Culex

Culex

I have played, Octavius, while slender Thalia gave the measure, and like little spiders have spun a delicate thread. I have played: let these be the songs spoken on behalf of the Gnat, so that the whole course of the tale may chime in sport for the learned, and let learned men approve, though the envious be present. Whoever stands ready to blame these jests and the Muse, will be carried lighter than the weight of a gnat, and lighter in fame. Hereafter my Muse will speak to you in a graver strain, when the seasons grant me their unanxious fruits, that songs worthy of your judgment may be polished for you. Glory of Latona and of great Jove, golden offspring, Phoebus shall be the prince and author of my song, and its patron with answering lyre, whether Arna nurtures him, drenched with the Chimaerean stream of Xanthus,

or the glory of Asteria, or where the Parnassian rock spreads forth its horns on this side and that with broad brow, and the sounding wave of Castalia glides on its liquid foot. Wherefore, glory of the Pierian spring, come, sisters, Naiads, and celebrate the god with the chorus's applause. And you, holy Pales, to whom the rustics' coming returns, may their care be secure that holds the airy tendance of the groves and the greening woods: with you as my guardian I am borne, a wanderer, among glades and caverns. And you, for whom assurance arises from deserving pages, venerable Octavius, glide to my undertakings, holy boy; for not for you does my page sing of war, the grim war of Jove, and it lays aside . . . Phlegra, the land sprinkled with Giant-blood, nor does it drive the Centaurs against the swords of the Lapiths, nor does the East scorch the Erichthonian citadels with fires, nor will Athos pierced through, nor the chains cast upon the great sea

now seek belated fame in my volume, nor the Hellespont beaten by the hooves of horses, when Greece feared the Persians coming from every side, but soft songs, ranging in slender verse, driven by their own strength, rejoice to play with Phoebus as their guide. These things, holy boy, we will record for you; for you may this glory remain, shining, abiding through perpetual ages. And may a place await you in the holy abode, and for you, safe, may the life you are owed be remembered through happy years, welcome, shining for the good. But let us be borne to our beginning.

The fiery Sun had now pierced the ethereal heights and was shaking his bright light from his gilded chariot, and Aurora with her rosy locks had put the shadows to flight: the shepherd drove the she-goats from the stalls to the glad pastures, and sought the topmost ridges of the lofty mountain, where flowering grass clothed the open hills. Now wandering through woods and thickets, now in the valleys they hide their bodies, and now, swift, straying everywhere,

they cropped the greening grass with tender bite. They clung to the rocky hollows on the lonely banks, and the hanging arbutus is plucked from the outstretched branches, and the dense wild-vine is eagerly sought among the thickets. This one snatches at the high tips with cropping bite, or of the pliant willow, or of the alder newly springing; this one searches the tender briars of the bushes, but that one leans over toward the shadow of its image cast in the stream. O blessings of the shepherd, if any, with mind first taught, disdain not the way of life of the poor man, and approve for him dreams of luxury, unknown, his cares spurned— cares that rend greedy minds with hostile breast. If the fleeces, twice washed and seething with Assyrian dye, given with Attalic wealth, do not seethe for him; if the gleam of gold beneath the panelled ceiling of a house wrings not his greedy soul, nor the glory of paintings, nor the gleam of gems is kept

in any service known, nor do Grecian cups recall the chased-work of Alcon and Boethus, nor is the Indian shell-pearl of the sea held at a price; yet with pure breast he often stretches his body upon the tender grass, when the flowering earth, painted through its jewelled herbs, in spring marks out the fields, picked out with uncertain colours. And him, glad as the marsh-reed pipes back its answer, spending his leisure with the fraud of envy far removed, and master of himself, when the Tmolian foliage, gleaming with green tendril, veils him beneath its vine-leaf mantle. To him are pleasing the she-goats dripping with milk, and the grove and fruitful Pales, and within the valleys the caverns ever shaded, flowing with fresh springs. Who could be happier in his longed-for life than he who, far in pure mind and approving sense, has not learned greedy riches nor grim wars, nor fears the deadly contests of a strong fleet, nor, while he adorns the holy temples of the gods with gleaming spoils, nor, carried away, oversteps the limit of having,

does of his own accord offer his head against the savage foe? By him the god is worshipped with the pruning-hook, not polished by art, he tends the groves, for him the rustic herbs add Panchaean incense with their varying flowers, for him sweet rest is present, and pure pleasure free; on simple cares he fixes his mind here, all his senses he directs here, this care is laid to his heart, that, content with whatever fare, he may abound in rest, and bind his languid limbs in pleasant sleep. O flocks, O Pans, and O most welcome vales of the spring of the Hamadryads, by whose not-rich worship each poet, a rival to the Ascraean shepherd, leads an untroubled life with placid breast. In such pursuits, while, leaning on his staff, the shepherd drives his sunny cares, and while with no tuneful art he modulates a solid song on his joined reed, the heat of Hyperion stretches forth its borne-up rays, and sets bright boundaries in the ethereal world, where it hurls its devouring flames into either Ocean. And now, as the shepherd drives them on, the wandering she-goats

sought again the lowest fords of the murmuring water, which, dark-blue, lay beneath the green moss. Now the sun had passed the middle portions of his work, when the shepherd was gathering his dense flocks into the shades. As soon as he saw, far off, the Delian goddess resting in the greening grove—in your frenzy, by which once overcome, Cadmean Agave came, fleeing the Nyctelian, the wicked one, who, raging with unspeakable and blood-stained hands, on the cold ridges, rested in a cavern, the penalty afterward to come from her son's death— here too the Pans, sporting in the green grass, and the Satyrs and the chorus of Dryad girls led the dance in the company of the Naiads. Not so much did the Oeagrian hold back Hebrus lingering on its banks and the woods by his singing,

as you, goddess, they delay with their nimble dance, glad, pouring forth many joys at your countenance. The very nature of the place gave them a home with resounding murmur, and refreshed them, wearied, in the sweet shade. For first, from the sloping valley, there rose the spreading airy plane-trees, among which the impious lotus, impious, which drove off the comrades of the mourning Ithacan, while it held them, captive, with its too-great sweetness as host. But there were the trees into which, his limbs scorched, thrown from the conspicuous chariot of horses, Phaethon had changed the Heliades, who, having entwined their arms in tender trunks, poured forth bright veils from their stretched-out branches. Then there was the tree to which Demophoon left eternal treachery for her who laments his sins: treacherous to many, treacherous Demophoon, and now to be wept for by maidens! This the fateful oaks accompanied, oaks given before the seeds of Ceres' life: the furrow of Triptolemus changed them for ears of grain. Here the pine, brought forth as the great glory of the Argo's ship, adorns the tall woods, shaggy through its limbs, and seeks to touch the stars on the airy mountains.

The form of the ilex and the black, and the wept-for cypress, and the shady beech, and the ivies binding their arms, warn the poplar not to mourn the blows of its brother, and they themselves climb, pliant, to the topmost crests, and paint golden clusters with a pale-green hue. Among them was the myrtle, not ignorant of its old fate. But the birds, perching on the spreading branches, pour forth sweet songs resounding through their varied strains. Beneath these there was water flowing from the cold springs, which, driven in light streams, sounds its placid liquid. And on every side the voice of birds clamours upon the ears; here they bring back plaintive notes whose bodies, swimming in the mud, the water cherishes; the air's echo feeds the sound, and all things resound with the shrill cicadas in their ardour. But around, here and there, the wearied she-goats lay down, above the high thickets, which, gently breathing,

the breeze of the murmuring wind seeks to mingle. The shepherd, when he had rested at the spring in the dense shade, his limbs flung down, conceived a gentle slumber, anxious at no ambush, but slack in the grass he had committed his pressed limbs to untroubled sleep. Stretched on the ground, he took sweet rest in his heart, had not chance bidden uncertain mishaps befall. For, winding at its accustomed time through the same tracks, a huge serpent, stained with mottled body, plunged as it was in the mud beneath the great heat of the star . . . seizing the heavy air with its quivering tongue, it twisted its scaly coils far and wide with its movements. The airs lifted its glances to all things as it came. Now more and more, rolling its rolling body, it raises its breast with gleaming flashes, and lifts its head on lofty neck, on which a crest, set up from above, gleaming, is mottled with a purple covering, and the lights of flame flash with grim aspect.

It was marking out the places around itself, when it sees, huge, the leader of the flock lying down opposite. More keenly it presses on, spreading its eyes to fix them, and snatching at the foe more often to break him, because anyone had come to its fords. It reckons up the arms of its nature, it burns in mind, it rages with hissings, it thunders with its mouth, the coil of its body is twisted with overturned bends, bloody drops trickle everywhere along its tracks, it bursts its throat with its breathings. As it makes ready all things, the tiny nursling of the moisture first frightens it, and warns it to escape death by its sting. For where the parted eyes spread open his cheeks, gleaming, here the old man's pupil, mature, was struck by the light weapon, when, furious, he sprang up and sent it, crushed, to death; from whom all breath, scattered, departed with its sense. Then, holding grim eyes, he looked back upon the serpent close at hand, and then, nimble, breathless, scarcely master of his mind, he fled, and dragged a strong trunk from a tree with his right hand. What chance allied his aid, whether the divinity of the gods,

it is doubtful to declare, but he had strength to conquer with such a weapon the bristling, rolling backs of the scaly dragon, and as it struggled and foully struck back with frequent blows, he smites its bones where the crests gird its temples. And because he was slow, the languor of sleep removed, unknowing as he looked, fear had blinded his limbs— this filled his mind the less with dire dread. When he saw it, slain, grow faint, he sat down. And now rising Night shakes her two-yoked horses from Erebus, and slow Vesper advances from gilded Oeta, when, the flock driven together, the shepherd, the shadows doubling, goes on, and prepares to give rest to his wearied limbs. When sleep, the lighter, entered through his body, and his languid limbs rested, slumber poured out, the likeness of the gnat came to him, and to him, sad at the outcome of its death, sang reproaches. "Who," it said, "and to what fortune borne, am I forced to undergo this bitter change? While your very life was dearer to me than my own life, I am snatched through the void by the winds. You, slack, refresh your pleasant limbs in rest, snatched from foul disasters: but my shades the gods compel to swim across the Lethean waters.

I am driven, the prey of Charon. I have seen how, blazing with torches, all the thresholds shine in the infernal temples. Opposite, Tisiphone, decked everywhere with serpents, shakes at me both flames and savage lashes. Behind is Cerberus, with mouths barking from dread jaws, whose necks gleam pale with snakes bent back this way and that, and the orbs of his bloody light flash with fire. Alas, why has your gratitude departed from its duty, when I restored you to the upper world from the very threshold of death? Where are the rewards of piety, the honours of piety? They have passed into empty changes; from the field has departed that former faith of justice. I saw the dangers of another, leaving my own fate without regard. I am driven to a like outcome. The penalty befalls the deserving. Let the penalty be ruin; only let the will be welcome, let an equal duty arise. I am borne, plucking pathless ways, pathless ways stretching far between the Cimmerian groves;

around which grim Penalties throng at the gates; for huge Otus sits bound with serpents, sadly beholding Ephialtes bound far off, since once they tried to tear apart the universe. And Tityos, Latona, mindful, anxious of your wrath (your wrath too implacable), lies as food for the bird. I am terrified to stand among such shades, I am terrified, recalled to the Stygian waters. Scarcely does the last by the river stand out, who betrayed the nectarous food of the gods, turned to all things by the dry sense of his throat. What of him who rolls his stone afar against the opposing mountain, whom grief, embittering, conquers, scorned by the powers, seeking rest with frustrations? Go, maidens, go, you for whom the grim Erinys kindled the torches, as, having spoken first like Hymen, she gave the marriages of death. And they crowd other troops upon other ranks above, the Colchian mother, frenzied in her fierce impiety,

devising anxious wounds for her troubled sons: now the Pandionian maidens, pitiable in their offspring, whose voice cries out Itys, Itys, at which the Bistonian king, the bereaved hoopoe, mourns, borne aloft into the airy breezes. But the brothers, at strife from Cadmean seed, now bear truculent and hostile eyes, body each against the other's, and now each turns away, because the impious right hand drips with a brother's blood. Alas, labour never to be changed! I am borne onward into things more diverse, I discern names that stand apart. We swim across Elysium, I am borne, brought down to the wave. Persephone, opposite, urges the heroine companions to bear opposing torches. Alcestis remains untouched by all care, because she lingered in the savage distress of Admetus' husbandhood in Chalcodonia. Behold, the wife of the Ithacan, ever a glory, the daughter of Icarius, remains, womanly glory conceived, and far off that fierce throng of young men, the suitors, pierced through with darts. Why, wretched Eurydice, did you draw back in such great grief?

Does the penalty of looking back still even now await Orpheus in you? Bold indeed was he, who ever believed Cerberus gentle, or the power of Dis to be appeasable by any man, nor feared raging Phlegethon with its burning waves, nor the realms of Dis sad with their veil of rust, and the dug-out homes and Tartarus beset with bloody night, nor the abode of Dis—not easy—without a judge, a judge who avenges, after death, the deeds of life. But fortune, prevailing, had made him bold before. Now the swift rivers had stood still, and the throng of wild beasts, following his coaxing voice, had settled in Orpheus' region; and now the oak had moved its deepest root high from the green earth, the rivers had stood, and the sounding woods of their own accord snatched his songs with their greedy bark. The Moon too, gliding with two yoked horses through the stars, checked her steeds: and you, monthly maiden, the running ones you held, to hear the lyre, the night abandoned. This same lyre could conquer for you the wife of Dis, and grant Eurydice to be led back of her own accord: it was not lawful, it was not appeasable for the goddess of death to grant return to life. She indeed, having found the shades too severe, was marking the appointed way, nor did she turn within

her eyes, nor did her tongue corrupt the goddess's gifts. But you, cruel one, you the more cruel, Orpheus. Seeking dear kisses, you broke the commands of the gods. Worthy of pardon was your love, welcome the sin, if Tartarus could know it; it is grievous to remember. You await the ages of the pious, you the band of heroes await opposite. Here too both sons of Aeacus: for Peleus and the valour of Telamon rejoice in the untroubled powers of their father, on whose marriages Venus and Virtue laid honour. Hesione carries off this one, but a Nereid loved that one. Beside him sits the youth, the glory of an allied lot, keen, unsurpassed, bearing back from the Argolic ships the Phrygian fires, repelled, the throng trembling. O who would not tell of such partings of war,

which the men of Troy saw and the Greeks saw, when the Teucrian land streamed with much blood, and the stream of Simois and Xanthus, near the Sigean shores, when the wrath of savage leader Hector thrust the Trojans, with hostile mind, against the Pelasgian ships, ready to bring wounds, weapons, deaths, fires? For Ida herself, the parent of fierceness, and Ida herself, the nurse, supplied torches to her eager nurslings, that all the shore of the Rhoetean coast might be given to ashes, the fleets burned up, with weeping flame. On this side, opposed against him, stood the Telamonian hero, and with his shield interposed he gave battle, and on that side was Hector, the highest glory of Troy, each keen (as the crash is from a whirlwind when the lightnings strain), this one with hands and weapons above . . . to snatch away the return; the other, protected, strives to drive the Vulcanian wounds with his iron from the ships.

In this aspect the son of Aeacus rejoiced in honour, and the other, because, with blood poured upon the Dardanian plains, victorious he lustrated Troy with Hector's body. Again they roar bitterly, because Paris slays this one, and because the valour of this one fell, struck by the wiles of the Ithacan's arms. Against him the offspring of Laertes bears averted looks, and now the victor over Strymonian Rhesus and over Dolon rejoices, exulting in the Palladium, and again he trembles now at the Cicones, and now, fierce, he shudders at the Laestrygonian threshold. Him rapacious Scylla, girt with Molossian hounds, and the Aetnaean Cyclops, him the Zanclaean Charybdis and the pale lakes and squalid Tartarus terrify. Here too the offspring of the Tantalean line, the son of Atreus, sits beside him, the light of the Argives, by whose flame ruling the Dorians laid the Erichthonian citadels low to their foundations. Alas, the Greek paid the penalty to you, Troy, falling,

destined to perish, he paid it in the Hellespontine waves. That host once bore witness to the changes of men, lest anyone, rich by the gift of his own fortune, should go, carried away, above heaven. All glory is broken by the near weapon of envy. The Argive force went into the deep, seeking its fatherland and enriched with the spoil of the Erichthonian citadel. A favouring breeze was its companion in its course over the placid sea. The Nereid gave signals to the waves, struck here and there over the bending keels: when, whether by heavenly fate or by the rising of a star, on every side the brightness of the sky is changed, all things with winds, all things with whirlwinds are troubled. Now the wave of the sea contends to rise to the stars, and now from above it threatens to seize both the sun and all the stars, and the crash of heaven to rush down upon the lands. Here, lately rejoicing, the host is now surrounded, anxious, by wretched fates, and dies above the waves and the rocks of Caphereus, or among the Euboean crags and the Aegean shores far and wide,

while the Phrygian spoil, scattered everywhere, destroyed, all of it now floats, shipwrecked, on the watery flood. Here other heroes sit, equal in the honour of valour, and all are seated in the middle abodes, all whom Rome, the glory of the great world, looks up to. Here the Fabii and the Decii; here too is the Horatian valour, here too the old fame of Camillus, never to die. And Curtius, whom once, devoted, the gulf in the midst of the city's seats consumed in the wave amid the wars. And Mucius, prudent, who endured the burning in his body, to whom the frightened power of the Lydian king gave way. Here Curius, comrade of bright valour, and that Flaminius who gave his devoted body to the flame.

By right therefore such honours, the seats of piety, and the Scipio-leaders, by whose triumphs the devoted walls of Libyan Carthage bristle beneath the rubble. Let them flourish in their own praise; I am forced to go to the shadowy lakes of Dis, bereft of the light of Phoebus, and to suffer the vast Phlegethon, where, greatest Minos, you separate the wicked from the pious by their bonds and seat. Therefore, both to tell the cause of death and of life, the savage Penalties force me with their lashes before the judge, since you are the cause of my evil, nor are you present as a witness, but care more bearably. Do you hear these things, unmindful? Yet, when you have heard them, you will scatter all to the winds, and my words will be snatched through the spreading breezes. I depart, never to return. You, tend the spring and the green woods of the groves and the pastures, glad." It spoke, and sadly with its last word withdrew.

When the idleness of life dismissed him, anxious, groaning heavily within, nor did he bear any longer the grief poured into his senses at the gnat's death, as much as his aged strength bestowed upon him— yet with which, fighting, he had conquered the hostile foe— near the stream of water, hidden beneath the green foliage, he sets about, unwearied, to shape a place. This he marks out into a circle, and sought again the hilt of his iron for use, to dig the grassy earth from the green turf. Now, mindful, carrying through the labour he had begun, his care heaped up the gathered work, and with a great mound of earth the tomb grew, shaped into a circle, which round about, forming a stone of smooth marble, he sets, mindful of his constant care. Here too the acanthus, and the rose, growing bashful, crimson, around the circle, and every kind of violet. Here too is the Spartan myrtle and the hyacinth, and here the crocus brought forth in the Cilician field, the laurel likewise, rising, the glory of Phoebus. Here the oleander, and lilies, and the not-pathless care of the sea-rosemary, and the herb that imitates the wealth of incense, the ancient Sabine, and the chrysanthemum and the gleam of ivy with its pale cluster,

and the bocchus, mindful of the Libyan king. Here the amaranth, and the greening grape-cluster, and the ever-flowering laurustinus. Nor is the narcissus absent thence, whose glory of form burned with Cupid's fire into its own limbs, and whatever flowers the verdant seasons renew. Above these the tomb is set. Then upon its front is placed an epitaph, which the silent letter shapes in soundless voice: "LITTLE GNAT, THE GUARDIAN OF THE FLOCKS, TO YOU, WHO SO DESERVED, THE SHEPHERD RENDERS THIS SERVICE OF A FUNERAL IN RETURN FOR THE GIFT OF LIFE."