plain. You come in your order, Gradivus: your season * 849. For the purpose of popular excitement, t 854. Qua, used adverbially for qua via, by any means, per- haps. $ 859. Ex verOf from the equi of the races. ovid's fasti, ii. 864. 71 requires its place ; and the month is near marked by your name. We are come into the harbour, and finished the book with the month : next my skiff must launch on other waters. END OF BOOK II. 72 ovid's fasti, hi. 586. BOOK III. Mars, god of war, laying aside for a little time your shield and spear, attend ; and loose from hel- met your glossy locks. Should you, perhaps, ask what a poet has to do with Mars — the month which is being sung has its name from you. You see your- self that wild wars are carried on by Minerva's arm : whether muses she the less on liberal studies. After the example of Pallas, accept an occasion for lay- ing aside your spear : you will find somewhat also to do unarmed. Then too you were unarmed, when the Roman priestess received you ; and you gave 10 to this city suitable seed. The vestal Silvia* — for what forbids us to start from that ? — went in the morning for water to lave the religious utensils. She had reached so far as the bank sloping with an easy path. The earthen urn is laid down off her head. Fatigued she has rested on the earth, and received the breeze in her open bosom, and re-adjusted her tossed hair. While she is seated, the shady willows* and the singing birds have induced sleep, and the water's gentle purl. A soft slumber has imperceptibly stolen over her subdued * 11. The mother of Romulus is either named Rhea Silvia or Ilia ; which more philosophic historians are disposed to regard as names of different personages confounded together in the mist of antiquity. Ilia is more frequent in poetry : but Ovid often uses Silvia too ; and copies are at variance on the usage in most passages. 1 17. Meaning, perhaps, the bees in them; which accords with a description of Virgil's. ovid's fasti, hi. 40. 73 eyes; and her hand, become powerless, drops from her chin. Mars sees her, and seeing desires, and de- 20 siring enjoys her; and by celestial power concealed his stealthy deed. Sleep departs : she lies pregnant : for now within her womb you lay, founder of Rome. Feeble she rises ; nor understands she why she rises feeble : and resting herself against a tree, she speaks to this eifect : — " May it prove favourable and fortunate, I beg, what I have seen in sleep's airy phantom : or was it too distinct for sleep ? * Methought, I stood near Ilion's fires ; dropping from my hair, the woollen fillet falls before the sacred hearth. From a 30 certain part two palm trees, wonderful to be seen, shoot up together : of these the one was greater, and with its heavy branches had overshadowed all the earth, and had reached the highest stars with its young foliage. Behold, my uncle employs the axe against them — I shudder at the remembrance, acid my heart palpitates with fear. A woodpecker, bird of Mars, and a she-wolf fight in defence of the two trees : by means of these both palms were pre- served in safety." She had spoken ; and she took up her pitcher, although her strength was not fully recruited : she had filled it while she relates her vision, f 40 * 28. Clarius somno, more distinct than sleep, that is, than a dream, too distinct for a dream. f 40. It was against religion for a Vestal to lay down her pitcher of holy water : and to prevent it the bottom of the pitcher was rounded. Perhaps it would be refining too far, if we suppose Ovid to have this in view when he thus represents her as filling her pitcher after she had rested. 74 ovid's fasti, hi. 61. As time proceeded, Remus growing, Quirinus growing, her womb was swollen with the divine burthen. Now two signs remained to the lightsome god, so that the year should not elapse by the com- pletion of its course — Silvia becomes a parent : the idol of Vesta is said to have set her virgin hands before her eyes.* At least her altar shook as her priestess bare, and the terrified flames sunk beneath their ashes. When Amulius learned this, who disregarded every thing fair — for he kept possession of power 5Q torn from his brotherf — he orders the twins to be drowned in the river : the water has shrunk from the crime : the boys are left on dry ground. Who knows not that the infants grew up on the milk of the savage, and that a woodpecker often brought food to them when exposed ? I would not suppress mention of you, Larentia, nurse of so high a stock, nor of your circumstances, humble Faustulus. Your praises will come, when I shall tell of the Larentalia; these December holds, month dear to the gods of self enjoyment 4 The sons of Mars had grown up to the age of eighteen, and the young beard was just beginning 50 to rise under the yellow locks. The sons of Ilia were giving out the laws at their request^ to all the * 45. Perhaps there was an idol of Vesta in the Alban tem- ple, but there was none in the Roman. t 50. I am disposed to regard this as confirmatory of Amulius's character as contemptor aequi : that the poet may not seem to call him so merely for enforcing the penalties of a Vestal's breach of vow. + 57. Yet the probabilities are in favour of the opinion that these Larentalia were in honour of a different person. § 62. That is, they exercised an authority over the rustics, which they acknowledged. ovid's fasti, hi. 84. 75 swains who tilled the land, and the herders of kine. Frequently do they come home gratified with the blood of robbers, and restore to their appropriate fields the oxen which had been carried off. When they learned their birth, the announcement of their father expands their thoughts ; and they are ashamed to confine their celebrity within a few cottages. And falls Amulius pierced by the blade of Romulus, and the sovereignty is restored to his grandfather, now stricken in years. Fortifications are laid ; which, though they were small, yet it did not serve Remus to have overleaped.* Now, w T here 70 there lately had been woods, and the retreats of cattle, there stood a city ; when the father of the everlasting city says : " God of war — of whose blood I am believed to be begotten ; and that I should be believed, I shall give sure tokens — with you we commence the Roman year : let the month named from my father roll on first.' The saying is confirmed, and he calls the month from his father's name : this dutiful feeling is said to have pleased the god. And yet the ancients respected Mars beyond all : this allowance the war- like multitude made to their passion for arms. The °0 descendants of Cecrops respect Pallas, Crete of Minos Diana,f the land of Hypsipyle Vulcan, Sparta and Pelope'ian Mycense Juno, the skirts of Msena- lus the pine-wreathed head of Faunus ; Mars was a * 70. According to Ovid, Remus was brought to trial for it, and condemned to die. t 81. Dictynna of the Cretans, goddess of the chace, is iden- tified with Artemis or Diana. 76 ovid's fasti, hi. 108. fit subject of reverence to Latium, because lie rules over arms - arms gave to that untamed people both substance and fame. But if you happen to have leisure, consult the calendars of other states : in these also will appear a month under the name of Mars. That was the third with the Albans, the fifth with the Faiisci, 90 the sixth with your free state, Hemic soil : there is a concurrence between the Aricini, and the Alban calendar, and the steep walls built by the hand of Telegonus. The Laurentes reckon this the fifth, the iEquicolus the tenth month, the crowd of Cures the first of the second quarter ; and you, Pelignian war- rior, accord with the Sabinesyour progenitors: with each people this god is fourth. Romulus, that he may in the order, at least, exceed all, devoted to the author of his birth the first month. Nor had the ancients so many calends as now : that their year was shorter by a couple of ]Q0 months. Not yet had you, Greece, an eloquent but no very brave people, communicated to the conquerors your conquered improvements. Who fought well, he knew the improvements of Rome ; who could hurl the javelin, he was eloquent. Who had then perceived or the Hyads or the Piiads,* daughters of Atlas, or that there were at the ends of the axis a couple of poles ? That there were two Rears, of which the Cynosure was looked to by the * 105. This name is properlv written either Pliades or Pleiades. The Hyads and Piiads are both assemblages of stars in the Bull. The former were named Sueu!a3 by the Latins, by a misconception, as Cicero informs us, of the Greek theme : the Piiads were named Versnliis.. ovid's fasti, hi. 124. 77 mariners of Sydon, the Grecian bark to take obser- vation of Helice ?* and the signs of the zodiac, which her brother reviews in the long year, that these the sister's steeds dash through in a single month. Free 1 10 and unnoticed the stars ran over the year : but it was, however, agreed upon that there were gods.f The men of those times attended less to the motion of the signs, gliding through heaven, than to that of. their own standards, to lose which was no small crime. Those were, I own, of hay ; but hay had re- spect, as great as you now see your eagles to have. A long pole conveyed the elevated manipuli, or bundles ; whence the manipular soldier is entitled ,J With their minds uninformed, therefore, and want- ing as yet abstract science, they lost in every five years ten months. § It was a year when the moon had 120 completed her tenth revolution. This number was then in high respect : either because there are so many fingers by help of which we are used to rec- kon ; or because in the tenth month the woman * 108. The Cynosure is the Little Bear, whose last star is the polar star ; Helice tho Great Bear whose two foremost stars are the pointers to the polar star. Less exact observations assumed the latter constellation as the north, from which it is distant several degrees. t 112. Perhaps the sense of this passage is — " They imagined that the stars were unregulated in their movements, although they admitted the existence of the gods — They never supposed that the gods regulated their apparently irregular movements:" for this we should take currebant for currere credebantur, a very allowable acceptation. t 118. Varr. derives manipulus from the circumstance that those of the same companies advanced to the fight holding each other's hands. § 120. More literally — " They spent lustres too short by ten months — the lustres which they reckoned were short by ten months." h3 ?8 ovib's fasti, hi. 148. bears ; or because we come up to ten with the number enlarging, after that a commencement is made for a fresh start. Thus Romulus divided into ten sets the hundred fellows, and established ten hastati, and the princeps had as many men, as many the pilanus, and he who served on horse re- 130 cognised by law. Nay too, he also assigned as many subdivisions to the Titienses, and whom they entitle Ramnes, and to the Luceres.* In the year, then, he retained the usual number* ing : for this period the sorrowing wife bewails her husband's death, and that you may not doubt, sup- posing that the calends of March were not formerly the first in the year, you may direct your mind to these traces. The laurel leaf f is removed by the flam ens, which has stood the whole year, and new boughs are raised to the dignity. At this time the gate of the Rex is green, when the tree of Phoebus 140 is planted there. That Vesta also should be neat, wreathed with new leaves, the whitishf laurel leaves the Iliac hearth. Add, that in the secret temple the fire is said to be renewed, and the refreshed flame catches strength. And I have no small as- surance that the former years set out from this, in that Anna Perenna began to be worshipped in this month. Hence, too, the ancient honours are said to be entered upon, up to the period of your war, faithless Punic. To conclude — the fifth month * 132. Each of the three tribes contained ten curias. f 137. Laurea, from denoting a laurel leaf, is often used for a laurel wreath, or branch, or even for laurus itself. £ 142. Carta , after losing- its green gloss, faded. ovid's fasti, hi. 174. 79 from this had been Quintilis ; and thence sets out whatever month is named from its order. *' J " Pompilius, invited to Rome from the olive-bear- ing lands, first perceived that two months were wanting ; whether so taught by the Samian, who considers that we may be born over again ; or his own little Egeria informing him. But, however, even still the seasons wandered, until, amid the many cares of Csesar, this too was one. That god, and the head of so high a descent, did not judge that these matters were too humble for his notice ; and he wished to foreknow the heavens, his pro- mised place, and not to enter, a stranger god, the unknown abode. He is said by precise observations 160 to have distributed the sun's delays to return to its due signs. He united ten times six to 305 days, and the fourth part of one whole day. This is the year's amount. Every lustrum there must be added one day, which is made up of the fractions.* "If it be allowed poets to hear the private sug- gestions of the gods, as report, at least, thinks that it is — tell me why, Gradivus, when you are suited to manly services, the matrons observe your fes- tival." Thus I : — Mars thus spoke to me, dofTing his helmet, but yet the missile spear was in his right hand: — 170 "This is the first time that I am invoked to the pursuits of peace, a god serviceable to arms ; and I direct my march to a new camp. Nor am I aweary of my movement ; I take pleasure to stay on this * 166. Csesar's year had an advantage over the Egyptian by the intercalation of a day every fourth year. 80 ovid's fasti, hi. 198. side also; that Minerva may not fancy that she alone can do this. Learn, poet engaged on the subject of the Latin Calendar, what you require, and impress my saying in remembering bosom. Rome was small, if you would go back to her original constitution : but while small there was in 180 ner ? nevertheless, promise of the present city. The walls of defence were already raised, too narrow for the numbers one day to be, but thought too wide for their own crowd in those days. Should you ask what was my son's palace ; see his house of reed and thatch.* He was used to take the blessing of calm slumber in straw ; and yet, from such bed he arrived at the stars. " And already the Romans had a fame greater than their city, and yet they had no wives or fathers- in-law. The rich neighbours spurned poor sons-in- law ; and I was hardly believed to be the author of 190 his birth. It injured their reputation to have lived in shepherd homes, to have pastured oxen, and to hold but few acres of unfarmed soil. Every thing, birds and the beasts of the field, mixes with her mate ; and the snake has some female, from which to raise issue ; intermarriage is conceded to the remotest tribes : but no woman was inclined to wed a man of Rome. I felt pained, and I communi- cated to you, Romulus, your father's viewsf- — 'Away with prayers', said I, ' what you want, arms will give — get up a festival to Consus' — Consus will tell you the rest of the proceedings of that day, when * 184. Perhaps we should distinguish between the domus Romuli on the Palatium, and the casa Rom. on the Capitolium. f 197. Dare mentem, perhaps, * to tell one's mind/ ovid's fasti, hi. 220- 81 you shall be singing of his festival. Cures raged,* 200 and whomsoever the same resentment affected. Then first did father-in-law make war upon his sons-in-law. f " And already the ravished maidens had for the most part the further character of mothers; and the warlike proceedings of states so near were drawn out in tedious delay. The wives meet to- gether in the appointed temple of Juno: amid whom my daughter-in-law thus began to speak : — 1 Wives, ravished together, since we have this com- mon character, we can no longer be tamely dutiful : the lines stand in battle array : but in favour of which side ye should entreat the gods, choose ye : the husband holds arms on one side, on the other the father. We must debate whether we should 210 prefer to be husbandless or fatherless. I shall advise you to a course at once energetic and du- teous :' — She had given her plan ; they comply, and loose their hair, and with funeral garb cover their sorrowing persons. " The lines had been just drawn up, prepared for battle and death, the clarion was just ready to give signal of the fight : — when the ravished come be- tween both their husbands and fathers, and in their bosoms bear their babes, those fond pledges. Soon as they reached the middle of the plain, with their hair all disordered, they fell with bending knee on the earth : and the grandchildren with coaxing 220 * 201. There are some passages where Cures would seem to he used as the name of the townsmen, not the town. t 202. I cannot come into the opinion that the poet glances at the war between Julius Caesar and Pompey, 82 ovid's fasti, hi. 245. cries, as if they understood, stretched out their little arms to their grandfathers. Who could, called grandfather, then at length seen ; and who scarcely was able, had been forced to be able. The warriors drop their weapons and their fire ; and putting aside their swords, the fathers-in-law offer their hands to their sons-in-law, and receive theirs. They praise and embrace their daughters ; and on his buckler carries the grandfather his grandchild. — This was their bucklers' sweeter use. Hence the (Ebalian mothers deem it no trivial privilege to celebrate the day which was the first, 230 my calends; or, is it because, daring to throw themselves in the way of the naked swords, they had terminated by their tears the wars of Mars ?* or because Ilia proved by me a mother, with happy results, do they formally cultivate the sacred ceremo- nies and my day. Why say that the winter, enwrapped in ice, now at length gives way, and the snows disap- pear, overcome by the sun's warmth ? To the trees return their leaves, shorn by the cold : and the living bud sprouts from the tender shoot : and the rich blade, which has long hid itself, now finds a 240 hidden path, whereby to raise itself on high. Now is the farm field productive : now is the season of raising cattle : now does the bird prepare on its bough shelter and a home. With reason do the Latian mothers cultivate the prolific season, whose military service and whose fondest longings are comprised in bearing. Add that the Roman soldiery * 232. Mars is not clear whether the matronalia commemo- rated the convention of the matrons, or the proceedings which resulted from it. ovid's fasti, hi. 269. 83 was keeping out guard by night for their king — what hill has now the name of Esquilise — there by Latin wives a temple to Juno was on this day, if I remember, constituted public property. Why delay, and burthen your breast with different reasons ? see, what you require is plain before your eyes! My mother favours wives ; the crowd of mothers 250 throng me. This so duteous reason particularly becomes me." Bear flowers to the goddess : this goddess delights in flowers : with tender flowrets wreath her head.* Say — " You Lucina, have given us light:" say — " You favour the prayers of the travailing." If, however, any is pregnant, let her pray with her hair all loose, that she may gently facilitate her labour. Who will now tell me, why the Salii bear the heavenly arms of Mars, and chant Mamurius? Nymph, who bestow your cares on the grove and 260 marsh of Diana, inform me ; nymph, wife of Numa, at your festival I have arrived. Inclosed by the dark wood of Aricia's valley is a lake, sacred by ancient respect. Here hides Hip- polytus,torn asunder by the madness of his steeds ;f wherefore by no steeds that grove is entered. Threads hang, filleting the long hedgerows, and many a votive painting has been set up to the de- serving goddess. Oft times the woman, after gain- ing her wishes, having her forehead filleted by a chaplet, carries a blazing torch from the city. The 270 * 254. Lucina was particularly honoured by flowers ; and the very pavement of her temple was inlaid in mosaic with flowers. t 265. Furiis equorum, that is, maddened horses. 84 ovid's fasti, in. 294. sovereignty* is held by those who are both strong of hand and fleet of foot; and under his own prece- dent, each afterwards dies. With hidden murmur glides a pebbly stream ; thence often shall you drink, but in scanty draughts. Egeria, who sup- plies the water, is a goddess dear to the Muses. She was Numa's consort and adviser. In the first place she recommended that the citizens, too readily disposed to war, should be tamed down by equity and fear of the gods. After that laws were assigned, that the stronger may not prevail ; and the holy ceremonies were taught, and 230 were begun to be religiously cultivated. Their savage nature is put off, and right prevails over arms, and it is regarded as shameful to resort to violence with a fellow citizen : and people, a minute before violent are just converted on the sight of an altar, and give, to the glowing hearth wine and salted flour. Behold the father of the gods scatters the flashing fires through the clouds, and drains the heavens by copious showers : on no other occasion did the hurled bolts of fire fall more thickly. The king is in dread, and terror takes hold of men's breasts — " Be not over terrified : the lightning is to be averted by atonement," says she, " and the wrath of angry 290 Jove is bent. But Picus and Faunus will be able to tell the ceremonies of atoning, each a divinity of Roman soil. Nor will they tell without force — catch them, and apply bonds" — And accordingly she in- structs him by what methods they may be caught There was a grove at the foot of the Aventine, * 271. Regna — this priest, for he was called rex nemorensis. ovid's fasti, hi. 321. 85 dark coloured by the shady holm ; on seeing which you might well say a " a divinity dwells here." In the centre grass, and covered over with green moss there trickled from the rock a constant stream of water. From this Faunus and Picus used generally to drink alone. Hither comes king Numa, and slays to the fountain * a sheep, and distributes bowls full of 300 fragrant wine ; and lodged himself in a grotto he- hides with his party. The gods of the woodland come to their habitual spring, and allay their thirsty bosoms with abundant wine. The wine is followed by sleep : Numa issues from the cold grotto, and ties their hands together in tight bonds. When sleep has left them, they strive by straining to snap the bonds : as they strive the bonds more firmly hold them. Then Numa — " Gods of the groves, pardon our doings, if ye know that impiety is a stranger to our breasts : and point out in what way the light- 310 ning may be appeased." Thus Numa : Faunus thus, shaking his horns, speaks : — " You inquire after a difficult matter, and one which it is not heaven's will for you to learn at our instruction. Our godship has its limits. We are gods of the country, and to rule on the high hills : Jove has a discretion over his own bolts. Him yon will not be able to draw down from hea- ven of yourself ; but perhaps you will taking ad- vantage of our aid." Faunus had thus spoken : the views of Picus correspond. " Take from us, how- ever, the bonds," says Picus. " Jupiter shall come 320 hither, brought down from his topmost height. The * 300. That is to the Spirit of the fountain. 86 ovid's fasti, hi. 344. steamy Styx shall be evidence of my engagement.' ' Discharged from their ties, what they do, what in- cantations they recite, and by what means they draw down Jove from his place above, heaven for- bids man to know : be allowable things sung by us, and whatever may be said by poet's pious lips. They entice you, Jupiter, from the skies : whence the moderns now too celebrate you, and name you Elician. It is agreed upon that the tops shook of the Aventine wood, and the earth sunk lower, pressed 330 by the weight of Jove. The king's heart flutters, and from his whole body has ebbed the red current, and his hair has stood on end all rough. When his spirit has returned, — " Assign precise atonements," said he, " of the lightning, O you of the high gods both king and father : if the hands were pure, wherewith we handled your offerings ; this too which is required, if a pious tongue entreats." He assents to his prayer : but he concealed the truth by secret windings, and by ambiguous words alarmed the man .* " Cut off a head," said he : to whom the king says, " We shall obey : dug up in my garden an 340 onion shall be cut ofF." Jupiter has added "A man's:" — " Topmost hairs," says the other. He demands " A life :" to whom Numa says " Of a fish." He smiled, and, " See," says he, " you avert by these the omen of my bolts, firm man not to be de- * 338. As Ovid relates the dialogue, Jupiter appears to intend the sense which Numa puts on his words : but others represent Numa as explaining away and averting the intentions of Jupiter. ovid's fasti, hi. 371. 87 terred from my conference. But to you, when to- morrow's sun will draw forth his full disk, I shall give a sure pledge of sway." He said, and with vast thunder is borne over the troubled air, and has left alone the adoring Numa. Gladsome he returns, and relates the occurrences to the citizens : slow and unwilling was credence given to his words. u But, at least," says he, " we shall be believed, if the result follow my words : see, 350 hear, every one present, what will be to-morrow — When the sun will draw forth his full disk, Jupiter will give sure pledges of sway." They retire in doubt, and the promise appears tardy, and credit rests on the approaching day. Mild was the face of earth, and bedewed with the hoar frost of morning : — the community attend at their monarch's gate. He comes forth, and seats himself in- the midst on a maple throne. Around him 3^0 countless numbers both stand and hold their peace. Phoebus had merely risen with his upper edge : their anxious minds are in a fever both of hope and fear. He stood, and shaded* with snow-white covering he raised his hands, already not unfamiliar to the gods ; and thus speaks : — " The time is near of the pledged favour : confer upon your words the promised ful- filment." While he speaks, the sun had just raised from the depth his full disk : and from the pole of heaven came a heavy crash. Thrice thundered the god without a cloud, three flashes did he dart — Be- 370 lieve what I tell : — I speak of miracles, but facts. * 363. The Romans shaded their eyes in religious observances, ne facies occurrat hostilis et omina rumpat, as Virgil says. 88 ovid's fasti, hi. 399. The heavens began to open in the midst : the mul- titude, as well as their chief, raised their eyes : — be- hold, a shield, wheeling gently with a light breeze, drops down : the people's shouts ascend to the stars. He raises the present from the earth, first offering a heifer, which had never submitted to any yoke its neck to be pressed. And that he names an ancile, because it is pared on all sides, and wherever you observe it, every corner is off. 330 Then reflecting that the chance of sway rests in that, he enters on a plan of deep cunning. He orders several to be wrought, graved of like shape, that un- certainty may arise before the eyes of any one who should lie in wait to steal it. Mamurius — whether more precise in life or in his skill as a workman it were hard for one to say — finished off the task. To whom Numa in a spirit of liberality, said, " ask the price of your work. If my character for truth be es- tablished, you will not ask any in vain." He had already given to the Salii — a name derived from Saltus, or dancing — both arms and words to be sung to certain measures. Then thus Mamurius : — " Let fame be my price, and let my name be mentioned at the close of the verse." Thereupon the priests pay the promised reward to the ancient work, and name Mamurius. If any woman shall wish to wed, postpone, although both parties shall be in haste : a short delay has many advantages. Arms bestir the fight : fight is unsuited to the wedded : when they shall be lodged, it will be a happier omen. On these days too the wife of the tufted Dial priest, cinctured should have her locks attired in a head dress. 390 ovid's fasti, hi. 422. 89 When the third night shall rise, and roll its fires, of the two fishes one shall be sunk. For they are 400 two, the one near the southern winds, the other near the north: each takes its name from the wind. When the wife of Tithonus shall have begun with cheeks of rose to dew, and shall impel the hours of the fifth day : whether he is the Bearward, or the slow Carter, he shall be sunk, and elude your view. But the Vintager shall not elude. — It is no great delay to say whence this constellation too derives its cause. Bacchus is said on the heights of Ismarus to have loved the beardless Ampelos, begotten of the Satyrs and a nymph. To him he had given a vine pendent 410 from an elm's boughs, which still has its name from the youth's. While he rashly picks on the branch the speckled grape, he falls. Bacchus conveys him lost on earth among the constellations. When the sixth Phoebus from ocean scales the steepy Olympus, and on winged coursers treads the air,* whoever attend and pay respect at the chapel of hoary Vesta, place on Iliac hearth the vase and incense. f To Csesar's countless titles was added on this day the honour, which he prized above all, of the pontificate. Over the everlasting fire pre- 420 sides the divinity of the everlasting Csesar. You see conjoined the pledges of power, J: — From the * 416. Carpere implies to take away one by one, and applies here by an allusion to the shortening of the journey at each dis- tinct step. t 417. I do not know how some can understand vestals in the masculine quisquis. Colere penetralia Vestce, for colere Vestam. % 422. That is, the fire of Vesta and the priest, on the living of both of which Ovid wishes to say that the safety of the country rested. i 3 90 OXIDS FASTI. III. 448. ashes of ancient Troy the choicest prey, loaded with which iEneas was secured from the enemy : a priest from iEneas descended touches the kindred divinity. — Preserve, O Vesta, his kindred person. Well do ye live, fires, which with sacred hand he keeps alive. — Live undying, I beseech, both fire and chief. The nones of March have one mark : that on that day they repute that the temple of Vejovis was 430 consecrated before you reach the Two Groves. When Romulus surrounded the grove with a high stone- wall — " Hither fly, whoever you are," says he, "you shall be inviolate. " From how low an origin the Roman erew ! how unenviable was the olden multitude ! That, however, the strangeness of the name should not stand in your way ; learn who this god is, or why he is thus named. He is young Jove ; regard his youthful looks ; then regard his hand ; it holds no thunder bolt. The bolt was assumed by Jove after the attempt of the giants to possess themselves of heaven : 440 originally he was unarmed. Ossa was set on flames by the new fires, and Pelion, over Ossa, and Olympus, stuck in the firm earth. With him stands also a goat : nymphs of Crete are reported to have given him food ; she furnished milk to the infant Jove. Now I am called off to the name. Agriculturists entitle corn vegrand, which has badly grown, and small things vesca. If this be the force of the word,* why should not I * 447. Of the prepositive ve. ovid's fasti, hi. 473. 91 assume that the temple of Vejovis is the temple of little Jove ? And now when the stars shall bespangle blue heaven, lift your eyes : you shall see the neck of the Gorgon horse. He is held to have sprung, his 450 mane bedipped with blood, from the pregnant neck of the slain Medusa. As he glided over the clouds and beneath the stars, the heavens served for earth, for legs his wings. And he had just taken in fretting jmouth the new bridle, when his buoyant hoof pawed out the Aonian spring. At present he is in possession of the skies, which before he sought on wings, and he twinkles glistening with fifteen stars. Forthwith on the succeeding night you shall see the Gnossian crown. In consequence of the guilti- 460 ness of Theseus she became a goddess. Already, to her advantage, she had obtained Bacchus in exchange for her forsworn lord, who had given to her ungrateful husband the clew to be retraced. Delighting in her married lot, she said, " What wept I, silly thing ? It was a good thing for me that he was faithless." In process of time Bacchus, having his locks smoothed into shape, conquers the Indians, and returns enriched from the Eastern world. Among the captive girls of fine shape, the king's daughter was too dear to Bacchus. The fond wife wept, and sauntering on the winding shore, with her hair all loose, she poured out words to this effect : — 470 " Lo, a second time, ye billows, hear a like com- plaint; lo, a second time, you sand, receive my tears. I said, I remember, ' Forsworn and faithless 92 ovib's fasti, hi. 496. Theseus!' he is gone ; Bacchus is under the same charges. Now, too, I shall exclaim, " Let no wife trust a husband ! Changing the name, my cause is revived. O, would to heaven, that, for my part, I had gone on whither I had begun to go, and now, at this present day, I should be no more ! Why, Bac- chus, did you save me, when I should have perished on the lonely sands ? I could have done with my 4gQ griefs at once. Light Bacchus, lighter than your leaves, which bind your temples — Bacchus, familiar to my tears ; did you presume before my eyes to bring my rival, and to unsettle* a union so har- monious. Wo is me ! where is your plighted faith? where all you were used to swear ? Unhappy me ! How often do I utter these complaints ! You blamed Theseus, and you used yourself to call him deceitful : by your own judgment you yourself sin the more shamefully. Let none know this, and let me consume with silent anguish, lest I be thought 490 to have deserved to be so often deceived. I should especially wish it to be concealed from Theseus, lest he be glad that you are partaker in his own guilt. But, I suppose, I was dusky, and a fair com- plexioned concubine was preferred to me ! Be that colour imputed to my enemy. f Yet what advan- tage gain I by this ? She is the more pleasing to you by her very defects. What do you ! she black- ens your bosom. Bacchus, fulfil your pledge, and * 484. Sollicitare properly implies to shake to and fro for the purpose of displacing. t 494. Hie color, i. e. the reproach of it, of being fusca : eveniat, i. e. dicatur ; hostibus, for hosti, as at ii. 790. ovid's fasti, hi. 519. 93 set no woman before the love of a wife, whom even constant habit makes to love her husband. The horns of a fine shaped bull captivated my mother ; your horns me — they praise me ; the other passion was disgraceful — let it not injure me that I love : 500 for, Bacchus, it was no injury to you,* that you yourself confessed to me your flame. And you do nothing strange in that you inflame me ; in fire you are said to have been born, and snatched from fire by a father's hand. I am she to whom you were wont to promise heaven; ah, me, instead of heaven, what favours do I meet !" She had ended. Bacchus long heard her words as she complained, while he happened to follow after her. He anticipates her by a fond embrace, and in a course of kisses dries off her tears : and he says, " Together let us seek the heights of heaven. 510 Connected with me in love, you shall assume a name connected with me; and now your name, altered, shall be Libera. And I shall provide that there be with you the memorial of your crown, which Vulcan gave to Venus, she to you." As he says he does ; and changes the nine jewels into burning brilliants. That golden crown now twinkles through nine stars. When he, who bears on rapid wheels the shining day, shall have raised six,f when he shall have sunk as many revolutions ; you shall see the second Equiria in the grassy plain, which the Tiber closes • 501. Nocere, to create a prejudice against one, as at verse 191. t 517. Sex orbes, six revolutions, or, perhaps, six disks — for six times — when he shall have six times raised his disk. 94 ovid's fasti, hi. 542. 520 in on the side with its sweeping waters. If, how- ever, this should chance to be occupied by the flooding wave, let the dusty Coelian receive the steeds. On the ides is the jovial festival to Anna Perenna, not far from your banks, stranger Tiber. The commons come and, scattered on every side through the green grass, carouse ; and with his own sweet- heart feasts each. Some hold out under the bare heaven ; a few pitch tents ; by some a leafy bower is formed of branches ;* others have set up, for stiff pillars, reeds, and laid over them their extended 530 coats. They get warmed, however, by sun and by wine ; and they pray for as many years as they quaff cups, and drink to reckoning. There you will meet a man to drink off the years of Nestor, and a woman to become as old as the Sibyl as far as cups can go. There too they sing what they have learned at the theatrical exhibitions, and pliantly gesticu- late to their own words. And having placed the mixing vase, they lead the stiff dance ; and skips, arrayed in finery, the miss, with flowing locks. As they return they stagger, and are a gazing sight to the crowd, and the multitude that meets them calls 540 them happy souls. I lately came in their way : I saw a procession worthy to be described : a drunken old woman was dragging after her a drunken old man. * 528. Sunt quibus facta casa est, idiomatically for quibusdam facta est : and we have a corresponding idiom — ' there are some to make a bower,' for ' some make a bower.' But the text is among the few passages in which the second clause of this form is not in the subjunctive mood. ovid's fasti, hi. 564. 95 As to who, however, this goddess is, for there is a variance between the reports, no legend is to be omitted from my proposed plan. The unhappy Dido had been consumed by the flames of iEneas ; had been consumed by a funeral pyre, which she raised up for her own death :* and her ashes had been collected, and there was on a marble slab this short form of an inscription, which she herself when dying had left : — " iEneas furnished both the occasion of her death and the sword : Dido fell, herself employing her own hand." 550 The Numidians forthwith invade the realm with- out a defender, and the Moor Iarba possesses him- self of the captured palace : and remembering how he was rejected, he says, " Yet see, I enjoy Elissa's chamber, whom she so often repulsed." The Ty- nans fly in every direction, whither various views impel each : as when at times bees wander un- settled after the loss of their monarch. The third harvest had received the corn to be un- husked : and the third vintage had entered the hollow vats. Anna is expelled her home, and weeps as she leaves her sister's walls : yet she pre- viously confers on her sister the rites of death. The ^60 light ashes soak the perfumes mixed with a sister's tears, and receive the hairs cut as an offering from off her head. And thrice she said "Adieu," thrice pressed the ashes raised to her lips, — and her sister seemed to be in them. Having gained a ship and attendants of her flight, she sails with * 546. Perhaps there is made here the same play upon two significations of ardere, the literal and metaphoric, as at verse 503 on those of urere. 96 ovid's fasti, hi. 592. steady breeze, looking back upon those walls, a sis- ter's darling structure. There is a fruitful isle, Melite, near the barren Cosyra, against which the billow dashes of the Liby- an sea. For this she makes, relying on the ancient friendship of its king. — Battus her friend was king 570 there, abounding in means. After he learned the fortunes of the two sisters, " This land," he says, " such as it is, is yours." And yet he had observed to the last the duties of hospitality, had he not feared the great power of Pygmalion. Twice had the sun reviewed his signs ; the third year was in pro- gress ; and a new land was to be sought by the exiles. " Your brother comes and invades us with an armed force," says the king, who abhorred war ; " we are not prepared for hostilities — fly and save yourself." She flies as ordered, and to wind and wave trusts her bark — a brother was more rude than 580 ocean's roughest plain. There is near the fishy stream of the pebbly Cra- this a treeless district : the multitude of its inhabi- tants name it Camere. For this she sailed : and she was not further from it than so far as a sling can nine times throw. First fall the sails, and are flapped to and fro by the fitful gale. " Cleave the waters," says the boatsman, " with your oar- age." And while they prepare to furl the sail with twisted tackle, a sweeping gust from the south strikes on the crooked poop ; and the vessel is borne away ran into the wide main, while the pilot vainly resists ; and the land which they had seen is fled from their sight. The billows bound against its sides, and the seas are ovid's fasti, hi, 616. 97 torn up from the lowest depths, and the hold drinks in the foaming waters. Skill yields before the winds ; and already the steersman foregoes the use of checks, but he too by prayers calls for aid. The Phoenician outcast is tossed through the swelling waves, and holds up her garment to her moist eyes. Then first was Dido pronounced happy by her sister, and who- ever has laid her body on any corner of land. The poop is struck by a heavy blast on the shore of Lau- rentum : and all getting out of her, she is swallowed up in the waters, and disappears for ever. 600 Already had iEneas been gifted with the throne and daughter of Latinus ; and had combined to- gether the two clans. On the coast which he had acquired by marriage, attended only by Achates, while with naked foot she treads the solitary way, he spies her wandering, and cannot bring himself to believe that it is Anna : — " Why should she come into Latium's lands ?" while iEneas debates in his own mind : "It is Anna/' cries out Achates : at the name she raised her eyes.* Whither is she to fly ? What is she to do ? What caverns of earth is she to seek ? Before her eyes passed her unhappy sister's death. The heroic son of Venus has caught q\q her thoughts, and he addresses her while she trem- bles — -He weeps, however, at the remembrance, Elissa, of your death. " Anna, by this land I swear, which formerly you were used to hear to be given me under happier destiny ; and by the gods, who accompanied me, * 608. Ad nomen, toward the name, toward the sound, that is, toward the person who used the name : or, perhaps, at the name, on the sound of her name. 98 ovid's fasti, hi. 639. lately settled in this home ; that they often rebuked my delays. And yet I had no apprehensions that she would die : that fear I had not : ah me, she was resolute beyond all belief. Relate it not ; I have seen the wound unbecoming that bosom, as I 620 lately dared to visit the abodes of Tartarus. But you, whether choice has driven you on our coast, or heaven, make use of the advantages of my power. Much do I gratefully owe to you, every thing to Elissa : you shall be dear to me on your own ac- count, dear on your sister's." She believed him as he thus spoke — for no further hope remains — and she laid before him her wander- ings. And when she has entered his palace, arrayed in Tyrian attire, iEneas begins, the remaining crowd is still — " Lavinia, my wife, I have no unlawful reasons* to introduce to you this lady : shipwrecked 630 I lived on her bounty. Sprung from Tyre, she pos- sessed a realm on Libya's shore : and I beg that you love her as a dear sister." Lavinia makes every pro- mise, and in her secret soul suppresses her concealed sting, and although chafed disguises her feelings. And when she sees many presents to be made pub- licly before her eyes, she thinks that many are also sent in secret. And yet she has not resolved how to act : she hates as one goaded to madness : and prepares treachery, and longs to take revenge and die. It was night : before her sister's couch Dido seemed to stand, stained with blood, her hair all * 629. Pia causa, non impia, not injurious to your bed : or, perhaps, it merely denotes gratitude to Anna. 99 ovid's fasti, hi. 660. neglected, and to say — " Fly, pause not, fly the 640 mournful house. " After her words a breeze shook the mournfully creaking door. She springs forth, and quickly flings herself by a low window into the fields — terror of itself had made her venturous — and whither her fears hurry her, thinly covered with uncinctured dress she speeds, as the alarmed deer on hearing the wolves. The horned Numicius is be- lieved to have snatched her beneath his loving waters, and to have concealed her within his marsh. For a time the Sidonian maid is sought with loud cry from field to field : the traces and marks of her feet are seen. They had reached the river's banks : 650 the impress of her feet was on them : the con- scious stream detained its silent course. She seemed herself to say — " I am the water nymph of the calm Numicius. Concealed in the constant flow, I am named Anna Perenna." Thereupon they feast de- lighted in the fields they had wandered over, and with copious wine they do honour both to themselves and the day. With some she is the moon, because by months she fills up the measure of the annus, or year :* some regard her as Themis : others as the Inachian heifer : there will be some to name you, Anna, an Atlantid nymph, and to say that you gave to Jupiter his first 660 * 657. ' Some say the moon was named Perenna Anna ab implendo anno/ But the opinion is more probable that as the sun or year was named annus, so the moon or month was named anna, of which Diana, for Diva anna, was only a form : as Janus was a form of annus. And indeed a goddess named Jana is found in Roman mythology, sometimes confounded with Juno, and perhaps the same as Juno Lucina. The form Jana brings the name nearer to Io andlnachis. An analysis has been drawn between her and the Hindoo Anna Puma. 100 ovid's fasti, hi. 679. 660 food.* This fable, too, which I am going to relate, has reached our ears ; and it is not at variance with probability. The old commons, and as yet protected by no tri- bunes, has fled, and retires on the summit of the Sacer Mons. Already even had the food failed them which they had brought with them, and the bread suited to the use of man. There was one Anna, born at Bovillae in the vicinity of Rome, a poor old woman, but of decent industry. She hav- ing her grey locks bound up with a little bonnet, 670 shaped rural cakes with trembling- hand : and in the morning was used to disperse them smoking sof among the people : to them this supply was wel- come. Peace being established in the domestic re- lations of the city, they set up a statue to Perenna^ for that she had brought them relief when exhausted. It now remains for me to tell why the girls sing- indelicate songs, for they assemble, and revile in formal verses. % She had been lately appointed a goddess : Gra- divus comes to Anna, and taking her aside, he makes to her a proposal to this effect : — " You are worshipped in my month : I have shared my time * 660. It is no where remarked that a daughter of Atla* nursed Jove : nor is it necessary to adopt that sense here. Ovid may- imply — * Some say that you were a daughter of Atlas, others that you were one of the nymphs who fed Jupiter. t 671. I prefer to refer sic to fumantia, smoking so, that is* smoking greatly — Both the Latin and English usages, but especially the former, being well established; and the Greek having the same form. % 675. It is ridiculous of Johnson to say that what " reason did not dictate, reason cannot explain ; M if it be meant that reason can never show us in what folly that originated, whiclx was not dictated by reason. ovid's fasti, hi. 704. 101 of the year with you : on your services depend my great hopes. I am on fire, consuming with the love, 680 a warrior, of the warrior goddess : and now this many a day I feed the wound. Provide, that we deities, like in our tastes, come together : this office becomes you, goodnatured dame." He had done : she plays on the god with hollow promise, and in all the delays of doubt draws on his weak hopes. As he presses her repeatedly, she says to him : — " I have executed your instructions : she yielded to solici- tation : it was with difficulty she gave herself up."* The fond god is delighted, and makes ready a cham- ber : into it is Anna brought, covering up her face like a new bride. Mars going to snatch a kiss, 690 suddenly sees the face of Anna : now shame seizes the baffled god, now rage. The new goddess ridi- cules the lover of her own Minerva : and nothing ever gave more delight to Venus. Hence old humour and indelicate sayings are sung, and she is in high glee in that she has practised on the mighty god. I was on the point of passing over the planting of the daggers in the city's chief ; when thus spoke Vesta from her pure hearth : — " Decline not to record it : he was my priest : me the impious hands assailed with their weapons. I myself snatched 700 the great man away, and left a bare likeness : what fell by the sword was butCsesar's phantom. He, on the one hand, placed in heaven, waits in the halls of Jove, and holds a temple consecrated to him in the * 688 Evicta . . .dare manus — Anna employs military meta- phors in her conversation with Mars. K 3 102 ovid's fasti, hi, 726, great forum : but whoever, attempting a crime against religion, the divinity of heaven forbidding y had assailed a pontiff's life, they lie in the death which they deserved, Be Philippi evidence,* and they with whose scattered bones the earth is whitened. This was the task of Csesar, this his family duty, this 710 his first lesson, in just war to revenge his father. When the next dawn shall have refreshed the tender herbs, the Scorpion shall be visible for his first half. The third day after the ides is universally observedf in honour of Bacchus. Bacchus, favour a poet, while I sing your festival. Nor shall I relate of Semele ; to whom if Jupiter would not bring with him his lightnings, unarmed he was reckoned no god :J nor of the maturization of the mother's bur- then in the father's body, that you a babe may be born at the due time. I have no time to tell of the Sithonians and the Scythian victories, and the con- 720 quest of your people, Indian bearer of frankincense. You too shall be unmentioned, unhappy prey of your Theban mother : andyou,Lycurgus, impelled by mad- ness against your own knee. Behold, I have a strong fancy to tell of the sudden fishes,§ and the Tyrrhene wonders : but it is no fit subject for this my verse. Of this verse it is fit subject to relate the reasons * 707. The plural form in testes is occasioned merely by that of Philippi. Philippi et hostes quorum ossibus albet humus, is all only a more amplified form for ii qui Philippis cecidere. f 713. Lux celeberrima merely implies a day of throng, a day when many people were out of their houses through the streets and at the temple of Bacchus. t 716. Semele was told that her gallant only pretended him- self to be Jupiter; and she could not be satisfied that he was the great god himself, unless he came with all heaven's lightning. $ 723. Subitos pisces for nautas subito factos pisces. ovid's fasti, hi. 749. 103 why a mean old woman invites the citizens to her cakes. Before you were born altars had no honours, Bacchus, and grass was met on their cold hearths. They tell that you, after the conquest of Ganges and the whole east, set aside first fruits to the great Jove. You first made offerings of cinnamon and 730 frankincense, your capture, and of the roasted car- cass of ox, emblem of your triumph. The initial offerings take the name of libamina — as well as the liba — from that of their institutor, for that a part is given from the victim to the holy hearth. The liba, or cakes, are made for the god, because he delights in sweet flavours ; and they say that honey was dis- covered by Bacchus. He was journeying from the sandy Hebrus, attended by the Satyrs — my tale has no unpleasing humour — and they had just arrived at Rhodope, and the flowery Pangseus. The cymbal bearing hands of the train rung : behold new tenants of air flock, impelled by the tinkling noise : and 740 wherever the sounds excite the air, bees follow. Bacchus collects them as they wander, and encloses them in a hollow tree : and has the reward of the discovery of honey. When the Satyrs and the bald headed old man tasted of the flavour, they were looking through the whole grove for the yellow honey combs. The old man hears the swarm's hum in the corroded elm, he spies the wax too, and conceals his discovery.* And as the lazy man sat on the back of his bending ass, * 748. I doubt if ' conceals' conveys the full sense of dissi- mulat : which, perhaps, were better rendered by—' He looks into the tree and tells them that, pretends that, there is no honey there.' 104 ovid's fasti, hi. 776. 750 he guides him to the elm's hollow bark. Over him he stood, resting on the branchy stock, and greedily seeks the honey hoarded in the trunk. Thousands of hornets flock together,* and drive their stings deep on his naked crown, and mark his face all over. He tumbles headlong, and is struck by the ass's heel : and cries aloud upon his party, and entreats assist- ance. The Satyrs run together, and smile at their parent's swollen face : he limps with stricken knee. The god himself smiles likewise, and teaches him to smear mud : he complies with the suggestion, and 760 with mud bedaubs his face. The father enjoys honey : and with good right do we give to its discoverer white honey poured over the warm cake. Why a woman stands over them, is not a point of deep understanding : — he excites the troops of women with enwreathed spear. Why an old woman does this, you ask. This period of life is more given to wine, and loves the favours of the loaded vine. Why is she enveloped in ivy ? Ivy is most agreeable to Bacchus. And why this is the case, it will take no time to tell. The nymphs of Nysa, when his step- mother seeks the babe, have placed this bough be- 770 fore the cradle. It remains to find why the gown of freedom is conferred on the boys upon your day, fair Bacchus. — Whether in that you yourself always seem a boy and young man, and your age is mixed up of both : or because you are a Father, fathers commit their sons, dear pledges, to the care of your divinity : or * 753. Perhaps the best view of the passage is that he was attacked by a troop of hornets, who were lying in wait for the bees outside the nest, as Virgil describes them often to do. ovid's fasti, hi. 805. 105 because you are Liber, the vestis libera too, or dress of freedom, is assumed under your favour, and the way of more free living : or because, when the ancients more earnestly cultivated theirlands, and the senator in the farm of his forefathers followed up the busi- ness of agriculture, and it was no imputation on 780 one's character to have his hands hard ; then the countryman was used to come into the city to the festivities — but that compliment was paid to the gods, not to taste — the institutor of the grape had games on his day, which he now has in common with the torchbearing goddess ; that, therefore, a throng might crowd the youth commencing man, the day seemed not unsuitable for conferring the gown. Turn hither, O Father, your mild head and peace- ful horns, and give my genius full sail. People go to the Argei — what they are the proper 790 chapter shall tell — on this day, if I remember aright, and the preceding. The star of the kite slopes down toward the Lycaonian Bear. This becomes visible on this night. What gave heaven to this bird, would you know. Saturn had been expelled from his throne by Jove : provoked he animates the powerful Titans to war, and demands the aid which had been promised to him by the Fates. A bull sprung from mother earth, a wonderful sight, was a dragon in its hinder parts. Him with triple wall the violent Styx, at the sug- 800 gestion of the three Fates, had shut in gloomy groves. Destiny was that he should be able to sub- due the eternal gods, who had burned on the flames the entrails of the bull. Him Briareus slays with axe made of diamond, and was just on the very 106 ovid's fasti, hi. 823. point of giving the entrails to the fire. Jupiter orders the birds to snatch them away : the kite brought them to him, and arrived by his service among the stars. One day comes between, and rites occur to Mi- 810 nerva, which have their name from the conjunction of five days. The first day is free from blood ; and it is irreligious to encounter with weapons : the reason is that Minerva was born on this day.* Ano- ther day and three are celebrated on strowed sand. The goddess of war is gratified by the baring of the sword. Now boys and delicate girls adore Pallas : the male who shall gain the good will of Pallas shall be learned ; girls, by pleasing Pallas comb the wool ; learn to unload the distafFall so full . She also instructs with shuttle to cross the standing warp, and with reed 820 closes the open work. Her cultivate, you who from damaged dress remove the stains; her cultivate, whoever you are, who prepare the copper for the fleece : and let no one expect to make well the sandal ties without P alias's favour, though he were more skilful than Tychius : and although compared inhandicraft with old Epeus he be superior, he shall be unhandy under the displeasure of Pallas . You, too, who by Phoebean skill dislodge disease, pay from your dues a few to the goddess. Nor you despise her, harshf masters, crowd wronged of your income : she draws 830 in new pupils. And you who wield the graver ; and who burn the slab with colours ; and who give shape to the breathing stone with skilful hand. She is a goddess of a thousand crafts ; at least she is a * 812. Probably it was made a point to consecrate her temple on what was reputed her birth day : and it is not necessary, with com- mentators, to confound the two circumstances. — Vid. vers. 818. t 829. Feri — plagosi Orbilii. ovid's fasti, hi. 860. 107 goddess of song. If I deserve, may she stand by, partial to my Muse. Where the Coelian hill comes down from its height to the plain, here where it is not level, but the street is nearly level ; you may see the small chapel of Capta Minerva, which the goddess began to have on her birth-day. . The origin of the name is doubtful : we entitle a shrewd genius capital ;* she is a goddess of genius. Or is it because she is 840 said, without mother, to have sprung with her shield from the crown of her father's head ? or because she came captive to us after the reduction of Falisci ? And this very thing old records tell. Or because she has a law, which orders the discovery of theft to pay the penalties of life ? From whatever conside- ration you draw your title, ever, Pallas, hold your segis before our imperial house. The last of the five days puts us in mind to purify the shrill trumpets, and sacrifice to the brave goddess. 850 Now you may say, with your eyes upraised to the sun, " He yesterday cumbered the fleecy sheep of Phryxus." The seed-corn parched by artifice of guilty stepdame, the blade had raised no ear, as it is used. One is sent to the oracular tripod, to bring back by exact response what aid the Delphic god gives out for the unproductive soil. He corrupted too, as well as the seed, reports that the death of Helle was required by the response, and of the youth- ful Phryxus. Still refusing, the citizens, and the pres- sure of circumstances, and Ino had driven the king to submit to the horrid orders : and his sister and 860 * 840. The ancients sometimes seem to regard the head as the seat of thought, which they usually refer to the breast. 108 OVID ? S FASTI. III. 884. Phryxus, having their temples filleted with boughs, stand together before the altar, and bewail their con- joint fate. Their mother sees them, as she happened to hang in air, and strikes with hand dismayed her naked breast. And into the snake-sprung city, with attendant mists, she springs; and rescues thence her children : and t. '.at they may take flight, a ram all sparkling with gold is given to them. He bears them through the wide channel. The female is said to have held his horn with feeble hand, when 870 she occasioned from herself the water's name. The brother almost perished with her, while he desires to assist her fallen, and far extends his stretching hands. He wept, as the partner of the double peril were lost, unknowing that she was linked to the sea-blue god. After reaching the shore, the ram becomes a constellation : but his golden fleece ar- rives at the Colchian palace. When the approaching dawn shall have sent be- fore its face three morning stars, you shall get the hours of day equal to those of night.* When four times from this the shepherd shall have pent the full-fed kids, four times the grass be- come hoar with fresh dew, Janus shall be to be prayed to, and with him mild Concord, and Public Health, and the altar of Peace. The moon sways the months : the period too of this month is concluded by the occasion of wor- shipping the moon on the Aventine hill. * 878. I receive tempora diurna for horas diurnaa, rather than for diem. Day and night being severally divided into twelve parts, or horag, those of the day could not be severally equal to those of the night, unless when day and night were themselves equal. EXD OF BOOK III. 880 *> > > V^> ^ gjj^i apa^^^sti" ) mm>j ISSSBJm^ ^V7 -> •-.-. i -> ' 38> 2> 2 33 < LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HI! 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