Carmina

The Poems of Magnus Felix Ennodius. Book One. I. The Journey to the Fortress of Bregantio. The higher Titan had climbed the star-bearing axle, When with his full lamp he appears in the whole orb. The flame-bearer was drinking up rivers in burning Cancer, When the reaper tames his own crop with the sickle. While the world, drinking from the source, is parched, while it gasps, Ordered to follow the Gallic wilds on an excursion, I did not fear the torrid fields which surpass Syene. Dust, flame, thirst were the price of obedience. Why, Muse, do you renew for me the brightness and the strong vapors? It will be more to have overcome the freezing roads. Whatever the plains burn, whatever the heights stiffen With colds, say I have suffered it, driven without law. The war of nature which the discordant year had made, Summer and winter, one day brought down. Clad in clouds, to overcome the white frosts The fervid poet taught by command. The summer cloak had pressed my body under its burden, Clothed in a thin covering, I was naked. . .when time flees from the eyes in constant time, For Phoebus' lamp was the guide to the ice. . . . For the one wishing for winter, horror came from the vow, And the sought-for heat gave no sign. I am silent about the matrons, the rocks, and the places called impassable, Bland at the doors, difficult in other respects. The painted face lured wretched travelers, The trampled ones soon produced dire deaths. Sacred antiquity deceives nothing with proper names, Wishing to call so many forms of death thus. A rocky path hung with torn plants, Nor was the path, believe me, easy to the sight.

Why do you, the fame of ancient times, wrap labyrinthine recesses in tongues, which one fears to retrace? There, the craftsman’s praiseworthy error stood, when Daedalus twisted the straight with his skill. Here, nature carries men through the summit of Olympus, where a dove can go, swimming through the clear. Spare me, Pierides, by keeping silent about the river’s sea, lest speech restore the good that it drove away. For the Duria, the Sessis torrent, or the Stura, or the Orgus surpass the savagery of Ionian marble. Sweet things with varied perils follow, joyful; the effect of things usually solidifies the heart. I have nothing to do with uncertainties; forgetfulness benefits the sad: I carry a heart drunk from the Lethean spring. It is beneficial to have visited the thresholds of the saints trembling, to have offered my tears to the martyrs. Behold, Saturninus, Crispinus, Daria, Maurus, Eusebius, Quintus prepare great joys. Octavius, give by merits; Adventor, render; Solutor, let a white life not fall with dark stains. Let a mind conscious of the right tear apart hostile snares: let this always please: what is fitting, let this be allowed.

II. A Composition to Be Sent to Deuterius, Vir Spectabilis, Grammarian, by the Name of His Own Eugenetus, Vir Illustris. Joys surpass my strength, my voice exults in pride: The leanness of my talent does not fear prosperity. Sweet threads serve happy times: What a fortunate man has earned will be a noble song. The voice of a just man, the substance of laws, to us, Like Phoebus, will send drums, plectra, a lyre. Let the learned pious band of Camenae’s sisters gather, Let it offer with a skilled thumb what it speaks. The swollen breast of a prophet-bard could scarcely Enumerate the kinds of your virtues. You are the glory of Italy, you the most faithful hope of justice, The torch, the trumpet of causes, our purple, farewell. Rome, rich in lights, called you her sun, Lofty, receiving you in her Quirinal bosom. With eloquence you subdue a lynx, with your voice a lion. With your honey, the serpent’s throat-powers are pressed down. Bereaved tigresses would bring you gifts, Which grief and savagery would give, trembling. When the right hand of fate tore you, nearly reaped like a flower, Christ struck down destruction. The life of the blessed one, returned better, now conquers itself; By his deeds it is affirmed that he came from the heavens. Relying on this, I have not drawn out envoys or the words of suppliants With cunning, painted arts. I myself, sending the words of beggarly Thalia, Beg you, as a gift in the manner of a god, to grant. A little garden, joined to a small portion, delays Firm hope, that I may deserve to become its master. Do not scorn to bestow this on me, light of honors: Thus may you, having obtained your wish, cultivate our times, Thus may the high power of the ruler exalt you, Thus may golden deeds run by your merits.

Amphion of Dirceus touched what he had lived by with his plectrum: No thing then animated can die. Benefits from the Muses never flowed for so many years, Which they reconciled to me by the price of affection. III. A PREFACE SPOKEN TO THE GRANDSONS OF PROCULUS ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF MAY. The earth, already fertile, presses forth its nipples into the ear of grain, Swollen with the milk of wedded sods. The sap scattered through the grasses is drawn into offspring, Making a solid progeny from drops. The vine-shoot, clothed with gems, extends its arms, From the lap of the wood the tendril now grows green. The vine, ordered by increase now to lose its forest, So that it may grow with fruits, procures wounds. The rejoicing infancy of the world summons and inquires For its nurse, whom the tepid breeze of the sky has given. The rustic youth plays across the face of the fields, Regarding the sweet burden of hard labor. The year crawls in triumph through the murmurs of spring, Bearing honey packed for speaking lips. With the things themselves, our sense babbles songs, May the golden right hand bring help to beginnings. The reaper leads the ears more gently to the sickle, If he continues to comb the crop with rakes. Now, doctor, receive the stock of Proculus, giving the spring, Lest the heat wither the tender ones in their studies. Let the laws be preserved: let the letter run like a census. Their grandfather, who surpassed the rivers of Pindar, Sang learned songs with a Camenalian plectrum.

Whose Apolline choruses kept nothing silent. Phoebus, soon stronger, would seek him again with his aid, The nobility of art, if Marsyas should come. IV. EPITHALAMIUM SPOKEN FOR MAXIMUS, V. S. PREFACE. While the year with its new sun forms the tender ears of grain, Nature sits in the bridal chambers as the orb grows warm. The world is painted with a varied distinction of flowers: The face of the sun is one: grace, cultivation, love. The moist arbutes coalesce with life-giving vapor, Fiery moisture nourishes the seeds that have congealed. The earth, swollen with her husband, rises up in spirit, The forest, swollen with wanton spoils, grows green. The grass, suckling in the turf, is thrust into a knot, The vine’s gemmed arms give forth fingers. In the face of things, a marriage law joins the torches: The breeze of the sky makes all seeds as a bridegroom. Therefore, with equal desire, the light, the sky, the rivers, Nereus, The mountains, the meadows, the wild beasts conceive joys. The world, Maximus, derives from you what flourishes, And your dowry accompanies nature’s own help, Over which your blood, wealth, talent, mind, prayers stand supreme, Propped up by the first brow of the Muses.

The ages have given you to us as a monument of faith, equal in virginity of body and heart. A pure life gives you a bride who surpasses you in merits, yet when she surpasses you, the palm comes to you. For her, a partner, a flame smiles upon snowy lips, and spreads white blushes upon modest cheeks. Let the source of speech be present, I pray, in mind, voice, and plectrum—art, nature, Muse, Phoebus, by which eloquence swells. Nothing base should resound in the praises of the Maximi. Common words often crush a lofty peak. With the world captive, nurturing Venus, playing through pleasant places with the dowered gifts of flowers, while she makes spring at a price and with the gleaming star of beauty, she scorned all the ornament of a gilded robe, refused the pomp of foreign metal: she stood richer in adornment, with her hair scattered, having driven away the finery: if wool drinks in a noble poison by art, it is more potent than a counterfeit color: so too she stands above the cold sea's pebbles, naked. Gems on her rosy nipples had rarely shone beneath a gaping thread. By denying a covering to her limbs, an envious garment, another light exists. The body, laughed at, shone without a cloud, revealed; what the ill-guarding garment kept hidden is laid open by art. The winged one was returning on a slack bow, condemning his quiver to idleness, carrying arrows made slow, unstained by any blood. Then he speaks thus to his mother with wavering arms: "We have lost, mother, the rewards of our valor. Now Cytherea sounds nowhere, the story of the Loves is laughed at, nor does our offspring suffice for the age being born.

Consuming frigid virginity possesses the limbs of many: new fervor subdues sublime flesh, vows tame it: the world scarcely stands by a slender name. The trembling of early youth, the broken imitate beardless youths: the harvest of marriage is rare through the vast fields of the ages, look: through the flowers, only old age Puts forth white, fasting and pale gray hairs. One faith of things, bent by no sweetness, 65, and if anything could have transferred tender customs To trample on evil precepts, is preserved everywhere. Austerity is a fault to have named the marriage-bed chaste. You lie slack and unaware of such great right, Naked, you look back at your limbs through your flowing hair. Rise up, come, and quickly shake off the obstructing sleep, nor let it be thought that having a captive deity is shameful, or a law of chastity or an ill-advising rule." With such words they would have burned even the entrails of the sea. The golden light gathers her flowing hair into a knot and, enclosing her natural beauty with a garment, changed her form. Then whatever jasper shines, whatever emerald, feigned in price, grows green in pasture, and whatever lies hidden in a cut, a better guardian than poison, comes white, about to take up a snowy light from the body. A splendid robe narrows at her girded loins and a hard belt compressed her tender breasts. She speaks to her son: "Whom, my hope, do you try to fix? Whom do we follow? Where do you bid us go? After leisure, a greater flame is fitting: let the peoples learn that the goddess grows then, when she lies neglected. That the gods lose nothing by sleep, let the twin fires, renewed by cares, show. Behold Maximus, you see, the one hope of the highest line,

It plays with sweet things through long forgetfulness of boredom. It pursues the mother, who is purer than heaven itself—a woman whom we know surpasses womankind in mind. This one tamed the boy, having inherited the character of his ancestors: what is shameful, alas, has been unknown to us for a long age. Let my lamp come to her hidden fibers: let it sigh, desire, run about, burn, pray." So he spoke, and embracing his offspring with kindly warmth, he pressed her soft lips to his honeyed kisses. The boy flies, swimming through the clouds on swift wind, uniting all elements with wanton frenzy. When he halted and saw the youth in the purple of his beauty, he said, "Do you, swollen with pride, despise the Dionean? Come here, you who cultivate Venus: he who burns late grows hot on a great pyre, and whatever tree is withdrawn from the pyre will restore swift embers." He drew forth the dart with which he had pierced all the gods. Then the beautiful one bent the smooth curve of his bow: the arrows drew their arms along different paths. The feathered right hand feels the wound by touch, and immediately strikes, greeting the deed with joyful shout: "I am he (why do you tremble?) always despised, I have clung

From your own flesh, fugitive, we offer this victim to the mother, whom you have not glimpsed for many years." Behold again, having examined the chalk with a great lineage, he sees the girl's sublime star, which he joins to the marriage bed, and, astonished, he turned his eyes to his mother, believing her to be his sister: he praises the noble theft. But that boy strikes the tender one with a gentler arrow, and, having become more powerful, he exhausts all his shots into the man. After this, departing, he soothes their hearts with words. "Young man, may our wounds strengthen your powers. For whoever is struck by my spear grows. These wars produce many grandchildren, if you believe. May you be happy and always bear my gifts with you." Now, aided by Pierian favor, place me, for joyful and lofty things, on your brow. Support my slender work through every song, you who make it learned by your kindness. Now that frosts oppress my talent, let the spring warmth, reviving, expand it. V. ITINERARY. Cultivator of talent, fountain of speech, abundance of tongue, let Castalian moisture come, by which Thracian Orpheus

The shipwrecked one kindles her breast with a spreading flood. Let her be present and join the gaping of her dry heart. I would be speaking of the waters of the Eridanus, unless with a great river I drench my dry limbs with the liquid of Pegasus; my parched words barely drip from a starved account. I am about to tell of heaps of waves, supply the water, O Nymph. How well she reveals the waters, to whom a gentle river murmurs! It was the time of year when the vine burgeons with mild grapes and offers the gifts of autumn in the round, when Lyaeus, wet with external rains, stretches the tunics of the must in the prison of the grapes. Then, by chance, the Po, subdued by the law of the banks with abundant rains, had captured the fields; the swelling backs sang with foam and menace. The rooftops of the villa ran, standing, through the waves. The sea then preserved the snatched roof on the shore, and, changing lands, the fortune of the cottages remained. You would see the forests ordered to lose their station, hastening to the flames, with the Po leading the voracious fires. Then I, drawn by the burning love for my sister, to whom the Fates had cut down her son with a harsh thumb and were rendering her a widow with her husband still constant—she who always gave birth to crowds of the Underworld—chose either to console her or to betray my life. That greatest ruler of the Ligurian rivers, the Po,

Under the yoke of the boat, sent across, it groaned beneath the weight, swelled up again, and then released its threats and blasts; and he who conquered the poles was ordered to yield to me alone. Thus piety tames the elements, thus it restrains all things, whose compassion, pleasing to God, held my mind. Behold, again the sky, covered with sodden clouds, drank up the waters with which it would submerge every collapsing field. The shipwrecked land did not see the face of heaven, and the dire darkness, bereft of stars, glittered. A fish wandered, but not captive, into the houses, and the river's populace licked food across the tables. The deep interior of the sea vomited forth men; the wet waters enclosed the fields with dust. Having survived the first, I saw recurring dangers. That victor, a raw recruit for Nereus's contests, I carried cold breasts through the liquid waters, and with dry eyes I looked back at the marble's rages: when suddenly an old inhabitant saw the sea swallowed up, laughed, and the remaining signs of my cast-off fear. Fields gleamed, mixed with metal; the Eridanus shone, adorned with bright sands. A sailor gladly took me up at once in his boat, to whom a lucky cargo had long since granted an omen. Unskilled, I steered the helm, safe from the weight, and with Christ as guide he bore me to festive shores.

VI. THE SPEECH OF DEACON ENNODIUS WHEN HE RETURNED FROM ROME. A man returning to his native soil always finds a friend in cheerfulness, while he trusts that he has escaped the fears, however many his anxious mind produced for him while traveling, as if they were predetermined and arranged by a burdening sky. Therefore a serene voice is owed to joy, lest silent happiness take on the appearance of grief. For to whom is the secret of such a mind revealed except by the key of the mouth unlocked? Even returning swans, the Mantuan affirmed, play with their wings. What shall I do, caught in the middle of a precipice, who owe both the trust of speaking to my return and the necessity of silence to my resolve? Withdraw, I beg, for a time, you more severe censor of duty: you have never mixed yourself with joys at the right moment. The most distinguished prophets, reducing words to the rule of verses, sang their desires and vows in song: hearts dedicated to divine discourse divided ecclesiastical laws among the peoples with the plectrum. Why should I, placed in the infancy of rank and merit, not strive to emulate the deeds of the highest, especially when the image of an altar soldier strengthens the one who receives what happens against the faith for the sake of telling? Nor will I hesitate to say what stands by present example. We have already learned with what whirlwind the spear must be thrown for love of faith, and a conflict of middling importance has not elevated us by the price or titles of virtue. Therefore I will gladly tell my joys with a musical style, whose perfection I promise to announce with the trumpets of eloquence, with God assisting.

They will assail me with the venom of barking tongues, but I will add to the exercises of my profession and talent whatever a slanderer may have hurled against the merit of the accused. This is the custom of a well-shining conscience: to join the bites of rivals to the profit of one's reputation and to harvest the gains of fame from the envious. O persistent tooth of envy, break off, and you who seek the fuel of slander from a place of glory, be silent. Tell me, from where does fruit come to merits, if you attribute to boastfulness what we achieve by our sweat? Labor is a friend of discipline and allied to religion by a certain kinship. Just as moist cuttings, when grafted onto foreign stocks, bestow upon the branches a nobility of fruits which the long-barren plantings did not know, so a mind endowed with liberal studies raises a care-laden soul to the hope of better offspring. The poisons of counsels prepared for human destruction are driven from the mind; the moisture of deadly juice is abolished, whenever minds submit themselves to such occupations. Hence, for those advancing to clearer things, the secrets of daily books are opened, whose door, when sense unlocks it for the one knocking, makes the unknown path passable for peoples under his leadership, while he leads the fastidious by the splendor of eloquence, the less learned by fabricated Latinity and, as they say, by artificial rusticity. Who would not love, not follow such a guide to salvation, who, by mixing the sweet with the necessary and the severe with the sweet, compels the unwilling both to love and to will the bitter dogmas of life? But enough of this elsewhere. Let the honorable vows of the undertaking be fulfilled.

We speak among those who know the matter: the thing of virtue is joy. To contain it, and by a second diligence to display it along the polished path of brilliant diction, is especially the case today, when my portion, having crossed the threshold, gives to a parent, through exultation, an eloquence which talent denies, when the occasion grants what nature did not provide. Hail, young man of outstanding virtues, who in the white bloom show the number of fruits. You give me the power to drive away the ice of affliction and invite me to the springtime of my diction. For while what you owe to your studies, I expend on joy, I think we both make progress. For it is the same to instruct a raw beginner and to recall to the passion of declamation one who has grown idle. After the white winters, after the losses of the icy deep, Whenever the sailor takes a calm course, He grieves and despairs of the treacherous sea's prosperity, And whatever face he sees, he does not think it is salt. A gentle breeze whispers; he fears mighty storms, And counts the bland waves as threats. If the Zephyrs ripple the sails hanging from the mast, And the spirit plays with sweet compliance, He swears that nature, confounded by the winds, has lost its laws, And believes the ancient chaos has returned. Thus joys remove distinctions from placid things: There is no complete trust in happy things, nor in doubtful ones. Not otherwise did those whom Rome held in various perils Return to the bosom of the longed-for shore. They soothe the venerable divinity of the sea with song, Whose own anchor bites the curved soil. But breezes that would produce tender sleep for the weary Disturb the mind of the sea-faring soldier.

Arms it subdues the raft, oars and sails it shakes: Thus the mind has a shipwreck of suspicion. Let him come who pressed the blue with dry feet, (For that harbor will be safety for the weary) Who bound waters, pouring rock into a cup, Who dissolved stones, who solidified waters, Whom a mother bore, pregnant without seed through the ages, Joining to motherhood the burden of virginity, Who overcame death by the gift of his own death, Giving life to the world, which he bore from his funeral: Let him see me from high Olympus on the right. Then I shall hold my homeland, then the help of a station. Though loosened winds sweep the clouded seas, They seek the leaky stern, harming nothing. Then I shall strike sweet timbrels with tuned strings, And I shall adorn my songs with new flowers. To confess, it is established for the learned to speak joy well: Sad hearts grasp nothing of the verse-speaker. But let spring return, let the winter of fear now cease. Bind the leafy garlands that will weave your hair: Let me sing what Ambrose the prophet, while he fed the people with his mouth, Was accustomed to sing, beautiful poems.

VII. PREFACE TO FAUSTUS. Unless I had learned that the serenity of your conscience would abjure the scab of this evil, I would consider the abundance of eloquence hateful to me. Let the friend of perfidy depart from good actions. Yet I declare myself harmed by your caution. You have until now withheld the rain that nourishes fruit from the aridity of my little talent. Good God, how foreign to me and acquired from the riches of your mouth I understand the wealth of speaking to be! I perceive that, by your rich words, I can compose with the file of skill those who are rusty in tongue and dull in sense. You have a certain fellowship with the maker of men. He fashioned from nothing; you restore for the better. I give thanks for the poem undertaken, though I mourn the benefit delayed. Nevertheless, to the disgrace of the Camenae, to whom Gluvidenus is never absent, I have added verses and, prodigal of the perishing page as it is said, I have not spared them. Read the poems that will move delight and suppress the astonishing ornaments, as they say, of the familiar evil.

In the midst of the river you kindle your entrails, Faustus, whose wave feeds the great thirst of song. Who could endure the heat of the waters and the flames of the stream, drinking with a dry mouth the kindred draught? Your words produce a vapor-bearing heat from the spring: whence the liver may burn, the cups look on. Whoever hastens to the river of genius, let him not think it ambiguous: he drinks in such a way that he thirsts. The noble liquid has hidden its flavor, and let him count the loss, if I bring less from it. The slippery tongue, trusting in the Attic buskin, let it boast nothing of the ancients in nobility. Faustus composes new poems in the manner of the old, who cuts his own melody through the limbs with art. Learned to bring unshaped words to the anvil, he tests the verses he makes three and four times. Gray age reports that Myron animated with his fingers the work he shaped with a life-giving hand. You give a face to words, limbs to modulation. What nature is to God, this studies give to you. If you turn the plectrum skillfully to an old corpse, you would make it youthful with the lyre building it. If you imitate flowers through the frozen wagons of Boötes, soon the breeze of Helice whistles with spring tunes. Snowy lairs pour forth roses, frosts yield must for you, Pallas brings gifts in the burning star: the fish which you carry in the heavenly summit swims through the ether: if you command in verse, the stag loves marble. From the midst of the jaws you may take the prey, the flesh, with your powerful mouth, which the lion holds in its mouth. Now I know to what Castalian loves you have drawn me: your gifts come to my faults.

My skiff, made of stitched bark, is snatched toward swelling storms, about to suffer wintry south winds, a skiff which a poor sailor built, fashioning a leaky craft from thin bark, and gave it the name of a cheap vessel. That skiff can neither cross the Aegean Sea nor the shores of Phrixus, nor any rough sea it can sweep with its keel. Aeolus has recognized it; rather, it has chosen well the safe bays of a deep whirlpool, where the South Wind serves, not where it seeks dominion, whenever the breeze hisses through the trembling keel with a slow oar. For while the sails, fastened to the topmasts, billow, which bring deaths, the winds grant me sleep. Here I will turn my stern, entrusting my canvas to steady winds, a course of my skill and means. Turn your way with sails and your rudder to the shores, Phoebus: let the hooked anchor bite the broken ground. Muse, best of words, fashioning a crown of grassy ivy, which you bestow upon accomplished poets, weave my hair. The keel plows the vast sea; the hand does not know how to be brought to the rudder, where the right guidance calls through the waves, a friend of skill. You proceed to Faustus, the balance of speech, whose mouth can sound as vast as the deep.

The light which the world venerates, the right hand itself. It holds the balance of the ears among the Muses: its iron cuts every wound which lies hidden in the inner marrow of a sick song. If it wished to weigh my modest thyrambs with the mind by which it governs the whole world, among the trivial murmur of infants, that is praise. My light, Faustus, my hope and my salvation, the small gifts of letters—receive them gladly. May the highest Christ preserve your bright offshoots. Extend the right hand of your nurturing name. Grateful. To the Thunderer, the offerings of the pious. VIII. [ENNODIUS TO OLYBRIUS.] PREFACE. The rustic shepherd does not set the pipe to his lips whenever he has inspected his country flock. Mute groves produce a fearful solitude, and fear is everywhere when no sound is heard to solace the desert. But if the whispers of the breezes make the tresses of the trees mimic the appearance of tongues, and a pleasant rustling of the leaves' motion calls to a man, he will think he is among companies surrounding him on all sides, and he does not bemoan any hardship whom, in his own seclusion, nature herself addresses with whatever elements. Then it helps to put the pipe, a companion of exile, to the lips and, with the breaths dispersed through the porous holes of the reed, to compose a kind of reason from spirit and breeze. Then he calls upon his Palaemon with a rough and unformed tongue, then he counts how many watches are needed to guard the folds, then he sighs over the manifold ambushes of wolves which hunger, the mistress, sharpens, then whatever he has breathed forth falls into speech: he seeks to console himself with this, he strives to soothe himself with this company.

For one who acts thus, if a learned man should bring near a lyre speaking with its strings and a witty mocker should offer talkative threads, bare simplicity is in doubt what to choose, while the touch of the lyre, even with wandering fingers, gives back a sweet sound and one that breaks the spirit. Yet he thinks it a sin if, by the charm of another’s touch, he should learn not to love the ancestral knowledge of his purpose, so that, while unbridled ambition does not measure the limit of rustic learning, he understands that he will lose even the possibilities within his reach through the affection of his betters, when the nursling of the huts, not knowing what he is worth, is himself despised by the very mediocrity of his father’s instruction as if it were something foreign. Not otherwise do I, most noble sir, to be counted among the greatest stars of the curia, light of eloquence, flame of talents, splendor of speech, wealth of diction, delight in things that are meanly narrated through the pathless woods after the manner of a shepherd’s pipe, fearing your lyre, praising the plectra which, as I have woven above, you, a city-dweller, bring near to my rustic fingers. Remove, I beg you, the lure of your carefully wrought speech which you apply to invite me. Let there be absent the bonds of conversation which you use even among the learned. Restrain the fingers of your words, with which you are accustomed to compel reluctant souls toward your desires. Allow me either to hide my ignorance in silence or to bring forth a common song on a strident reed for others: to converse with you is a matter of old merit and new happiness.

if, unmindful of myself, I should attempt what I have attained—against the lash of the sun’s own chariot—I justly undergo the example of Phaethon. Since mention of him has occurred and a form of warning has been added, the following poem shows what must be done. Report tells, which knows not how to lose the deeds of old, which always speaks whatever has been in the world: while Titan scatters the seeds of light upon the axle and enriches the world with noble rays, while the damp reins restrain the vapor-bearing chariot and the shining flood sends bright day everywhere, the Sun, with learned hands, flexed the reins; the well-known light bore its artisan master. But after Phaethon, by prayer, gave the reins to unexamined strength, the star felt its first motions degenerate and began to run with shaken horses. Then the whole steed, breathing light from its nostrils, did not keep the fixed times of its own law. Splendor turned into flame; what illuminates burned; what animates the lands produced destruction. Then, while it broke the Hyperborean crusts with its torch, the Tanais, drained of its waters, went away dry. Crystal flowed, but the river’s course burned; what dissolves stones wove the Eridanus. Thus, attempting to traverse the rhetorical path, I approach the chariot of the sun and its rule. I know not what to spend on the varied regions of the star; I know not what to hold: all things surpass my heat. The powerful Curia shaped you to the polished nail and ordered you to bear light to its fathers. You restore Phoebus: a rich victim smokes for you, for which the dwellers of heaven would have yielded to the thunderbolt.

My poor gardens barely send me that which, once received, the red pot rejects as vegetable. I confess, I am one whose words drip in narration, displaying the leanness of a poor intellect. I sing no songs, nor will it be granted, with me as modulator, for the Camenae to produce a sophos from the thumb's mouth. Whatever I used to speak with the Apollinean quill, I have abandoned, forgetful of the tongue which the threads gave me. A rustic right hand wanders over the tender strings for me; barbarian plectra shatter the sweet modes. Ah, how often did the wave, which creates thirst with smiling lips, flow in the glassy herbs of Helicon! Ah, how often, my temples wreathed with ivy, did I lead, soothing the Aonian assembly with song! But now, through the woods, among the caves of wild beasts, I am resolved to lead a rustic campaign, entrusting great seeds to strong furrows, so that tares may not deprive the shoot of life. Let milky words not strip my mind, laid bare, and let me be called soft in speech and in intellect. Let my tongue not run through open fields, nor let me bear the heavy trumpet of masculine eloquence. Lest my heart be inflamed by the high-sounding buskin, and I be a father puffed up in written character. What harbor then for me? The reader seeks fame everywhere. But stable modesty is my own, if I am silent. You keep the sky; leave me quiet on earth, I who know only that I have learned nothing well.

IX. A Speech Delivered on the Birthday of the Holy and Most Blessed Pope Epiphanius in the Thirtieth Year of His Priesthood. Preface. I perceive what many speak in silence within their minds, and with the ear of the heart placed close, I understand the voice of the heart. For these silences cry out: why does a man of another profession seek a theme for himself, why does one marked by the titles of humility seek the swelling applause of the crowd, the plaudits of voices, which the popular breeze stirs up through the inflated bubbles of flatterers? They say such things ought to have been composed long ago, when the flattering flowers of youth and the springtime of boyhood were still in him, and the license of the world smiled, when it was fitting to be carried aloft by resounding acclamations, at a time when even the appearance of counterfeit pleasure could be seized. Now, why should he recite publicly, whom praise neither becomes nor delights? Let them remember that I am performing a task of my office, I who, in the praises of a priest, am known to feel what I owe. To him, although now I render but small things with untimely praises, yet I shall owe the greatest things later, in whose ministry I am able to expend whatever I am worth. I have also perceived in my mind that, if an account must be given of idle speech, no less must it be given of idle silence.

For idle silences are not nourished, if, with the rejoicing minds of all kinds thronging around me, I alone, when I could give, were to withhold words, especially since even in celestial observances it is fitting that hymns be employed, and we believe that the Lord, who is without a share in humanity, is soothed by the mere praises of men, and that He demands this by a certain special right from those whom He has gifted with a tongue. What should a bishop do, who by his own prayers has brought it about that I am able? For it is written: "The Lord has given me a tongue of learning, when it is time to speak a discourse." It is time now, as I judge, and the door of the heart is opened for the moment of speaking. But now I will not loosen my lips in poetic praises. Far from me the bilge-water of poems, which, just as it does not praise the truth, so neither is it truly praised. Now favor me with your minds, as I am about to speak the truth. And in this work, if I say less than the greatness of the subject demands due to the smallness of my talent, I will not feign greater things out of boastfulness. For ancient bards, the greatest virtue of speaking was this: if they knew how to deceive with learned words. Praise consisted in composing a poem that lied for the sake of praise. Then, fraud was fitting for the work: for, following the custom of poets, preserving what crime possesses, they forbade by shame speaking the truth, and faith everywhere despised song. Art pleased, which befits fault: for a more learned error wrested fearful poems from certain tongues.

The law taught speech without law, when art claims whatever rights deny should be spoken: base fictions fashioned the gods with song, the reins of morals—they said Phoebus and the thrice-three were sisters, the Castalian spring, and the various arts of Pallas; then they told of laurel, tripods, cauldron, drums, plectrum: sense fled from them from the path of truth, and a deceptive image mocked their wandering efforts. Now, faith, scorn the tongue of the cithara, which sings from the mouth of the thumb: rather, O Spirit, come now, I pray, you whose inexhaustible year always revives whatever earth creates, sea engenders, ether brings forth: who spreads the seas, gives solid body to grain, stirs rocks at command, whom the bristling Caucasus fears, when with keen sense you tame the strong hearts of servants: who sees all, whom all tremble at: fountain, way, right, stone, calf, lion, light-bearer, lamb, door, hope, virtue, word, wisdom, prophet, victim, shoot, shepherd, mountain, net, dove, flame, giant, eagle, bridegroom, patience, worm, son, exalted, lord, god, all things—Christ. I pray that he be present for my words: as he entered the breast of the ancient prophet in the time of Pharaoh, and aided him who was to speak with a slender voice. He himself, I think, then marveled at his own mouth, well aware of it, and at the murmurs and the usual thing, filling the prince's ears with weight, voice, sound, sense, probity, modesty. You, O holy one, advise your servant: grant that I may render thanks, which it is a joy to owe.

We all embrace the holy one. Behold the day, on which the radiance chose to impart itself more readily to the lands and to animate souls with its nearer rays. The world rejoices in this, though the joys are not of the world. Do you see the fearful worshippers bowing their faces in homage to the seer? He feels the festive season, nor does he, saddened, scorn his lost pupils. This day was the cause of life for all and of salvation for all, dissolving the bonds of ancient guilt. On this day Christ bestowed glory and protection upon the Ausonian fields, and a ruler who would govern the peoples with equal mind and guide the nations with piety: for whom the author of Olympus, having promised a king of like probity, prepared him: as God himself, propitious, gives laws from his gleaming throne. He will always be next to heaven whose mind is conscious of righteousness, whom just men approve, whom, with the world as judge, public prayers select: I confess, great suffrages have conferred that he should enjoy the bosom of an unearned seat. The free multitude set you up as a perpetual master, praiseworthy in its servitude. How great was the fervor everywhere! With the holy tumult of the world applauding, all had the same spirit, all crowds had one voice. Yet they vied with each other to prevail in their prayers, as if there were a cause for fighting hand-to-hand with a dread enemy: the common people then conquer with their own blood, whenever they have promised to endure dangers. Not otherwise does the Caspian tigress, when she has given birth, circle Niphates or shape her cubs for the practice of seizing, burn against the absent, savagely gnaw mortal limbs with her spirit, and seek the slaughter of men with her bloody mouth.

Another in his tender years marveled at old age, Another boasted of parents from an ancient line: Another’s mind, too little content with blood, Recalls a thousand worthy stems of virtues worthy of a man: How great the praise of titles then stands forth, They are overcome whenever, and the glory of character in the vanquished Bears a notable triumph through long ages. That one extols to the heavens the chastity which flourishes in a beautiful body, More beautiful, and a chaste figure shining with light: That beauty indeed brought honor to him, which for many has often been a cause of danger: It is enough to have remained chaste while beautiful. These gifts are not given except from the highest peak of Olympus. If ever the advantages of form happen to be added to holy minds, Then men strive to conquer themselves in war, And the right hand pours forth beauty or the gifts of the earth, And the soul lives for itself, while it perishes for that. When the people told these things from many a mouth, There was one fixed opinion among all the throngs. The venerable council of priests and the court of the age Chose, willed, deserved, received, loved. Behold another thing, new and wondrous to all, I had passed over, which everyone fears, which the world beholds. He was barely of first age, when the thresholds of light are trod With trembling steps, when snatched from the mother’s breast, A sweeter juice is drawn from a tender draught: When a cunning mother, with a feigned flavor, Pours the harsh taste of herbs onto the querulous little lips, So that the son may not know his mother by taste, Whence the poison, prepared with a laughable trick, is swallowed By unaccustomed throats, with milk denied.

That was the age of him when the sign occurred. For they say that his cradle shone with a great light, when such splendor gleamed in him as the ether could then pour forth in homage, when, ordered to serve a mortal, the swift fire of Olympus, moving quickly, raised his mortal limbs with a falling step, imitating the swift course of winged horses. Not otherwise did the favorable flame then wander around the boy, encircling, illuminating, venerating, watching over, encompassing him. Then his fearful father, with downcast eyes, speaks: "Highest of gods, holy guardian, who on the summit of heaven make the omens favorable with your right eye, take this one to yourself from his earliest, still crawling years, holy one, father not yet, whom the slippery ages of earthly sins have not yet entangled in the snares of art. Let them not do so: let him be, highest god, a rich gift for you." He spoke these words and poured forth tears which joy brings forth. Then willingly he seeks Crispinus, whom it is not granted to speak of with worthy eloquence, not even if the one who could draw rigid rivers from the rocks of the Apennines when the streams stood still, and lead the woods to the plectrum, should rise from Avernus. This man was more an Elijah: for who would leave Elisha on earth with a double gift of the palm? He whom the pious milk nourished, which Paul pressed from the breast, whose right hand is full of evangelical nipples. Hail, holy father, always hail, ashes of the received Crispinus, to whose authority everything flows that we admire as worthy in this teaching of Christ. You well possess the wealth entrusted to you, heir.

A small matter teaches, joined with triple talents: It shows that from the parts of the western world a suppliant people is recalled and sent by Gaul: Savage hearts learned to be bent when they saw you, You overcame, greatest one, an armed king with prayers. Thus the warlike dull swords with the blow of the tongue, Thus the strong blade of words storms iron. For if the faithful relate that those who join the greatest with the small, Thus the steward of tamed fields awaits the master, When, with the curved tooth of the hoe well softened, He writes the fields and combs the face of the soil with plows, So that the running vintage foams in full vats. He grafts foreign plants into a foreign sod, A stranger tree is joined by connected bonds, Stocks are pruned, the harvest is married by the sickle. A shoot, a tender wood is bitten by a narrow gap, Nobility arises from a small, not its own, shoot, A scion grows rich by an unknown gift, While moistened plantings join to a new bark. Likewise, he paints the backs of Paestan rose-gardens, The royal field is clothed in rustic purple. Lilies are poured forth by the light of shining lime: Then he paints violets, clovers, colocasia, marigolds, Cinnamon, thyme, narcissus, balsam, costus. Then he plants the renewed shoots that the phoenix bears. This master, arriving, bids the slave recline, And he himself rises and with his own hands places the dishes on the table. Thus your thirty years, cultivator of souls, The fields breathe roses, and the soil, interrupted by no frosts, Withers not, which the teacher preserves in a perpetual spring With the fragrant sod of merits.

The arbutus dries up whenever your dew is denied; you pour forth tears, and there you also heap up a basket of foul dung: then it rises with rich branches, then, fruitful under God, it surpasses the laws of birth. Now take up, O golden light of our life, this right hand; joys make me produce a small song for you. When God has brought forth my prayers in the order begun, and the docile vine-shoot which your right hand plants has shone, I will pay you back what is owed after a hundred years more strongly. I have set down whatever song I now carve for you under a knotted law, father, which the rule of art, close to punishment, has woven under diverse conditions, lest any syllable waver deceitfully. I have spoken. X. EVENING HYMN. The earth, covered with a dark cloak, now receives the night, so that bodies may grow strong again through a sweet death. The gentler image of death brings the tomb of sleep near, while the mind, panting from the heats of light, grows cool in idleness. Christ, light, life, truth. Let the dark times of sleep, prepared with gloomy shadows, not summon us to darkness. Let no night subject us to itself under the cover of black night, nor let the false image of drunken heat paint our bodies, truly ministering a false crime to those ignorant of guilt. Through the gifts of rest, stand by us, watchful guardian. Let the cunning enemy be far away: let that which harms sleep. Let him who strives to gnaw with savage tooth those lying in their beds, let him, his limbs bound, mourn that he strikes those whom you cherish. Let not the spirit, shipwrecked, be destroyed in the moist flesh. Let chastity, which shines as the first of the virtues, adorn the bed: let faith, which flourishes with perpetual light, live in the heart.

XI. HYMN IN A TIME OF SORROW. God, eternal joy, Christ, peace of the anxious heart, and harbor of the storm-tossed, whom no gale, if it sweeps the depths with turbulent motions, can drive from the breast. You raise up those sunk in the deep, you, who are yoked to burdens, you, guide of the shipwrecked prophet, while he lives as food for the beast, while the sea knows not what it holds, you, the exactor, snatch the food safe from the beast’s throat. Brought back by a dreadful oarsman, safe with a wicked guard, the prophet then spoke of you as god, and, stronger, carried out your commands. The sober one had dragged him through foul tombs with waters: living, he endured sepulchers, the meal of a living urn. He revealed the secrets of the cooked, a reverend witness of the inner. Thus we pray, king god, broken by grief, that you snatch food from the belly of cares. What kills lives in the marrow, the depths of the entrails are disturbed. In the source of the flesh is ardor, which drowns, burns, afflicts: but if you look serenely, oppression will give birth to joy. XII. HYMN OF SAINT CYPRIAN.

Of the poet Cyprian and the martyr Heart, tongue, mind, dignity By bearing death they bring forth: A life-giving tomb, death gave: Light born from the sword gleams. He was exceedingly brilliant in speech And rich with a single mouth, Like the wave of a rushing torrent, Darts driven by the horn, Surpassing in ready speech, The wealth of a reverent breast Which he rightly rendered to Christ. Now he fulfills his former office: The orator prays, obtains, And tempers harsh cases, Makes the accused blessed, Breaking sins with his song. Neither flame, nor prison, nor chain Can harm those whom he aids. Ordered to sacrifice to the gods, He laughed at the lamentable deities, With danger soon pressing, He fled dangers through death: With small delays of speech patterns He released delays with blows, He summoned swords more cheerfully, Swifter than running death. The proconsul could not be more savage, That Maximus, While what he threatens is a gift, Nor does slower anger delay Those willing to see Christ. XIII. HYMN ON PENTECOST. And this is a heavenly gift, That tongue fights with tongues. Who would not proclaim the rewards of the Thunderer Through his gifts? He who is wise by speaking, Let him speak worthily of God. Behold, the Spirit pours in, And again instructs mouths. He enters hearts Eviscerated by ancient gloom. On this day for the apostles, While the Word divides words, Mighty in worldly speech, He also united the hearts of the world. Let him be borne with highest praises: Man has the mouths of nations, The Thracian, the Gaul, the Indian are one. What charming Greece plays, What savage barbarism rages, The hiss of Canopus's murmur, What the Parthian tongue barks, Filled the breast of the guests.

The world runs to salvation, The unwilling world, by as many paths As there are sacred pardons now, As the Paschal grace presses, While it adorns the mystic crown With a sevenfold gift. The increases of fullness Supply riches to the rich man. Now sing with mind and voice: This our mind owes to God. XIV. HYMN OF ST. STEPHEN. What is more powerful than Stephen? You say "Crown": he is a martyr. This is what man is, what the reward is: The fruit of labor is the name. This brief praise becomes long, If the renowned are so called. Look, minister of death, Conferring life from death, This he gives to salvation which he denies. Blessed under those blows, He becomes eternal by his end. He prepares light with blood, Heaven by the gift of the tomb, As triumph puts the enemy to flight: Like a palm he engages. This man first entered the path, Subdued by no steps. He traversed the secrets of the pole, Hidden in the garment of flesh, He cried out: "Behold, the Son Stands at the right hand of the Father." While the impious bore stones, While a thousand engines of death, Alone, conscious of the good, He prayed, speaking from faith, Lest unknowing, guilty men Be destroyed by heavenly wrath: Let the madness go innocent. Fury had promoted the accused, Labor ran through vows: The executioner groaned at the cross, Which, growing, he had overcome.

XV. HYMN OF ST. AMBROSE. They carry Ambrose to heaven, His name or his deeds bring honor. He owes nothing here to eloquence, His entire endowment comes from his character. The strong man does not desire a helper, Fortified by his own shield. In the flesh he rules nothing of the flesh: The mind is queen in the body. He shattered every slippery path. Thus he lived not for himself, But wholly for God the author. Added hence to the apostles, He brought back the banished faith, He proclaimed the triumphs of the martyrs With the laurels of his flourishing tongue. With his mouth he snatched prey From the throat of the savage serpent. He who wages the wars of Christ, Though unarmed, is feared by swords. He lives buried and still helps, Holding the key of the Church. Justina lost her poison, Punishment gives the prophet his reward. Remember your seat, O light, Adorn, O saint, your descendants, Propped up by a noble author, Lest the leader of the serene summit, Hidden in a cloud, shudder, He who is the shepherd of bishops, Who removes everything that darkens, Guides the flock of princes, Is the teacher of those who teach. XVI. HYMN ON THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD.

Now Christ ascends the sky, He slew before the burial, Entombed he drove out death: Death falls by death's assault. Sing, ages, of the deed, A funeral subdued the underworld, The slain one conquered the end: Pale fortune mourns there, Whence it presumed joy. The devourer is caught as prey: The plunderer of all becomes plunder. Now the net is led bound, The chain lies in fetters, The serpent has spewed forth its venom: The meek one tramples pride, The lamb disembowels the lion. This is a greater power, That you, Christ, take up our nature And hidden in a servant's garment You lead us to triumph, Than if from flashing thrones You terrified the guilty with splendor. God is manifest through all things, Concealed by no covering: But to raise up the fallen, He deigned to be what we are, He himself redeemed his own right. He brought back the lost sheep To the shepherd's care. Lift the gates, angels: The dread judge enters, Greater than the trophies of enemies. XVII. HYMN OF ST. Euphemia. What tongue could, what pen could Speak the triumphs of such a virgin? Learn, soft minds, you men: She sets examples, take them up, you slothful, When a brave girl overcomes men. Virtue is always unacquainted with softness, Nor do the laws of sex and a broken mind affect her, Who once conceived Christ in her heart. They loosen the bonds of perishable things from hearts In which God is stored in minds. She twisted strong torments with her body: As pain wearied, love of the cross grew. If you could know how to conquer the martyr, Mad torturer, you would learn to spare. Flames, whip, executioners, wheels— She who must follow the cross does not fear them too much.

This one, with crackling fire from the furnace, is said to have ordered her to be thrown headlong—Priscus, more harmful than a source of poison (for so in that foul time they called the arbiter of the holy virgin). While his servants too eagerly sought to hand the martyr over to the furnace's fuel, then a light more serene than the light of Olympus removed the cruel work of those who willed it, when they, showing the sword at the same time with their voice, said: "We beg you, direct us from here to Tartarus, for our hand does not violate the saint." His bile swells, his liver burning hot; soon rocks, pits, lashes, beasts—a greater poison he prepares: blandishments, to which the heroic woman stoutly opposed herself. XVIII. HYMN OF SAINT NAZARIUS. The narrow times of life, confined by small limits, holy death causes to grow: eternal boundaries it prepares. From the fruit of falls comes that by which the human race may rise. In the stock Nazarius, good, from death added light. Under Nero, a blessed man, having suffered various evils, he traversed the world, not with a heavy chill of heart. But to instill in the profane by what path they might ascend the poles, a true teacher by deeds, not words, gave examples. For that leader is strong who teaches wars by deeds. Whom do words as a soldier draw, if the leader abstains from actions? The windy exhortation of the tongue does not have what form provides. But after he poured back the great seeds with a writing hoe into the best clods, he soon sought Milan, in which, by a noble triumph, he repelled the ruin of the flesh. Lying in an unworthy seat, he soon warns the trembling seer, so that he might add bright gifts, poured back into the world.

XIX. HYMN TO SAINT MARY. That I may speak of a virgin with child, What is worthy of praise in Mary? Let the birth adorn, let it demand: What the closed gate, what the open gate Requires, let her herself suggest. Let the words be like the miracle, Why, mind, do you seek order? Nature has lost everything: This is salvation, that we are overcome. When the virgin was living alone, She conceived a son through her ear, Her body being amazed at the deed: Her womb swells with spirit. What the tongue cast forth is seed, The Word is confined in flesh. From his mother he is wholly ours, From his father he is in no way less than God: The birth is whole from both, Both the one who begets and the one who receives. He is no greater than his servants, But neither does he become lesser than the one who creates. The fountain, called closed, receives, The fountain, closed, brings forth limbs: No narrower gap has yielded, And the true offspring shines forth. Say, mother and virgin, I pray, Does anyone close when exiting? The entrails are constricted by fetuses, The bond of modesty has been born. (What praise) of Christ is more worthy Than that you are believed to be above, Remember us, most powerful one.

XX. HYMN TO SAINT MARTIN. When I recount the deeds of Martin, I pass over nothing worthy of praise. His virtue, divided among all, When concentrated in one, surpassed them. By great labor the martyr is Victor over the flesh in spirit: This is next to triumphs, If they trample upon inner wars. As the body loses its strength, His fixed resolve stands firm with laurels. He who fulfills the desires of the limbs Exalts the enemy of the mind. This man, knowing not the fire of a spring, Burned with the heat of God: Waves were joined with vapor, His acts dedicated to Christ. With what garment he had covered the naked, With that the king of the heavens shone: By a squalid cloth is acquired That by which the globe of stars gleams. How just an exchange! The needy one repays a star, And the beggar prepares kingdoms. Soon he touched the sacred life, He toy with the demons' throng, He commanded the ashes to rise: The dead lived by his touch. He willingly suffered the scourges, With which he wove a crown. Driven to the office of bishop, He reluctantly assumed the vow, Which holy faith fulfilled. XXI. HYMN TO SAINT DIONYSIUS.

To Dionysius Christ gave— As many wars, so many victories. The exile is a citizen of the pious, A sharer in the heavenly city. Constantius once drove the prophet From his place, a tyrant. That man did not yield to the storm; Faith grew through dangers. This the holy profession grants: Pain delivers you to prosperity, You earn what you desire through evil. Persist, torturer who helps, This light is extinguished by denying it. O how blessed is adversity, If exiles triumph thus! The confessor, fearing nothing, Was no different from the martyr. Death, which scatters those it afflicts, They fly to the desires of death. Slow boiling loses nothing: It enters hidden recesses. Grief is a life-giving corpse, A swift cure is death. He laughed at the prince's fury, Running about while faith remained: Fixed, he is led through the world, Where the sun shines more fiercely, Denying the supply of drinking water. From you, O dread one, we receive As if our own what you reward. Send the saint to demand What you yourself bestow upon us. BOOK TWO. EPIGRAMS. I. EPITAPH OF A GOOD MAN.

A man good by birth, shining in uprightness, and the founder of his name—does he lie thus in a narrow tomb, I ask you, grief? The hope of a vast house is covered by a modest grave; the pinnacles are confined by small turfs. What good is distinction in children? What advantage are the thresholds of life? Death comes in an order not awaited. What does it profit this man that he preferred old age to tender years? He joined many funerals to his own. Alas, he died a young man, who wiped away the stains of life in a time of sins, with God giving life. Look—you who perhaps fear your early years: a boy did not hold back an age that conquers. Leaving an example to the earth, snatched to the stars, how well he shows the right path to those who confess! He surpassed twenty winters and as many harvests, whom a hostile fate suddenly snatched from our sight. II. EPITAPH OF HABUNDANTIUS, VIR ILLUSTRIS Merit never dies after the tomb for one who survives; burial does not confine a lofty soul. Blood, honor, talent, uprightness, constancy, wealth—many endowments destroy destruction. In common, a good man does not feel the loss of the tomb. The Fates gather the threads they gave to the wretched: the hanging threads that bear the common people grow weary; strong warps touch the noble. White-haired morals were renewing the venerable ages, and in turn, a pure heart bore a temple.

III. On the Epigrams Made for the Bookcases of Lord Faustus. You have shaped poems harmonious with diverse books: let the joyful letter receive what it bestows. I know not who would not so greatly praise, Faustus, your modesty, when you return whatever the texts you have read have given you. A mind always ignorant of what is right loses the deposit: these teachings return to upright character, if, however, you permit my words, I will confess, on the right, that he who excels in great things justly banishes the trivial. Let the poets whom you depict in polished verse be praised, let a masculine tongue thunder with rhetorical figure. As Paul taught Christ, both man and God, let him rejoice in eloquence by which he surpasses all. Let Attic teachings be enriched through Greek intellects, and let learned Greece marvel at our glory. Let moral matters be told in concise terms, let physical matters be narrated with certainty, let history, showing the record, indicate history, let comic matters be enumerated with polish, let strong matters be told with applause: your work suits lucid words. No other can do this: but to call Faustus the height of praise will always be, if I speak of what is well known.

IIII. [On the Wagon Which the Bishop Donated.] The highest bishop, noble wagon, donates you. He opens the way for great things, he makes a favorable omen. V. EPITAPH OF RUSTICA. Rustica, the pale lot of life did not take you away, nor did it give you destruction through death. Purer, you will walk through the ethereal citadels without flesh. Thus burials ennoble the life of a chaste woman, because, wondrously, your bereaved age stood firm for you, when love for your husband was well directed to your son. VI. EPITAPH OF MELISSA. Whoever survives after the body is conquered dies: only crimes give the law of death to man. Nothing perishes for you, virgin: a pure mind has poured back the flesh, which never lived in the service of the world. Let the burials, the pyre's rewards for crimes, cease: this passage from life to life pleases. VII. [A BRONZE SERPENT ON A CROSS.] Killer of death, leader of life, plant of salvation! Behold: for the serpent drives away poisons, and what had been a kind of punishment and an image of death for the wretched is for me certain salvation.

VIII. Verses in the Basilica of Saint Xystus, Made and Written, Which Bishop Laurentius Built. The bishop, strong in genius, uprightness, and modesty, Adorned the gift with merits and, joining the lights of life To the value of the work, established this temple. Fame does not scatter its course through uncertain hiding-places, But the law of an ancient deed lives, increased through time, When Xystus, on the right, receives the gifts of Laurentius. Thus the office that once befell the saints endures. He offered this temple here; the other, coming, consecrates it. VIIII. Likewise in the Basilica of the Saints, Because the Buildings That Had Previously Been Four Had Burned, and Thus It Was Made. The humble roofs yielded before to the blessed torches, If splendor comes through loss, if roofs rise from flames Destined to hold God, if lost things grow By harmless fires, if expenses give worship. What will it be like, restored and increased by crackling ruins? Laurentius, conquer your fires, waging your wars. Sordid earth would have lain hidden in a decaying recess If the caves of old had kept their appearance. But after the higher flames were sent a second time, These things, drawn to the light by ashes, became worthy of veneration. Turn your pious eyes here, father, who foretell All things to be committed to the vapor, and instruct the things to be taught, Lest the mind, ignorant of the right, waver in words.

X. Verses in the House in Milan. Two things are granted to a building for its renown through the ages: if it gleams with marble veneers or by the merit of its master. Grass-like stones imitating verdant pasture deceive the eyes with a more noble deceit: yet let the work deceive by art, let nature govern the shapes, while the innards of the stones are fashioned into images: let the teacher suffuse whiteness from a rosy mouth, let him paint the fitting limbs with scattered marks. Gold, ceiling, ivory, panels, coffers, gems— it is not granted to human goods to gleam more brightly. In the price of veneer, chance plays even without law. To stand firm in character, believe me, will be a matter of effort. XI. [In the Basilica of the Apostles at Novara.] Behold, the ancient temple gleams, which before was squalid, to which new light has composed an old face. Who has destroyed the old shrine through religion, which, with the deities driven out, rightly holds a god? Gods, to whom this was open, leave the possessed seats. What Victor made, the Victor holds everywhere. The successor added to the worship by merit and deeds, you, who bear the name of Honoratus from character here. He who carries cloudy hearts of viperous poison is not granted to make beautiful summits for God.

XII. [In the House in Milan.] Learn from whose streams this narrow house has drunk, Though its halls surpass modest porticoes. Built by the zeal of the supreme pontiff, it gleams; This house possesses the very day of Laurentius. Splendid roofs rise through wealth only to fall; What comes from a master knows no decline. Decay, accompanied by age, scarcely ever wears away What the glory of the builder has well founded. A tale never silent about great things preserves What, conquering time, carries a name to the stars. XIII. He was always a strict guardian of the honorable, Terrible to faults, yet merciful to suppliants, Whom vice never bent, but pity always did; He gave judgment everywhere, certain in his countenance. He rebuked crimes with his expression, he revived the penitent; He bore your secrets, aware of them, on his lips. His mother poured him, a celestial being, from her womb into the heavenly court, Withdrawing her breasts, she gave him over to other breasts. Venerable ages marveled at the white-haired seer: What he bore in his office, he possessed first in his character.

XIIII. Who has long and happily left behind a dwelling that he possessed? What house, widowed of its master, has grown by his loss? Seized up into the courtly offices, he obtained without purchase what is sought by the price of the mind. Now the place retains by its watering what it swallowed in a draught, guarding the prosperity once gulped down through its jaws. Whoever at once succeeded as dweller and heir, that place bestowed its right foot upon the entrant. Learn what a partner provides for holy life, if dedicated roofs render men pure. XV. Grant, almighty Father, through long ages, we pray, that sure hope may come to the pious guests: that the bright threads not be darkened by our merits, nor the palm prepared for my finish-line halt. Let him arise who, cherished in the womb of his own mother, comes to the taste of life through your gifts. You steep my heart even with a faint flavor, you make the tongue a witness of blood. Lofty arbutes grow leafy in shadowy luxury, which no farmer has trimmed with his sickles.

XVI. Eloquence stands as a sure sign of nature's perfection; he who thirsts seeks the source of the perfect. Freedom is always unlocked by honorable pursuits; nobility lies hidden in unworked darkness. The earth would have kept captive the metal in its veins, did not the discoverer bring forth what he calls into the open. The pale seeker has yielded up the tawny gold: he who polishes a freeborn man makes him his own in this way. Thus far, having traversed the Ionian Sea with a scanty crew, steer my skiff to port, Thalia. XVII. ON THE ROYAL DINING ROOM IN THE HOUSE. The sailor hangs the gifts of the sea upon the doorposts, bearing at his own doors what is born of the river. The hunter places his iron javelin at the gates; the vestibule is adorned with the helmet of the arms-bearer. Art, virtue, name, origin are learned from the doors. We are believed to be gods by the sign on our brow. So reveal our pursuit, O letter, guide of the straight path, that the house may not conceal the talent of its master. You who, having drunk your fill of the Latin dew, look upon the serpentine waters of Helicon here.

XVIII. ON A DISH THAT HAS AN ARMORED YOUTH ON A HORSE HOLDING VICTORY IN HIS HAND. Behold, a victorious right hand holds a winged divinity: it comes, and for the return it has no weapons of the road. The war-horse, bearing a fighter, threatens across its back, a terror to the stranger, which smiles in the well-wrought art. Let the famous offspring learn in Hyperborean fields the genius of nature, when it sees the images. XIX. ON A MARBLE LION THAT SPOUTS WATER IN THE HOUSE. Behold the lion, having put aside its savagery, now gentle: from its mouth it pours forth waters in compliance with its breast. The wave flows from its snout, its tooth chews cups of death, losing its nature, the beast sates us. While the savage throat pours forth glassy springs, dire hearts are washed with life-giving waters. XX. ON THE BAPTISTERY OF THE OIL-VESSEL WHERE MARTYRS ARE PAINTED, WHOSE RELICS ARE DEPOSITED THERE. The Armenian founder, who is worthy of a higher honor, here produced a font of life-giving water. Let us bear our innards full of life-giving waters: the wave, once given, provided that the drinker not thirst. The painter animated bodies snatched from burials: seeing the living dead, let death go into the tombs. Yet this place encloses the limbs of those whom the wall holds in image, the mind holds in nourishing faith.

XXI. ON SEVEN DISHES BEARING WILD BEASTS OR DIANA. Delia, boar, tiger, lion, heifer, leopard. They bring courses to your table, learned one. XXII. ON A COMPOSITE DISH HAVING SEVEN BOWLS. It preserves neighboring boundaries with diverse feasts, while it encloses many courses by various paths. A fixed order, joined, divides what a certain boundary separates. How well a single belly holds in silver! XXIII. ON HIM WHO, TO RECONCILE A SON WITH HIS MOTHER, COMMITTED A THEFT. Who, I ask, ever curbed a crime through a crime? I embrace holy frauds, which give good seeds, while they break up savage quarrels with skilled increase. He who returns a son to his mother’s love through guilt, it is certain will send seeds of peace into hatreds. In a perverse order, a deceitful peace is a battle, when the face of war grants a feigned quiet. XXIIII. ON HIM WHO WAS SAID TO BE THE SON OF A PROSTITUTE AND A DONKEY. Gods, forbid the threats which a dreadful birth announces. Whom a she-wolf, conceived in filth, poured forth from a donkey. That food of a husband filled the womb with offspring, and the beast, prodigal of law, produced a child for the herd. What can a discordant hybrid, breaking nature, do? Who can say whence a son, born of such, should seek what to follow, whom a foolish father, a shameless mother gave as a thief? A noble, degenerating, would have held a high station from these. But your own parents know you, believe, by your vices: speechless, timid, boastful, suited for frauds, of immense gullet, gulping down whatever is everywhere, who once opens jaws accustomed to human blood and does not turn his snout to lowly bullocks.

XXV. ON A DISH OF SOMEONE’S HAVING PASIPHAË AND THE BULL. EXTEMPORANEOUS. Pasiphaë, leaving the snow-white bull not in art, you seek kisses with hands spread around his neck, a suppliant, more beautiful and you mock real girls with certain things: the white bull surpasses silver in the color of its light: love lives, the bull, the woman without a true body. XXVI. ON ONE WHO NEVER FEASTED EXCEPT AT THE BURIAL OF HIS SON. He prepares lavish dishes for those invited amid weeping, let him celebrate great annual rites through tears. XXVII. OTHERWISE. Never with his house standing does he feed so many, believe me, who fills tombs for his sons and tables for friends. XXVIII. OTHERWISE. Wretched guests, demand many mournings: as many feasts will come as there will be funerals. XXIX. AGAIN ON A DISH HAVING PASIPHAË AND THE BULL. The woman flatters, the bull feels, the limbs are stirred. Art brought forms: who gave souls to these? XXX. OTHERWISE. And the feigned bull preserves a rigid mind, shameless Venus, so that it may suspend its snout from lips when approached.

XXXI. ANOTHER VERSION. If you have souls, painter, into which you instill your art, Let a gentler spirit be enclosed in the bull, I pray, If the strong hearts of a wretched girl are not granted. XXXII. ON THE FACT THAT THE CONSUL MESSALA ENNODIUS WAS CALLED BY A SURNAME. I joined a name to the consul’s genius in place of a family tree: Giving light to the fasti, I am more powerful than the trabea. Why, palmata, do you flourish so much from your own purple? Our purple gave you more than any dye. XXXIII. ON AN ADVOCATE WHO SPEAKS ILL OF HIM. Wretch, why do you confuse everything with broken words? Your buried tongue paints your character. You take, demand, presume, refuse, burn. You make sad things pleasant, strong things weak. Anger, fear, rage, patience in one moment: You bear so many faces with empty hearts. XXXIIII. VERSES WRITTEN FOR UGELLUS, WHERE THE SON OF ARMENUS OFFERS ANGELS TO CHRIST, WHO HAS DONE PENANCE. He receives the offering, to whom Jesus granted pardon. After sins, souls are a sacrifice to God. Go, boy, surpassing your tender years with good conscience. A pure life has earned pious guides.

XXXV. ON THE MAN WHO SPOKE ILL OF THE GAULS IN THEIR PRESENCE, HE HIMSELF BEING A VENETIAN DETRACTOR. You mock the Gauls, Venetian offspring ill-dyed. You have no whiteness: your mind is what your race is. You despise the innocent, you vassal of a stained land: But the sons of the Rhone possess the snow of probity. XXXVI. EPIGRAM IN THE SUBSCRIPTION. What the law of nature gave you as a shoot, friend, Let this fountain of life-giving water transmit to me. XXXVII. IN THE HOUSE BEFORE THE ORATORY. You purchase advantages from losses, joys from grief, If your faith in Christ is undoubted. XXXVIII. BEFORE THE OIL-STORE. This is that by which the limb is filled with gleaming oil: Nothing is more fitting before the holy doors. XXXIX. BEFORE THE GRANARY. The granaries are small, but my mind is more generous than them. By not sparing wealth, I have merited riches. XL. BEFORE THE STAIRS. Let the revealing figure of the test approach the mind, By which indication the vow is always disclosed. XLI. BEFORE THE CELLAR.

No relaxation eases the pressure of a sinister mind: What lies hidden in confined spaces flows out when given room. XLII. BEFORE THE KITCHEN. A sprawling kitchen does not provide me with lavish meals, Nor does my stomach set many cooks to work. We offer few dishes, which surpass in number by their preparation; The glory of the table does not involve a loss of health. XLIII. BEFORE THE PANTRY. A temperate storeroom, which keeps wine in laden casks, Strengthens bodies, driven by its own steps. Let others pour cups that kindle the flames of wrath; Our wine softens warlike hearts. XLIV. AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE GARDEN. Look, you who bend your step through pleasant green groves, So that you may learn to prefer the light of eloquence to cultivated lands. The bud that is painted with the purple of speech smiles; He has spring in winter who produces flowers in song: Through the ice, words breathe out warm zephyrs. Drunk with gleaming purple, utterances have grown moist; In all things, the purple of speech reigns: At the command of the mouth, venomous snakes bow their necks. When cold hearts grow young with rosy blood, Letters reveal old age in cold limbs. The learned man turns the gifts of nature to obedience— Ages, appearances, measures, times, forms.

XLV. IN THE GARDEN, ABOVE THE THRESHOLD. Let him praise the spacious comforts of vast gardens, Whom many cultivated acres sate his hunger. A richer man surpasses the lesser with a lavish endowment: True nobility is that which shines in modest things. Grace comes to the enclosed space, setting aside the fields, And reveals what diligence can achieve in narrow confines. Spring thrives in the entrance under a verdant portico, To which the vine-god himself imparted his genius: Adorning the woven foliage with great clusters, He joins summer’s comforts with winter’s cold. For lilies, laurels, olives mingled with rose-beds Have made the day their own through cultivation: The garland that shows a triumphant brow adorned, The golden earth has contributed to its own offspring. Let the lavish man seek the rewards of a greater vow: This is enough for us, which pleases without deceit. XLVI. ON THE MURENA (LAMPrey) OF LADY FIRMINA, WHICH IS CONFINED IN A SEPTIC TANK, SO SLENDER IT IS. The spirit flits, exceedingly slippery, through exhausted gold: The pale metal barely touches the weary limbs. The weight of the price, the product of the panting furnace, has afflicted it.

XLVII. ANOTHER VERSION. The master dissolves golden threads through the mists: The docile hands have enclosed the tawny blasts. XLVIII. ANOTHER VERSION. This wind has brought together the limbs of precious metal: What they fashion they fear, nor do the eyes grasp it. XLIX. ANOTHER VERSION. It is nothing, and I hold it: the right hand overcomes sight. The air is compressed by the tight bonds of the fingers. L. CONCERNING HIM WHO SENT A FIG AS A GIFT AND A TESSERA AT THE SAME TIME. Your tessera sends the fruit of the accursed tree. These baneful foods first despoiled man, And, serpent, after the fraud you threaten with a naked lot. Spare, I pray, the gifts: reserve chance and losses. Why do you think harmful to salvation the innocent apple? The tree, once fertile with death, then drove away death, When life hung fixed with triumphal branches on the cross. LI. CONCERNING THE ADULTERER AND THE SOFT ONE. All ages of Memphis are held in woven things: Laurentius never served Nero before, Nor did he, who conquered strong flames with his body, fear them. LII. ANOTHER VERSION.

You are a hare in face, a woman in gesture, but in your leg both, resolving the quarrels of nature with no distinction, and you trample the necks of so great a lion. LIII. ANOTHER VERSION. Demand false beards, little wife of the people, lest masculine lips diminish your profit. LIIII. ANOTHER VERSION. Behold a portent created by mixed law, of common gender, but it is said to be more than enough of every kind. LV. ANOTHER VERSION. Constant deceit plays in ambiguous sex: it endures the feminine; when it performs shameful acts, it is male. LVI. IN THE BAPTISTERY OF MILAN. Let the brightness of refined metal shine more purely, he who arranges gifts worthy to give to God. Before, the life of Lawrence stood by vaporized furnaces, so that it might ennoble the pleasing work. Marbles, paintings, panels, a sublime ceiling—he himself gave to the temple, who shines with probity. To the buildings the founder adds value by his character, as you might bring fleeces of the Seres dyed with purple, as a guest light accompanies enclosed gems, as often as snow-white stone grows more beautiful by art.

LVII. ON IOVINIANUS, WHO, ALTHOUGH HE HAD A GOTHIC BEARD, WENT FORTH CLAD IN A LACERNA. EX TEMPORE. I marvel that a barbaric face assumes Roman refinements, and that peoples distinct in body are immoderately mixed. LVIII. ANOTHER VERSION. The Romulean covering is darkened by the cloudy night of his face: his garments are oppressed by his countenance with its shadowy covering. LVIIII. ANOTHER VERSION. You destroy the genius of nobles, ill-groomed one, with your lacernae, mixing discordant offspring in a hostile pact. LX. IN THE BASILICA OF SAINT CALEMERUS, WHEN IT WAS RESTORED. The freed captive, the summit, has merited light; the countenance smiles, bearing no cloud. Here recently the near-dowry of starry Olympus came, led by the ministry of the poet Laurentius, to whose life the building's form is now a single image, like the color of a shape similar to the sun's rays. Hail, restorer of the old, proceed, founder of the new, both in countenance and in talent. Under your leadership, the building abjures its former old age; as a newcomer, genius is extended to things destined to fall. LXI. ON A CERTAIN OLD MAN, A STUPID ENEMY WHO FED WELL.

You prepare lavish feasts, but you bristle with the filth of your tongue. If you, a lazy shepherd, procure the dishes, ambitious hunger, prodigal with exhausted wealth, mocks the horns, if the master is silent. LXII. ON THE SAME, BECAUSE HE DEVOURED THE WEALTH OF THE POOR. Enriched by the entrails of the wretched and the blood of the poor, why are the deaths of so many your banquet? Truffles, partridges, crane, thrush, turtledove, hedgehog—a thousand bodies do not fill your belly. Ill-omened to many, you are called fortunate to yourself alone, because your own belly will be your heir, poor wretch. LXIII. ON THE SAME. Polyphemus lived on human limbs and had as his delight gore-stretched delicacies. You repeat a similar madness on a recurring stage, to whom the throngs of the feeble provide your food. LXIIII. ON HIM WHO FED OTHERS IN ORDER TO LURE HIS FRIENDS TO HIM. So that it might plunge the blessed into death, the serpent offered food and by its gift brought dire life. Thus whoever soothes my labors with the true paradise of feasts suffers the snares of the banquet.

There the friend whom the heart bore departs: the lodging of a dear throat becomes the master. LXV. ON A DECEITFUL DEFENDER. You are unknown in your vows and you withdraw from the eyes in a cloud of the heart: you are sought in the face when present, and you, skilled through winding paths to be visible to no one, give poisons with honeyed lips. I want what you do not want, swearing that you are unwilling to do what you desire, and you shake savage hearts with various means, having learned to surpass the Hydra in heads, Prometheus in forms, so that the story may not return to the ancients: you stir up wars, you grow by spoils taken away, O Defender. To your name the proud plunder runs. LXVI. PREFACE TO THE ENTIRE POETIC WORK WHICH HE MADE. While my anxious mind endures manifold surges and I am made a slave of the glassy sea, and while the stormy porter of the ebbing wave, Africus, whirls me about like captured spoils: the Pierian heat falls upon my mind, and soon the laurel of Apollo crowns my temples, needy of a garland, then the green ivy-berries blush on my brow,

I drank the gentle murmurs of Castalian honey. Immediately putting aside the cares that wither in the breast, I embrace praise, song, joy. LXVII. ON THE FACT THAT HE WROTE AT THE TIME OF THE VINTAGE. While our faithful slaves store the must in casks and play with fearless heels at the press, while rosy feet dye themselves with the blood of Bacchus and the grape-bearing tunic is rent, I, not allowing leisure for Niliac books, have furrowed poems, lest I be held dead in the tomb. Drunk, I have confessed the stumbling words of Thalia; I am empty of blame if the foot falters. The law of art, the syllable, the rhythm befits the sober: none of the Camenae is joined to Bromius. LXVIII. ON A CERTAIN GLUTTON WHO INEXPERIENCEDLY CARPED AT HIS WORK. I know not why, fool, you do not spare holy labor, while you keep your custom of leaping with your teeth. You keep on chewing me, but the belly knows no benefits: for you grasp at empty images with empty blasts. The gulf of foods receives nothing with the murmur of burst cheeks or swells with vain movements. Whether you are plucking the Phasian bird, fish, or sow's udders, feed your wet throat with steaming foods: it helps me, fasting, to compose my words without belching: let royal luxury's dishes sate you.

LXVIIII. ON THE EUNUCH TRIBUNE NAMED PEREGRINUS WHO WANDERS EVERYWHERE. Witnesses attest to family, wealth, life, Tribune, whenever we leave an old lodging. You, whom error has sent through explored peoples, no house holds you, not even a spacious one for a full day, you wish to be called wealthy, exalted, handsome, a friend, sent from the Ocean by the heats of an unknown place. Empty words fly, no witness comes, no trust reveals your sex or fatherland. Beggarly, old, timid, confused, breathless, use these names, losing the truth. LXX. ANOTHER ON THE SAME. You will be safe to speak falsehoods without a witness, Tribune: the wind has a tongue empty of weight. LXXI. ANOTHER ON HIM, BECAUSE HE STAYS NOWHERE. Defects of nature make the Tribune unstable: he flies off again from here, unless bonds hold him. Take, wretch, a little ballast when the west wind comes: no root of yours is useful for your help. LXXII. ANOTHER ON HIM. A eunuch seeks a shameful living through the crossroads: he has no seed to bring to the earth.

The great field preserves the shoots in its cut-open limbs, and the yield returns multiplied in offspring and harvest. In vain does the plowshare cut the upturned backs, unless it scatters the wheat offspring as it splits. LXXIII. ON THE FACT THAT, ALTHOUGH HE HIMSELF HAD GAULISH PARENTS, HE LOVED TO EAT GEESE. Here is a battle of birds, where a goose is slain by a Gaul: the bird pays the penalty for an ancient betrayal. Once slaughtered, you, shameless one, seize the profit of the voice: he who gave life to the Romans dies. LXXIIII. ON THE VARIETY OF CLERICS. He who sets faces, who knows the number of the sand, whom no woman swearing can deceive, who watches the starry throngs of the lovers' paths, to whom Cynthia has become known by her sure horns: this man cannot retain the names, faces, and customs, which the clergy changes in a short time. LXXV. ON THE EVIL MAN WHO LOVED HORSES. The dissuader of what is right, the waster of what is just, rejoices in horses, he who subtracts names worthy of study from the surpassing passion for nags, opposing the rump to sacred words. But it is far from the beasts that he judges with an unjust mind: the purpose of the family persists, which the pedigrees pour forth.

LXXVI. ON THE CUNNING MAN WHO WAS CALLED DEFENSOR. As the asp is caught by a guest’s deceit in hidden contrivances, So under the appearance of play the image of death lies hidden. A shadow provokes cunning plagues when challenged, And war is waged with flattering beginnings. Believe me, the Defensor conducts battles no differently, He who accuses while laughing, who kills while calm. LXXVII. ON THE ACTS AND LIFE OF DOMNUS AMBROSIUS, BISHOP. He lived what he taught, a survivor in merits and honor, Ambrosius, a prophet in character and talent, Whose dewy tongue shone with royal purple, Painting with its own spring the shoots it wished. He wore bright garlands on his brow, And prepared a work adorned with gems from his mouth. He instructed the people by gesture, integrity, and modesty, He fostered by looking back, struck by admonishing. As the duty of the voice demands final dangers, So he who is silent pursues tender faults. Girt with swords, safe by the weight of his shield, He enclosed his breast with woven steel. The sword has strength, the cutter and enemy of vices: The viper does not touch the scaly back of the man.

LXXVIII. ON SAINT SIMPLICIANUS, HIS SUCCESSOR. Ambrose, leaving behind the duties of a widowed people, Transferred them to your care, Simplicianus. The vitals of a kingdom stripped of its successor’s aid Grew by the merit of another time, And as an aged ash, with sparing zephyrs, Lest it fear war, a long peace strengthens. Yet the fortunate recruit, called to white-haired beginnings, Did not bend the ancient summit, degenerating. Nothing feared the soul with burning marrow in cold limbs. The virtue of a pontiff has old age in flower, He who pressed the earthly seas with an open roof, And by his morals and cultivation touched the stars. LXXVIIII. ON THE BLESSED VENERIUS, WHO FOLLOWED. A form of chastity to be followed, the young Venerius Came; serving nothing by his names. Strong limbs grew weak under an aged judge, Age had lost the boy present. After he ascended the high supports of the chair, He expounded white-haired doctrines to the peoples. Golden figures of speech flowed from his rich tongue,

The light of life restored his brilliant eloquence. When the womb of the church had swelled with the seed of the Word, The nourishment of apostolic milk was not lacking. LXXX. ON THE SUCCESSION OF THE VENERABLE MAROLUS. Marolus, a drinker of the furthest Tigris wave, Who had seen the radiance in damp lodgings, Whom labor had solidified on the Syrian axis itself, Sets forth a poet with countless gifts, Ever-watchful, intent, fasting, provident, ardent: That he maintained the custom was enough for his office. Whenever a tender mouth touches the taste of the honorable, What was a command passes into affection. The land, once powerful, founded on blessed fathers, Illuminates the world with noble births. LXXXI. ON THE WORSHIPPER OF GOD, MARTINIANUS THE BISHOP. A mind of snowy milk, a form of manifest dove, A serpent’s cunning, Martinianus, farewell. While the slippery winds of the fickle crowd demand you, They find you fearful, lest you deserve to be chosen. He was one man telling the world a contrary judge, Who, to seize the kingdom, did not deserve to conquer. Immediately led to the threshold of great honor, An exile from the heavens, he is inserted among the citizens. Afterward, he built two purer shrines for the saints, Which he ordered to have daylight with the light closed off.

LXXXII. ON THE VENERABLE GLYCERIUS, BISHOP. Suffused with vermilion and blushing through his excellent deeds, Glycerius, of virginal countenance, follows. While he stains his pure figure with a bloody dew, His painted face, with its simple cheeks, pleased. Bearing a gleaming forehead with a saffron sprinkling, He had tinged his joyful mouth with modest marks. He received the scepter, which the image of the witness bestows, The purple that revealed the command of his mind. Hence he departed: the people happy for a brief time, But again sent to the service of the great one. LXXXIII. ON SAINT LAZARUS, THE BISHOP. So that Lazarus might press down the heights of the world with his foot, Summoned by voices, a fierce man came into the midst, Whose joyful brow, too little, had depicted him as an enemy of vices, Soothing faults with silent eyes. Looking back at lapses, he wiped away the clouds of life: He often gave care through the service of the wound. No crime hidden in concealed caves lay hidden from him: An absent torturer of crimes, he was everywhere. Serene with harmless light, he flourished calm, As if casting the face of a mirror upon wrongdoers.

LXXXIIII. ON THE BISHOP EUSEBIUS, FRIEND OF GOD. Eusebius succeeded to the boundaries of the Ligurians as a stranger, Drawn by the friendship of an unknown people. He was a Greek, whom Titan beholds at his rising, Shaking off the dewy waters from his flame-bearing head. Gentle, composed, generous, pious, upright, bold, He would believe that not to give is a perpetual loss. He wept for the poor, pitying them; he smiled upon the man of means, Bearing joy with all and sorrow with all: This man, the index of his work, Fame proclaims to the speaking world, Drawing peoples from their station. LXXXV. ON GERONTIUS, A SIMPLE MAN, BISHOP. After the church’s seat was won for you, Gerontius, Your dying predecessor did not fear death. With you restoring it, he returns; the pale lot suffers death, He lives after death at the price of his disciple. Joined to farmers, you cultivated the shoots of life, Nor did the serpentine tare bring joyful pasture. He who gave into the common store the sustenance which the best law commands, That man buys heaven with earthly fruits. You crushed the error of the mind by the law of labors: Having suffered no idleness, you are borne on by virtues.

LXXXVI. ON THE VENERABLE BISHOP BENIGNUS. Exercise the certain names which the mind has placed, Benignus, Whom whoever calls will be a witness of his merit. Hoary faith, while it tells of the man, reveals his deeds; It speaks nothing by chance, struck by the pledge. The foreknowing wishes of parents do not err; They turn flatteries into truth for their offspring. He sat judging before the fathers, with the senate applauding; He raised his head, preferred to the saints. But by a cruel thumb, like a flower cut down by a plow, Hope, honor, and genius fell from the threshold. LXXXVII. ON the Most Blessed Man, Bishop Senator. He who conquered the trabea, the throne, and the Gabine cincture, Surpassing the consuls—behold, Senator is here. Swiftness of mind, care for rounded speech, The price of virtues, the form of chastity. The hidden things of books, the closed mysteries of the prophet, He brought into light in whatever form he wished. Sent to the secret places of the farthest world, He restored with reverent studies what had been torn. Then the East, conquered by a foreign light, Clung to the sight of another lamp.

LXXXVIII. ON LORD THEODORE, A MAN OF ALL VIRTUES, BISHOP. You are a sure light for your people, you the most faithful hope of affairs, You, Theodore, are the vigor of the apostolic seer, A heap of virtues, a lucid substance of truth, Whom labor in studies reveals as heaped up: Foreseeing, girded, strong, tranquil, a friend, Composed, simple, you are good and wise, Prophetic: your heart always aware of the future: Evil, once detected, flowed away with you revealing it: Whom the fierce, trampling the heights of the world, feared, The one who spurns the harshness of pride loved. LXXXVIIII. [ON BISHOP LAURENTIUS, STILL LIVING.] He remains whom the renowned king preserves for a long age. XC. [TO DEUTERIUS.] Guardian of the empire, with a speaking thumb you animate the strings Through numbers, you, teacher, compelled the speaking threads of song To serve you by the blows of the plectrum. Cyrrha, powerful with Phoebus, a pious throng of the serene stream, You will always be for me, you who implant closed hearts with remote Offices and fill them with a favorable divinity. I beseech you, as a favorer, receive the exacted voice, Granting a reward for the forced words, with you as judge.

XCI. ON THE MARBLES OF THE BISHOP Sarsorius. Stones’ entrails, forced together by a binding law, Become nature through the craftsmen’s skill. In solid form, the fractured marbles hardened in their broken limbs, Into parts the genius is gathered as a crust. To compose one appearance from varied fragments— Who could do this has led stone into obedience. XCII. ON A DISH WHERE HIS OWN IMAGE IS. Ennodius’s form is a price among rich metals. XCIII. ON HIS OWN CUP. The wave gives birth to thirst, which the shining cup serves. XC. cf. Tibullus II.5, and Zingerle’s Ovid I p. XCIIII. ON THE HORSE WHICH HE RECEIVED FROM Hunniscus. War-bearer, steed nourished under the icy pole, Carrying dry chests through the midst of the Tanais, Chewing white grass in frosty lairs, Whom the virtue of the sky’s law has polished for itself, After conquered peoples, after such rivers of blood, Another master, but the same labor remains. Leave, I pray, the trumpet, destined to endure blessed songs: You are sent as a captive to the services of peace. You have nothing to do with wars: the horn commends death: What good is it always to love known slaughters?

XCV. EPITAPH OF SAINT VICTOR, BISHOP OF NOVARA. Victor by name, by merits in contest, You despise lands oppressed by tainted seed. You, possessor of the body, free from its vices, You subdued slippery ages to subjected limbs, Tranquil, patient, a corrective, provident, sharp. Here, rendering ashes to tombs, called to the heights, The spirit rejoices, lucid, in the ethereal citadel. From the brow of Olympus, pitying the tomb, Whence it looks back upon the conquered world’s funeral, With snares cast off, you grant rewards to the limbs. XCVI. ON A CERTAIN ROMAN WHO WISHED TO BE A TEACHER. No zeal for learning came to you, an index of nature, No letter cultivates the commerce of a brutish tongue: Never a student, whence do you claim to be a teacher? XCVII. ON A CERTAIN OLD WOMAN. While the cold blood dies in the living body, When the ice of years dries up the womb’s nourishment, And the useful blood, guardian of the seed, flees the groin, Why, Galla, do you, withered, join with a young husband? The trust in a joined pledge will perish in the bedchamber. For, falsely accusing the living of being offspring of wrinkles, You give, as a fecund mother, a child to the sewer. The belly brought this, which the husband joins to the lips.

XCVIII. ON THE RING OF FIRMINA, A DISTINGUISHED LADY. Nothing deceives while pretending: what the right hand has fashioned is true. The motionless hare, by art, flees the standing Molossian hound; the golden fury, inserted among raging bears, laughs; the lion, to be carried in hands, rages with a milder anger. The genius recognizes its mistress in the servile metal. She tames the beasts, while she feeds the needy common folk. XCVIIII. [ON ALBINUS.] You see that Albinus has given titles after his tomb, he who slays funerals by his lively merits. Illustrious one, to whom, prince, while you subject the rights of a master, that place of burial truly befell. C. [ON A HUNTING DOG AND A LAMB.] This certain clever little man is called a Cretan, keen of nose, swift of step, fearsome of mouth, fearless, marking tracks with a pressed snout. Where the stag, roe deer, hares, wolf, bear roam, he finds them, and the wary beast is caught in a warm bed. After such great battles, he is played with by the flight of a lamb: the soft flock outruns the swift Molossian hound by trickery.

CI. ON THE DISHES. While it paints so many allurements of Jove, so many living crimes in figures, the craftsman’s right hand is vicious. The price of the silver is to retain the ancient crime, lest the pure metal surpass what Jove did in his thefts. Nothing is permitted to age; the monuments of crimes rise again; he who shapes ancestral faults warns by examples. CII. [ANOTHER VERSION] If the divine adulterer then took on such faces, he first deceived himself with false images: what would the god not have violated with a feigned body, whose form rejoices in its own adultery? CIII. [ON PASIPHAË AND THE MINOTAUR.] Venus is not offended: the bonds of nature hold firm; the heifer of Daedalus’ labor, feigned, ceases. The two-formed cow, living by craft, lows nothing, and the feigned wood of the heifer yields no true union. Behold again, a woman is subjected to a bull as a wife; the breasts of beasts sigh with human flames. The vast bronze neck again takes the yoke of the collar: how the withered one sweated under the tightened thong!

CIIII. [ON DENTERIUS THE GRAMMARIAN.] The form, the head, the face of Denterius—all are masterly; He abounds in countless gifts, that teacher. Let a genius perfect everywhere excuse his tongue: What he cannot speak, for that reason displeases the wicked. They boast that the master does not know the art of grammar: This is better; he instructs by his simple character. The work of an orator and the rocky summits of Tullius He has not touched: a lofty rhetorician loves no one. For his disciples, his countenance and his reverend Baldness are enough: they see the full lights of Phoebus. CV. ON THE BIRTHDAY OF THE INFANT ARATOR. EXTEMPORANEOUS. Rightly you honor your own birthday, beautiful Arator. For if you did not honor it, were you an arator [plowman]? CVI. ON A CERTAIN MAN OF UNCERTAIN PROFESSION AND FOUL LIFE. Why do you chatter, false in so many things, you two-formed magpie, Half-man, who join foul deeds with a trembling loin? What profession have you ever had, what sex have you ever been? What do you not lie about, man-woman, holy-profane? CVII. VERSES SENT TO AGNELLUS, A SUBLIME MAN. EXTEMPORANEOUS.

CIIII. [ON DENTERIUS THE GRAMMARIAN.] The form, the head, the face of Denterius—all are masterly; He abounds in countless gifts, that teacher. Let a genius perfect everywhere excuse his tongue: What he cannot speak, for He has stained the bright with a defiling dye, Whoever has felt affection, let him bear from that tongue Scorched by the torches of the judge Christ, Buried in his mouth. It tears apart, pressing every bond, lively in fraud, to be endured, Bearing with difficulty whatever a calmer order demands. Leave, I ask, friend, manners worthy of the common crowd behind, Following the path of blood, preserve what you have combed out. ENNODIUS TO AGNELLUS. Before your diligence’s command, the tasks imposed held their own health. For, forewarned that these should be given to no one either for reading or for transcribing, I opposed my hands to those who sought them: now, conquered by your love, I have sent them. You will make my shame be at a standstill if you read them, in utter rout if you transcribe them. CVIII. Love dissolves bonds, which once another wove: The old law yields to a follower only through law. CVIIII. [ON HIS OWN VERSES.] Never through long ages in fruitful thyrsus-wands Have the benefits of Castalia flowed into me. To me, composing sad poems with fasting lips, New hope, why do you goad me, from the Aonian gulf? But if, with the Fates’ thread changed, you rejoice, Show me now, Pegasean, the horn-footed steed, Who would carry my winged body through dewy grass And not bend the tender crops with his footsteps, Sublime, strong, beautiful, suited to my steps: If he should come to me, then soon, Muse, you please me. You will be sent to a rich man to ask for small things: Unless you return rejoicing, say to me, Muse, farewell.

CX. ON THE FORTRESS OF BISHOP HONORATUS. The bishop’s fortress is the most faithful hope of life. With a holy guardian, what harm would they seek? This is a shield, a buckler: far from here, Bellona, withdraw. What stands by merits, no battles burden. The founder here solidifies walls, the maker fortifies defenses. Let no one who hastens here in fear be afraid. CXI. ON THE KING’S GARDEN. Right hand mighty in war, filled with celebrated triumphs, By which fell whatever fled from obedience, You who solidify lofty fame with scattered blood, For whom gentleness and arms-bearing alike produced praise, After you reddened the vast expanse of the field, You cultivate the fields, adorning them with purple shoot. To the shrubs you dispense fruit with your own purple, You give to the plants fruit by your nobility. The lowlier turf boasts of its rich branch, While the bite of the wood nurtures bright seeds. Another shoot of yours, cut by iron, blooms: The dowry of the bare, wedded trees gleams. The grasses know their cultivator, the mute speak: What the prince has touched has spring in the ice. The mighty land exults, shows for whom the tree grew: By its fruits and its nature, this master is revealed.

Perpetual serpent that guards the fields of the Hesperides, You give golden gifts as banquets to the fasting. Who would pluck the offspring of the grove with a venomous guardian? The grove is safe by death, believe me, no one approaches. Here, Piety, you make common what you alone prepared. With full bellies, hunger knows not how to die. CXII. ON A CERTAIN BLIND AND LUXURIOUS MAN. With your face dug out, you bear a flowing wound from the light, A pestilent wound, you carry buried features. Your blind face is carried through countless friends: Those who see you rightly grieve for their eyes. You enrich your drooping chin with a stagnant river, You carry around your filthy lips caked with mire. Seek no kisses, hang up your dripping stench: Because of you, I would wish to lose what I see. Who would think that foul flames coalesce in his eyes? He sees nothing, and yet keeps a straight path in his crimes. CXIII. ON HIS AGED HORSE. My steed, more steadfast with aged restraint, Now supports the young man with gentle obedience. The old one lowers his soft back for the rider: His age makes his steps constant.

CXIIII. ON THE SCOURGE OF THE CHILD PLOUGHMAN. What holds the world together, a learned mind has bound to a scourge, Adorning the stripes with a wealth that ennobles. CXV. ANOTHER. Whoever is beaten by the metals of silver and gold, Mingles joys with his own avaricious weeping. CXVI. ANOTHER. Gold is confined by the teeth of silver: Let no one despise suffering beautiful blows. CXVII. EPITAPH OF THE LADY MELLISA, AN ILLUSTRIOUS WOMAN. In blood, mind, wealth, appearance, virtue, modesty, I was alone the woman such as is desired. Only this, which is the law of the world, I bore in my body, Adorning chastity with a chaste offspring: I, the victress, held my strong husband through gentleness, Turning your laws, my Melie, Severus, to my own. Those I bore, I left joined to a lofty lineage. I die before my husband, which is the prayer of the holy. Nothing has departed from me; I remain alive after the tomb: Death never harms the fortunate whom it seeks. And my name is sweet; from my deeds I am called Mellisa. This flowed from my character, a name given by right of my own qualities.

CXVIII. ON A CERTAIN FOOL WHO WAS CALLED VIRGIL. So greatly has the fame of ancient Maro flowed down, That our age would bestow upon you the name Virgil. CXIX. ANOTHER. If such a holy name is given to a foolish little man, The glory of our ancestors will run into disgrace. CXX. ANOTHER. The fool rejoices in the captive lineage of the poet. He is not Virgil, yet this man is so called. CXXI. ANOTHER. Whenever you are called by a name not your own, madman, If you have any sense, take care that you do not come. CXXII. ANOTHER. Why, you wretch, do you falsely claim our Virgil as your own? You cannot be Maro, but you can be a fool. CXXIII. ON A BEDCHAMBER WITH BOOKS PLACED IN ORDER. This is a path that prepares heavenly power, The light of modesty, the food of the mind, the torch, the remedy, the clarity. Those who are stained by the dregs of the world do not know how to hold this. A book stands forth; whoever binds his neck with this thong. This little hoe accompanies the vein of shining blood. CXXIV. AGAINST CLAUDIAN, ON THE MULES.

Behold this bird born of the rushing Rhone, Submitting its neck to the reins of your speech. Commanded, it flies by words, and by words commanded, it rests, Whose captive will is subject to ears. It would feel bonds, were it not that, constrained by the bit of the voice, It would lose the luxury of its kind through hearing. When clamor feigns goads, clamor feigns reins, Free limbs bear the obedience of the tongue. There is no need for straps, but the fixed bond of speaking Binds the hard beak of the chained beast. CXXV. ON A DONKEY AND A MARE. Forced to pour forth offspring from its own entrails for another, And to suckle the young of a wild kind, The quarrels of nature, following a path of great difference. CXXVI. ANOTHER. A mother, ill-aware, brought forth an unknown birth, The deceptions of nature, by a nobler deceit. CXXVII-a. ANOTHER. The distinction of kind was joined by the compacts of birth: The stocks of nature, forced together by a mingled law. CXXVII-b. ANOTHER. This mule is a twin herd, but simple in body. CXXVIII. ON HIS OWN RIDING BY NIGHT IN SUMMER.

The populace of the stars had not yet lost its light from the radiance of the sun, but in the lap of full-grown night was pouring forth its ruddy tresses with dewy sprinkling: Cynthia was shining through her saffron, milk-white chariot, cutting through whatever the orbit of her brother had described; a silent splendor was burgeoning from the gift of night, shattering the torrid season of Cancer with chills: when, desiring to spurn the burdens of cares, the painted face of pleasant countryside called me. I mount a steed, such as Cyllarus scarcely equals, which conquers the ethereal breezes with its soft paces, whose rider runs motionless through trackless ways, flying while standing still with feet constantly driven. CXXIX. ON THE BASTERNA OF VIOLA, WIFE OF BASSUS. How fickle a beauty do these roofs retain, constant! Whatever they have of value is sent by the mistress. For the tawny metal gleams from the light of Viola: the possessor scatters his rays everywhere. CXXX. EPITAPH OF EUPHEMIA. This woman overwhelms tombs, she lives after death by her deeds, she who inserted nothing mortal into her character. Euphemia, the earth embraces your limbs, but your mind is how well joined to the snowy choirs! Destruction perishes: then the harshest fate serves, when a life ignorant of evil overcomes fate. She was fruitful in marriage; widowed, by her examples of modesty she made her daughter love God.

CXXXI. ON A SWORD IN A STAFF. We use a sword hidden by deceit within a staff: How well death concealed by a cloak of wood lies hidden! You carry a support, you who are a terror to all: To us it is peaceful, that which denies obedience. CXXXII. ON BOETHIUS GIRDED WITH A SWORD. The substance of rigid iron grows languid with you, And steel dissolves like flowing water. The unwarlike right hand of Boethius softens swords: It was once a sword, believe me, now it is a distaff. What you carry, you rogue, a javelin, passes into a thyrsus. Constant to Venus, abandon the aid of Mars. CXXXIII. ON AN IVORY STOMACHER. The hearts of men, solicited by a light torment, grow weak: It is permitted for maidens to play. They break what the elephant sent from the Marmaric fields, Scattered into crumbs, the work soon solidifies. From punishment, tender ones learn to jest with deceit: For to laugh at the gift of death is womanly. A narrow casket knows how to enclose a thousand things, All ivory here, woman, is the casket of your breast.

CXXXIIII. ON A BIRD SITTING ON THE FOAM OF THE PO AND CROSSING IT. The banks, the reins of nature, the rising flood had crossed with swelling current, by chance. Forcing the flowing waters to harden into foam, it bore the scaly back of a fish on the mighty waters. A bird, trusting then as on a tender sphere, stood, giving rest to its wings, and pressed the safe waters. The sea offers a boat to one treading upon it from its own substance, when a moist skiff carries a dry bird. CXXXV. ON THE TOMB OF THE EMPEROR MAJORIAN. Although it stands more grievously, fortune in its wrath has brought a tomb to your remains, Majorian. Behold the vast pyramids, unworthy of the great; leave humble tombs to pious princes. CXXXVI. ON A HORSE OF THE PO. All the hooved beasts, which the warlike fields produce, and which the wave washes on bloodied banks, you who have tamed the cold backs of the deep Tanais, whose mighty hooves trample the waters: behold, the horse of the Po is here, to whom, by a just judge, the horses of Haemonia, which the breeze of the pole fosters, yield. That one which chews grass in frosty lairs comes inferior in both merit and form. This one steps softly, beautiful in its honest limbs, it delights the eye in sweet obedience. Let the fable no longer praise the Phasian offspring, nor let foreign names exalt a lofty head.

CXXXVII. ON THE PRINCE OF THE P.P. EBBIOSUS, WHO HELD A VINE. True honor bestows the vine, but the gifts of the vine Do not give wood to a fasting ministry. CXXXVIII. ANOTHER. As the prince holds the scepter, so the right hand bears the vine: Let the divine crown adorn the head with wineskins. CXXXVIIII. ANOTHER. This vine-bearer, though dry, embraces the mother of the master, Whose pressed breasts deny me wine. CXXXX. ANOTHER. Alas, how often the vines, without fruit, mocked my warm lips, Refreshing me with a bare name! CXXXXI. ENNODIUS TO THE PRINCE HONORATUS. You overshadow the faults of the lands, a drinker of the vine’s vice: You cannot be drunk, vomiting the wines of Liguria. While drunken Bacchus fills the burning breasts, Our cups proclaim a mighty thirst. CXXXXII. ON THE LETTER OF LORD AMBROSE AGAINST SYMMACHUS CONCERNING THE ALTAR OF VICTORY, WHEN SYMMACHUS, SEEKING HER CULT, WAS DEFEATED. MADE SUDDENLY AND SENT TO LORD FAUSTUS, PRAEFECT OF THE PRAETORIUM. Victory takes the palm of eloquence from her friend. She passes to Ambrose: the goddess’s anger favors him more.

CXXXXIII. VERSES OF LORD FAUSTUS. He who calls a drinker in the lands of the Ligurians is mistaken: Does a Ligurian, drinking wine, drink wine? CXXXXIIII. VERSES OF MESSALA. Receive our little verses, Ennodius, my neighbor, So that you do not cease to return the book to us: Do not dishonor the cultivation, while you are unwilling to return, Maximus, What you also once promised to us. CXXXXV. OF LORD ENNODIUS. If you, Messala, were willing to open yourself to me in my studies, There would be no lack of books, sweet one, which I might give to you. An overly unjust mind takes away what it scorns from a lover, Nor is a gift pleasing which flees the intellect. CXXXXVI. OF LORD ENNODIUS. He who demands a book of grammar on broken meter Strives to have solid feet. O would that the Muses might obtain, by our gift, Certain joys from you at some time, boy! Those with club feet avoid, unless I am mistaken, composing verse, Or those whom studies behold only in dreams. CXXXXVII. ON HONORATUS. Wife of Flasco, you, endowed with Falernian, Always filled with inexhaustible Lyaeus in your breast, You who worshipped Bacchus, venerated with wet lips, Soothing the gods with belched, swollen must, I am confined, well aware of dryness, in the covering of a tomb: Yet I have a noble husband among the living, euhoe, Whom blessed cups can never pass by. If the fates preserve the man, we both live for you.

CXXXXVIII. EPITAPH OF LADY DALMATIA. Death passes away, as often as a virgin is borne back into the tomb. There is one path of death: the service of crime. Dalmatia’s merits conquered rebellious nature; she holds heaven with a degenerate nobility. It is enough that she trampled the world while in a worldly body, yielding nothing to vices though taken from vice. This scion’s light transcends the sun of modesty; her mind was united with her purpose. CXXXXVIIII. ON THE FONT OF THE BAPTISTERY OF SAINT STEPHEN AND THE WATER WHICH COMES THROUGH THE COLUMNS. It rains without a cloud under roofs with a clear shower, and the pure face of the sky supplies waters. Flowing rivers run down from sacred marbles, and behold, the stone again gives birth to dew. For the dry portico pours forth liquid springs, and again the water from above comes to its offspring. Holy moisture emanates through ethereal recesses, led by the ministry of the priest Eustorgius. CL. [EXCUSE OF ENNODIUS CONCERNING THE PRAISES.] He who marvels that I have exceeded the bounds of duty in the praises of my friends should recall how imperious affection always is, and how the force of love is never subject to the laws of purpose. And indeed, if he seeks the reason for my deed, he calls religion what deserved the name of excess. As eagles are able to reveal their formed young, so the vital warmth within the egg breaks the tender shell.

Then the dutiful father tirelessly tears apart the confined temple, and again brings forth through his zeal what the womb had produced. Soon the same judge summons Phoebus as a witness to the lineage; he finds, by examining the inner light, the light within. Not otherwise does the care of a parent expose boys of high lineage to the rays of learning. Behold how steadfastly the tender ones endure the battles of flames, overcoming the lightning with their gaze. CLI. [ON TWO HOUSES JOINED TOGETHER.] One house, divided, is joined by a double dwelling, and it shares what its work so well binds together. In twin roofs, pious glory shines as one, and honor is united from what is divided. Lest sacred uses be confused, whether far or near, a generous lot gave a constant number to the place.