Dirae

Dirae

Battarus, let us take up again in song the swan-like strains, let us sing once more of our divided dwellings and our fields, the fields against which we have proclaimed curses, our impious vows. Sooner shall the kids carry off the wolves, the calves the lions, the dolphins shall flee the fish, the eagles flee before the doves, and the discord of things, reversed, shall swell anew, sooner shall my reed grow mute than fail to be free. To the mountains and the woods I will tell your deeds, Lycurgus, impious deeds. Let the joys of Trinacria grow barren for you, nor fruitful for the old man—happy fields for us— let the crops not bring forth seed, nor the hills their pastures, nor the orchards new fruits, nor the vine its grapes, let the very woods bear no leaves, the rivers no mountains. Again and yet again let us take up this song, Battarus.

May you hide the exhausted oats of Ceres in the furrows, let the thirsty meadows grow pale and yellow in the heat, let the unripe apples fall, hanging from the branches: let leaves be lacking to the woods, and moisture to the springs, nor let the devoted song be lacking to my reeds. These garlands of Venus, flowering with varied grace, which the bawd paints the plains with in purple colour, hence the sweet breezes, hence the pleasant breath of the field— let them change into pestilent heats and foul poisons. Let nothing sweet be borne to the eyes, nothing to the ears. So I pray, and let these songs prevail with our vows. Much sung in our sports and in our little books, best of the woodlands, dense with fair green growth, your green shades shall be shorn, nor, glad, shall you toss your soft, leafy branches to the swelling breezes, nor often, Battarus, shall my song resound to me. When the impious right hand of the soldier hews you with the steel,

and your fair shades fall, fairer than they shall you yourself fall, the happy timber of your old master. In vain: rather, devoted by our little books, you shall blaze with the fires of heaven. Jupiter (he himself, Jupiter, nourished this tree)—it is fitting these become ashes for you. Then let the monstrous strength of Thracian Boreas breathe, let Eurus drive a cloud mingled with tawny gloom, let Africus threaten with clouds that menace rain, when your wood, resplendent in the dark-blue ether, shall not learn again, nor shall I be called, Lydia, "yours." Let the neighbouring flames seize the vines in order, let the crops be fed upon, let the fire fly across the breezes with its scattered flames, and let the heat join the ears of grain to the trees. Where the impious measuring-rod has measured out our little fields, where once were our boundaries, let all become ashes. So I pray, and let these songs prevail with our vows. You waves, who beat the shores with your waters, shores which spread sweet breezes over the fields, receive these words. Let Neptune migrate into the ploughlands with his waves, and flood the plains with thick sand. Where Vulcan, fed on the fires of Jove, wards off the fields, let the place be called another barbarous sister of the Libyan Syrtis. A sadder song than this, I remember, Battarus, you recalled. Many portents, they say, swim in the black sea, monsters often terrifying with their sudden shapes, when on a sudden the forms emerged from the raging deep: let Neptune drive these, blind, with his hostile trident, turning the black surge of the sea on every side with the winds, and let him drain off the dark ash with his white waves. Let my fields be called a wild sea. Let the sailor beware

the fields against which we have proclaimed curses, our impious vows. If less than this, Neptune, we pour into your ears, Battarus, do you hand over our griefs to the rivers: for yours are the springs, yours the rivers ever friendly. There is nothing I might lose further: it all earns the lot of Dis. Bend back the running nymphs, you wandering rivers, in retreat, bend them and pour them out again upon the opposing fields. Let the streams rush in everywhere with their probing waters, nor let them suffer our fields to serve the vagrants. A sweeter song than this, I remember, Battarus, you recalled. Let marshes suddenly well forth from the dry earth, and let this man reap rushes where once we gathered the ears of grain. Let the hollow chattering frog curdle the song of the shrill cricket. A sadder song than this in turn my pipe speaks. Let the smoking rains pour headlong from the high mountains, and far and wide hold the plains with their spreading flood, let them leave pools that threaten harm to the masters,

whence the water, slipping away, may reach my fields. Let the newcomer ploughman fish within our boundaries, the newcomer who has ever grown by civil crime. O ill-devoted little fields, the crimes of the praetors! And you, discord, ever the enemy of the loyal citizen. An exile, uncondemned, in want, I have left my fields, that a soldier may receive the rewards of a death-dealing war. Hence from a mound I shall see my fields for the last time, hence I shall go into the woods: now the hills will block my view, the mountains will block it. I shall be allowed to hear the plains: "Sweet fields, farewell, and Lydia sweeter than they, and you chaste springs, and the happy name of the little field." More slowly, wretched she-goats, come down from the mountain: you shall not again crop the soft, familiar pastures; and you, father, halt. And the first things are last to us, I gaze upon the plains a long while: it remains to be without them. Fields, farewell again, and you, best Lydia, hail, whether you shall be, and if not, you shall die with me, either way.

Let us recall the last song, Battarus, on the reed. Sooner shall sweet things become bitter and soft things hard, the eyes shall see white as black, and the right hand as the left, the chances of things shall pass into alien bodies, than your care should depart from our marrow. Though you be fire, though you be water, ever shall I love you: for ever shall it be allowed me to remember your joys.