Elegiae in Maecenatem

Elegiae in Maecenatem

I had but now wept the fates of the young man in a sad song. By right songs must also be given to the old man: for as a youth must be wept, so candid and so worthy to live longer than his aged grandsire. The unmoored raft, the keel never wearied, goes and returns, ever laden, over the vast lakes. That one snatches away the young in the first flower of their youth, yet not forgetful, it seeks the old again. Nor had I, Maecenas, the enjoyment of you as a friend. Lollius therefore brought about this work. For you were faithful to them for the sake of Caesar's arms and for the sake of a like faith in those arms. You were of royal stock, Etruscan: you were the right hand of exalted Caesar, you the wakeful guardian of the Roman city. Though you could do all things, so dear to so great a friend,

yet no one felt that you could do harm. When Phoebus, with learned Pallas, had endowed you with their arts, you were the glory and the praise of this one and of that. Berytus outdoes, outdoes the common sands, which the wave stirs together on the farthest shore. Because you were ungirt, one thing only is carped at, even in spirit: you wash this away by your too-great simplicity. So lived those for whom there was the golden Virgin, who, driven out, afterward fled the well-girt men. Spiteful one, what harm at last did loosened tunics do? Or what harm did the windy folds do to you? Was he any less the guardian of the City and the hostage of Caesar? Did he not make the streets safe for you in the City? Under the dark night, who despoiled you, a lover? Who, harder than iron himself, touched your side with the blade? Yet it was a greater thing to have been able, and not to wish for triumphs, a greater thing to have abstained from great affairs. He preferred the shady oak and the falling nymphs

and a few sure acres of orchard-bearing soil. Worshipping the Pierides and Phoebus in his soft gardens, he had sat, talkative, among the chattering birds. The little books of the Maeonian will outdo monuments of marble, one lives by genius; the rest will belong to death. What was he to do? He had served as a comrade, untiring, the same soldier, and bravely, ever pious to Augustus. The rocks of fishy Pelorus saw him turn the timbers of the hostile fleet to flames. On the Emathian dust Philippi saw him brave. So not soft was he, so grievous a foe was he! When the Nile-keels covered the broad straits, he was brave around, brave too before the leader; following the fleeing backs of the Eastern soldier, while that one, terrified, fled to the head of the Nile. There was peace: this leisure had relaxed those refinements. All things befit victors, when Mars sits idle. The Actian himself struck the lyre with ivory plectrum, after the victorious trumpets had fallen silent.

He but now was a soldier, that no woman might hold Rome as the dowry of her own base disgrace. He sent his darts against the fugitives (so far had he bent the bow) to the farthest horses of the rising East. Bacchus, after we conquered the painted Indians, you drank sweet wine with your helmet aiding, and for you, untroubled, the loosened tunics flowed; I think you had then two purple ones. I am mindful, and surely I remember, that you bore the thyrsi thus, whiter, Bacchus, than purple snow. And your thyrsus was adorned with gems and gold, the twining ivies scarcely found a place. The silvered sandals too bound your ankles, surely, nor, I think, Bacchus, do you deny it. More softly than usual you spoke much with me then, and for you, on purpose, the words were new. Untiring Alcides, freed from much labour, thus, they tell, you laid aside your cares, thus you played much with the tender girl, forgetful now, Nemea, and of you, Erymanthus.

Was there anything beyond? You twisted the spindles with your thumb. With your bite you smoothed the threads too little: Lydia struck you for the frequent knots, for the threads broken by your hard hand; wanton Lydia bade you draw the flowing tunics often among her wool-working maids. Your muscled club lay together with your hide, which Love struck with suspended foot. Who would believe it, when, untiring infant, you crushed the huge water-snakes, your hand scarcely able to grasp them, or when you swiftly reaped the reborn hydra, or broke the monstrous horses of Diomedes, or the belly common to three opposing brothers and the six hands opposed against you in arms, alone? After the ruler of Olympus had laid the Aloidae low, he is said to have lain back into the bright day, and to have sent his eagle, to seek whether anyone could bear back tokens to loving Jove.

Beneath the Idaean vale then it found you, fair priest, and snatched you up, gently, with pressed talon. So it is. Let the victor love, let the victor enjoy in the shade, let the victor sleep upon the perfumed rose. Let the vanquished plough and the vanquished reap, let fear command him, nor let him learn to stretch his limbs on the strewn ground. Habits dispense the times, and the times dispense refinements; these things govern men, beasts, these the birds. It is light: the bull ploughs; it is night: he rests; the ploughman frees the hot necks of the ox that has served its term. The waters freeze over, the swallow hides itself in the crags; the chattering one beats the cool lakes in spring. Caesar was your friend; he could have lived free, since now the same Caesar was what he desired. He indulged the deserving. He is not rash. We have conquered. By Augustus' judgment he was worthy. After the Argo, fearing the Scyllaean rocks, skirted them and the Cyanean terrors, the ship now to be moored, the daughter of Aeetes had changed the entrails of the dissected ram into a lamb, all-skilled with her juices.

By these, Maecenas, it was fitting you could grow young again; would that this herb of the Colchian were ours! The flowering age is given back to the trees that grow green again: therefore does not what was before return to man? And does it befit the longer-living, fearful deer to be so, if the horns of any stiffen on their grim brow? Crows are said to live for many years: why are we of a narrow condition? Tithonus, the husband of Aurora, is fed on nectar, and so no old age, now tremulous, harms him. That life might be yours always by the sacred medicine, I would wish you, husband of Aurora, had pleased her! You were fit to recline on her saffron couch,

to give the reins to be governed by her purple hand, to stroke the mane, when now the day advancing had twisted the reins of the horse that looks back. The choruses of youths thus sought out that Hesperus,

whom Venus loosed, bound, in the midst of fire, whom now, gleaming in the dusky placid night, you see run as Lucifer against the steeds. Here he gives you Corycian, here fragrant cassias, here balsams sent from the palm-bearing ridges. Now you have the reward of your brightness, now given back to the shades: we have forgotten that you lay down an old man. Thrice his own wept for the Pylian, thrice for grey Nestor, and yet they said he was not enough an old man. You would have surpassed the ages of aged Nestor, if the threads had been spun out and dispensed for you. Now what can I do? Light earth, hold his bones, and you, hanging, balance your own weight. Ever shall we give you garlands, ever for you perfumes, never thirsting, ever shall you be flowering. . . . Thus Maecenas spoke, his fate coming on, cold, and now, now, when he was about to die. "Would I, Jupiter," he said, "a youth in my earliest prime, had not fallen before the narrow day of Drusus!

A boy he had been with mature breast, whole in his age, and that great work of great Caesar. And I would have wished, before our parting"—he did not say all: and shame broke in upon what love had almost said. But it was manifest: dying he sought the embraces of his beloved wife, her kisses, her words, her hands. "Yet if this is enough, I have lived, you, Caesar, my friend, and I die," he said, "and while I die it is enough! Some moisture will fall for you from your soft eyes, when I am said, with sudden voice, to have been to you. Let this befall me, let me lie beneath the level earth. Yet I would not wish you had been able to do more than this, but I would wish you to remember. I shall live there in your talk, ever shall I be, ever, if you will to remember. And it befits, and surely I shall live for you ever by love, nor does he who dies cease to be yours. I myself, whatever I shall be, among the ashes and the embers, even then I shall not be able not to be mindful of you. As an example I lived, on your account, soft and blessed, the one Maecenas, and on your account I was.

I was my own arbiter: I wished what befell to be, I was truly the heart of your heart. Live long, my dear old man, seek the stars late: this is needed for the earth, it befits you too to wish it. And may young men grow up for you, twice worthy of Caesar, and hand on further the line of Caesar evermore. But let your wife Livia be your care as soon as may be. Let a son-in-law fulfil the broken duties of the lost. Why a god on earth? Distinguished by your ancestral gods, may Venus herself set you in your native bosom."