Book 1

1. The seasons set in order through the Latian year, with their causes, and the constellations sunk beneath the earth and risen, I shall sing. Receive this work, Caesar Germanicus, with a face at peace, and steer the course of my timid vessel; and, not turning away from a slight honour as a service, come, propitious, with the favour I dedicate to you. You will recognize rites unearthed from ancient annals, and by what merit each day was marked. There too you will find festivals belonging to your own house: often you must read of your father, often of your grandfather; and the prizes that they bear, marking the painted calendar, you too shall carry with your brother Drusus. Let others sing Caesar's arms: I sing Caesar's altars, and whatever days he added to the sacred ones. Approve my effort to advance through the praises of your kin, and shake the trembling fears out of my heart. Grant me your favour, and you will grant strength to my songs: my talent stands or falls by your countenance. This page, soon to undergo the judgement of a learned prince, trembles, like verse sent to be read by the Clarian god. For we have felt the eloquence of your cultivated speech when it took up civic arms to defend trembling accused men; and we know, when its current turns toward our own arts, how great the rivers of your genius run. If it is allowed and lawful, poet, guide a poet's reins, that under your auspice the whole year may pass in happiness.

When the city's founder was setting the seasons in order, he fixed that there should be twice five months in his year. You knew arms, of course, better than the stars, Romulus, and your greater care was to conquer your neighbours. Yet there is also a reason, Caesar, that may have moved him, and he has grounds by which to defend his error: what is enough until the infant comes forth from its mother's womb, this much of time he judged enough for a year; for that many months, after a husband's funeral, the widow keeps the signs of mourning in her widowed home. This, then, was the foresight of robed Quirinus, when he gave the year's laws to a primitive people. Mars's was the first month, and Venus's the second: she the founder of the race, he its very father; the third took its name from the old, the fourth from the young, and the crowd that follows was marked by number. But Numa passed over neither Janus nor the ancestral shades, and set two months before the ancient ones.

Yet, that you may not be ignorant of the rights of various days, not every dawn brings the same office. That day will be unlawful on which the three words are silenced; that will be lawful on which the law allows business to be done. And do not think their rights stand fast the whole day through: a day that is now lawful was unlawful at dawn; for as soon as the entrails are given to the god, all speech is free, and the honoured praetor has unfettered words. There is also a day on which it is right to shut the people in the enclosures; there is one too that always returns after the ninth round. Juno's care lays claim to the Ausonian Kalends; on the Ides a white lamb, larger grown, falls to Jove; the Nones lack a god's protection. After all of these (beware that you be not deceived!) the next day is black. The omen comes from the event, for on those days Rome bore grievous losses, with Mars turned against her. These words, said once for all, fixed throughout the calendar, will stand, that I be not forced to break the thread of my account.

See, Germanicus, Janus announces a prosperous year to you, and first in my song Janus is present. Two-headed Janus, source of the silently gliding year, you alone of the gods above who see your own back, be propitious to the leaders, by whose labour the fruitful earth and the sea hold their untroubled peace: be propitious to your senators and to the people of Quirinus, and with your nod unbar the shining temples. A prosperous day dawns: favour it with tongues and hearts! Now on a good day good words must be spoken. Let ears be free of lawsuits, and let mad quarrels be far off at once; postpone your work, envious tongue! Do you see how the heavens shine with fragrant fires, and how the Cilician saffron crackles on the kindled hearths? The flame strikes the temples' gold with its own brightness and scatters a trembling radiance over the topmost shrine, and in spotless garments they go up to the Tarpeian heights, and the people themselves take the colour of their festival, and now the new rods go before, the new purple gleams, and the conspicuous ivory feels its new burden. The young bullocks, untried in toil, offer their necks for the blow, the ones that the Faliscan grass fed in its fields. When Jupiter looks down on the whole world from his citadel, he has nothing but what is Roman to watch over. Hail, joyful day, and return ever better, worthy to be honoured by a people that rules the world.

Yet what god shall I call you, two-shaped Janus? For Greece has no divinity to match you. Tell too the reason why you alone of the heavenly ones see both what is behind and what is before. While I was turning this over in my mind, my tablets in hand, the house seemed brighter than it had been before. Then sacred Janus, wondrous in his double-faced image, suddenly presented his two faces to my eyes. I took fright, and felt my hair stiffen with fear, and my breast was cold with a sudden chill. He, holding a staff in his right hand and a key in his left, gave forth to me these sounds from his foremost mouth: 'Learn, laborious poet of the days, lay fear aside, what you seek, and take my words into your mind. The ancients called me Chaos (for I am an ancient thing): see of how long a span of time I shall sing the deeds. This bright air, and the three bodies that remain, fire, water and earth, were one heap. When once this mass broke apart through the strife of its own parts and, dissolved, went off into new homes, flame sought the height, the nearer place took the air, earth and sea settled in the middle ground. Then I, who had been a ball and a shapeless mass, returned into a form and limbs worthy of a god. Even now, a small token of my once-confused shape, what is in front of me and what is behind look the same. Hear the other reason for the form you sought, that you may know it at once, along with my office. Whatever you see anywhere, the sky, the sea, the clouds, the lands, all are shut and opened by my hand. Mine alone is the guardianship of the vast universe, and the whole right of turning its hinge is mine. When it pleases me to send Peace out from her quiet dwelling, she walks freely along unbroken roads; the whole world would be steeped in deadly blood, did not rigid bolts hold wars locked away. I preside over the gates of heaven with the gentle Hours: Jupiter himself goes out and returns by my office. Hence I am called Janus; and when the priest sets before me the cake of spelt and the meal mixed with salt, you will smile at my names; for in the same rite I am called now Patulcius and now, by the sacrificing mouth, Clusius. No doubt that rude antiquity wished by alternating names to signify my changing functions. My power has been told. Now learn the reason of my form, though already you see it in part for yourself. Every doorway has two fronts, on this side and on that, of which one looks toward the people, the other toward the household god; and as your doorkeeper, sitting near the threshold of the front of the house, sees the goings-out and the comings-in, so I, the doorkeeper of the heavenly hall, look out upon the regions of Dawn and of the West at once. You see the faces of Hecate turned toward three directions, that she may guard the crossroads split into three ways; and I too, that I may not lose my time by twisting my neck, am allowed to look both ways without moving my body.'

He had spoken, and by his look made plain that, if I wished to ask more, he would not be difficult with me. I took courage and, not afraid, gave thanks to the god, and looking at the ground I spoke a few words: 'Tell me, come, why the new year begins in the cold, when it had better been begun in spring? Then all things flower, then is the new age of the season, and the new bud swells on the laden vine-shoot, and the tree is covered with leaves newly formed, and the blade of seed comes up to the surface of the ground, and the birds soothe the warm air with their concert, and the herd plays and revels in the meadows; then the suns are gentle, and the unfamiliar swallow appears and builds her clay-work under the high beam; then the field endures cultivation and is renewed by the plough. This is the year's newness, and rightly should have been so called.' I had asked at length: he, not delaying with many words, gathered his answer thus into two verses: 'The shortest day is the first of the new sun and the last of the old: Phoebus and the year take the same beginning.'

After this I wondered why the first day was not without lawsuits. Hear the reason, Janus says. 'I entrusted the new-born season to the doing of business, that the whole year might not be idle from its first sign; for the same cause each man tastes his own craft by doing it, and bears witness to no more than his usual work.' Then I: 'Why, though I appease the other gods' powers, Janus, do I bring you incense and wine first?' 'That through me, who guard the thresholds, you may have access to whatever gods you wish,' he said. 'But why are glad words spoken on your Kalends, and why do we give and receive prayers in turn?' Then the god, leaning on the staff he held in his right hand, said: 'Omens are wont to lie in beginnings. You turn your timid ears to the first sound, and the augur consults the bird he first has seen. The temples and the ears of the gods are open, no tongue frames idle prayers, and what is said has weight.'

Janus had ceased, and I made no long silence, but joined my last words to his last: 'What do the date and the wrinkled fig mean,' I said, 'and the white honey given in a snow-white jar?' 'For an omen,' he said, 'that the year may follow the savour of these things, and that the sweet year may finish the course it has begun.' 'I see why sweets are given: add the reason for the gift of coin, that no part of your festival may slip from me.' He laughed and said: 'Oh, how the times you live in deceive you, if you think honey sweeter than coin once taken! Hardly anyone did I see, while Saturn reigned, to whose mind sweet gains were not dear. With time the love of having grew, which now is at its height: it hardly has further room to advance. Wealth is now worth more than in the years of old time, while the people was poor, while Rome was new, while a small hut held Mars-begotten Quirinus, and the river-sedge gave a scanty bed. Jupiter scarcely stood at full height in his narrow shrine, and in Jupiter's right hand was a thunderbolt of clay. They decked with leaves the Capitol they now deck with gems, and the senator himself pastured his own sheep; nor was there shame in having taken quiet rest on straw and put hay beneath one's head. The praetor gave laws to the people with his plough just laid aside, and a thin plate of silver was a crime. But after the fortune of this place lifted its head high, and Rome touched the highest gods with her crown, both wealth and the frenzied lust of wealth grew, and, though they possess the most, they seek for more. They strive to gain in order to spend, to seek back what is spent, and these very alternations are fuel to their vices. So with those whose belly swells, suffused by dropsy's flood, the more water they drink, the more they thirst. Price now lies in price: wealth gives offices, wealth gives friendships: the poor man lies low everywhere. Yet you ask whether the omen of the coin is useful, and why old bronze should please your hands. Once they gave bronze: now the omen is better in gold, and the old coin has yielded, conquered, to the new. We too are pleased, though we approve the ancient ones, by golden temples: such majesty befits a god. We praise the old times, but use our own years: yet each custom is equally worthy to be observed.'

He had ended his counsel; then again, gently as before, I myself address the key-bearing god with these words: 'Much indeed I have learned: but why is a ship stamped on one side of the bronze, and on the other a double-faced shape?' 'You might have known me under the double image,' he said, 'had not old time worn down the work. The reason of the ship remains: a god who bears the sickle came in a ship to the Tuscan river, when he had wandered the world. On this land, I remember, Saturn was received, when he had been driven from the heavenly realms by Jove. Hence the people long kept the name Saturnian; the land too was called Latium, since the god lay hidden there. But a grateful posterity stamped a ship's stern on the bronze, to bear witness to the coming of their divine guest. I myself dwelt on the ground whose left side the gentlest wave of the sandy Tiber grazes. Here, where Rome now is, an uncut forest grew green, and all this was pasture for a few oxen. My citadel was the hill which the crowd, by my name, calls — and this age calls Janiculum. Then I reigned, when the earth could bear the gods, and divinities mingled with the haunts of men. Not yet had mortal crime put Justice to flight (she was the last of the heavenly ones to leave the earth), and in place of fear, shame itself ruled the people without force; to give just men their rights was no labour. I had nothing to do with war: I guarded peace and the doorposts, and,' showing his key, 'these are the arms I bear.'

The god had closed his lips. Then thus I unloosed my voice, the god's voice drawing out my own: 'Since there are so many Janus-arches, why do you stand consecrated in one, here where you have a temple joined to two forums?' He, stroking with his hand the beard combed down upon his breast, at once recounted the warfare of Oebalian Tatius, and how the light keeper, bribed with bracelets, led the Sabines on a silent path to the height of the citadel. 'From there, as it is now, by which you go down,' he said, 'the steep slope ran down into the valleys and the forums. And now they had reached the gate, whose opposing bolts hostile Saturnia had drawn back, when, fearing to join battle with so great a power, I cunningly set in motion the craft of my own art, and opened the mouths of the springs in which my power lies, and shot forth sudden waters; yet first I cast sulphur beneath the dripping veins, that the boiling flood might shut Tatius from the road. When, the Sabines driven off, its use had been perceived, the place was given back, in safety, to its former shape. An altar was set up for me, joined to a small shrine: on it the spelt burns in the flames with its own offering-cake.'

'But why do you hide in peace, and open when arms are stirred?' Without delay the answer to my question was given: 'That the road back may lie open for the people gone to war, my whole gate stands open, the bolt removed. In peace I close the doors, that none may slip away; and, by Caesar's power, long shall I be kept shut.' He spoke, and lifting up his eyes that look both ways he surveyed whatever was in all the world. There was peace, and, the cause of your triumph, Germanicus, the Rhine had already yielded its waters as your servants. Janus, make peace and the ministers of peace eternal, and grant that the author of his work may not desert it.

Yet what I was allowed to learn from the calendar itself: the fathers consecrated two temples on this day. The island, which the river presses with its divided water, received the son born of Phoebus and the nymph Coronis. Jupiter has his share; one place held them both, and the temples of the great grandsire are joined to the grandson's.

Who forbids me to tell of the stars too, as each one rises and sets? That was part of what I promised. Happy the souls who first took care to know these things and to climb up to the homes above! It is credible that they lifted their heads high above human vices and human places alike. Not Venus nor wine broke their lofty hearts, nor the duty of the forum nor the toil of war; no petty ambition, no glory smeared with paint, no hunger for great riches troubled them. They brought the distant stars near to our eyes and subjected the heaven to their genius. So is the sky reached: not that Olympus should bear Ossa, and the Pelian peak touch the highest stars. We too, under these guides, shall measure out the heaven and set their proper days to the wandering signs.

So when the third night before the coming Nones has come, and the ground is wet, sprinkled with heavenly dew, the claws of the eight-footed Crab will be sought in vain: headlong he will sink beneath the western waters.

When the Nones have arrived, rains sent to you from the black clouds will give their signs as the Lyre rises.

Add four days drawn in order from the Nones, and Janus must be appeased on the Agonal day. The reason of the name may be the girded minister, by whose stroke the victim falls to the gods of heaven, who, about to dye his drawn knives in warm blood, always asks 'Shall I act?' (agone), and does not act unless bidden. Some think the Agonal day takes its name from the act (actus), because the cattle do not come but are driven. Some hold that this festival was called Agnalia by the ancients, one letter being taken from its proper place. Or, because the victim fears the knives it foresees in the water, is the day itself marked from the beast's dread? It may also be that the day took a Greek name from the games in the custom of an earlier age. And ancient speech called cattle agonia; and in my judgement this last reason is the true one. And though it is not certain, yet the king of the rites must appease the powers with the mate of a wool-bearing ewe. The victim is so named because it fell by the conquering (victrix) right hand; the sacrifice (hostia) takes its name from conquered foes (hostes).

Of old, what could win the gods over to a man was spelt, and a shining grain of pure salt. Not yet had the foreign ship borne, over the seas, the myrrh that weeps from its bark; neither Euphrates had sent frankincense, nor India the costus, nor were the threads of red saffron yet known. The altar gave its smoke, content with Sabine herbs, and the laurel scorched with no small crackling. If there was anyone who could add violets to garlands made from the meadow's flowers, he was rich. This knife, which now opens the entrails of the slaughtered bull, had no part in the rites.

Ceres first rejoiced in the blood of a greedy sow, avenging her crops by the deserved slaughter of the guilty; for she learned that in early spring the milky shoots had been rooted up from the tender furrows by a bristly sow's snout. The sow paid the penalty: warned by her example you should have kept your teeth from the vine-shoot, goat. Watching one as he pressed his teeth into a vine, a man gave voice to such words, his grief not silent: 'Gnaw the vine, goat! Yet from it, when you stand at the altar, there will be something to sprinkle on your horns.' The truth follows the words: handed over for your harm, an enemy, goat, your horns are sprinkled with poured-out wine, Bacchus. His own fault harmed the sow, his fault harmed the she-goat too: what have you, ox, what have you, gentle sheep, deserved?

Aristaeus wept, because he had seen his bees, killed root and branch, abandon the honeycombs they had begun. His sea-blue mother, scarcely consoling him in his grief, added these last words to her speech: 'Cease your tears, my boy! Proteus will lighten your loss, and will show how you may repair what has perished. But lest he deceive you by changing his shapes, let firm bonds hamper both his hands.' The youth came to the seer and, his arms loosened in sleep, bound the captured arms of the old man of the sea. He, transforming, falsifies his face by his art: soon, mastered by the bonds, he returns to his own limbs, and lifting his dripping face with its sea-blue beard said: 'By what art do you seek to repair your bees? Bury the body of a slaughtered bullock in the ground: what you ask of us, the buried beast will give.' The shepherd does as bidden: swarms seethe from the rotting ox: one creature's death gave a thousand lives.

Fate demands a sheep: wicked, she had cropped the vervain that the pious old country-woman used to bring to the gods. What is left in safety, when the wool-bearing flock and the country-dwelling oxen lay down their lives on the altars? The Persian appeases with a horse Hyperion girt with rays, that no slow victim be given to the swift god. Because once a hind was slain for the threefold maiden Diana, now too a hind falls in no maiden's place. I have seen the Sapaeans pour the entrails of dogs to Trivia, and all who dwell near your snows, Haemus; the stiff guardian of the countryside, the ass, is slain too; a shameful cause indeed, but yet fitting for the god.

You were holding the festival of ivy-bearing Bacchus, Greece, the festival the third winter brings back at its accustomed time. The gods too came, the worshippers of the same Lyaeus, and whoever was not a stranger to jests, the Pans and the youth of the Satyrs prone to love, and the goddesses who haunt the rivers and the lonely fields. Old Silenus too had come on his swaybacked ass, and he who frightens timid birds with his red groin. Having found a grove fit for sweet feasting, they lay down on couches clothed with grass. Liber gave wine, each had brought his own garland, a brook sparingly supplied the waters to be mixed. Some Naiads were there with their hair flowing, with no comb's use, others with their locks set in place by skill and hand: one waits on them, her tunic gathered above the calves, another, her bosom bared by her loosened robe: this one bares her shoulder, that one trails her dress through the grass, no bonds hamper their tender feet. From this some kindle in the Satyrs a gentle fire, and you, who wear your brows wreathed with pine; they burn you too, Silenus of unquenchable lust: it is your wantonness that will not let you be old.

But red Priapus, the glory and guardian of gardens, of all those nymphs was captivated by Lotis; he desires her, he longs for her, for her alone he sighs, and he gives signs with a nod, and woos her with marks. Disdain dwells in the beautiful, and pride attends on beauty: she despises him with a mocking look. It was night, and with the wine bringing on sleep, the bodies lay vanquished by slumber in scattered places. Lotis, last of all, beneath the maple branches on the grassy ground, just as she was, weary with play, had lain to rest. Her lover rises and, holding his breath, stealthily bears his footsteps in silence, on tiptoe; and when he reached the secret couch of the snow-white nymph, he takes care that the very breath of his breathing make no sound. And now he was poising his body on the grass close by: yet she was full of deep sleep. He rejoices, and, drawing the covering from her feet, he had begun to go by a happy road toward his desire. Behold, the ass that carried Silenus, braying with hoarse throat, gave forth untimely sounds from its mouth. The nymph rises in terror, and with her hands thrusts off Priapus, and in her flight rouses the whole grove; but the god, all too ready with his obscene part, was a laughing-stock to all in the light of the moon. The author of the cry paid the penalty with death, and this is the welcome victim of the Hellespontine god.

You birds had been untouched, the comforts of the countryside, a tribe at home in the woods and harmless, who make your nests and warm your eggs with feathers and pour forth sweet measures with ready throat; but these things do not help you, because you have the crime of speech, and the gods think you reveal their minds. Nor is this false: for, as each is nearest to the gods, so now by wing, now by voice, you give true signs. Long safe, the brood of birds was at last slaughtered, and the entrails of the informer delighted the gods. So often the dove, snatched from her mate, is burned, white, on the Idalian hearths; nor did the saving of the Capitol help the goose to escape giving its liver on the dish to you, dainty daughter of Inachus; by night to the goddess Night a crested fowl is slain, because with its wakeful voice it summons the warm day.

Meanwhile the Dolphin, a bright constellation, is lifted above the waters and shows its face from its native depths.

The next day marks the middle of winter's division, and the part that remains will be equal to the part gone by.

The next Dawn, leaving Tithonus behind, will look upon the pontifical rite of the Arcadian goddess; the same day received you too, sister of Turnus, in your shrine, here where the Field is bounded by the Virgin water. From where shall I seek the causes and the custom of these rites? Who will direct my sails in mid-sea? Instruct me yourself, you who have your name drawn from song, and favour my purpose, that your honour may not go astray. Older than the moon (if it is believed of herself), the land takes its name from great Arcas. Here was Evander, who, though famous on either side, was the nobler for the blood of his sacred mother; she, as soon as her soul had conceived the heavenly fires, gave forth, with full mouth, the true songs of the god. She had foretold that troubles were at hand for her son and for herself, and much besides that time proved true. For when the youth, with his all too truthful mother, was driven into exile, he leaves Arcadia and his Parrhasian home. To him, weeping, his mother said with manly courage: '(Cease your tears, I pray) this must be borne by you. So it was in the fates; no fault of yours drove you out, but a god; you are driven from the city by an offended god. You suffer no penalty deserved, but a divinity's wrath: it is something to be free of guilt in great misfortunes. As each man's conscience is to him, so within his breast he conceives, for his deed, his hope or his fear. Yet do not mourn as the first to suffer such ills: that storm has overwhelmed mighty men. The same was suffered by Cadmus, once driven from the Tyrian shores, who halted, an exile, on Aonian soil; the same by Tydeus, and the same by Pagasaean Jason, and by others whom it would take long to recall. To the brave man every land is his country, as the sea is to fish, as to the bird is whatever lies open in the empty world. Nor does the wild storm rage the whole year through: and for you too (believe me) there will be a time of spring.'

Evander, his mind strengthened by his parent's words, cleaves the waves in his ship and reaches Hesperia, and now, at learned Carmentis's bidding, he had driven his vessel into the river, and was moving against the Tuscan waters. She looks upon the river-bank to which the shallows of Tarentum are joined, and the scattered huts through the lonely places; and just as she was, with her hair flung loose, she stood before the stern and stayed the hand of the helmsman steering the course, and stretching her arms far toward the right-hand bank she beat the pinewood deck thrice with frenzied foot; and to keep her from leaping, in her haste to set foot on land, she was scarcely, scarcely held back by Evander's hand. 'Hail,' she said, 'you gods of the lands we sought, and you, land destined to give new gods to heaven, you rivers and springs, which this hospitable country uses, and you nymphs of the groves and choirs of Naiads! May the sight of you be a good omen to my son and to me, and may that bank be touched by a happy foot! Am I deceived, or shall these hills become mighty walls, and from this land all other lands shall seek their laws? To these mountains the whole world is one day promised: who would believe the place holds so great a destiny? And now the Dardanian pines will touch these shores; here too a woman will be the cause of a new war. Dear grandson, Pallas, why do you put on the fatal arms? Put them on! By no humble avenger will you be slain. Conquered, Troy, you shall yet conquer, and overthrown shall rise again: that very ruin shall overwhelm the houses of your foes. Burn, victorious flames, the Neptunian towers of Pergamum! Is its ash for that the less high than the whole world? Soon dutiful Aeneas will bring the sacred things and, another sacred thing, his father: receive, Vesta, the gods of Ilium! A time will come when the same man will guard both you and the world, and the rites will be performed with a god himself their priest, and the guardianship of the fatherland will rest with the Augusti: it is right that this house hold the reins of empire. Hence the god's son and grandson, though he himself refuse, will bear the burden of his sire with a heaven-sent mind; and as I shall one day be hallowed on undying altars, so shall Julia Augusta be a new divinity.'

When with such words she came down to our own age, her foreseeing tongue stopped in the midst of its sounds. Stepping from the ships the exile stood on the Latian grass, happy he, for whom that place was exile! Nor was there long delay: new dwellings stood, and no other on the Ausonian mountains was greater than the Arcadian.

Behold, the hero brings the Erythean oxen there, the club-bearer, having measured out the long world's road; and while his lodging is the Tegean house, the cattle stray unguarded through the wide fields. It was morning: the Tirynthian driver, shaken from sleep, perceives two bulls missing from his count. Searching, he sees no tracks of the silent theft: fierce Cacus had dragged them, turned backward, into his cave, Cacus, the terror and disgrace of the Aventine wood, no light evil to neighbours and to strangers. The man's look was dread, his strength matched his body, his body was huge: the father of this monster was Mulciber; and for a home a vast cavern with long recesses, hidden, scarce to be found even by wild beasts. Above the door hang heads and arms nailed up, and the ground is white and foul with human bones. The son of Jove was departing, part of his herd ill-guarded: the stolen cattle gave a lowing with hoarse sound. 'I accept the recall,' he said, and following the voice the avenger came through the woods to the unholy cave. Cacus had barred the entrance with a broken crag for a bar; ten yoke of oxen would scarcely have moved that mass. He strains with his shoulders (the sky too had rested on them) and by his effort shakes loose the huge weight. And as soon as it was overturned, the crash terrified heaven itself, and the ground sank, struck by the weight of the mass. Cacus first joins battle, fighting hand to hand, and fiercely wages the struggle with stones and stakes. When this avails nothing, ill-bravely he flees to his father's arts and vomits flames from his roaring mouth; as often as he blows them out, you would think Typhoeus breathed, and a swift lightning-flash hurled from Etna's fire. Alcides forestalls him, and his three-knotted club, brought down, sat thrice and four times in the man's face. He falls and vomits smoke mixed with blood, and dying beats the ground with his broad breast. The victor offers one of those bulls to you, Jupiter, and calls Evander and the country-folk; and he set up for himself the altar called the Greatest, here where the part of the city has its name from the ox. Nor is Evander's mother silent that the time is near when the earth will have had enough use of its own Hercules. But the happy prophetess, as she lived most dear to the gods, so the goddess holds this day in the month of Janus.

On the Ides the chaste priest in great Jupiter's shrine offers to the flames the entrails of a half-male sheep; and every province was given back to our people, and your grandsire was called by the name Augustus. Read through the wax masks set in order along the noble halls: no man has attained titles so great. Africa calls one its conqueror from herself, another bears witness to the Isaurian or the Cretan powers subdued; this man the Numidians make proud, that one Messana, and another drew his mark from the Numantine city, and Germany made both the death and the name of Drusus — ah, wretched me, how brief was that valour! If Caesar should take from the conquered so many names as there are nations in the great world, some are famous from a single deed, having titles either from a torque taken, or from a helping raven. Magnus, your name is the measure of your deeds: but he who conquered you was greater in name. And there is no step of surname above the Fabii: that house was called Greatest by its own merits. Yet all these are honoured with human distinctions: this one alone has a name shared with highest Jove. The fathers call sacred things 'august,' and 'august' are called the temples duly dedicated by the priests' hands; of this word too the augury hangs from its origin, and whatever Jupiter increases (auget) by his power. May he increase our leader's empire, may he increase his years, and may the oaken crown protect your doors, and, by the gods' auspices, may the heir of so great a surname take up, with the omen by which his father did, the burden of the world.

When the third Titan looks back on the passed Ides, the rites of the Parrhasian goddess will be performed anew. For of old carriages bore the Ausonian matrons (this too, I think, was named from Evander's parent); soon the honour is taken away, and every matron resolves to renew her thankless husbands by no offspring, and, that she might bear no children, the reckless one with a hidden blow shook out the growing burden from her womb. They say the fathers rebuked the wives who dared such cruelty, yet restored the right that had been taken away; and now they bid that two rites be performed alike to the Tegean parent for boys and for girls. It is not lawful to bring leather into her shrine, lest dead skins defile the pure hearths. If you love ancient rites, stand by the one who prays: you will learn names not known to you before. Porrima is appeased, and Postverta, whether your sisters, goddess of Maenalus, or the companions of your flight: the one is thought to have sung of what had been long ago (porro), the other of whatever was to come afterward (postmodo).

Bright Concord, the next day set you in a snow-white temple, where lofty Moneta lifts her high steps: now you will look well, Concord, upon the Latian throng, now hallowed hands have established you. Furius, the conqueror of the Etruscan people, had vowed the old temple, and he had kept his vow's faith; the cause was that the commons had seceded from the fathers, taking up arms, and Rome herself feared her own strength. The recent cause is better: Germany, with loosened hair, offers herself to your auspices, revered leader; hence you dedicated the spoils of the conquered nation and made temples to the goddess whom you yourself worship. Your mother established her by both her deeds and her altar, she alone found worthy of great Jupiter's bed.

When these days have passed, Phoebus, leaving Capricorn behind, you will run through the signs of the youth who bears the water.

When the seventh sun from this rises and sinks beneath the waves, already no Lyre will shine in the whole sky.

After this star, on the coming night, the fire that gleams in the middle of the Lion's breast will be sunk.

Three and four times I unrolled the calendar that marks the seasons, and no day of the Sowing was found there; when the Muse (for she perceived it) said to me, as this day was being announced: 'Why do you seek a fixed rite from the calendar? As the day is uncertain for the rite, so the season is certain: when the seed is cast, and the field is with child.' Stand, garlanded bullocks, at the full manger: with the warm spring your work will return. Let the countryman hang up the plough that has earned its rest on a stake: the cold ground dreads every wound. Steward, give rest to the earth, the sowing done; give rest to the men who have tilled the earth. Let the village keep festival: purify the village, farmers, and give the yearly cakes to the village hearths. Let the mothers of the crops be appeased, Tellus and Ceres, with their own spelt and with the entrails of a sow. Ceres and Earth keep a common office: the one gives the cause of the crops, the other the place. 'Partners in the work, by whom antiquity was set right and the oaken acorn was conquered by a more useful food, satisfy the eager farmers with boundless crops, that they may take the worthy reward of their labour. Give perpetual growth to the tender sowings, and let no new blade be scorched by the chill snows. When we sow, open the sky with clear winds; when the seed lies hidden, sprinkle it with heavenly water. And beware lest the birds, a host that will do harm, ravage with their flock the fields sown with Ceres' gifts. You too, ants, spare the buried grains: after the harvest your store of plunder will be greater. Meanwhile let the crop grow free of rough mildew, nor let the sickly harvest grow pale from the sky's flaw, and let it neither fail from leanness, nor, richer than is right, perish, run riot in its own abundance. And let the fields be free of darnel that hurts the eyes, nor let the barren wild oat rise from the tilled soil. May the field render, at vast interest, the crops of wheat and the spelt that will twice endure the fire, and the barley!' These prayers I make for you, these pray for yourselves, farmers, and may both goddesses make the prayers come true. War long held men: the sword was fitter than the ploughshare, the plough-ox yielded to the horse; the hoes lay idle, the mattocks were turned into javelins, and a helmet was made from the weight of the rake. Thanks be to the gods and to your house: long since the wars lie bound in chains beneath your feet. Let the ox come under the yoke, the seed under the ploughed earth: Peace nurtures Ceres, Ceres is the nursling of Peace.

But the sixth day that comes before the approaching Kalends, on this the temples were dedicated to the Ledaean gods: brethren gods, those brethren of the gods' race built them by Juturna's pools.

The song itself has led me to the altar of Peace. This will be the second day from the end of the month. Your hair wreathed and bound with the leaves of Actium, Peace, be present and gentle in all the world. While foes are wanting, let the cause of triumph be wanting too: you will be a greater glory to our leaders than war. Let the soldier bear arms only to hold arms in check, and let nothing but the procession be sung to the fierce trumpet. Let the farthest world, both first and last, dread the sons of Aeneas: if any land feared Rome too little, let it love her. Add incense, priests, to the flames of peace, and let the white victim fall, struck on the brow, and ask of the gods, inclined to dutiful prayers, that the house which secures peace may, with peace, endure. But now the first part of my labour is done, and with its month the little book has its end.