LXVIII.

If, when fortune's wrong with bitter misery whelms thee,

Thou thy sad tear-scrawl'd letter, a mark to the storm,

Send'st, and bid'st me to succour a stranded seaman of Ocean,

Toss'd in foam, from death's door to return thee again;

Whom nor softly to rest love's tender sanctity suffers,

Lost on a couch of lone slumber, unhappily lain;

Nor with melody sweet of poets hoary the Muses

Cheer, while worn with grief nightly the soul is awake:

Well-contented am I, that thou thy friendship avowest,

Ask'st the delights of love from me, the pleasure of hymns;

Yet lest all unnoted a kindred story bely thee,

Deeming, Mallius, I calls of humanity shun;

Hear what a grief is mine, what storm of destiny whelms me.

Cease to demand of a soul's misery joy's sacrifice.

Once, what time white robes of manhood first did array me,

Whiles in jollity life sported a spring holiday,

Youth ran riot enow; right well she knows me, the Goddess,

She whose honey delights blend with a bitter annoy.

Henceforth dies sweet pleasure, in anguish lost of a brother's

Funeral. O poor soul, brother, O heavily ta'en,

You all happier hours, you, dying brother, effaced;

All our house lies low mournfully buried in you;

Quench'd untimely with you joy waits not ever a morrow,

Joy which alive your love's bounty fed hour upon hour;

Now, since thou liest dead, heart-banish'd wholly desert me

Vanities all, each gay freak of a riotous heart.

How then obey? You write 'Let not Verona, Catullus,

Stay thee, if here each proud quality, Rome's eminence,

Freely the light limbs warms thou leavest coldly to languish,'

Infamy lies not there, Mallius, only regret.

So forgive me, if I, whom grief so rudely bereaveth,

Deal not a joy myself know not, a beggar in all.

Books - if they're but scanty, a store full meagre, around me,

Rome is alone my life's centre, a mansion of home,

Rome my abode, house, hearth; there wanes and waxes a life's span;

Hither of all those choice cases attends me but one.

Therefore deem not thou aught spiteful bids me deny thee;

Say not 'his heart is false, haply, to jealousy leans,'

If nor books I send nor flatter sorrow to silence.

Trust me, were either mine, either unask'd should appear.

Goddesses, hide I may not in how great trial upheld me

Allius, how no faint charities held me to life.

Nor shall time borne fleetly nor years' oblivion ever

Make such zeal to the night fade, to the darkness, away.

As from me you learn it, of you shall many a thousand

Learn it again. Grow old, scroll, to declare it anew.

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So to the dead increase honour in year upon year.

Nor to the spider, aloft her silk-slight flimsiness hanging,

Allius aye unswept moulder, a memory dim.

Well you wot, how sore the deceit Amathusia wrought me,

Well what a thing in love's treachery made me to fall;

Ready to burst in flame, as burn Trinacrian embers,

Burn near Thermopylae's Oeta the fiery springs.

Sad, these piteous eyes did waste all wearily weeping,

Sad, these cheeks did rain ceaseless a showery woe.

Wakeful, as hill-born brook, which, afar off silvery gleaming,

O'er his moss-grown crags leaps with a tumble adown;

Brook which awhile headlong o'er steep and valley descending,

Crosses anon wide ways populous, hastes to the street;

Cheerer in heats o' the sun to the wanderer heavily fuming,

Under a drought, when fields swelter agape to the sky.

Then as tossing shipmen amid black surges of Ocean,

See some prosperous air gently to calm them arise,

Safe thro' Pollux' aid or Castor, alike entreated;

Mallius e'en such help brought me, a warder of harm.

He in a closed field gave scope of liberal entry;

Gave me an house of love, gave me the lady within,

Busily there to renew love's even duty together;

Thither afoot mine own mistress, a deity bright,

Came, and planted firm her sole most sunny; beneath her

Lightly the polish'd floor creak'd to the sandal again.

So with passion aflame came wistful Laodamia

Into her husband's home, Protesilaus, of yore;

Home o'er-lightly begun, ere slaughter'd victim atoning

Waited of heaven's high-thron'd company grace to agree.

Nought be to me so dear, O Maid Ramnusian, ever,

I should against that law match me with opposite, I.

Bloodless of high sacrifice, how thirsts each desolate altar!

This, when her husband fell, Laodamia did heed,

Rapt from a bridegroom new, from his arms forced early to part her.

Early; for hardly the first winter, another again,

Yet in many a night's long dream had sated her yearning,

So that love might wear cheerly, the master away;

Which not long should abide, so presag'd surely the Parcae,

If to the wars her lord hurry, for Ilion arm.

Now to revenge fair Helen, had Argos' chiefs, her puissance,

Set them afield; for Troy rous'd them, a cry not of home,

Troy, dark death universal, of Asia grave and Europe,

Altar of heroes Troy, Troy of heroical acts,

Now to my own dear brother abhorred worker of ancient

Death. Ah woeful soul, brother, unhappily lost,

Ah fair light unblest, in darkness sadly receding,

All our house lies low, brother, inearthed in you,

Quench'd untimely with you, joy waits not ever a morrow,

Joy which alive your love's bounty fed hour upon hour.

Now on a distant shore, no kind mortality near him,

Far all household love, every familiar urn,

Tomb'd in Troy the malign, in Troy the unholy reposing,

Strangely the land's last verge holds him, a dungeon of earth.

Thither in haste all Greece, one armed people assembling,

Flock'd on an ancient day, left the recesses of home,

Lest in a safe content, unreach'd, his stolen adultress.

Paris inarm, in soft luxury quietly lain.

E'en such chance, fair queen, such misery, Laodamia,

Brought thee a loss as life precious, as heavenly breath.

Loss of a bridegroom dear; such whirling passion in eddies

Suck'd thee adown, so drew sheer to a sudden abyss,

Deep as Graian abyss near Pheneos o'er Cyllene,

Strainer of ooze impure milk'd from a watery fen;

Hewn, so stories avouch, in a mountain's kernel; an hero

Hew'd it, falsely declar'd Amphytrionian, he,

When those monster birds near grim Stymphalus his arrow

Smote to the death; such task bade him a dastardly lord.

So that another God might tread that portal of heaven

Freely, nor Hebe fair wither a chaste eremite.

Yet than abyss more deep thy love, thy depth of emotion;

Love which school'd thy lord, made of a master a thrall.

Not to a grandsire old so priz'd, so lovely the grandson

One dear daughter alone rears i' the soft of his years;

He, long-wish'd for, an heir of wealth ancestral arriving -

Scarcely the tablets' marge holds him, a name to the will,

Straight all hopes laugh'd down, each baffled kinsman usurping

Leaves to repose white hairs, stretches, a vulture, away;

Not in her own fond mate so turtle snowy delighteth,

Tho' unabash'd, 'tis said, she the voluptuous hours

Snatches a thousand kisses, in amorous extasy biting.

Yet, more lightly than all ranges a womanly will.

Great their love, their frenzy; but all their frenzy before thee

Fail'd, once clasp'd thy lord splendid in aureat hair.

Worthy in all or part thee, Laodamia, to rival,

Sought me my own sweet love, journey'd awhile to my arms.

Round her playing oft ran Cupid thither or hither,

Lustrous, array'd in bright broidery, saffron of hue.

What, to Catullus alone if a wayward fancy resort not?

Must I pale for a stray frailty, the shame of an hour?

Nay; lest all too much such jealous folly provoke her.

Juno's self, a supreme glory celestial, oft

Crushes her eager rage, in wedlock-injury flaring,

Knowing yet right well Jove, what a losel is he.

Yet, for a man with Gods shall never lawfully match him

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Lift thy father, a weak burden, unholpen, abhorr'd.

Not that a father's hand my love led to me, nor odours

Wafted her home on rich airs, of Assyria born;

Stealthy the gifts she gave me, a night unspeakable o'er us,

Gifts from her husband's dreams verily stolen, his own.

Then 'tis enough for me, if mine, mine only remaineth

That one day, whose stone shines with an happier hue.

So, it is all I can, take, Allius, answer, a little

Verse to requite thy much friendship, a contrary boon.

So your household names no rust nor seamy defacing

Soil this day, that new morrow, the next to the last.

Gifts full many to these heaven send as largely requiting,

Gifts Themis ever wont deal to the pious of yore.

Joys come plenty to thee, to thy own fair lady together,

Come to that house of mirth, come to the lady within;

Joy to the forward friend, our love's first fashioner, Anser,

Author of all this fair history, founder of all.

Lastly beyond them, above them, on her more lovely than even

Life, my lady, for whose life it is happy to be.