Eclogarum Liber

AUSONIUS TO HIS SON DREPANIUS. To whom do I give this charming new little book? So said the poet of Verona once, and straightway gave it, when found, to Nepos. But to whom shall we trust this unlovely, unpolished little book, these trifles, scraps, and follies, to be cherished in his bosom? I have found him — be still, you anxious trifles — one no less learned and more kindly than he whom Gaul furnished to Catullus. No one of my friends is dearer to me than he, whom the nine sisters esteem more than all the rest, Maro excepted. “You mean Pacatus, no doubt, poet?” He himself it is. Fly out fearlessly, my verses, and cherish your nest in his safe bosom. He will love you here, here he will wish to protect you; what is to be pardoned he will conceal, what is approved he will pass on. After him, fear no judgement. Farewell.

FROM THE GREEK: A PYTHAGOREAN SAYING ON THE UNCERTAINTY OF CHOOSING A WAY OF LIFE. What path of life shall I follow, if the courts are full of uproar, if the home is anxious with cares, if cares for his household pursue the man abroad, if ever-new losses await the merchant, if base poverty forbids one to rest; if toil harasses the farmer, if shipwreck's terror gives the sea ill repute, and there are heavy penalties in the celibate life, and a heavier and futile watchfulness for the cautious husband; if the work of Mars is bloody, if the gains of usury are base and swift interest cuts down the destitute? Every age has its care; to all, their own time of life displeases them. Sense is absent from little ones who boast, and the rudiments of boys are hard, and the youth of young men is rash. Fortune afflicts men through wars, through the sea, with wraths and snares and chained labours, ever to be exchanged for heavier ones. Old age itself, long awaited and longed for in our prayers — to ill purpose — exposes the body, easily torn, to countless diseases. We all alike despise the present; some, it is agreed, are unwilling to become gods. Juturna cries out: “To what end did he give me eternal life? Why was the condition of death taken from me?” So beneath the Caucasian crag Prometheus calls Saturn's son to witness, and ceases not by name to accuse Jove, because perennial life has been given him. Look too to the cultivation of the mind: thus, surely, an unhappy care for chastity destroyed chaste Hippolytus. On the other hand, whoever delights to spend a life stained by allurements, let him look upon the punishments and crimes of kings — of incestuous Tereus or soft Sardanapalus. The three Punic wars warn us to avoid treachery; but the destruction of Saguntum forbids us to keep faith. Live, and ever cultivate friendships. — For such a charge the learned school of Pythagorean sages perished. — Fearing this, then, cultivate none. — For such a charge Timon was once stoned in Pallas's Athens. The mind, ever beset, is divided amid uncertain wishes; nor is it enough for a man to have wished: he rejects what he longed for. To be held in honour pleases him; soon he repents; and that they may rule, men wish to serve. The same man, exalted by honour, is exposed to envy. Care keeps the eloquent wakeful all night; but the unpolished man lacks the adornment of life. Be a patron and defend the accused: but the gratitude of a client is rare. Be a client: the patron's person is grievous with its demands. The prayers of fathers urge this man on; soon harsh anxiety steals in with its cares. Childless old age is despised, and the heirless man is the prey of the legacy-hunter. Live thriftily: you shall be torn by report as a miser, and a heavier censure shall brand the lavish giver. All things are contrary to you in adverse chances. Therefore best is the saying of the Greeks: indeed they say that for man it is good not to be born, or, once born, to gain death quickly. This indeed is the Pythagorean apophasis, according to the distich here set below: “First, not to have been born among men is best; second, once born, to pass as quickly as possible through the gates of Hades.” But, against this, the follower of the other doctrine, disapproving what that teaches, learn what he says by reading below: “Therefore, since there is nothing in this life that we should love, yet it is not right that we believe ourselves born to no purpose, if we believe the author of life to be just: another life must be prepared for us by living for him, with whom, after this life, we may live; let them indeed hasten to descend to the Stygian shades, who, following the foolish doctrine of the Pythagoreans, prefer not to have been born rather than, being born, to live.”

ON THE GOOD MAN: A PYTHAGOREAN SAYING. The good and wise man — such a one as Apollo, when consulted, scarcely found a single one among all the thousands of men — is himself the judge of himself, and examines his whole self to the fingernail. What the nobles think, and what the fickle opinion of the empty crowd, he is unconcerned, like a sphere of the universe, smooth and round, that nothing of an external blemish may settle upon his polished surface. He reflects how long the day will be under the sign of Cancer, and how great the night stretches itself in the tropic of Capricorn; and he weighs himself in the just balance of the scale, lest anything sag, lest anything jut out, that the corner may meet in equal parts, that the level may nowhere swerve, that whatever lies beneath be solid, and that the blow, applied with knocking fingers, betray no hollows beneath. He does not bend his eyes to sweet sleep before he has reckoned over all the deeds of the long day: what things he has passed by, what was done in due season, what was not? Why did grace or reason fail this deed or that? What have I overlooked? Why did this opinion settle, which it had been better to change? Why, pitying some needy man, did I feel a grief with broken spirit? What did I will that it would be good not to have willed? Why, base, did I set the useful before the honourable? Was anyone wounded by a word or, in short, by a look? Why does nature draw me more than discipline? Thus, going through all his words and deeds, and reviewing all from evening's rise, offended at the crooked, he gives the palm and rewards to the upright.

YES AND NO: A PYTHAGOREAN PIECE. “Is” and “Not” — all men frequently use these well-known monosyllables. Take these away, and there is nothing for the speech of men to turn upon. All things are in these, and from these are all things, whether there is anything of business or of leisure, whether troubled or calm. By the one or the other alike — sometimes, often, by each apart — they oppose pursuits, as the contest finds men's characters and dispositions, easy or difficult. If agreement is reached, no delay intervenes: “Is, Is”; but if the matter is disputed, dissension will add “Not.” Hence the courts burst apart with shoutings, hence are the brawls of the furious circus, hence the broad sedition of the wedge-banked theatre, and the senate-house too stirs such quarrels. Wives and children with their fathers sow these words with peaceful zeal, speaking with affection unimpaired. Hence too the school, in harmony with its peaceful disciplines, stirs up its doctrinal quarrels in peaceful contest; hence every dialectical band of sages contends. Is it day? It is day, then! That does not follow; for whenever, by many torches or by lightnings, there is light for man by night, that light is not the light of day. So it is “Is” and “Not,” as often as it must be granted that there is light, but not that it is day. From this a thousand contests arise; hence many, brooding on such things in a hoarse murmur, gnaw at raging silences with their mouths shut. What a life of men, that two monosyllables keep in turmoil!

ON THE AGES OF LIVING THINGS: AFTER HESIOD. Thrice two and ten times nine and more the years run on, which the just life fills for men as they grow old. These the chattering crow surpasses nine times over in living, and the stag goes four times beyond the crow's generations; the raven thrice outdoes the wing-footed stag, and the Phoenix, the bird that renews itself, multiplies him nine times. Him we Hamadryad Nymphs surpass ten times over in our perpetual age — we whose life is longest. This limit confines the long-lived fates of living things. The rest, God, the arbiter of the hidden age, knows: what times Stilbon (Mercury) rolls round, what ages Phaenon (Saturn), what circuits Pyrois (Mars) holds, what Jupiter with his kindly fire, with what return kindly Venus hastens, who guides the Moon, what toils await Titan (the Sun), until, the year that is called Great being completed, the wandering stars come again into their ancient course, such as they stood from the origin of the ordered world.

ON THE PRINCIPLE OF THE BALANCE. Whoever you are who marvel that the vast bodies of the world endure, encompassed by the lofty orbit of the heaven, and that no decay befalls so great a mass — hear what you may marvel at more: the most minute first-beginnings of things so great, beginnings that admit not our sight. They consist of tiny atoms joined in a series; but in the tiny there is a solid segment, divisible by none. From this come vigour and strength and the eternal mobility of things, never to be overcome by any age. Human things may be set beside divine. So it is with the as, the solid unit: since it consists of twice six equal parts, yet in the smallest equal parts one same force remains. For if anything be lessened in number, the sum totters, and the wrenched parts fall, the body being shaken. As, if one tears the keystone from the arch, on which all things rest, the rest will at once follow downward and draw the whole into a common fall from the summit; not otherwise is it with the balance. If a single uncia is wanting, it will no longer be a whole as, and the name deunx, now void, will hold it. Nor does the dextans keep its name when the sextans is removed; the dodrans will lack the support of its founder, the quadrans being taken; and the divided triens forbids the bes to persist. Now you will have no quincunx, if you wrench away a gramma. And what semis is left to whom, the half, when the parts of the as perish? And whose seventh part of a pound is the septunx? It is a pound, then, only if it totters in no part. The balance of weight and number and conduct and works and waters: nor is there a measure that you may not mark by this name. The earth, which hangs in the midst of the air, is a balance; and its own balance confines the paths of sun and moon. The balance determines the equal hours of day and of sleep; the balance holds in the shoreless Caledonian tides. Do you too remain to me a sure balance of my conduct.

ON THE PRINCIPLE OF A TIMELY BIRTH. All things that we measure in the varied course of events, the dominion of the stars drives on; and to man belong only his earthly limbs: from the powers above come fortune and the breath of life, to be governed by the sevenfold choir; but over them presides the golden Sun, allotted the rule of the bright heaven. Nor in us alone does he govern the seasons of life, while we, anxious, draw out the brief span of our age: he is believed, by his seeing, to shape the hidden sowings and the times of the life that is to be borne in the mother's womb, and to ordain the laws of a life not yet brought forth. For when the conception has settled in the field of generation, it is not doubtful that the Sun stands upon some sign for each. When he has taken the station of the neighbouring star, he sheds no light into the adjacent risings. But when, the reins turned after the month's space, he climbs the third constellation already in his purple chariot, the slanting line sends down a slender light, breathing faint motions through the inert weights. In the fourth seat the indulgence of the first Sun is strong, and, poured in, persuades the tender embryo to grow together. With its brightness and its triangular aspect the vital ray flashes, gleaming clear and gentle, which from the angle of the fifth sign strikes the parent astonished, the infant being now quickened. For in the sixth place there is no force, because no rule of an equal side is marked out for Phoebus when he gazes. But when the seventh boundary has received, in flames, the standards of the sign-bearing cohort, its camp set in a right position in the mid-region: it sees the covenants of the swelling birth now under full light, and, bending the lightnings of no scant light, it warms with the whole fire of its crown. Hence comes this — that Lucina forestalls the lawful labours, and the woman in childbirth, hastening before the expected wish, feels the heavy pangs steal upon her; for unless, when he has poured his light from the seventh star, he has driven against the resisting bars of the slow birth, the later cannot, the earlier could — or is it because in the sixth the rival aspect of the eighth star, useless when seen, knows not how to form the matching figures of the sides? But the ninth, pressing upon its sign, lightens the lingering prayers of mothers, the following triangle lending its strength. And if difficult Ilithyia again draws it back, the square will release the bonds of doubtful delays.

ON THE NAMES OF THE SEVEN DAYS. The names that the year holds, suited to the seven coming days, the same number of wandering planets made, which the world, rolling them with unwearied turning, bids stray in the slanting station of the signs. The radiant Sun holds the first and the last day. Next succeeds the Moon to her brother's crown; third, Mavors (Mars) follows the Titanian light. Mercury claims for himself the stars of the fourth day. The golden stars of Jove make bright the fifth zone; sixth, kindly Venus follows her health-bringing parent. Surpassing all is the seventh light, of Saturn. The revolving orbit restores an eighth Sun.

SINGLE LINES ON THE MONTHS. First, Janus, you begin the Roman calends. The Februa Numa instituted in the next month. March brought forth the beginnings of the ancient year. Kindly Venus claims fruit-bearing April. May is named from the name of our elders, the patres. June is next in the title of an age (iuventas). With a Caesarean name July augments Quintilis. August follows the Caesarean name. September enriches your autumn, Pomona. October enriches the fields with the interest of wheat. You hurl the stars down into the sea, untimely November. You, festive December, lead on the genial winter.

LIKEWISE, DISTICHS. New Janus, who give your name to the first month, two-faced Janus, you behold two seasons at once. After the worship of the gods above, in the next month Numa gives the Februa as offerings to kindred shades. March, both patron of the Roman race and of the year, you gave the first season to the Latin consuls. Mother of the sons of Aeneas, you give your name to neighbouring April, Venus; for Aphrodite is Mars's companion. Whether the goddess Maia, or a greater (maior) age, made you May, I am uncertain; but each is a good author for the month. June follows this, to be honoured with a twofold honour, whether Juno or Iuventa gave the name. Thence July, gleaming with the Dionaean star (Venus's), holds the fixed season of midsummer. August follows, its name kindred from Caesar, next thus in the order of the year as in that of the family. After these they are linked and mark the number in order: September, watering the wine-presses with Bacchus's gift; and October, glad with the interest of the sowing-season, cherishes the eager farmer's hope; and November, sinking the solemn signs in the sea, hurls them down, soon to return to their own sky. Closing the number, December ends the genial feasts, so that soon, after the winter solstice, a new year may go forth.

ON THE THREE MONTHLY DIVISIONS OF THE MONTHS. Twice six times in the year Lucina renews the calends, and Jupiter grants as many mid-month ides to run their course, and eight days after make the day of the nones; these are the only three names for the Roman month; the rest are surnames of the days by their numbers.

HOW MANY DAYS EACH SINGLE MONTH HAS. They fill out thirty lights through their several months — June and April, and November with September. Add one more abundantly to thrice ten days through seven months: at the calends of Janus (January) and of March, and those which May leads, which July and August lead, and which October and December, placed at the end, lead. One alone there will be of twenty-eight days, which Numa wished to succeed after Janus is set before. Thus the year reckons for itself, that to thrice three hundred there accrue ten times six and a quarter and five days.

IN WHAT MONTH ON WHAT DAY THE NONES OR IDES FALL. The fourth light now opens the nones, now the sixth brings them back. The sixth brings them back at the return of May, October, and March, and of July, which brings in its season at the solstice; the rest of the months are furnished with nones on the fourth. But all the ides recur on the eighth light.

ON WHAT DAY THE CALENDS OF EACH SINGLE MONTH FALL. After the ides, which each month has as its own in order, the calends return at a differing number with varying count, while, as the year turns, they are called again and again, that at length they may proceed at the rising of the longed-for time. Twice nine and one day stretches out the genial feasts, that the new winter may summon lingering Janus. By this number returns the month of Numa, and September, Bacchus's nursling, bringing back the beginning of autumn. July and May and December, set at the end, and October, are recalled one day later. Thence four more return one day less, which I shall add to the count: Sextilis (August), June, and April; after which November, the last but one goal. Thrice five and one day, Junonian Mavors (March), you are summoned, that you may return and bring back the first beginnings. By this number, turning to the full, the year shall be renewed.

THE RECKONING OF THE DAYS OF THE TURNING YEAR. Ninety days and four and a half the Sun completes, while it passes from tropic constellation to tropic constellation, going from the Phrixean Ram (Aries) into eight-footed Cancer; this is the span and goal of the summer day driven on. And a half-day and two days and ten times nine the golden Sun accomplishes from Cancer into the Scales (Libra), the times of the equal night and of the day in its second course, mingling at once the bounds of autumn and summer. Whence, running through the autumnal months in order, it goes to the tropic sign of cold Capricorn, adding eight days ten times, and eight more above, and a quarter of a day, which, straightway in the fifth year, in the last month of Numa, takes the name of the intercalary (embolimaeus). Thence, hastening to the horns of the Agenorean Bull (Taurus), the golden Sun climbs the tropic constellation of the Fleece-bearer (Aries), confining ninety days within an appointed end. This will be your circuit, ever, as the years turn, of thrice a hundred and six times ten and five days.

IN WHAT MONTH WHAT SIGN STANDS FOR THE SUN'S COURSE. The beginning of Janus tropic Capricorn ratifies. In the middle of Numa's month stands the constellation of solid Aquarius. The twin Fishes (Pisces) advance into the season of March. You look back, Phrixean Ram, on the calends of April. May marvels at the horns of the Agenorean Bull. June sees the equal Laconians (Gemini, Castor and Pollux) go in the sky. At the solstice July bears the constellation of burning Cancer. The fervid Lion (Leo) thoroughly scorches the month of August with fire. Beneath your star, Virgin, September enriches Bacchus. October too equals Libra at the time of sowing. Wintry Scorpio bids headlong November go. The Archer (Sagittarius) ends his signs in mid-December.

THE RECKONING FROM SOLSTICE TO EQUINOX. The Sun, having set out from the warm equinox of spring, after a half-day and after full ninety and four days, blazing with fervid reins, completes the summer course driven on. Thence autumn, balancing the hours of night with equal light, with eighty and eight degrees and over a three-hour span; thence flowery spring revisits with reversed reins, two orbits being added to those former degrees.

ON THE MONTHS AND THE FOUR SEASONS OF THE YEAR. The eternal months and the four seasons of the year these four single-line verses set below shall tell you. March, April, May are the season of spring. July, August, and June too are summer. In September, October, and all November it is autumn. Wintry are Janus (January), February, and December.

ON THE LUSTRAL GAMES. Four ancient games Achaea celebrated. Two are of the dwellers in heaven and two festivals of men: the rites of Jove and of Phoebus, of Palaemon and of Archemorus, whose garlands are pine, apple, olive, parsley.

ON THE PLACES OF THE GAMES. First, for great Jove the Olympia are celebrated at Pisa. Parnassus consecrated the Pythia to Clarian Phoebus. Lofty Corinth, set between two seas, dedicates the Isthmia to Portunus. Funereal Thebes honour the Nemea of Archemorus.

ON THE FOUNDERS OF THE GAMES. First Jupiter consecrated the festal rite of the Olympic crown at the longest course of the Argive circus; next Alcides (Hercules) consecrated the Nemean honour. These too are sacred quinquennial games to mark the times: the Isthmia were given to Neptune and the Pythia to Phoebus, with a twofold worship of gods and of buried men.

THAT THE SAME THAT ARE SACRED GAMES ARE ALSO HELD AS FUNERAL GAMES. Elis dedicates to Pelops, son of Tantalus, a mournful honour. Funereal Thebes honour the Nemean quinquennium of Archemorus. The Isthmia, it is known, were celebrated for the dead Palaemon. The Delphians established the Pythia to appease the slain dragon.

ON THE ROMAN FESTIVALS. Now I shall tell of the Apollinarian games through the Tiber's mouths, and the secret rites of the Megalesian Mother, and the days of Vulcan, the beginnings of early autumn, and I shall set forth the Quinquatrus of the goddess Pallas, and the mid-ides at the return of May and August, which Mercury and which Diana dedicate to themselves; what rites the matrons keep for the praise of their husbands, when the first days of Mavors (March) have returned. I shall record the festivals famed on the Caprotine nones, when, the stola being taken from the matrons, it shall clothe the handmaids. Those four solstices, too, in the distinct quarters of the year, and the days equal in night and in day; nor is it right for the Romans to keep silent about the Regifugium, the day glad with the tyrants driven from the city. Do you wish me to tell first the rite of Ops, or the Saturnalia, and the feast of slaves, when masters wait as servants? And the festivals never returning on fixed days, when each man keeps his own crossroads (Compitalia) through the streets? Or the twofold worship which they call the Neptunalia, and that which they name from Consus and from counsels? These are festivals for ships, or those which, celebrated with four-horse chariots, join Roman and neighbouring leaders? I shall add the worships and foreign rites of the gods, the birthday of Hercules or of the Isiac ship, and also the glad Floralia of the wanton theatre, which those wish to watch who deny they wished to. Now too the old Equirria games are celebrated: these are the first names the Roman circus has; and the Dionysiac games, with a Latin surname, Rome keeps, which Liber dedicates to himself as vows. The plebeian aediles too, and the curule aediles, keep the rites called by the name of the Sigillaria; and it is known that gladiators fought out funereal battles in the forum: now the arena claims its own, who, already near the very end of December, appease the scythe-bearing Heaven-born (Saturn) with blood.

SINGLE LINES ON THE LABOURS OF HERCULES. First, the toil of the Cleonaean lion was endured; the next crushed the Lernaean hydra with sword and fire. Soon a third force struck down the Erymanthian boar; the fourth bore off the golden horns of the bronze-footed stag. The fifth peril drove off the Stymphalian birds. In the sixth he despoiled the Thracian Amazon of her belt; the seventh labour was spent in the stables of Augeas; the eighth glory is counted in the bull driven out; the ninth victory was over Diomedes' four-horse team. With Geryon slain, Iberia gives the tenth palm. In the eleventh triumph the apples of the Hesperides were plucked. Cerberus is the final goal of the last labour.

THESE VERSES OF QUINTUS CICERO BEAR ON THIS — THAT WE MAY KNOW WHAT SIGN IS PROMINENT AT WHAT TIME, WHICH IS ALSO SET FORTH ABOVE IN OUR OWN VERSES. The Fishes (Pisces), with their dim light, rouse the breezes of spring; and the Ram (Aries) equals the course of night and of day, whom the horns of the Bull (Taurus), heralds of the flowers, conceal; and the Twins (Gemini) open the dry beginnings of summer; and now glorious Cancer fortifies the long days, and the fierce Lion breathes from his mouth the languor-bringing heats. Then the Virgin (Virgo), rising, shaking her measure, puts the vapour to flight; Libra, the constellation being weighed out, unbars the gates of autumn and makes the daytime hours equal to the nightly. The flame of the Scorpion (Nepa) strips bare the exhausted boughs; the Archer (Sagittarius) hurls sluggish cold upon the lands; midwinter, freezing with frost, breathes out the ray of Capricorn, whom there follows the deep moisture of Aquarius, dewing forth the mists. So great a fiery force thrives above and around the world. But to right and left the gleaming wheel of the Sun stirs its mobile course, and the semblances of the Moon are borne along. Beneath the eternal gaze the coiled scale of the Dragon (Draco) stands forth; below him the gleaming Wain (Arctos) shakes its seven great stars; watching which, late Bootes is buried with his light on the high shore of Ocean.

THIS VERSE IS WITHOUT AN AUTHOR: ON WHAT DAY WHAT SHOULD BE TRIMMED FROM THE BODY. Nails to Mercury, the beard to Jove, the hair to Venus. This is to be refuted thus: Mercury for thefts ever approves sharp nails, and does not allow the edge to be diminished at the finger-tips. The beard is a grace for Jove, the hair for Venus: therefore it is necessary that they should not wish those trimmed, in which each takes pleasure. Mars, you have loved the beardless and bald, and the Moon too: they do not forbid the head and cheeks to be tended then. The Sun and Saturn in no way oppose the nails: therefore remove the single line that does not please the gods.