Copa

Copa

The Syrian hostess, her head bound with a Greek turban, skilled to sway her supple side beneath the castanet, dances, lascivious, drunken, in the disreputable tavern, striking the rasping reed-pipes against her elbow. What use, wearied with the summer dust, to keep away, rather than to recline upon the thirsty couch? There are garden-bowers and wine-jars, cups, the rose, the flute, the strings, and an arbour cool with shady reeds. And lo, what sweetly chatters beneath the Maenalian cave, the rustic pipe sounds in the shepherd's fashion. There is too thin wine, lately drawn from a pitched cask, and a brook babbling with hoarse murmur of water. There are also garlands of violets from the saffron flower,

and yellow chaplets mingled with the purple rose, and lilies which the daughter of Achelous, gathered from the virgin stream, brought in baskets of wicker. There are too small cheeses that the rushen basket dries. There are waxen plums of the autumn day. And chestnuts and sweetly reddening apples; here is pure Ceres, here Love, here Bromius. There are also blood-red mulberries and the grape in clinging clusters, and the dark-blue cucumber hangs from its reed. There is the cottage-guardian, armed with willow pruning-hook, but not, for all his vast loins, is he terrible. Come here, Calybita: now your weary little ass sweats. Spare him, the ass is the darling of Vesta. Now with frequent song the cicadas split the thickets, now in its cold seat the lizard hides in the bramble. If you are wise, reclining, drain the summer glass, or, if you will, bring fresh cups of crystal.

Come now, wearied, take your rest beneath the vine-leaf shade, and bind your heavy head with a band of roses, plucking the kisses of a fair, tender girl. Ah, perish whoever has old-fashioned scruples! Why keep sweet-smelling garlands for the thankless ash? Or do you wish those wreaths to cover a gravestone? Set out the wine and the dice. Perish whoever cares for the morrow. Death, plucking at the ear, says: "Live; I come."