Sic Semper Tyrannis

Hyperion's Song of Fate on Biden EO Fascist

 

 

Friedrich Hölderlin, Hyperion's Song of Fate (Hyperions Schiksaalslied)

Translated by Steven Willett

 

Hölderlin by Franz Carl Hiemer, 1792

Note: Hyperion's Song of Fate appeared in the second volume of Hölderlin's novel Hyperion in 1799. It should be clear that the staircase descent of the stanzas is intended to suggest humanity's plunge into an unknown depth.

 

You walk above in light
  Over soft earth, blessed spirits!
    Shimmering divine airs
      Play gently on you,
        Like a girl’s skilled fingers
          On holy strings.

 

Fateless, like a slumbering
  Infant, breathe the immortals;
    Chastely preserved
      In modest buds,
        Blooms forever
          The spirit within them,
            And their blessed eyes
              Gaze into calm
                Eternal clarity.

 

But for us it’s given
  Never to rest on a foothold,
     They wane, they fall
       The suffering humans
         Blindly from one
           Hour to the next
             Like water from crag
               To crag hurled
                  Yearlong into uncertain abyss.

 

Ihr wandelt droben im Licht
  Auf weichem Boden, selige Genien!
    Glänzende Götterlüfte
      Rühren euch leicht,
        Wie die Finger der Künstlerin
          Heilige Saiten.

Schicksallos, wie der schlafende
  Säugling, atmen die Himmlischen;
    Keusch bewahrt
      In bescheidener Knospe,
        Blühet ewig
          Ihnen der Geist,
            Und die seligen Augen
              Blicken in stiller
                Ewiger Klarheit.

Doch uns ist gegeben,
  Auf keiner Stätte zu ruh'n;
    Es schwinden, es fallen
      Die leidenden Menschen
        Blindlings von einer
          Stunde [zur]1 andern,
            Wie Wasser von Klippe
              Zu Klippe geworfen,
               Jahrlang in's Ungewisse hinab.

 

 

Hölderlin's Lyric "Love" ("Die Liebe)

 

Hölderlin's Asclepiad Stanza Lyric "Love" ("Die Liebe")

Translated by Steven Willett

 

Hölderlin's Dream

 

Note: This is one of Hölderlin's most popular poems. It has been set to music and song several times. It is also extremely difficult to translate his German, whose syntax is highly concentrated through the meter, the metaphors and the imperatives. I have taken a very few games with the accentual meter, but only where Hölderlin does.

 

Love

 

If a friend you forget, if of your closest all,

O you grateful ones, those, poets you slander on,

   God forgive it, yet honor

      Only souls of the ones who love.

 

For it’s asked, where, lives far off human life

Since the slavish one, Care, now is coercing all?

   Therefore also our God roams

      Carefree over our heads too long.

 

Yet, as always the year’s cold and remains song-less

Through its designate time, but from a field all white

   Green leaf blades are still blooming,

      Often sings just a lonely bird,

 

When the forest expands, rivers bestir themselves,

Milder breezes at last blow from the distant South

   In their exquisite season,

      So, a sign of the better time

 

We believe in, awakes solely with modesty,

Solely noble, devout over the brazen hard

   Waste of ground yet untamed, Love,

      Single daughter of God alone.

 

Blessed be, O be, heavenly plants, for me

Cultivated with song, when the Aetherian

   nectars nourish your power,

      And creative fresh beams feed you.

 

Grow and forest become! more animated for

Fully blossoming world! Speech of the lovers now

   Be the speech of our whole land,

      Their soul be the chime of the people.

 

Die Liebe

 

Wenn ihr Freunde vergeßt, wenn ihr die Euern all,

   O ihr Dankbaren, sie, euere Dichter schmäht,

      Gott vergeb' es, doch ehret

         Nur die Seele der Liebenden.

 

Denn o saget, wo lebt menschliches Leben sonst,

   Da die knechtische jetzt alles, die Sorge, zwingt?

      Darum wandelt der Gott auch

         Sorglos über dem Haupt uns längst.

 

Doch, wie immer das Jahr kalt und gesanglos ist

   Zur beschiedenen Zeit, aber aus weißem Feld

      Grüne Halme doch sprossen,

         Oft ein einsamer Vogel singt,

 

Wenn sich mählich der Wald dehnet, der Strom sich regt,

   Schon die mildere Luft leise von Mittag weht

      Zur erlesenen Stunde,

         So ein Zeichen der schönern Zeit,

 

Die wir glauben, erwächst einziggenügsam noch,

   Einzig edel und fromm über dem ehernen,

      Wilden Boden die Liebe,

         Gottes Tochter, von ihm allein.

 

Sei gesegnet, o sei, himmlische Pflanze, mir

   Mit Gesange gepflegt, wenn des ätherischen

      Nektars Kräfte dich nähren,

         Und der schöpfrische Strahl dich reift.

 

Wachs und werde zum Wald! eine beseeltere,

   Vollentblühende Welt! Sprache der Liebenden

      Sei die Sprache des Landes,

         Ihre Seele der Laut des V

Pindar Pythian 8, Aristomenes, Wrestling 446BC

 

Pindar Pythian 8 Aristomenes of Aigina, Wrestling, 446BC

Translated by Steven Willett

 

Athenian wrestling frieze 5th century BC

 

Note: Pythian 8 is one of my three or four favorites among the odes for its strong rhythmic movement to the climax, startling metaphors, intense language and realistic depiction of wrestling. The final triad ll 81~100 is powerful in its stark depiction of what a victory or defeat means to a wrestler. All famous athletes who gloat over their accomplishments should read it carefully.

To make reading easier, here is an explanatory list of names keyed by line: Peace (Hesychia), daughter of Justice (1); Porphyrion, king of Giants (12); Xenarkes son, Aristomenes (19); Aiakidai, sons of Aeacus, the son of Zeus by Aegina (23); Theognetos, Olympic victor in wrestling (36); Kleitomachos, unknown (37); the Meidylidai, a clan to which Aristomenes belonged (38); Oikles son, Amphiaraos both a seer and fighter (cf. Ol 6.16~17) with the snake on his shield symbolizing skill in prophesy; the second war on Thebes was led by Alcman, son of Amphiaraos (39, 46); Adrastus, king of Argos (49); Abas, 12th king of Argos (55); "for you both," the Aigneten Delphinia; Apollo's sister Artemis is included in the plural (66).

 

Kindly Peace, O daughter Str. 1

of Justice, you maker of greatest cities,

holding the supreme keys

of both counsels and war,

accept the honor of Pythian victory for Aristomenes.

For you know how to give leniency and likewise

to receive it at the exact season; (7)

 

but when someone drives Ant. 1

implacable wrath into his heart,

you roughly go to encounter the might

of enemies and cast their

insolence into the bilge. Porphyrion didn't know your power

when he unduly provoked you. Gain is dearest,

if one bears it from the home of a willing giver. (14)

 

But force overthrows the vain-boaster in time. Ep. 1

The hundred-headed Cilician Typhos didn't escape it,

nor indeed the king of Giants; they were conquered by thunderbolt

and arrows of Apollo; with gracious mind he

welcomed the son of Xenarkes from Kirrha, crowned

with Parnassian wreath and a Doric victory festival. (20)

 

Not far from the Graces fell Str. 2

an island with the justcity virtues

renowned among the Aiakidai

that it has achieved, and holds consummate

fame from the beginning: for it's sung rearing in many

victorious contests and in swift

battles supreme heroes; (27)

 

and it's conspicuous for men. Ant. 2

But I'm without leisure to dedicate

the whole long winding story

by lyre and gentle voice,

lest satiety comes to grate us. But running at my feet

let your debt, my boy, of the latest glories

fly on the wings of my art. (34)

 

For seeking the trail of your maternal uncles in wrestling Ep 2

you do not disgrace Theognetos at Olympia

or Kleitomachos' strong-limned victory at the Isthmus,

but exalting the clan of the Meidulidai you earn the words

which Oikeles' son once spoke in prophic riddles as he beheld

the sons standing in spear-pointed battle at Thebes, (40)

 

when from Argos came Str. 3

the Epigonoi on their second journey.

Thus he spoke as they were fighting:

“By nature the noble resolve is conspicuous

from fathers to their sons. I clearly see

Alkman wielding the dappled serpent from his blazing shield

first at the gate of Kadmos. (47)

 

But he who suffered in a former misfortune Ant 3

is now upheld by news

of a better omen,

hero Adrastos; but in his own household

he will fare the opposite. For he alone from the Danaan army

gathering the bones of his son, by the gods' favor

will return with his people unharmed (54)

 

to the spacious streets of Abas.” Such then Ep 3

proclaimed Amphiaraos. And I too feel delighted

to cast Alkman with wreaths, and sprinkle him with song,

since as my neighbor and guardian of my possessions,

he met me going to the earth's famous navel,

and proved his hold of prophesy with inherited skills. (60)

 

And you, Far-shooter, who govern Str. 4

the famous all-welcoming temple

in the vales of Pytho,

it was there the greatest of joys

you granted, and earlier at home bestowed the alluring gift

of the Pentathlon with festivities for you both;

O lord, I pray that with a willing mind you (67)

 

look in accord with harmonious favor Ant. 4

on every step I take.

With the sweet-singng festive band

Justice has taken her stand; the gods' bounteous

favor I ask, Xenarkes, on your family's fortunes.

For if someone has gained success witout long labor,

he seems for many a wise man among fools (74)

 

to arm his life with right-councelling art; Ep. 4

such things do not rest among men; a divinity bestows them

to one man, but crushing another beneath hands.

Advance with good measure; at Megara you hold the prize

and in Marathon's plain, and Hera's local contest

with three victories, O Aristomenes, you prevailed by effort; (80)

 

and from above you fell on four Str. 5

bodies planning hostile intent,

for whom no homecoming happy as yours

was decreed in the Pythian festival,

nor returning to their mothers did sweet laughter

stir joy around them; but aloof from enemies down alleys

they slouched, bitten by misfortune. (87)

 

But he who's obtained a new success Ant. 5

in his great opulence

takes flight by hope

on the wings of manhood, having

an aspiration greater than wealth. In short time the delight

of mortals will flourish; thus it also falls to earth,

shaken by a direful purpose. (94)

 

Creatures of a day! What's someone? What's no one? A shadow's dream Ep. 5

is man. But whenever Zeus-given radiance comes,

a brilliant light rests upon men and a gentle lifetime.

Dear mother Aigina, on its voyage of freedom

preserve this city along with Zeus and king Aiakos,

Peleus and noble Telamon and Achilles. (100)

 

 

Pindar Pythian 4 Ode, Arkesilas Chariot Race 462BC

 

 

Pindar Pythian 4 Ode for Arkesilas of Cyrene, Chariot Race 426BC

Translated by Steven Willett

仕事が全部終わったら戻ってきます

 

Pindar c. 518 (Cynoscephalae, Boiotia) ~ c. 438 (Argos)

Roman copy of Greek statue 15th century BC

 

Note: In this poetic translation I have used a form of meter, called colometry, that is not found in the standard Greek editions of Pindar you might consult. For the colometry here I followed Bruno Gentili's edition Pindaro le Pitiche (1995). I will try to give you a fairly simple explanation of it and why it's so uncommon. The Hellenistic Alexandrian philologists who originally edited papyrus manuscripts had far greater knowledge of the original rhythmical and music performances available to them than we do. The cola in the melic sections of drama and choral lyric were edited into dimeters with occasional trimeters and tetrameters, that is, into fairly short verses or lines. This division continued to be found in the printed tradition for the last two centuries, but then a new theory was advocated by August Böckh (1785~1867) at the beginning of the nineteenth century. His development of the "period" as it's called produces a large continuously articulated voice segment. M. L. West in Greek Metre (1982) described it this way: "...the compositional segments can no longer be called verses or lines, because they extend over many lines of the written text; the term 'period' is used" (p. 4). It's a continuous segment of language over a large extent as sung with musical accompaniment. The period became the codified standard with Paul Maas' Greek Metre in 1923. Although the period must be taken into account, it was largely forced into serious doubt by the 1st century BC or AC papyrus manuscript in uncials of Bacchylides. His Alexandrian editors used colometry, not the period. If you'd like to read the torturous attempt to force colometry into period, review H. Maehler's edition Bacchylides a Selection (2004). Among several scholars I've also contributed to our doubts about the period: S. J. Willett "Working Memory and its Constraints on Colometry," Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 71 n. 2, s.c. 100: 7~19.

The result is that the standard Greek edition of Pythian 4 has 299 'lines' while my English translation has 533 lines.

 

 

Today you must stand beside a man dear to me, Str. 1

by the king of horse-famed Cyrene,

and, joining with Archesilaus in his victory revels,

Muse, swell the breeze of songs

owed to Leto's Twins and to Pytho,

where once the priestess sitting in honor

beside the golden eagles of Zeus,

Apollo now in his land, proclaimed

by oracle that Battos would be founder

of fruitbearing Libya,

so that he'd finally leave the holy

island and plant

a city of fine chariots

on a chalky breast of earth,

 

and redeem in the seventeenth generation [15] Ant. 1

the word of Medea

which at Thera once Aeëtes' fierce daughter

breathed from immortal lips

as the Colchean queen.

Thus she spoke to the demigods

who sailed with spearman Jason:

"Hear me, you sons

of bold-hearted men and gods:

I say that from this wave-beaten land

the daughter of Epaphus will one day

be planted with the root of other cities,

cities renowned among men,

amid the foundations of Zeus Ammon. [28]

 

"And, changing short-finned dolphins Ep. 1

for swift horses,

they shall ply reins rather than oars

and drive chariots with stormfooted teams.

That Omen shall make Thera

metropolis of mighty cities, the Omen

which once amid the stream from lake Triton,

Euphemus, descending the prow,

received from a god in human form

who offered him

a guest-gift of earth

—for him father Zeus, son of Cronus,

rang out a peal of auspicious thunder—: [41]

Giacomo Leopardi on His Lost Love

 

La Sera del dì di festa (The Evening of the Holiday)

Translated by Steven Willett

 

Leopardi's manuscript showing the opening of La Sera del dì di festa with corrections. First edition original 1820.

 

Note: This is the last poem I shall post on Sic Semper Tyrannis in original or translation. 我々は再び会うまで

 

The Evening of the Holiday

Sweet and clear is the night and without a breeze,
And silent over roofs and among gardens
Pauses the moon, and from a distance reveals
Every mountain cloudless. O my dear lady,
Silent now is every path, and across balconies
Only the rare nightlight still casts a glimmer;
You sleep, for an easy slumber received you
In your tranquil rooms; and not the slightest care
Gnaws you; and you surely don’t know or think
What a lesion you’ve opened into my breast.
You sleep: I show myself alone to salute
This sky, which appears so benign in aspect,
And that ancient all-overpowering Nature,
Who fashioned me for anguish. “To you I deny
Hope,” she said, “yes even hope; and nothing else
Will ever brighten your eyes except weeping.”
This day was holy; now from its amusements
You take repose; and perhaps you’ll remember
In dreams how many you pleased today, how many
Pleased you: not I, not once, could I ever hope,
I might appear in your thoughts. Meanwhile I ask
How much remains to live, and here on the earth
Cast myself, and cry, and shudder. O awful days
In such a green youth! Alas, along the road
I hear, not far away, the solitary song
Of a craftsman returning home late at night,
After some diversions, to his poor dwelling;
And it wrings my heart with such ferocity
To think how all in this world passes away,
And barely leaves a trace. See, the festive day
Is flown, and to the festive one another
Common one succeeds, and time carries away
Every human accidence. Where now is the sound
Of those ancient peoples? Where now is the clamor
Of those famous ancestors, and the great empire
Of that Rome, and the arms, and the ceaseless clash
That went resistlessly through earth and oceans?
All is peace and silence, and all the world lies
Deep in rest, and no one talks of them at all.
In my earliest years, when the festive day was
Greedily awaited, finding afterwards that
It had expired, I grieving, in sleepless vigil,
I lay on the down bed; and in the late night
A song heard somewhere down along the alleys,
Dwindling far off to die little by little,
Already, even as this one now, wrung my heart.

 

Solon on Justice for Land and Suffering Citizens

 

Solon Fr. 36. Pergit. Arist. (v. ad fr. 34) = L; hic accedit P. Berol.

Translated by Steven Willett

 

ΗΟΡΟΣ ΤΕΣ ΟΔΟ ΤΕΣ ΕΛΕΥΣΙΝΑΔΣΙ
Boundary of the Road to Eleusis 5th Century BC

 

Note:  The "boundary markers" refer to mortgaged land and thus mark impious slavery rather than free divine land. The poem is in trimeter meter rather than elegiac couplets.

Before achieving the goals that I assembled

The Athenian people, why then did I stop?

I have the best witness in the court of time

The mighty mother of the Olympian gods,

Dark Earth, whose boundary markers

Fixed in many places I once removed;

Enslaved before this, now she is free.

And many to Athens, their god-built homeland,

I brought back, some who’d been sold, one justly

Another unjustly, and those under the constraint

Of necessity, no longer the Attic tongue

Speaking, from wandering far and wide;

And those right here, who a shameful slavery

Suffer, quaking before the whims of masters,

I set free. These things by my power,

Fitting closely together strength and justice,

I accomplished, and prevailed as promised;

I wrote laws equal to the lower and upper

Classes, joining straight justice to each person.

Had another man taken up the goad as I did,

A thoughtless and greedy individual,

He wouldn’t have restrained the people;

For if I’d wanted then to please their opponents,

And in turn what the others planned for them,

This city had been bereaved of many men.

Because of this, setting up defense on all sides,

I turned around at bay like a wolf in a dog pack.

Hölderlin's "Sung Under the Alps" on God's Presence

 

 

Hölderlin's Sung Under the Alps (Unter den Alpen gesungen)

Translated by Steven Willett

 

1/10/1793 Friedrich Hölderlin statue paying a visit to Schiller in Ludwigsburg

 

Note: Hölderlin visited the Swiss Alps in 1801.

This is the one completed poem Hölderlin wrote in a German accent version of the Sapphic meter. It is an extremely difficult stanza to write or translate in both English and German, as I know from translating most of Horace's love poems in it.

Holy Innocence, you to both men and the

Gods are dearest trusted the most! you may in

House or out of doors at their very feet now

    Sit with the ancients,

 

Full of always gratified wisdom; for much

Good a man knows, yet he’s astonished like an

Animal, oft heavenward looks, yet pure is

    All to you, Pure One!

 

Look! the rough beast over the meadows gladly

Serves and trusts you, voiceless the forest speaks as

Once to ancients, now to you his oracles, and the

    Mountains still teach their

 

Holy laws to you, and as what we now do,

Clearly deep in wandering far, the holy

Father wants proclaimed to us, you alone may

    Brightly announce it.

 

Thus with heaven’s power to be alone, and

Light is passing over, and streams and wind, and

Time will rush the place, at their front with steady

    Eyes to contain them,

 

Nothing more blessed I know or want, so long as

Unlike willows, me too onrushing waves take,

Well supported, sleeping along the way I

    Must on the billows;

 

But he gladly stays at his home who in true

Heart holds godliness, and as I am free, so

Long’s I may, you speeches of heaven, all I'll

    Sing and interpret.

 

 

Heilige Unschuld, du der Menschen und der
Götter liebste vertrauteste! du magst im
Hause oder draußen ihnen zu Füßen
      Sitzen, den Alten,

Immerzufriedner Weisheit voll; denn manches
Gute kennet der Mann, doch staunet er, dem
Wild gleich, oft zum Himmel, aber wie rein ist
      Reine, dir alles!

Siehe! das rauhe Tier des Feldes, gerne
Dient und trauet es dir, der stumme Wald spricht
Wie vor Alters, seine Sprüche zu dir, es
      Lehren die Berge

Heil'ge Gesetze dich, und was noch jetzt uns
Vielerfahrenen offenbar der große
Vater werden heißt, du darfst es allein uns
      Helle verkünden.

So mit den Himmlischen allein zu sein, und
Geht vorüber das Licht, und Strom und Wind, und
Zeit eilt hin zum Ort, vor ihnen ein stetes
      Auge zu haben,

Seliger weiß und wünsch' ich nichts, so lange
Nicht auch mich, wie die Weide, fort die Flut nimmt,
Daß wohl aufgehoben, schlafend dahin ich
      Muß in den Wogen;

Aber es bleibt daheim gern, wer in treuem
Busen Göttliches hält, und frei will ich, so
Lang ich darf, euch all', ihr Sprachen des Himmels!
      Deuten und singen.

 

 

Xenophanes on a good banquet

Xenophanes Elegy Fragment 1 Ath. 11462c

Translated by Steven Willett

 

Note: Xenophanes of Colophon c. 570~478BC was a philosopher and poet critical of polytheism.

 

For now the floor is spotless and spotless all our hands

   and drinking cups; one crowns us with plaited wreathes,

another hands round a saucer of sweet-smelling perfume;

   the mixing-bowl stands full of festivity;

still more wine is waiting, and says it won’t desert us,

   mellow in earthen jars, redolent of flowers;

frankincense throws out, amid all this, its pure, holy aroma

   and the water’s sweet and unsullied;

beside us golden loaves have been set and stately tables

   sagging beneath heaped cheese and thick honey;

a central altar has vanished under thickening flowers,

   and music and revelry hold sway about the room.

Men of good cheer should first should hymn the god

   with auspicious tales and immaculate words,

after pouring libations and praying for the ability

   to achieve just behavior—for this is more obvious,

not hubris—. Drink as much as you can sustain going

   home without an attendant unless you’re very old;

and praise that man after drinking shows noble thoughts,

   so that there’s memory of and straining for virtue;

it's worthless to marshal the wars of Titans or Giants

and Centaurs, affectations of our predecessors,

or furious factions—with them nothing useful exists—.

   It is good to always hold regard for the gods.

Tibullus Elegy I.3: A Chopin Nocturne on War

Translated by Steven Willett

 

Across Aegean waves Massalla, you'll sail without me,

    yet thinking of me, I hope, you and your staff!

Phaeacia now holds me back, sick in an unknown land

    —if only black black Death stay her greedy  hands.

Stay them, black Death, I implore you: no mother is here

    to gather my burnt bones to her sad breast,

no sister to bestow Assyrian perfumes on my ashes

    and weep before my grave with unbound hair;

nor Delia anywhere, who only let me leave the city

    after, they say, consulting all the gods.

She drew the sacred lots three times from the boy: to her

    the boy reported all of them were certain.

Each promised safe return, yet she could not be restrained

    from weeping at a voyage she viewed with terror.

I, too, her consoler, once I'd given my parting instructions,

    looked long in my unease for slow delays:

I pleaded as my excuse that inauspicious birds, dire portents

    or Saturn's sacred day detained me there.

How often I've told myself, after the journey had begun,

    that stumbling at the gate was ominous!

Let no one dare depart when Love prohibits it

    or he will learn a god opposed his going.

What help to me is your Isis now, Delia, what help to me

    the sistrum shaken by your hand so often,

what help, piously tending the rites, to bathe in pure water

    and sleep (how I recall!) in a pure bed?

Now, goddess, now fly to my aid (for the painted tablets

    filling your temples prove the power to heal)

so that my Delia, fulfilling the nights she vowed, may sit

    covered in linen by her sacred doors

and twice each day recite your praises with loosened hair

    conspicuous among the Pharian crowd.

But let it be my fortune to worship the ancestral Penates

    and give the ancient Lar his monthly incense.

How well they used to live under Saturn's reign, before

    the earth was opened into distant voyages!

The pine-hewn ship had not yet defied the azure waves

    nor offered billowing sails before the winds;

and wandering over unknown lands in search of profits,

    no sailor had packed his raft with foreign wares.

In those days no mighty bull submitted to the yoke,

    no broken horse champed at the biting bit,

no house had any door, no stone stood in the ground

    to govern cropland with fixed boundaries;

the oaks gave honey without bees, and freely the ewes

    bore milk-filled udders to meet carefree men;

there was no battle line, no wrath, no wars, and no ruthless

    craftsmen had forged the sword by cruel skill.

But now, in Jove's dominion, butchery and wounds unending,

    now the sea, now a thousand ways to sudden death.

Spare me, father: I am afraid, though no perjuries terrify me,

    no impious words against the sacred gods.

But if I have even now completed all my destined days,

    set a stone above my bones inscribed with this:

HERE LIES TIBULLUS RAVAGED BY UNTIMELY DEATH

    FOLLOWING MESSALLA OVER EARTH AND SEA.

But me, because I've always been compliant to tender Love,

    Venus herself will lead to the Elysian fields.

There song and dance are blossoming, and everywhere flitting

    birds sing sweet melodies with slender throat;

the fallow fields bear cinnamon, and through all the lands

    the fertile earth abounds with fragrant roses;

ranks of young men intermingled with tender girls

    frolic as Love assiduously drives the battles.

There are all the lovers on whom rapacious death has swept,

    and each wears a myrtle garland as a sign.

But the place of iniquity lies buried deep in the night's

    abyss, around which pitch-black rivers roar,

and Tisiphone, disheveled Fury with wild snakes for hair,

    rages, and pell-mell flees the impious rabble;

then at the gate black Cerberus, head bristling with serpents,

    hisses and crouching guards the brazen doors.

There the criminal limbs of Ixion, who dared rape Juno,

    are whirled upon a swiftly spinning wheel,

and Tityos, stretched across nine acres of land, feeds

    the unremitting birds with his black liver.

Tantalus is there in a pool, but when he's about to drink,

    the water shrinks away from his fierce thirst;

and Danaus' offspring, for affronting Venus' power,

    carry Lethean waters in leaky jars.

Let anyone who's ever profaned my love dwell there,

    who's wished me lingering campaigns at war.

But you, Delia, please stay faithful, and for your honor's guard

    a vigilant old woman should always sit near.

She'll spin out tales for you, and when the lamp's set down,

    draw out long thread from her laden distaff,

while all around, absorbed in heavy toil, the weary girls

    little by little drop their work in sleep.

Then let me come suddenly, with none to announce me,

    and I'll seem heaven-sent to be with you.

Then just as you are, your long hair streaming in disorder,

    with naked feet, Delia, rush to meet me.

This I desire: thus may radiant Aurora on rose-hued

    horses bring us that shining Morning Star.

   

 

Tibullus I.10: Peace and Farming against War

Translated by Steven J. Willett

[Please note that ..... indicates text missing from the Latin manuscript.]

 

Who was it, who first invented the terrifying sword?

    How savage and truly iron-tempered he was.

Then butchery for the race of men, then battles were born,

    then a shorter road to cursed death was opened.

Or was that wretch quite blameless, but to our own evil we

    turn what he gave us for use against wild beasts?

This is the crime of opulent gold, and wars did not exist

    when beechwood goblets stood beside the meal.  

There were no citadels, no palisades, and safely the flock's

    commander sought sleep with his dappled sheep.

I would have lived then, Valgius, and never known cruel

    warfare or heard with quaking heart the trumpet.

Now I'm dragged to war, and some enemy may already 

    carry the blade to burrow in my side.

Yet save me, Lares of my ancestors: you also raised me

    when, as a child, I scampered about your feet.

Nor be ashamed that you are carved from an antique stump:

     so shaped you dwelt in my grandsire’s house of old.        

They kept their faith better then, when the wooden god

    stood simply tended in a scanty shrine.

He was pleased if anyone offered grapes as first fruits

    or placed a spiky wreath of grain on holy hair.

Yes, and one who’d gained his prayer brought cakes in hand,

    his little daughter trailing with pure honeycomb.

Drive off, O Lares, the bronze-tipped spears from me,

. . . . .

    and the rustic offering of a hog from a full sty.

I’ll follow it in dress of purest white, bearing a rush basket

    bound with myrtle, my head bound with myrtle.

Thus may I please you: let another be valiant in arms,

    scattering the enemy captains with Mars’ help,

to tell me, while I drink, the tales of his martial feats

    and trace the camp in wine on tabletops.

What madness makes us summon somber Death by war?

    It looms behind and comes secretly on silent feet.

No grain fields lie below, no trim vineyards, but fearless

    Cerberus and the foul mariner of Stygian waters.

There, with hollow burnt-out eyes and pyre-scorched hair,

    an ashen crowd wanders by shadowy waters.

No, let us praise that hero whom, surrounded by children,

    sluggish old age surprises in a humble cottage.

He follows closely after his sheep, his son the lambs,

    and his wife heats water for exhausted limbs.

So may I live, and let my head grow glitteringly white

    and tell, an old man then, deeds of days gone by.

For now let Peace tend the fields.  Shining Peace first

    led oxen beneath the curving yoke to plow.

Peace nurtured the vines and stored the juice of grapes

    so the father’s jar might pour wine for the son.

In Peace the hoe and ploughshare shine, but in the dark

    rust conquers the grim arms of cruel soldiers.

. . . . .

The farmer drives back from the grove, far from sober,

     taking his wife and offspring home in a cart.

But then the wars of love flame up, and the mistress

    laments her ravaged hair and shattered doors.

She weeps for bruises to her tender cheeks, but the victor 

    weeps too for frenzied hands that were so strong.

Provoking Love stokes the quarrel with angry words,

     then sits indifferent between the raging pair.

Oh he is stone, he is heartless iron, who would strike his girl

     with violent hands: he drags the gods from heaven.

It is enough to tear the tenuous gown from her limbs,

    enough to rumple her ornate coiffure, 

enough to make tears flow; thrice happy is he whose

    anger can cause a tender girl to weep.

But he who’s savage in hand should carry shield and stake 

    to war—let him live far from gentle Venus.

Then come to us, bountiful Peace, take the spike of grain,

     and pour fruit lavishly before your shining lap.