Lydia

Lydia

I envy you, fields, and you, fair meadows, the fairer for this, that my fair girl sighs over our love silently from among you. You she now beholds, with you my Lydia plays, to you she now speaks, on you she now smiles with her eyes, and meditates my songs in a lowered voice, and sings meanwhile to me, in my ear, what she would sing. I envy you, fields: you shall learn to love. O too fortunate and much-blessed, on which she will set the prints of her snow-white foot

or pluck the green grape with rosy fingers (for the little vine swells, not yet, with sweet Bacchus); or, amid the varied flowers that crowd round her charm, shall recline her limbs at random and bruise the grass, and secretly, by stealth, will tell of my loves. The woods will rejoice, the soft meadows will rejoice, and the cold springs, and the silences of the birds will come. The streams will slow their gliding waters in their course, while my care sets forth her pleasant complaints. I envy you, fields: you have my joys, and yours now is the pleasure that was mine before. But, sick, my dying limbs waste away with grief, and the warmth withdraws as the chill of death is poured in, because my mistress is not with me. No girl was ever more learned on earth, or fairer; and if the tale is not idle, worthy of Jove as bull or as gold (Jupiter, turn away your ear), my girl is the one. Happy bull, father and glory of the great herd—ah, from you the heifer, ever seeking out the secret coverts,

in vain suffers you to bellow your grief in the woods. And happy father of the kids, and ever blessed, whether you seek the sheer mountains, ranging over the rocks, or whether it pleases you to disdain in the woods new pasture, or in the plains: with you is your glad she-goat. And whatever male there is, his own female joined to him never wept over loves interrupted. Why was Nature not gentle to us too? Why do I so often suffer cruel grief? When the pale stars return through the green world, and in turn, coming together, the golden orb of Phoebe, Moon, your own is with you: why is not mine with me too? Moon, you know what grief is: have pity on one who grieves. Phoebus, bearing the laurel in himself, celebrated love; and what pomp of the gods, not fame, has spoken of it to the woods? (All things are you.) With itself it carries its joys,

or sees them scattered through the world: things that it were long to tell. Indeed, even when the golden ages rolled on, and the condition was alike for those mortals, this too I pass over: known is the star of Minos' daughter, and the virgin who followed her man, like a captive. What did our age do to harm you, you heaven-dwellers, that the condition of life should be the harder for us? That I, who first dared to violate chaste modesties, and to assail the consecrated fillet of my girl, am forced to pay my fate by an untimely death? And would that of that deed my guilt had first been the teacher: death would be sweeter to me than life, nor would my fame perish at any time, since I would be called the first to have stolen the sweet joys of Venus, and from me sweet pleasure would have arisen. For the impious vows granted me not so much, that our error should be the author of a hidden love. Jupiter, ever made the lie of his own deed before, with Juno—before either was called spouse— tasted the joys, having stolen sweet love.

And the adulteress rejoiced to bruise upon the tender grass the purple flowers on which besides she was reclining, the goddess secretly setting joys beneath her fair neck. Then, I believe, Mavors had been busy in arms: for surely Vulcan was at his work, and for him his beard fouled his cheek with grim soot. Did not Aurora too weep for her new loves, and, blushing, hide her eyes with her rosy mantle? Such are the heaven-dwellers. Do I bring forth the golden age less? Therefore, what a god and a hero could do, why not a lesser age? Unhappy I, not born at that time when Nature was gentle. O my luckless lot of birth, and wretched race, for whom desire comes too late! So great a plunder of my heart, my life, have they made, that I remain what your eyes can scarcely recognize.