Book 2

2. Janus has his end, when both the song and the year increase: as here one month follows another, so let one book follow another. Now for the first time, elegiacs, you go with larger sails: of late, I remember, you were a slight work. I myself found you ready ministers in love, when my early youth made sport in its own measures. Now I, the same poet, sing of sacred rites and the seasons marked in the calendar: who would have believed there was a way from those themes to these? This is my soldiering: I bear what arms I can, and my right hand is not idle in every service. If javelins are not hurled by my strong arm, nor do I press the back of a war-horse, nor am I covered by a helmet nor girt with a sharp sword (in such weapons anyone can be handy), yet I follow your titles, Caesar, with a zealous heart, and advance through the record of your honours. So be present, and look back a little with a kindly face on my offerings, if you have any leisure from pacifying the foe.

The Roman fathers called expiations 'februa': even now many signs give proof to the word. The pontiffs ask the king and the flamen for wool, which in the ancient tongue had the name 'februa'; and the cleansings that the lictor takes from the houses he has swept, the roasted spelt with grain, are called the same; the same name belongs to the branch which, cut from a pure tree, covers the chaste brows of the priests with its leaves; I myself have seen the flamen's wife asking for februa; and to her asking a pine twig was given. In short, whatever it is by which our bodies are purified had this name among our unshorn forefathers. The month was named from these, because the Luperci with cut hide purify all the ground and hold it for an expiation, or because the season is pure when the graves are appeased, once the days of the dead have passed by. Our elders believed that all sin and all cause of evil could be removed by these cleansings. Greece gave the origin of the custom: she thinks the guilty, once purified, lay aside their impious deeds. Peleus, son of Actor, and Phocus's slaying — Acastus freed Peleus himself too, through the Haemonian waters; Aegeus, all too credulous, comforted the Phasian woman, borne through the air by bridled dragons, with his aid; the son of Amphiaraus said to Achelous of Naupactus, 'Loose my sin,' and he too loosed his sin. Ah! too easy of belief, you who think the grim crimes of slaughter can be washed away by a river's water!

Yet, that you may not stray in ignorance of the ancient order, the month of Janus was first, as it is, and was so before; the month that follows Janus was the last of the old year: you too, Terminus, were the boundary of the rites. For the month of Janus is first, because the doorway is first: the month sacred to the deep shades was the deepest. Afterward the months once parted by a long span are believed to have been joined by the board of ten.

At the month's beginning the Saviour, neighbour to the Phrygian Mother, is said to have been enriched with new shrines. Now where, you ask, are the temples consecrated to the goddess on those Kalends? They have fallen low through length of days. That the rest might not fall, shaken by like ruin, the foresighted care of our hallowed leader took heed, under whom the shrines feel no old age; nor is he content with men: he lays gods under obligation. Founder of temples, holy restorer of temples, I pray the gods above may have a like care of you! May the heavenly ones grant you the years you grant to them, and stand on guard before your house! Then too the grove of neighbouring Helernus is thronged, where the stranger Tiber seeks the waters of the sea. At Numa's sanctuary and the Capitoline Thunderer, and on Jove's high citadel, a two-tooth victim falls. Often the south wind, veiled in clouds, stirs up heavy rains, or the earth lies hidden beneath a covering of snow.

When the Titan, about to depart into the Hesperian waves, takes off the jewelled yoke from his crimson horses, on that night someone, lifting his face to the stars, will say: 'Where today is the Lyre that gleamed yesterday?' And while he seeks the Lyre, he will mark the back of the middle Lion suddenly plunged into the clear waters too.

The Dolphin, which you saw just now engraved with stars, will flee your sight on the following night: whether he was the lucky betrayer of hidden loves, or whether he bore the Lesbian lyre with its master. What sea does not know, what land is ignorant of Arion? By his song he held the running waters still. Often the wolf, pursuing the lamb, was stayed by his voice, often the lamb, fleeing, stood still before the greedy wolf; often hounds and hares have lain beneath one shade, and the hind stood on the rock close by the lioness, and without quarrel the chattering crow sat with Pallas's bird, and the dove was joined to the hawk. Cynthia is said often to have marvelled, tuneful Arion, at your measures, as though at her brother's. Arion's name had filled the Sicilian cities, and the Ausonian shore was captivated by his lyric strains; on his way home Arion went aboard a ship, and so was carrying the wealth he had won by his art. Perhaps, unhappy man, you feared the winds and waves, but to you the sea was safer than your own ship. For the helmsman took his stand with drawn sword, and the rest of the crew, his accomplices, with armed hand. What have you to do with a blade? Steer the wavering ship, sailor: these are not weapons to be held by your fingers. He, pale with fear, said: 'I do not beg off death, but let me take my lyre and play a little.' They grant it and laugh at the delay; he takes a crown that might well grace your hair, Phoebus; he had put on a robe twice dyed with Tyrian purple: struck by his thumb the string gave back its sounds, in plaintive measures, as a swan sings of its hard fate, its temples pierced by a bright feather. At once, in his finery, he leaps into the midst of the waves: the dark-blue stern is sprinkled by the water he stirs. Then (beyond belief) a dolphin, they say, with curved back set itself beneath the strange burden; he, sitting there, holds his lyre and, as the price of his passage, sings, and soothes the sea-waters with his song. The gods see his pious deeds: Jupiter received the dolphin among the stars, and bade it have nine stars.

Now I could wish, Maeonian bard, that I had a thousand voices, and the breast in which Achilles was sung, while I sing in alternating measure of the sacred Nones: here the calendar receives its greatest honour. My talent fails, and matters greater than my strength press on: this day must be sung by me with no common voice. What did I, mad, mean to lay so great a weight upon elegiacs? That was a theme for the heroic foot. Holy father of the fatherland, this name the commons gave you, this the senate; this name we knights gave you; yet the facts had given it before; late, too, you took your true titles: long since you were the father of the world. This name on earth you bear which Jupiter bears in high heaven: you are the father of men, he of gods. Romulus, you will yield: this man makes your walls great by guarding them, you had left them for Remus to leap across. Tatius felt you, and little Cures, and Caenina: under this man's leadership both sides of the sun are Roman. You held some small piece of conquered land: whatever lies beneath high Jove, Caesar holds. You ravished women: under him the wives are bidden be chaste. You gave refuge in a grove: he drove off wrongdoing. Violence was pleasing to you: under Caesar the laws flourish. You held the name of master, he that of prince; Remus accuses you: he gave pardon to his enemies. Your father made you a god: he made his father one.

Now the Idaean boy shows half his body above the waves and pours forth clear waters mixed with nectar. See too, if anyone was wont to shudder at the North Wind, let him rejoice: a softer breeze comes from the Zephyrs.

When the fifth Morning-star has lifted its bright beam from the watery waves, the season of early spring will have come. Yet, that you be not deceived, frosts remain for you, they remain, and departing winter has left great tokens behind.

Let the third night come: at once you will see the Guardian of the Bear thrust out his two feet. Among the Hamadryads and Diana the huntress Callisto was one part of the sacred band. Touching the goddess's bow, she said: 'By this bow we touch, be witnesses of my virginity.' Cynthia praised her, and said: 'Keep the compact you have promised, and you shall be the foremost of my companions.' She would have kept the compact, had she not been beautiful: she guarded herself from mortals; her offence is from Jove. Phoebe was returning, having hunted a thousand wild beasts in the woods, when the sun held more than midday, or the midday point. When she reached a grove (a grove dark with thick ilex, and in its midst was a deep spring of chill water), she said: 'Here in the wood, Tegean maiden, let us bathe!' The girl blushed at the false name of maiden. She had spoken to the nymphs too: the nymphs lay aside their veils, this one is ashamed and gives the ill signs of slow delay. She had taken off her tunic; by the swelling of her womb made plain she is betrayed by the evidence of her own weight. To her the goddess said: 'Forsworn daughter of Lycaon, leave the maiden bands and do not pollute the chaste waters.' The moon had ten times filled her new orb with her horns: she who had been thought a maiden was a mother. Hurt, Juno rages, and changes the girl's form. What do you do? It was against her will she yielded to Jove. And when she saw the foul features in her rival, Jupiter said: 'Let him go into her embrace!' The she-bear wandered, filthy, over the wild mountains, she who had lately been loved by highest Jove. Now the boy conceived in stealth was leading his third lustrum, when the mother met her own offspring. She, indeed, as though she knew him, stood still, beside herself, and groaned: the groan was the words of a parent. The boy, not knowing her, would have pierced her with his sharp spear, had not both been snatched up to the homes above. The signs gleam near each other: the first, which we call Arctos, the Bear-keeper, has the form of one following her back. Saturnia still rages, and asks white-haired Tethys not to let the Maenalian Bear bathe in her waters.

On the Ides the altars of rustic Faunus smoke, here where the island breaks the parted waters. This was that day on which, by Veientine arms, three hundred Fabii and three more fell. One house had taken on itself the strength and the burden of the city: the clansmen take up the arms they have professed, a noble soldier goes forth from the same camp, of whom any one was fit to be made the leader. There is a road close by the right-hand Janus of the Carmental gate: do not go through it, whoever you are; it has an omen, for fame reports that the three hundred Fabii went out by it: the gate is free of fault, yet it has an omen. When with swift march they reached the rushing Cremera (it flowed turbid with winter's waters), they pitch camp on the spot: with drawn swords they themselves go through the Etruscan host in valiant battle, no otherwise than when lions of the Libyan race fall upon flocks scattered through the broad fields. The foes flee in all directions and take dishonourable wounds upon their backs: the ground grows red with Tuscan blood. So again, so often they fall, where to conquer openly is not granted, and they prepare ambushes and hidden arms. There was a plain; hills closed in the ends of the plain, and a wood fit to hide the mountain beasts; in the midst they leave a few men and scattered cattle, the rest of the throng lies hidden, concealed in the thickets. Behold, like a torrent swollen with rainwater or with snow that melts, conquered by the warm Zephyr, it is borne over the crops and over the roads, nor, as before, keeps its waters shut within the margins of its banks: so the Fabii fill the valley with their wide ranging, and lay low whatever they see, and no other fear is in them. Where do you rush, noble house? Ill do you trust the foe: unsuspecting nobility, beware the treacherous weapons! Valour perishes by guile: into the open plains on every side the enemies spring forth and hold the whole flank. What can the brave few do against so many thousands? Or what is left for them in their wretched plight? As a boar, driven far from the Laurentine woods, scatters the swift hounds with his lightning jaws, yet soon perishes himself, so they do not die unavenged and deal wounds in turn with hand for hand. One day had sent all the Fabii to war: one day destroyed those sent to war. Yet, that the seeds of the Herculean race might survive, it is credible that the gods themselves took thought; for a boy, not yet of age and as yet useless in arms, one of the Fabian race, had been left behind, that you might one day be born, Maximus, by whom, by delay, the state was to be restored.

Three constellations lie in a row, the Raven and the Snake and, in the middle between the two, the Bowl. On the Ides they hide, and rise on the following night, and why these three are so joined together I shall sing. By chance Phoebus was preparing a solemn feast for Jove (my tale will make no long delays): 'Go, my bird,' he said, 'that nothing may delay the holy rites, and bring a little water from living springs.' The raven lifts the gilded bowl in his curving claws and flies high on his airy course. A fig-tree stood there, thick with hard fruit: he tries it with his beak; it was not fit to be picked. Forgetful of his charge, he is said to have sat beneath the tree, till by slow delay the fruit should grow sweet. And now, sated, he seizes with his black talons a long water-snake and returns to his lord and tells a made-up tale: 'This was the cause of my delay, the besieger of the living waters: he held back the springs and my duty.' 'You add lies to your fault,' said Phoebus, 'and you dare to try to deceive the prophet god with words? But for you, while the milky fig clings to the tree, no cold waters shall be drunk from any spring.' He spoke, and as eternal memorials of that ancient deed the Snake, the Bird, the Bowl gleam, joined constellations.

On the third day after the Ides the dawn looks upon the naked Luperci, and the rites of two-horned Faunus come round. Tell, Pierides, what is the origin of the rites, and from where they were sought and reached the homes of Latium. The Arcadians of old are said to have worshipped Pan, the god of the flock: he was much present on the Arcadian ridges. Pholoe will witness it, the Stymphalian waters will witness, and Ladon, who runs to the sea with swift waters, and the ridges of the Nonacrian grove girt with pine-woods, and high Cyllene and the Parrhasian snows. There Pan was the god of the herd, Pan the god of the mares; he received a gift for keeping the sheep unharmed. Evander brought the woodland gods with him; here, where now the city is, was then but the site of a city. Hence we worship the god, and the rites brought by the Pelasgians the flamen of Jupiter still performs in the ancient manner. Why then do they run, and why (for so it is the custom to run) do they bear their bodies naked, their garments laid aside, you ask? The god himself, swift, delights to range over the high mountains, and himself takes sudden flights; the god himself, naked, bids his ministers go naked, nor was clothing fit enough for running. Before Jove was born, the Arcadians are said to have held the lands, and that people was older than the moon. Their life was like the beasts', driven to no useful arts: the crowd was still without skill and rude. For houses they knew leaves, for crops grasses, nectar was water drawn up in two cupped hands. No bull panted beneath the curving share, no land was under the rule of one who tilled it; no use of the horse was yet known, each man bore himself; the sheep went clothed in its own wool. They lived beneath the open sky and bore their bodies naked, schooled to endure heavy rains and the southern blasts. Even now the unclothed Luperci recall the memorials of the ancient custom and bear witness to the wealth of old.

But why above all Faunus flees coverings, a tale full of ancient jest is handed down. By chance the Tirynthian youth was going as the companion of his mistress: Faunus saw the pair from a lofty ridge. He saw and grew hot, and said: 'Mountain powers, I have no business with you: here shall my passion be.' The Maeonian woman went, her shoulders bathed in fragrant hair, to be marvelled at in her gold-embroidered robe: a golden parasol kept off the warm suns, which yet the hands of Hercules held up. Now she held the grove of Bacchus and the vineyards of Tmolus, and dewy Hesperus came on his dusky horse. She enters a cave panelled with tufa and living pumice; at the very threshold was a chattering brook. And while the attendants prepare the feast and the wine to be drunk, she fits out Alcides in her own attire. She gives him thin tunics dyed with Gaetulian purple, she gives the smooth girdle with which she had just been girt. The girdle is too small for his waist; he loosens the fastenings of the tunics, that he might thrust out his great hands. He had broken the bracelets, not made for those arms, and his big feet split the little sandal-straps. She herself takes the heavy club and the lion's spoil and the lesser arrows stored in her quiver. So having feasted, so they give their bodies to sleep, and lay down apart on couches set side by side; the reason: because they were preparing rites for the discoverer of the vine, to perform them in purity when day should have risen. It was midnight: what does shameless love not dare? Through the darkness Faunus came to the dewy cave, and when he sees the attendants undone by sleep and wine, he conceives a hope that there is the same slumber in the masters. He enters, and this way and that the reckless adulterer strays, and holds his cautious hands before him and follows them. He had come to the curtained couch of the bedstead and was about to be happy at the first cast of the lot. When he touched the fleeces shaggy with the bristles of the tawny lion, he took fright and held back his hand, and, thunderstruck with fear, drew back, as often a traveller, startled at the sight of a snake, draws back his foot; then he touches the soft coverings of the couch which was joined, and is deceived by the deceiving sign. He climbs up and reclines on the nearer side of the bed, and the swollen part was harder than horn. Meanwhile he draws the tunic up from its lowest edge: the legs bristled, rough with thick hairs. As he tries the rest, the Tirynthian hero suddenly thrust him off: he fell from the top of the couch. A sound is made, the Maeonian woman calls her attendants and asks for lights: torches brought in, the deeds are laid bare. He groans, heavily thrown down from the high bed, and scarcely lifts his limbs from the hard ground. Alcides laughs, and those who saw him lying there, the Lydian girl laughs at her own lover. Mocked by the dress, the god does not love clothing that deceives the eyes, and calls men naked to his rites. Add Latin reasons to the foreign, my Muse, and let our horse run on its own dust. A she-goat is slain in due form for goat-footed Faunus, and the throng comes, summoned to the scanty feast. And while the priests prepare the entrails pierced on willow spits, the sun holding the mid path of heaven, Romulus and his brother and the shepherd youth gave their naked bodies to the sun on the field; with boxing-gloves and javelins and the hurled weight of the stone they gave their arms to be tried in sport. A shepherd from the height cried: 'Robbers, Romulus and Remus, are driving the bullocks through the trackless fields!' It was long to arm: each goes out by a different side; by meeting the robbers Remus recovered the booty. When he returned, he draws the hissing entrails from the spits and says: 'These surely none but the victor shall eat.' He does as he said, and the Fabii with him; Romulus comes back there in vain and sees the tables and the bare bones; he laughed and grieved that the Fabii and Remus could conquer, and that his own Quintilii could not. The fame of the deed remains: their garments laid aside they run, and the enterprise, because it went well, keeps a remembered fame.

Perhaps you may ask too why that place is the Lupercal, or what cause marks the day with such a name. Silvia the Vestal had brought forth heavenly seed in childbirth, while her uncle held the kingdom. He bids the little ones be carried off and slain in the river: what do you do? One of these will be a Romulus. The servants carry out the tearful orders, though they refuse them, yet they weep, and bear the twins to the appointed place. Albula, which Tiberinus, plunged beneath the waves, gave back as Tiber, chanced to swell with winter's waters: here, where now the forums are, you might see skiffs straying, and where your valleys lie, great Circus. When they came hither (for they could go no further), one and another of them said: 'But how alike they are! how beautiful both! yet of the two this one has more vigour. If birth is shown by the face, unless the look deceives me, I suspect some god is in you — but if any god were the author of your origin, in so headlong an hour he would bring help. He would surely bring help, if your mother did not need help, who was made a mother and bereaved on one day. Born together, to die together, go together beneath the waves, you bodies!' He ceased and laid them down from his arms. Both wailed alike: you would have thought they understood; these men return to their homes with wet cheeks. The hollow trough bears the burden laid on it on the surface of the water: alas, how great a destiny that little plank carried! The trough, brought to the mud beneath the shady woods, gradually settles as the river fails. There was a tree: traces remain, and what is now called the Ruminal fig was the Romulan fig. There came to the exposed twins (a marvel!) a wolf, lately a mother: who would believe the beast did the boys no harm? That it did no harm is too little; it even helps them: the kindred hands that a wolf nourishes had brought themselves to destroy. She stood still and fawns on the tender nurslings with her tail and shapes the two bodies with her tongue. You would know they were Mars's sons: fear was absent; they draw the teats and are fed by the supply of milk not promised them. She gave her name to the place, the place itself to the Luperci. Great is the reward the nurse has for the milk she gave. What forbids the Luperci being named from the Arcadian mount? Faunus Lycaeus has temples in Arcadia. Bride, what do you wait for? Not by potent herbs, nor by prayer, nor by magic song will you be a mother; endure with patience the strokes of a fruitful right hand, and soon your husband's father will have the longed-for name of grandsire. For there was that time when, by a hard lot, the wives gave back rare pledges of their wombs. 'What does it profit me,' Romulus cried (this was while he held the sceptre), 'to have carried off the Sabine women, if my wrong has brought me not strength but war? It had been more useful not to have had daughters-in-law.' Beneath the Esquiline mount, uncut for many years, was a grove in the name of great Juno. When they came hither, both wives and husbands fell down on bended knee in supplication, when suddenly the tree-tops of the moved wood trembled and the goddess spoke wondrous words through her groves: 'Let a sacred he-goat go in unto the Italian matrons,' she said. The throng stood amazed, terrified at the doubtful sound. There was an augur (his name has fallen away through the long years, lately he had come, an exile, from Etruscan soil), he slays a goat, and the girls, at his bidding, offered their backs to be struck with thongs cut from its hide. The moon was renewing her horns at the tenth course, and suddenly the husband was a father and the bride a mother. Thanks to Lucina! This name the grove (lucus) gave you, or because, goddess, you hold the beginning of the light (lux). Spare, I pray, the women with child, gentle Lucina, and softly bring the ripe burden from the womb.

When the day has dawned, cease to trust the winds: the breeze of that season has lost its faith; the blasts are not steady, and for six days unbarred the wide door of the Aeolian prison stands open. Now light Aquarius has set with his slanting urn: next, Fishes, receive the heavenly horses. You and your brother (for you gleam as joined signs) are said to have borne two gods on your backs. Once, fleeing the dread Typhon, Dione, at the time when Jupiter took up arms for heaven, came to the Euphrates, attended by little Cupid, and sat by the margin of the Palestinian water. Poplars and reeds held the tops of the banks, and the willows gave hope that these too could give shelter. While she hides, the grove sounded with the wind; she with fear grows pale and believes hostile bands are at hand, and as she held her son in her bosom, 'Help, nymphs, and bring aid to two gods!' she said. Without delay she leaped forth. Twin fishes went beneath them: for which now the stars hold a worthy reward. Hence the Syrians count it sin to set this kind on the table, and in their fear do not defile their mouths with fishes.

The next day is empty, but the third is dedicated to Quirinus, who holds this name, but before was Romulus, whether because the spear was called 'curis' by the ancient Sabines (the warlike god came to the stars from a weapon), or whether the Quirites gave their own name to their king, or because he had joined Cures to the Romans. For the warlike Father, after he saw the new walls and the many wars waged by Romulus's hand, said: 'Jupiter, the Roman power has strength: it needs not the service of my blood. Give the son back to his father; though one has perished, the one who remains to me will be enough for himself and for Remus. There will be one whom you shall raise to the blue of heaven, you said to me: let Jove's words be made good.' Jupiter had nodded assent. At the nod both poles trembled, and Atlas shifted the weight of heaven. There is a place the ancients called the Marsh of the Goat: by chance there, Romulus, you were giving law to your people. The sun flees, and rising clouds remove the sky, and a heavy shower falls in poured-out streams. Here it thunders, here the heaven is rent by hurled fires: flight begins; the king was seeking the stars on his father's horses. There was mourning, and the senators falsely under the charge of murder, and perhaps that belief would have stuck in men's minds; but Proculus Julius was coming from Long Alba, and the moon shone, and there was no need of a torch, when suddenly the hedges on the left trembled at a movement: he drew back his steps, and his hair stood on end. Beautiful and greater than human and seemly in his robe, Romulus seemed to be present in the midst of the road, and to have said at the same time: 'Forbid the Quirites to mourn, nor let them violate my godhead with their tears; let the pious throng bring incense and appease the new Quirinus, and cultivate their fathers' arts and the soldier's calling.' He bade it, and vanished into thin air from their eyes. This man calls the people together and reports the bidden words. Temples are made to the god, the hill too is named from him, and on certain days they renew the ancestral rites.

Hear too why this same day is called the festival of Fools: the cause is slight indeed, but fitting. The ancient land had no skilled farmers: fierce wars wearied the active men; there was more glory in the sword than in the curving plough: the field, neglected by its master, bore little. Yet the ancients sowed spelt, they reaped spelt, and gave the first-fruits of cut spelt to Ceres. Taught by experience, they gave the spelt to be roasted in the flames, and bore much loss through their own fault. For now they swept up black ashes instead of spelt, now the fires caught the very huts. Fornax was made a goddess: the farmers, glad, pray to Fornax to keep their grain at the right heat. Now the chief Curio proclaims the Fornacalia in the lawful words, and does not perform it on a fixed day, and in the forum, with many tablets hanging round, each ward is marked by its certain sign; and the foolish part of the people, who do not know their ward, perform the rite on the last day, postponed.

There is honour for the tombs too. Appease the souls of your fathers and bring small gifts to the extinguished pyres. The shades ask little, piety is welcome in place of a rich gift: deep Styx holds no greedy gods. A tile veiled with stretched-out garlands is enough, and scattered fruits and a sparing grain of salt, and Ceres softened in wine and loosened violets: let the potsherd left in the middle of the road hold these. Nor do I forbid greater gifts, but with these too the shade is appeased; add prayers and their own words at the hearths set up. This custom Aeneas, a fitting author of piety, brought into your lands, righteous Latinus; he bore solemn gifts to his father's Genius: from this the peoples learned the pious rites. But once, while they wage long wars with fighting arms, they forsook the Days of the Fathers. It did not go unpunished; for from that omen, it is said, Rome grew hot with pyres in the suburbs. I scarcely believe it: the forefathers are said to have come forth from their tombs and to have made complaint in the silent time of night, and through the city's streets and over the broad fields they say the misshapen souls, an empty crowd, howled. After this the neglected honours are restored to the tombs, and an end came to the prodigies and the deaths.

While these things, however, are being done, cease, widowed maidens: let the pine torch await pure days, and let not the curved spear comb your maiden locks, you who will seem ripe to your eager mother. Hide your torches, Hymenaeus, and take them away from the dark fires! The mournful graves have other torches. Let the gods too be hidden behind the closed temple doors, let the altars be without incense and the hearths stand without fire. Now the thin souls and the bodies buried in tombs wander, now the shade feeds on the food set out. Yet not beyond this, than as many Morning-stars remain of the month as our verses have feet. This day they called the Feralia, because they bring the due rites; that is the last day for appeasing the shades.

Behold, an aged crone, sitting among the girls, performs the rites of the Silent Goddess (yet she herself is not silent), and with three fingers sets three bits of incense under the threshold, where the small mouse has made itself a hidden passage; then she binds enchanted threads with dark lead and turns seven black beans in her mouth, and the head of a sprat, which she has sealed with pitch and pierced with a bronze needle, she roasts, sewn up, in the fire; she drips wine on too: whatever wine is left, either she or her companions, but mostly she, drinks. 'We have bound hostile tongues and unfriendly mouths,' the crone says as she departs, and goes out drunk. At once you will ask of me who the Mute Goddess is: learn what is known to me from the old men of old.

Jupiter, overcome by an immoderate love of Juturna, endured many things not to be borne by so great a god: now she hid in the woods among the hazel-thickets, now leaped down into her kindred waters. He calls together the nymphs, all who held Latium, and casts such words into the midst of the band: 'Your sister grudges herself and shuns what is good for her, to have lain with the highest god. Take thought for both; for what is my great pleasure will be a great profit for your sister. Do you, as she flees, stand in her way on the brink of the bank, that she may not plunge her body in the river-water.' He had spoken: all the Tiberine nymphs nodded assent, and those who haunt your chambers, divine Ilia. There chanced to be a naiad, Lara by name, but to her the first syllable, said twice, was her old name, given from her fault. Often Almo's daughter had said to her, 'Hold your tongue,' yet she does not hold it, who, as soon as she touched the pools of her sister Juturna, said: 'Flee the banks,' and reports the words of Jove. She even went to Juno, and pitying the wives said: 'Your husband loves the naiad Juturna.' Jupiter swelled with anger, and from her, who had used her tongue immodestly, he tears it out, and calls Mercury: 'Lead her to the shades; that place is fit for the silent. A nymph she shall be, but a nymph of the infernal marsh.' The orders of Jove are done; the grove received them as they went: she is said then to have pleased the god who led her. Here he prepares violence; she pleads with her face instead of words, and strives in vain to speak with her dumb mouth. And she becomes pregnant and bears twins, who guard the crossroads and keep watch ever in our city, the Lares.

The next day the kindred dear called the Caristia, and the throng of relatives comes to the gods of kin. No doubt it is pleasant to turn the face away from the tombs and those who have perished, and back to the living, and after so many lost, to look upon whatever of the blood remains and to number the degrees of the family. Let the innocent come: far, far from here be the impious brother, and the mother harsh toward her own offspring, he whose father lives too long, who reckons up his mother's years, the unjust mother-in-law who oppresses the hated daughter-in-law. Let the brothers, sons of Tantalus, be absent, and Jason's wife, and she who gave the roasted seeds to the farmers, and the sister and Procne and Tereus, unjust to both, and whoever increases his wealth through crime. Give incense to the gods of the family, you good (Concord, they say, is present, gentle, especially on that day), and offer the feast, that, as a pledge of grateful honour, the dish set out may feed the girdled Lares. And now when damp night counsels gentle sleep, take up the wine in generous hand for your prayers, and say: 'Well to you, well to you, father of the fatherland, best Caesar!' say it through the sacred words, the wine poured out.

When night has passed, let the god who marks off the fields by his own sign be honoured with his accustomed rite. Terminus, whether you are a stone, or a stake buried in the field, you too have had divinity from of old. Two owners crown you from opposite sides, and bring you two garlands and two cakes. An altar is made: hither the rustic farmer's wife brings fire in a broken crock, taken from the warm hearth. The old man cuts wood and builds it, chopped, with skill, and strives to fix the branches in the firm ground; then he kindles the first flames with dry bark, the boy stands and holds in his hands the wide baskets. Then when he has thrown the grain three times into the midst of the fire, the little daughter offers the cut honeycombs. Others hold the wine; each thing is offered to the flames; they watch, and the white-robed throng keeps silence. The shared Terminus is sprinkled with the blood of a slain lamb and does not complain when a suckling pig is given him. The simple neighbourhood gathers and celebrates the feast and sings your praises, holy Terminus: you set bounds to peoples and cities and great kingdoms; without you every field would be a thing of strife. You have no ambition, by no gold are you corrupted, you guard the lands entrusted to you in lawful faith. If you had marked off the Thyrean land of old, three hundred bodies would not have been sent to death, nor would Othryades have lain upon the heaped-up arms. Oh, how much blood he gave to his fatherland! What of the time when the new Capitol was being built? No doubt the whole throng of gods yielded to Jove and gave him place: Terminus, as the ancients tell, found in the shrine, stood his ground and holds the temple with great Jove. Even now, that he may see nothing above him but the stars, the temple roof has a small opening. Terminus, after that you are not free to wander: in the post where you have been set, stay, and yield nothing to your neighbour at his asking, lest you seem to have set a man before Jove; and whether you are struck by ploughshares or by mattocks, cry out: 'This is your field, that is his!' There is a road that leads the people to the Laurentine fields, the kingdom once sought by the Dardanian leader: on that road the sixth milestone from the city sees the rites done to you, Terminus, with the entrails of a wool-bearing flock. To other nations land is given with a fixed boundary: the space of the city of Rome and of the world is the same.

Now I must tell of the king's flight: from it the sixth day from the month's end took its name. Tarquin held the last reign of the Roman race, an unjust man, yet brave in arms. He had taken some cities, overthrown others, and made Gabii his own by base craft. For the youngest of three, the manifest offspring of the Proud, came to the midst of the foe in the silent night. They had bared their swords: 'Slay me, unarmed!' he said; 'this my brothers and my father Tarquin would wish, who tore my back with cruel scourging.' That he might say this, he had endured the scourge. There was moonlight: they look at the youth and sheathe their swords, and see his back, marked, his garment drawn aside; they weep too, and pray him to wage their wars with them: the cunning one nodded assent to the unsuspecting men. And now in power he names his father by a friend sent, to show him the road to Gabii's ruin. There was below a garden, most cultivated with fragrant herbs, its ground cut by a stream of softly sounding water: there Tarquin received his son's hidden message and with his staff mowed off the topmost lilies. When the messenger returned and said the lilies were struck off, the son said: 'I recognize my father's commands.' Without delay, the chief men slain, the walls of the Gabine city are handed over, bare of their leaders.

Behold, dreadful to see, a snake comes forth from the midst of the altars and seizes the entrails from the quenched fires. Phoebus is consulted: the oracle was given thus: 'He who first shall give kisses to his mother will be the victor.' Each one hastened to bear kisses to his mother, the credulous throng not understanding the god. Brutus was a wise man feigning folly, that he might be safe from your plots, dread Proud One; he, lying prone, gave kisses to his mother Earth, thought to have fallen by a stumbling foot.

Meanwhile Ardea is girt with Roman standards and endures the long delays of a siege, while there is leisure and the foe fear to join battle, they play in the camp, the soldier spends his idle hours. Young Tarquin receives his comrades with feast and wine; from among them the king's son spoke: 'While Ardea holds us anxious in a sluggish war and does not let us bear our arms back to our fathers' gods, is the marriage-bed kept faithful by our wives? And are we a mutual care to our spouses?' Each praises his own: in their zeal the rivalry grows, and tongue and heart boil with much wine. He rose to whom Collatia had given a famous name: 'No need of words, believe the facts!' he said. 'The night is left: let us mount our horses and seek the city!' The words please, the horses are bridled, they bore their masters, and at once they seek the royal palace: there was no guard at the door. Behold, they find the king's daughters-in-law, with garlands flung about their necks, keeping wakeful, the wine set out. Thence with swift step Lucretia is sought: she was spinning, before the bed were baskets and soft wool. By the scant light the maids drew out their assigned tasks, among whom she spoke thus with a low voice: 'A cloak must be sent to your master (now, now hasten, girls!), made by our hand as soon as may be. But what do you hear? For you can hear more news: how much is said to be left of the war? Soon you shall fall, conquered: Ardea, you hold out against your betters, shameless, who force our husbands to be away. Let them but return! But indeed mine is reckless and rushes anywhere with drawn sword. My mind goes, and I die, whenever the image of him fighting comes upon me, and a cold chill holds my breast.' She ends in tears and lets fall the stretched threads, and laid her face in her lap. This itself became her: her tears, chaste, became her, and her face was worthy of her mind and equal to it. 'Lay aside fear, I have come!' her husband says. She revived and hung, a sweet burden, from her husband's neck. Meanwhile the royal youth conceives the frenzied fires and, seized by blind love, raves; her beauty pleases, her snow-white colour and golden hair, and the grace that was there, wrought by no art; her words and her voice please, and that she could not be corrupted, and the less the hope, the more he desires it. Now the bird, herald of the light, had given its song, when the young men bring their steps back to their camp. That man's stunned senses are gnawed by the image of the absent one; as he recalls her, more and more things please him: 'So she sat, so was she adorned, so she spun the threads, so her neglected locks lay on her neck, this face she had, these were her words to me, this her colour, this her look, this the grace of her face.' As after a great blast the wave is wont to grow calm, yet from the wind that was, the wave still swells, so, though the presence of the form he loved was gone, the love that her present beauty had given remained. He burns, and, goaded by the stings of unjust love, he plots violence and guile against the unworthy bed. 'The outcome is in doubt: we will dare the utmost!' he said, 'Let her see to it! Chance and a god help the daring. By daring we took Gabii too.' So having spoken he girt his side with a sword and pressed his horse's back. Bronze-gated Collatia received the youth, the sun now preparing to hide its face. As a guest, the foe enters the house of Collatinus: he is kindly received; he was joined to him by blood. How much error is in the mind! Unwitting of the matter, the unhappy woman prepares a feast for her foes. He had finished the feast: the hour demands sleep; it was night, and no lights in the whole house; he rises and frees his sword from the gilded sheath, and comes into your chamber, chaste bride. And when he pressed the bed, 'The steel, Lucretia, is with me,' he said, 'and I, a king's son, am Tarquin, who speak!' She says nothing: for she has neither voice nor strength to speak, nor any sense of mind in her whole breast, but trembles, as once a little lamb, caught when it has left the fold, lies beneath a hostile wolf. What is she to do? Fight? A woman fighting will be beaten. Cry out? But in his right hand was a sword to forbid it. Flee? Pressing palms bear hard upon her breast, then for the first time touched by a stranger's hand. The foe-lover presses on with prayers and bribes and threats; neither by prayer nor bribe nor threats does he move her. 'You do nothing: I will take your life by a false charge,' he said; 'I, the adulterer, will be a false witness of adultery: I will kill a slave, and say I caught you lying with him.' The girl, overcome by fear of disgrace, gave way. Why, victor, do you rejoice? This victory will destroy you. Alas, how much one night cost your kingdom! And now day had risen: she sits with disordered hair, as a mother is wont, about to go to her son's pyre, and calls her aged father and her faithful husband from the camp, and both come, their delay laid aside. And when they see her state, they ask the cause of her grief, for whom she prepares the funeral rites, or by what ill she is stricken. She is long silent, and ashamed hides her face in her robe: her tears flow like an ever-running stream. On this side father, on that husband console her tears and beg that she tell, and they weep and fear with blind dread. Three times she tried to speak, three times gave up, and daring a fourth she still did not for that lift up her eyes. 'This too shall we owe to Tarquin? Shall I speak,' she says, 'shall I, unhappy, myself tell my own shame?' And what she can, she tells; the end remained: she wept, and her matron's cheeks blushed. Her father and husband grant pardon for the deed forced upon her: 'The pardon you grant,' she said, 'I myself refuse.' Without delay she pierced her breast with a hidden steel and falls, bloodstained, at her father's feet. Then too, even dying, she takes care that she fall decently, this concern was hers as she fell. Behold, over her body, lamenting their common losses, her husband and father lie, forgetful of seemliness. Brutus comes, and at last belies his name in spirit, and snatches the weapon fixed in the half-living body, and holding the knife dripping with noble blood uttered fearless sounds with threatening mouth: 'By this brave and chaste blood I swear to you, and by your shade, which shall be a divinity to me, that Tarquin with his exiled stock shall pay the penalty. Long enough now has my valour been disguised.' She, lying there, moved her lightless eyes at the words and seemed to approve the speech with shaken hair. She is borne to her funeral, a matron of manly spirit, and draws tears and hatred along with her. The gaping wound lies open. Brutus with a cry rouses the Quirites and tells the king's unspeakable deeds. Tarquin flees with his offspring; the consul takes the yearly authority: that day was the last for the kingship.

Are we deceived, or has the swallow come, herald of spring, nor fears lest winter, turned back, should return? Yet often, Procne, you will complain you hurried too much, and your husband Tereus will be glad at your cold.

And now two nights remain of the second month, and Mars urges his swift horses with the chariot yoked: the name Equirria, fittingly set, has lasted, which the god himself looks down upon in his own Field. You come by right, Gradivus: your season demands the place, and the month marked by your name is here. We have come into harbour with the book and the month finished: let my skiff now sail hence on other water.