TO HORTALUS
LAMENTING
A LOST BROTHER.
Catullus - Carmina
] Not need her solicitous mother fear sad discord shall cause a
parted bed for her daughter, nor need she cease to hope for dear
grandchildren. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye spindles. "
With such soothsaying songs of yore did the Parcae chant from divine breast
the felicitous fate of Peleus. For of aforetime the heaven-dwellers were
wont to visit the chaste homes of heroes and to shew themselves in mortal
assembly ere yet their worship was scorned. Often the father of the gods,
a-resting in his glorious temple, when on the festal days his annual rites
appeared, gazed on an hundred bulls strewn prone on the earth. Often
wandering Liber on topmost summit of Parnassus led his yelling Thyiads with
loosely tossed locks. * * * * When the Delphians tumultuously trooping from
the whole of their city joyously acclaimed the god with smoking altars.
Often in lethal strife of war Mavors, or swift Triton's queen, or the
Rhamnusian virgin, in person did exhort armed bodies of men. But after the
earth was infected with heinous crime, and each one banished justice from
their grasping mind, and brothers steeped their hands in fraternal blood,
the son ceased grieving o'er departed parents, the sire craved for the
funeral rites of his first-born that freely he might take of the flower of
unwedded step-dame, the unholy mother, lying under her unknowing son, did
not fear to sully her household gods with dishonour: everything licit and
lawless commingled with mad infamy turned away from us the just-seeing mind
of the gods. Wherefore nor do they deign to appear at such-like assemblies,
nor will they permit themselves to be met in the day-light.
LXV.
Esti me adsiduo confectum cura dolore
Sevocat a doctis, Ortale, virginibus,
Nec potisest dulces Musarum expromere fetus
Mens animi, (tantis fluctuat ipsa malis:
Namque mei nuper Lethaeo gurgite fratris 5
Pallidulum manans adluit unda pedem,
Troia Rhoeteo quem subter littore tellus
Ereptum nostris obterit ex oculis.
* * * *
Adloquar, audiero numquam tua _facta_ loquentem,
Numquam ego te, vita frater amabilior, 10
Aspiciam posthac. at certe semper amabo,
Semper maesta tua carmina morte canam,
Qualia sub densis ramorum concinit umbris
Daulias absumpti fata gemens Itylei)--
Sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Ortale, mitto 15
Haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae,
Ne tua dicta vagis nequiquam credita ventis
Effluxisse meo forte putes animo,
Vt missum sponsi furtivo munere malum
Procurrit casto virginis e gremio, 20
Quod miserae oblitae molli sub veste locatum,
Dum adventu matris prosilit, excutitur:
Atque illud prono praeceps agitur decursu,
Huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor.
LXV.
TO HORTALUS LAMENTING A LOST BROTHER.
Albeit care that consumes, with dule assiduous grieving,
Me from the Learned Maids (Hortalus! ) ever seclude,
Nor can avail sweet births of the Muses thou to deliver
Thought o' my mind; (so much floats it on flooding of ills:
For that the Lethe-wave upsurging of late from abysses, 5
Laved my brother's foot, paling with pallor of death,
He whom the Trojan soil, Rhoetean shore underlying,
Buries for ever and aye, forcibly snatched from our sight.
* * * *
I can address; no more shall I hear thee tell of thy doings,
Say, shall I never again, brother all liefer than life, 10
Sight thee henceforth? But I will surely love thee for ever
Ever what songs I sing saddened shall be by thy death;
Such as the Daulian bird 'neath gloom of shadowy frondage
Warbles, of Itys lost ever bemoaning the lot. )
Yet amid grief so great to thee, my Hortalus, send I 15
These strains sung to a mode borrowed from Battiades;
Lest shouldest weet of me thy words, to wandering wind-gusts
Vainly committed, perchance forth of my memory flowed--
As did that apple sent for a furtive giftie by wooer,
In the chaste breast of the Maid hidden a-sudden out-sprang; 20
For did the hapless forget when in loose-girt garment it lurked,
Forth would it leap as she rose, scared by her mother's approach,
And while coursing headlong, it rolls far out of her keeping,
O'er the triste virgin's brow flushes the conscious blush.
Though outspent with care and unceasing grief, I am withdrawn, Ortalus,
from the learned Virgins, nor is my soul's mind able to bring forth sweet
babes of the Muses (so much does it waver 'midst ills: for but lately the
wave of the Lethean stream doth lave with its flow the pallid foot of my
brother, whom 'neath the Rhoetean seaboard the Trojan soil doth crush,
thrust from our eyesight. * * * Never again may I salute thee, nor hear thy
converse; never again, O brother, more loved than life, may I see thee in
aftertime. But for all time in truth will I love thee, always will I sing
elegies made gloomy by thy death, such as the Daulian bird pipes 'neath
densest shades of foliage, lamenting the lot of slain Itys. ) Yet 'midst
sorrows so deep, O Ortalus, I send thee these verses re-cast from
Battiades, lest thou shouldst credit thy words by chance have slipt from my
mind, given o'er to the wandering winds, as 'twas with that apple, sent as
furtive love-token by the wooer, which outleapt from the virgin's chaste
bosom; for, placed by the hapless girl 'neath her soft vestment, and
forgotten,--when she starts at her mother's approach, out 'tis shaken: and
down it rolls headlong to the ground, whilst a tell-tale flush mantles the
face of the distressed girl.
LXVI.
Omnia qui magni dispexit lumina mundi,
Qui stellarum ortus comperit atque obitus,
Flammeus ut rapidi solis nitor obscuretur,
Vt cedant certis sidera temporibus,
Vt Triviam furtim sub Latmia saxa relegans 5
Dulcis amor gyro devocet aerio,
Idem me ille Conon caelesti in lumine vidit
E Beroniceo vertice caesariem
Fulgentem clare, quam cunctis illa deorum
Levia protendens brachia pollicitast, 10
Qua rex tempestate novo auctus hymenaeo
Vastatum finis iverat Assyrios,
Dulcia nocturnae portans vestigia rixae,
Quam de virgineis gesserat exuviis.
Estne novis nuptis odio venus? anne parentum 15
Frustrantur falsis gaudia lacrimulis,
Vbertim thalami quas intra lumina fundunt?
Non, ita me divi, vera gemunt, iuerint.
Id mea me multis docuit regina querellis
Invisente novo praelia torva viro.
parted bed for her daughter, nor need she cease to hope for dear
grandchildren. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O hasten, ye spindles. "
With such soothsaying songs of yore did the Parcae chant from divine breast
the felicitous fate of Peleus. For of aforetime the heaven-dwellers were
wont to visit the chaste homes of heroes and to shew themselves in mortal
assembly ere yet their worship was scorned. Often the father of the gods,
a-resting in his glorious temple, when on the festal days his annual rites
appeared, gazed on an hundred bulls strewn prone on the earth. Often
wandering Liber on topmost summit of Parnassus led his yelling Thyiads with
loosely tossed locks. * * * * When the Delphians tumultuously trooping from
the whole of their city joyously acclaimed the god with smoking altars.
Often in lethal strife of war Mavors, or swift Triton's queen, or the
Rhamnusian virgin, in person did exhort armed bodies of men. But after the
earth was infected with heinous crime, and each one banished justice from
their grasping mind, and brothers steeped their hands in fraternal blood,
the son ceased grieving o'er departed parents, the sire craved for the
funeral rites of his first-born that freely he might take of the flower of
unwedded step-dame, the unholy mother, lying under her unknowing son, did
not fear to sully her household gods with dishonour: everything licit and
lawless commingled with mad infamy turned away from us the just-seeing mind
of the gods. Wherefore nor do they deign to appear at such-like assemblies,
nor will they permit themselves to be met in the day-light.
LXV.
Esti me adsiduo confectum cura dolore
Sevocat a doctis, Ortale, virginibus,
Nec potisest dulces Musarum expromere fetus
Mens animi, (tantis fluctuat ipsa malis:
Namque mei nuper Lethaeo gurgite fratris 5
Pallidulum manans adluit unda pedem,
Troia Rhoeteo quem subter littore tellus
Ereptum nostris obterit ex oculis.
* * * *
Adloquar, audiero numquam tua _facta_ loquentem,
Numquam ego te, vita frater amabilior, 10
Aspiciam posthac. at certe semper amabo,
Semper maesta tua carmina morte canam,
Qualia sub densis ramorum concinit umbris
Daulias absumpti fata gemens Itylei)--
Sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Ortale, mitto 15
Haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae,
Ne tua dicta vagis nequiquam credita ventis
Effluxisse meo forte putes animo,
Vt missum sponsi furtivo munere malum
Procurrit casto virginis e gremio, 20
Quod miserae oblitae molli sub veste locatum,
Dum adventu matris prosilit, excutitur:
Atque illud prono praeceps agitur decursu,
Huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor.
LXV.
TO HORTALUS LAMENTING A LOST BROTHER.
Albeit care that consumes, with dule assiduous grieving,
Me from the Learned Maids (Hortalus! ) ever seclude,
Nor can avail sweet births of the Muses thou to deliver
Thought o' my mind; (so much floats it on flooding of ills:
For that the Lethe-wave upsurging of late from abysses, 5
Laved my brother's foot, paling with pallor of death,
He whom the Trojan soil, Rhoetean shore underlying,
Buries for ever and aye, forcibly snatched from our sight.
* * * *
I can address; no more shall I hear thee tell of thy doings,
Say, shall I never again, brother all liefer than life, 10
Sight thee henceforth? But I will surely love thee for ever
Ever what songs I sing saddened shall be by thy death;
Such as the Daulian bird 'neath gloom of shadowy frondage
Warbles, of Itys lost ever bemoaning the lot. )
Yet amid grief so great to thee, my Hortalus, send I 15
These strains sung to a mode borrowed from Battiades;
Lest shouldest weet of me thy words, to wandering wind-gusts
Vainly committed, perchance forth of my memory flowed--
As did that apple sent for a furtive giftie by wooer,
In the chaste breast of the Maid hidden a-sudden out-sprang; 20
For did the hapless forget when in loose-girt garment it lurked,
Forth would it leap as she rose, scared by her mother's approach,
And while coursing headlong, it rolls far out of her keeping,
O'er the triste virgin's brow flushes the conscious blush.
Though outspent with care and unceasing grief, I am withdrawn, Ortalus,
from the learned Virgins, nor is my soul's mind able to bring forth sweet
babes of the Muses (so much does it waver 'midst ills: for but lately the
wave of the Lethean stream doth lave with its flow the pallid foot of my
brother, whom 'neath the Rhoetean seaboard the Trojan soil doth crush,
thrust from our eyesight. * * * Never again may I salute thee, nor hear thy
converse; never again, O brother, more loved than life, may I see thee in
aftertime. But for all time in truth will I love thee, always will I sing
elegies made gloomy by thy death, such as the Daulian bird pipes 'neath
densest shades of foliage, lamenting the lot of slain Itys. ) Yet 'midst
sorrows so deep, O Ortalus, I send thee these verses re-cast from
Battiades, lest thou shouldst credit thy words by chance have slipt from my
mind, given o'er to the wandering winds, as 'twas with that apple, sent as
furtive love-token by the wooer, which outleapt from the virgin's chaste
bosom; for, placed by the hapless girl 'neath her soft vestment, and
forgotten,--when she starts at her mother's approach, out 'tis shaken: and
down it rolls headlong to the ground, whilst a tell-tale flush mantles the
face of the distressed girl.
LXVI.
Omnia qui magni dispexit lumina mundi,
Qui stellarum ortus comperit atque obitus,
Flammeus ut rapidi solis nitor obscuretur,
Vt cedant certis sidera temporibus,
Vt Triviam furtim sub Latmia saxa relegans 5
Dulcis amor gyro devocet aerio,
Idem me ille Conon caelesti in lumine vidit
E Beroniceo vertice caesariem
Fulgentem clare, quam cunctis illa deorum
Levia protendens brachia pollicitast, 10
Qua rex tempestate novo auctus hymenaeo
Vastatum finis iverat Assyrios,
Dulcia nocturnae portans vestigia rixae,
Quam de virgineis gesserat exuviis.
Estne novis nuptis odio venus? anne parentum 15
Frustrantur falsis gaudia lacrimulis,
Vbertim thalami quas intra lumina fundunt?
Non, ita me divi, vera gemunt, iuerint.
Id mea me multis docuit regina querellis
Invisente novo praelia torva viro.
