Book 4

4. "Kind mother of the twin Loves, smile on me," I said. She turned her face toward the poet and asked, "What do you want with me? Surely you were singing of greater things. Do you carry some old wound in your soft heart?" "You know, goddess," I answered, "about the wound." She laughed, and at once the sky on that side cleared and was serene. "Wounded or whole, have I ever deserted your standards? You are always my theme, you always my work. What was fitting I played at without blame in my early years; now a larger field is worked by my horses: I sing the seasons with their causes, dug from ancient annals, and the constellations that sink below the earth and rise. We have come to the fourth month, in which you are most honoured: you know, Venus, that both the poet and the month are yours." Moved, she lightly touched my brow with Cytherean myrtle and said, "Finish the work you have begun." I felt it, and at once the reasons of the days lay open: while it is allowed and the breezes blow, let the ship sail on.

If any part of the calendar should touch you, however, Caesar, in April you have what claims you. This month comes down to you with a great lineage and becomes yours by the nobility of adoption. The father of the Iliad saw this, when he set down the long year, and named his own ancestors: and as he gave fierce Mars first place in the order, since Mars was the nearest cause of his own birth, so he wished Venus, found many degrees back in his line, to hold the place of the second month; and seeking the origin of his race and the rolling ages, he came at last to the gods, his kin. Could he not know that Dardanus was born of Electra, Atlas' daughter, that Electra had lain with Jove? From him came Erichthonius; Tros was begotten of him; he fathered Assaracus, and Assaracus Capys. Next was Anchises, with whom Venus did not disdain to share the name of parent. From him sprang Aeneas, whose piety was proved, who through the fires bore on his shoulders the sacred things and his father, another sacred thing. At last we come to the auspicious name of Iulus, through whom the Julian house touches its Trojan forebears. From him came Postumus, who, because he was born deep in the woods, was called Silvius among the Latin people. He, Latinus, is your father. Alba follows Latinus: next after you, Alba, in the records is Epytus. He gave to Capys the renewed name of Troy, and the same man, Calpetus, became your grandfather. And when Tiberinus held his father's kingdom after him, he is said to have drowned in the swirling waters of the Tuscan stream. Yet he had already seen Agrippa his son and Remulus his grandson: they say lightning was hurled at Remulus. After these came Aventinus, from whom the place takes its name, and the hill as well; after him the kingdom passed to Proca. He is followed by Numitor, brother of harsh Amulius. Ilia and Lausus were the children of Numitor. Lausus falls by his uncle's sword; Ilia pleases Mars, and bears you, Quirinus, joined with your twin Remus. He always called Venus and Mars his parents, and earned the right to have his word believed; and so that the descendants to come could not fail to know it, he gave the seasons of his race in unbroken succession. But I judge that the month of Venus was named in the Greek tongue: the goddess took her name from the foam of the sea. Do not be surprised that the thing is called by a Greek name; for the land of Italy was Greater Greece. Evander had come with his whole company of ships; Alcides had come, both of them Greek by birth (the club-bearer pastured his herd on the Aventine grass, and Albula's water was drunk by so great a god); the Neritian leader came too; the Laestrygonians stand as witnesses, and the shore that still bears the name of Circe, and already the walls of Telegonus, already those of well-watered Tibur stood, founded by Argive hands. Halesus came, driven on by the fates of the son of Atreus, from whom the Faliscan land thinks itself named. Add Antenor, who urged the Trojans to make peace, and the son of Oeneus, your son-in-law, Daunus of Apulia. Late, after the Trojan flames and after Antenor, Aeneas brought his gods to our country. One of his companions was Solymus, from Phrygian Ida, from whom the walls of Sulmo take their name, Sulmo the cool, my native town, Germanicus. Wretched me, how far it lies from the Scythian soil! So am I so far away—but check your complaints, my Muse! You must not sing the sacred rites with a mournful lyre. Where does envy not reach? There are those who would rob you, Venus, of the honour of the month, and grudge it to you. For because spring then opens all things, and the thick harshness of the cold gives way, and the teeming earth lies open, they say April was named from the time of opening, which gentle Venus claims, laying her hand on it. She indeed most worthily governs the whole world; she holds a realm no less than any god's, and gives laws to heaven, to earth, to the waters of her birth, and through her comings preserves every kind alive. She created all the gods (it would be long to count them); she gave to crops and trees their causes; she gathered the rude minds of men into one and taught each to be joined with his own mate. What creates all the race of birds, if not coaxing pleasure? Nor would the flocks couple, if light love were absent. The savage ram fights with his horn against another ram, yet he spares the brow of the ewe he loves. The bull, laying his fierceness aside, follows the heifer, the bull at whom all the woods, all the grove, tremble. The same power preserves whatever lives beneath the broad sea and fills the waters with countless fish. This power first stripped from man his savage manner; from her came refinement and the neat care of oneself. The first lover, they say, sang a song wakeful through a night denied, serenading before the closed doors, and eloquence was the means of softening the hard girl, and each man was made fluent for his own cause. A thousand arts were set in motion by her; in the eagerness to please, much that lay hidden before, they say, was found. Would anyone dare to strip this goddess of the title of the second month? Far from us be that madness. What of this, that though everywhere powerful and enriched with thronging temples, yet the goddess holds a greater right in our city? For your Troy, Roman, Venus bore arms, when she groaned, her tender hand grazed by a spear-point; and by a Trojan's judgement she defeated two of the heavenly goddesses (ah, I would not have the conquered goddesses remember this!); and she was called the daughter-in-law of Assaracus, so that one day great Caesar might have the line of Iulus for his forebears. No season was ever more fitting for Venus than spring: in spring the lands gleam, in spring the soil is soft, now the grasses lift their tips through the broken earth, now the vine-shoot puts out buds on the swelling bark. And lovely Venus is worthy of the lovely season, and, as always, she is set beside her Mars: in spring she warns the curved ships to go out over the maternal seas and fear no longer the winter's threats.

Worship the goddess rightly, you matrons and brides of Latium, and you who lack the fillet and the long robe. Take the golden chains from her marble neck, take away her riches: the whole goddess must be bathed. Restore the golden chains to her neck when it is dry; now other flowers must be given her, now a fresh rose. She herself bids you too to bathe beneath the green myrtle: and the reason why she bids it (learn it!) is sure. Naked on the shore she was drying her dripping hair: the satyrs, a wanton crowd, saw the goddess. She felt it, and screened her body with myrtle set before her: she was safe by doing so, and she bids you do the same. Learn now why you offer incense to Manly Fortune in the place that is warm with hot water. That place receives all women with their garments laid aside and sees every flaw of the naked body; so that Manly Fortune may hide and conceal this from the men, she grants it, and does so when asked with a little incense. And do not be reluctant to take poppy ground with snow-white milk and the honey pressed from the clear combs; when Venus was first led to her eager husband, she drank this: from that time she was a bride. Appease the goddess with words of supplication: under her care remain both beauty and good behaviour and good name. In our forefathers' day Rome lapsed from chastity: you consulted, men of old, the Cumaean crone. She bids a temple be made for Venus, and when it was duly built, from this Venus holds her name from the turned heart. Always, fairest, look back with a kindly face upon the sons of Aeneas, and guard, goddess, your many brides. While I speak, dreaded with the point of his raised tail, Scorpio plunges into the green waters.

When the night has passed, and the sky has begun to redden with the first light, and the dew-touched birds complain, and the traveller who has watched through the night sets down his half-burnt torch, and the countryman goes to his usual work, the Pleiades will begin to ease their father's shoulders, they who are called seven, yet are commonly six: whether because six of them came into the embrace of gods (for they say Sterope lay with Mars, Alcyone with Neptune, and you, lovely Celaeno, Maia and Electra and Taygete with Jove); the seventh, Merope, married a mortal, you, Sisyphus; she repents, and alone hides for shame of the deed: or because Electra could not bear to look on the ruin of Troy, and set her hand before her eyes.

Let the sky turn three times on its unceasing axle, let Titan three times yoke and three times unyoke his horses, and at once the Berecyntian flute with its curved horn will blow, and the festival of the Idaean Mother will come. Her half-male priests will go and beat the hollow drums, and bronze struck on bronze will give its clashing notes; seated, she herself will be borne on the soft necks of her attendants, howled along through the middle of the city's streets. The stage resounds, the games call: look on, Quirites, and let the courts, contentious with their own Mars, be empty. I would gladly ask many things, but the sound of the shrill bronze frightens me and the curved flute with its dreadful tone. "Grant me, goddess, someone whom I may question." Cybele's learned granddaughters she saw, and bade them attend to my care. "Mindful of your charge, nurslings of Helicon, make plain why the Great Goddess delights in ceaseless sound." So I; and so Erato (the Cytherean month fell to her, because she holds the name of tender love): "This lot was given to Saturn: 'Best of kings, you will be cast from your sceptre by a son.' Fearing it, he devoured his offspring as each was born, and held them sunk within his belly. Often Rhea complained, so often fertile yet never a mother, and grieved at her own fruitfulness. Jove was born (the great witness of antiquity is believed; do not lightly disturb the accepted faith): a stone wrapped in cloth went down the heavenly throat; so the father was destined to be deceived by the fates. Long now steep Ida resounds with clashing, so that the child may cry safely with his infant mouth. Some beat shields with staves, some beat empty helmets: this is the task of the Curetes, this of the Corybantes. The thing was hidden; and the imitations of the old deed remain; the goddess's attendants strike the bronze and the harsh hides, they beat cymbals instead of helmets, drums instead of shields; the flute gives the Phrygian measures, as it gave of old." She had ceased. I began: "Why do the fierce race of lions offer their unaccustomed manes to her curved yoke?" I had ceased. She began: "Their wildness is believed to have been softened by her; she proves it by her car." "But why is her head burdened with a turreted crown? Did she give towers to the first cities?" She nodded. "Where," I said, "did the impulse come from to cut their own limbs?" When I was silent, the Muse began to speak: "A Phrygian boy in the woods, beautiful to look upon, Attis, bound the turret-bearing goddess to him with a chaste love. She wished to keep him for herself, to guard her temple, and said, 'See that you wish to remain a boy forever.' He gave his pledge to her commands, and said, 'If I lie, let the love by which I deceive you be my last.' He deceives her, and ceases to be what he was, in the nymph Sagaritis: from this the goddess's anger exacts its penalty. She cut down the Naiad by wounds made in her tree; the Naiad perished: the tree was the fate of the Naiad. He goes mad, and believing the roof of his chamber falling, he flees and in his course makes for the heights of Dindymus, and now he cries, 'Take away the torches! now remove the whips!' often he swears the Palaestinian goddesses are present. He even mangled his body with a sharp stone, and his long hair was dragged in the filthy dust, and his cry was, 'I have deserved it! I pay the just penalty in blood. Ah, let the parts perish that have harmed me! Ah, let them perish,' he was still saying, and he takes away the weight of his groin, and suddenly no signs were left of his manhood. This madness became a model, and the soft ministers cut their worthless members, tossing their hair." With such words the eloquent voice of the Aonian Muse gave back to me the cause of the madness I had asked. "This too, my work's guide, I pray you teach: from where was she fetched and brought? Or was she always in our city?" "The Mother always loved Dindymus and Cybele and Ida lovely with its springs, and the wealth of Ilium: when Aeneas was bringing Troy into the Italian fields, the goddess almost followed the ships that bore the sacred things, but she felt that the fates did not yet ask her divinity for Latium, and she stayed in her accustomed places. Afterwards, when mighty Rome had now seen five ages of her power, and raised her head over a conquered world, the priest examined the fateful words of the Euboean song; they say what he examined was such as this: 'The Mother is absent: Roman, I bid you seek the Mother. When she comes, she must be received by a chaste hand.' The fathers wander in the riddles of the dark oracle, which parent was absent, and in what place she was to be sought. Paean is consulted: 'Summon the Mother of the gods,' he said, 'she is to be found on the Idaean ridge.' The nobles are sent. Attalus then held the Phrygian sceptre: he refuses the thing to the men of Ausonia. I shall sing a marvel: the earth trembled with a long rumbling, and thus the goddess spoke from her inner shrine: 'I myself wished to be sought; let there be no delay; send me willing. Rome is a place worthy that every god should go there.' Trembling in fear at the terror of the sound, he said, 'Set out, you shall be ours: Rome traces back her line to Phrygian forebears.' At once the countless axes cut down the pine-woods, those that the pious Phrygian had used in his flight: a thousand hands join, and a hollow ship, painted with burnt colours, holds the Mother of the gods. She is carried most safely through the waters of her own son and reaches the long pools of the Phrixean sister; she passes ravenous Rhoeteum and the Sigean shores and Tenedos and the old wealth of Eetion. The Cyclades receive her, Lesbos left behind, and the wave that breaks on the Carystian shallows. She crosses too the Icarian sea, where Icarus lost his fallen wings and gave his name to the vast water. Then leaving Crete on the left, the Pelopid waters on the right, she makes for Cythera, sacred to Venus. From here the Trinacrian sea, where Brontes and Steropes and the son of Acmon are wont to dip the glowing iron, and she skirts the African waters, looks back on the Sardinian realms from the left of her oars, and reaches Ausonia. She had reached Ostia, where Tiber divides himself into the deep and swims in a freer plain: all the knights and the grave senate, mingled with the common folk, came to meet her at the mouth of the Tuscan river. Mothers and daughters and brides advance together, and those who tend the holy hearths with their virginity. The men weary their arms with the taut rope: the foreign ship scarcely makes its way against the waters, the land had long been dry, thirst had scorched the grass: the keel sat fast, pressed into the muddy shallows. Everyone who is there toils more than his share, and helps the strong hands with a ringing voice. She sits there like an island fixed in the middle of the sea: the men, struck by the marvel, stand and are afraid. Claudia Quinta traced her descent from high Clausus, nor was her beauty unequal to her nobility: chaste indeed, but not believed so; an unjust rumour had wronged her, and she was charged with a false crime; her elegance and her habit of going out with varied hairstyles had counted against her, and her ready tongue against the stern old men. Her mind, conscious of the right, laughed at the lies of rumour, but we are a crowd ready to believe in fault. When she had come forward from the line of chaste matrons and drawn the river's pure water in her hands, three times she sprinkles her head, three times lifts her palms to the sky (all who look on think she has lost her wits), and bending her knee she fixes her eyes on the goddess's image and, her hair loose, utters these words: "Kind and fruitful mother of the gods, receive the prayers of your suppliant on one sure condition. They deny that I am chaste. If you condemn me, I shall confess I deserved it; beaten, with a goddess for judge, I shall pay the penalty with death. But if the charge is false, you will give a pledge of my innocence by the deed, and, chaste yourself, follow my chaste hands." She spoke, and with a slight effort drew the rope (a marvel, but the stage attests what I tell): the goddess is moved and follows her leader, and praises her by following: the sound that signals joy is carried to the stars. They come to the bend of the river (the ancients called it the Halls of Tiber), where it turns away to the left. Night was at hand: they fasten the rope to an oaken stump and give their bodies, fed lightly, to easy sleep. Day was at hand: they loose the rope from the oaken stump; but first they set down a hearth and offered incense, first they garlanded the stern and sacrificed a heifer without blemish, untried by toil or by mating. There is a place where the gliding Almo flows into the Tiber and the lesser stream loses its name in the great river: there a hoary priest in purple robe washed the Mistress and her sacred things in the waters of Almo. Her attendants howl, the frenzied flute is blown, and soft hands strike the leather of the drums. Claudia walks in front, renowned with a joyful face, her chastity at last believed on a goddess's witness; the goddess herself, seated on a wagon, was carried in through the Capene gate: the yoked oxen are sprinkled with fresh flowers. Nasica received her: the founder of the temple did not survive; now Augustus is, before him Metellus was." Here Erato paused; there is a delay; so I ask the rest: "Tell me," I say, "why she seeks her wealth with a small coin." "The people contributed the bronze from which Metellus built the shrine," she says; "from there remains the custom of giving the coin." "Why do they hold banquets by turns," I ask, "and then most of all celebrate uninvited feasts?" "Because the Berecyntian goddess changed her seat with good fortune," she said; "by changing seats they catch the same omen." I had pressed on to ask why the Megalesian games were the first in our city, when the goddess (for she perceived it) said, "She gave birth to the gods; they yielded to their parent, and the Mother holds the privilege of the honour granted first." "Why then do we call those who castrate themselves Galli, since the Gallic land lies so far from Phrygia?" "Between green Cybele and lofty Celaenae," she says, "flows a river of mad water, Gallus by name. Whoever drinks of it goes mad: stay far away, you who have any care for a sound mind: whoever drinks of it goes mad." "I am not ashamed," I said, "that a dish of herbs is set on the Mistress's tables: or is there a reason of its own?" "The men of old, they tell, used pure milk and herbs that the earth bore of its own accord," she says. "White cheese is mixed with the pounded herb, so that the ancient goddess may know the ancient foods."

When, after her stars have moved across the sky, the daughter of Pallas has shone, and the Moon has lifted her snowy horses, whoever says, "On this day in the past, on the hill of Quirinus, Public Fortune was hallowed," will speak the truth.

It was the third day of the games (I remember), and a certain older man, sitting next to me as I watched, said this: "That was the day on which Caesar, on the Libyan shores, crushed the treacherous arms of great-souled Juba. Caesar was my leader, under whom I am proud to have served as tribune: he presided over my service. This seat I won by soldiering, you in peace, through the office held among the board of ten." We were about to say more, when we were suddenly parted by a shower: the hanging Scales were stirring the waters of heaven.

Yet before the final day brings the spectacles to a close, sword-bearing Orion will be sunk in the sea.

When next the Dawn looks upon victorious Rome, and the routed star has yielded its place to Phoebus, the Circus will be crowded with the procession and the throng of gods, and the first palm will be sought by the wind-swift horses.

Now come the games of Ceres. There is no need to point out the cause; the goddess's gift and her merit are plain of themselves. The bread of the first mortals was the green grasses that the earth gave with none to coax it; and now they plucked the living turf from the sod, now the tip of tender foliage was their banquet, later the acorn was born: it was well, the acorn once found, and the hard oak held magnificent wealth. Ceres first called man to better nourishment and changed acorns for a more useful food. She forced the bulls to offer their necks to the yoke: then for the first time the upturned soil saw the sun. Bronze was prized, the iron ore lay hidden: alas, it ought to have been hidden forever. Ceres rejoices in peace; and you, farmers, pray for unending peace and a peace-making leader. You may give the goddess spelt and the honour of the leaping grain of salt, and grains of incense on the ancient hearths; and if incense is lacking, light resinous torches: small offerings please good Ceres, if only they be pure. You ministers, gird up your robes and take the knives from the ox: let the ox plough; sacrifice the idle sow. The neck fit for the yoke is not to be struck by the axe: let the ox live and often labour in the hard ground.

The place itself requires that I tell the rape of the maiden: much you will recognize, in a few things you will be taught. The Trinacrian land runs out into the vast sea with three crags, having taken its name from the lay of the place, a home dear to Ceres; she possesses many cities, among them Henna, fertile with its cultivated soil. Cool Arethusa had summoned the mothers of the gods: the golden goddess too had come to the sacred feast. Her daughter, attended as ever by her usual girls, was wandering barefoot through her own meadows. In a shady valley there is a place wet with much spray from the water leaping down from on high. There were as many colours there as nature holds, and the ground gleamed, painted with varied flowers. As soon as she saw it she said, "Come, my companions, and bring back with me your laps full of flowers." The empty prize lures their girlish hearts, and in their busyness the toil is not felt. This one fills baskets woven of pliant osier, this one her bosom, another weighs down her loose folds: this one gathers marigolds, to this one the violet-beds are dear, this one nips off the poppy-heads with her nail: you, hyacinth, these hold; these, amaranth, you delay: some love thyme, some rosemary, some the melilot. Roses most of all are gathered, and flowers without a name; she herself plucks the slender crocus and the white lilies. In the eagerness of gathering they wander little by little farther, and by chance no companion followed her mistress. Her uncle sees her, and seeing swiftly carries her off, and bears her to his realm on his dark-blue horses. She indeed kept crying, "Dearest mother, oh, I am being carried away!" and she had torn her dress. Meanwhile a road opens for Dis, for his horses, unused to it, can scarcely bear the light of day. But the band of her companions, their baskets heaped with flowers, cry out, "Persephone, come to your gifts!" When she who was called is silent, they fill the hills with their howls and strike their bare breasts with mournful hands. Ceres was stunned by the lament (she had just come to Henna), and at once said, "Wretched me! daughter, where are you?" Out of her mind she rushes off, like the Thracian maenads we hear of, going with streaming hair. As a mother cow bellows when her calf is torn from her udder and seeks her young through every grove: so the goddess does not hold back her groans, and driven on in her course is carried off, and begins from your fields, Henna. There she finds the prints of a girl's foot and saw the ground pressed by the familiar weight; perhaps that day might have been the end of her wandering, had not the pigs disturbed and spoiled the tracks she found. And now in her course she passes Leontini and the streams of Amenanus and your banks, grass-bearing Acis; she passes Cyane and the springs of gentle Anapus and you, Gela, not to be approached for your whirlpools. She had left Ortygia and Megara and Pantagias, and where the sea receives the waters of Symaethus, and the caves of the Cyclopes, scorched by the furnaces set within, and the place that takes its name from the curved sickle, and Himera and Didyme and Acragas and Tauromenium and the glad pastures of Melas with its sacred herds. From here she comes to Camerina and Thapsus and the Heloran Tempe, and where Eryx lies forever open to the Zephyr. And now she had traversed Pelorias and Lilybaeum and Pachynus, the three horns of her own land. Wherever she goes, she fills all places with her wretched laments, as the bird grieves over the lost Itys, and by turns she cries now "Persephone!" now "daughter!" she cries and calls out each name in turn. But neither does Persephone hear Ceres, nor the daughter her mother, and by turns each name is lost upon the air; and whether she had seen a shepherd or one tilling the fields, her one cry was, "Has any girl passed this way?" Now one colour is in all things, and all are covered by darkness, now the watchful dogs are silent: high lies vast Aetna above the mouth of Typhoeus, whose ground burns with the fires he breathes out; there she kindled two pines for a lamp: hence to this day a torch is given at the rites of Ceres. There is a cave, a rough mass of eaten-away pumice, a region not to be approached by man or beast: as soon as she came there she yokes serpents bridled to her chariot and roams dry-shod over the watery seas. She flees the Syrtes and you, Zanclaean Charybdis, and you, Nisaean dogs, monsters of shipwreck, and the Adriatic spreading wide and the two-sea'd Corinth: so she comes to your harbours, land of Attica. Here she first sat down, most sorrowful, on a cold rock: even now the children of Cecrops call that rock the Sorrowful. She endured many days unmoved beneath the open sky, patient under the moon and the rain; each place has its own destiny: what is now called Cerealian Eleusis was then the lands of old Celeus. He carries home acorns and blackberries shaken from the brambles and dry wood for the hearths that were to burn. His little daughter was driving two she-goats down from the mountain, and his tender son lay sick in his cradle. "Mother!" said the girl (the goddess was moved by the name of mother), "what are you doing in lonely places without a companion?" The old man stopped too, though his burden pressed him, and begged her to come under the roof of his cottage, however small. She refused; she had taken the shape of an old woman, and had bound her hair with a cap. To his urging she answered thus: "May you go safe and ever be a parent! my daughter has been snatched from me. Alas, how much better is your lot than mine!" She spoke, and as a tear (for it is not for gods to weep) fell, a bright drop, into her warm bosom, the tender-hearted girl and old man weep alike; and these were the words of the just old man: "So may your daughter, whom you seek as stolen, be safe, rise up and do not scorn the roof of a small cottage." The goddess said to him, "Lead on! you have found the way to compel me," and she lifts herself from the rock and follows the old man. As leader he tells his companion how sick his son is, and that he gets no sleep and lies awake in his pains. About to enter the little house, she gathers the sleep-bringing gentle poppy from the wild ground; while she gathers, they say she tasted it with forgetful lips and unwittingly broke her long fast. Because she ended her fasting at the beginning of night, the initiates take their time of food at the appearing of the stars. As she crossed the threshold she sees everything full of grief: already there was no hope of the boy's recovery. Having greeted the mother (Metanira the mother is called), she deigned to join her lips to the boy's. His pallor goes, they see sudden strength in his body: so great a vigour came from the heavenly mouth. The whole house is glad—that is, the mother and father and daughter: those three were the whole household. Soon they set out a meal, curds melted in milk and apples and golden honey in its combs. Kind Ceres refrains, and gives you, boy, the poppy, cause of sleep, to drink in warm milk. It was the middle of the night and the silence of peaceful sleep: she took Triptolemus up into her lap and stroked him three times with her hand, said three charms, charms not to be repeated by mortal voice, and in the hearth, with the living embers, she covered the boy's body, that the fire might purge the human burden. The well-meaning but foolish mother starts from sleep, and frantic, cries, "What are you doing?" and snatches the limbs from the fire. The goddess said to her, "Though not wicked, you have been so: my gifts are made vain by a mother's fear. He indeed shall be mortal, but the first to plough and to sow and to lift the rewards from the tilled soil." She spoke, and going out trailed a cloud, and changed into her dragons, and was lifted up by Ceres on her wing-bearing car. She leaves Sunium jutting out and the Piraeus safe in its recess and the shore that lies on the right hand. From here she enters the Aegean, where she looks on all the Cyclades, and skirts the ravenous Ionian and Icarian seas, and through the cities of Asia seeks the long Hellespont, and wanders her high path, varied by its places. For now she looks down on the incense-gathering Arabs, now on the Indians, on this side Libya, on that Meroe and the parched land lie beneath; now she comes to the Hesperians, the Rhine and the Rhone and the Po, and you, Tiber, father-to-be of a mighty water. Where am I being carried? It would be endless to tell the lands she wandered: no place in the world was passed over by Ceres. She wanders too in the sky, and addresses the constellations nearest the cold pole, free from the liquid sea: "You Parrhasian stars (for you can know all things, since you never sink into the watery deep), show wretched Persephone to her unhappy mother!" She had spoken, and Helice answers her with these words: "The night is free of the crime; consult the Sun about the stolen maiden, who sees far and wide the deeds of day." The Sun, approached, says, "Not to weary you in vain, she whom you seek is married to Jove's brother and holds the third realm." After long lamenting to herself, she addressed the Thunderer, and the greatest signs of grief were on her face: "If you remember by whom Proserpina was born to me, she ought to have half your care. The whole world traversed, the wrong alone of the deed is known: the ravisher keeps the rewards of his crime. But Persephone does not deserve a robber for a husband, nor was this the way for us to gain a son-in-law. What heavier thing could I have borne, a captive of victorious Gyges, than now I have borne with you holding the sceptres of heaven? But let him go unpunished, we shall endure this unavenged; let him give her back and amend his former deeds with new ones." Jove soothes her and excuses the deed by love, and says, "He is no son-in-law for us to be ashamed of. I am no nobler: a palace was set for me in heaven, another holds the waters, another the empty void. But if your heart is not to be changed, and you are set on breaking the bonds of a marriage once joined, let us try this too, if only she has remained fasting; if not, she will be the wife of the lord below." The wand-bearer, bidden, takes wings and goes to Tartarus, and returns sooner than hoped and reports for certain what he saw: "The stolen maid," he said, "broke her fast with three seeds that the Punic apple hides within its tough rind." No less did the sorrowing parent grieve than if she had just been stolen, and was long, and scarcely, restored after the delay, and said thus, "Heaven is not habitable for me either; bid me too be received in the Taenarian vale." And she would have done it, had not Jove agreed that for thrice two months of the year she should be in heaven. Then at last Ceres recovered her face and her spirit, and placed garlands of grain upon her hair; and the harvest came forth abundant in the long-idle fields, and the threshing-floor scarcely held the heaped wealth. White suits Ceres: at the Cerealia put on white garments; now there is no use for dark fleece.

Jupiter the Victor takes the Ides of April for his title: on this day temples were given to him. On this day too, if I am not mistaken, Liberty began to have her own halls, most worthy of our people.

On the day that follows, sailor, make for safe harbours: the wind from the west will be mixed with hail. Yet be that as it may, on this day Caesar with hail struck down the arms raised against him in the war at Mutina.

When the third light has risen after the Ides of Venus, priests, sacrifice a pregnant cow. The forda is a cow bearing young and fertile, named from bearing: from this too they think the foetus takes its name. Now the herds are heavy with young, the lands too are heavy with seed: to teeming Earth a teeming victim is given. Part falls on the citadel of Jove; the senate-house receives thrice ten cows and is wet, sprinkled with abundant blood. But when the ministers have snatched the calves from the wombs and laid the cut entrails on the smoking hearths, the eldest virgin burns the calves with fire, that on the day of Pales the ashes may purge the people. In Numa's reign, when the harvest did not answer the labour, the vows of the deceived husbandman were made in vain, for now the year was dry with chill north winds, now the field ran riot with ceaseless rain: often Ceres failed her master in the first blades, and the light oat-stalk stood on the choked soil, and the flock bore its young before the time, untimely, and often the lamb in its birth killed the ewe. An old wood, long unviolated by any axe, stood, left sacred to the Maenalian god: he gave answers to a quiet mind in the silent nights; here King Numa sacrifices two ewes. The first falls to Faunus, the second to gentle Sleep: both fleeces are spread on the hard ground. Twice his unshorn head is sprinkled with spring water, twice he covers his temples with beech leaves, he abstains from the use of love, no flesh may be set on the tables, nor any ring be on his fingers, covered in rough garb he lays his body upon fresh fleeces, having worshipped the god in his own words. Meanwhile night comes, her calm brow wreathed with poppy, and draws dark dreams along with her. Faunus is present, and pressing the sheep's fleeces with his hard hoof, uttered such words from the right side of the couch: "By the death of two cattle, king, Earth must be appeased: let one heifer give two lives to the rites." Sleep is shaken off by terror: Numa turns over the vision and ponders to himself the riddles and the dark commands. His wife, most dear to the grove, frees him from his perplexity and said, "You are asked for the entrails of a pregnant cow." The entrails of a pregnant cow are given, a more fruitful year came on, and the earth and the cattle bore their fruit. Once the Cytherean goddess bade this day go more swiftly and hurried on her loosed horses, so that on the following day the prosperous wars might give to the youthful Augustus the title of empire as soon as possible.

But already the fourth Morning-star looks back on the Ides now past: on this night the Hyades hold Doris.

When the third light has risen after the distant Hyades, the Circus will hold the horses parted in their stalls. Why then do the foxes that are loosed carry on their backs torches blazing and bound—the cause must be told by me. The land at Carseoli is cold and unfit for bearing olives, but a soil suited to corn-crops; this way I was making for the Pelignians, my native fields, small but always moist with constant streams. I entered the familiar house of my old host; Phoebus had now taken the yokes from his weary horses. He used to tell me many things, but this among them, from which my present work might be furnished: "In this plain," he said (and he pointed out the plain), "a thrifty country-woman had a small farm with her hard husband. He worked his own ground, whether the use was of the plough or of the curved sickle or of the mattock. She now would sweep the cottage propped on its post, now set the eggs to be warmed under the mother's feathers, or gather green mallows or white mushrooms, or warm the lowly hearth with a welcome fire, and yet keeps her arms busy with the constant loom and prepares weapons against the threats of cold. Her son was, in his early years, playful, and had added two years to his ten: he catches a fox at the far end of a willow-thicket: she had carried off many of the farmyard birds. He wrapped his captive in straw and hay and brings up the fire: she escapes his burning hands: where she fled she set fire to the fields clothed with crops; a breeze gave strength to the destructive flames. The deed is gone, the memorials remain; for even now a fixed law forbids the men of Carseoli to name a fox; and that this race may pay the penalty, a fox is burnt at the Cerealia, and in the way it destroyed the crops, it perishes itself."

When next the saffron-robed mother of Memnon comes on her rosy horses to look upon the open lands, the sun departs from the leader of the wool-bearing flock, who betrayed Helle: as it goes out, a greater victim is present. Whether it be a cow or a bull is not easy to tell: the front part appears, the hinder is hidden. But whether the sign is a bull or a female, it holds the gift of love against Juno's will.

Night has gone, and Aurora rises. I am summoned to the Parilia: not summoned in vain, if kind Pales favours me. Kind Pales, favour me as I sing the shepherds' rites, if I honour your festival with my service. Surely I have often carried in my full hands the ashes of a calf and bean-stalks, chaste means of purging: surely I have leapt over the flames set three in a row, and the wet laurel-branch sprinkled its dewy waters. The goddess is moved and favours the work: the ship goes out from the docks, my sails already have their winds. Go, people, seek the fumigant from the virgin's altar: Vesta will give it; by Vesta's gift you will be pure. The blood of a horse will be the fumigant, and the ashes of a calf, the third thing the empty stalk of the hard bean. Shepherd, purify the well-fed sheep at the first twilight: let water first sprinkle, and the besom sweep the ground. Let the sheepfolds be adorned with leaves and fixed boughs, and let a long garland cover the decked doors. Let blue smoke be made from pure sulphur, and let the sheep bleat, touched by the smoking sulphur. Burn the male olive-wood and the pine and the Sabine herbs, and let the scorched laurel crackle in the middle of the hearths, and let cakes of millet follow the basket of millet: the rustic goddess delights especially in this food. Add the feast and her own milk-pail, and when the feast is cut, pray to woodland Pales with warm milk. Say, "Watch alike over the flock and the masters of the flock: let harm be driven off and flee from my stalls. If I have grazed on sacred ground, or sat under a sacred tree, and my sheep have unknowingly cropped fodder from the graves: if I have entered a forbidden grove, or the nymphs and the half-goat god have been put to flight by my eyes: if my sickle has stripped the grove of a shady branch, from which a basketful of leaves was given to a sick sheep: grant pardon for the fault, nor let it harm me, while it hails, to have sheltered the flock beneath a rustic shrine, nor let it hurt that I disturbed the pools; forgive me, nymphs, that a hoof in motion has made the waters murky. Do you, goddess, appease for us the springs and the spring-deities, appease the gods scattered through every grove. Let us not see the Dryads, nor Diana's bath, nor Faunus, when he lies in the fields at midday. Drive the diseases far off; let men and flocks be well, and well the watchful, foreseeing band of dogs. Let me not drive home fewer than there were in the morning, nor groan as I bring back fleeces snatched by the wolf. Let unjust famine be absent: let grass and leaves abound, and waters both to wash the limbs and to drink. Let me press full udders, let the cheese bring me money, and let the wide wicker give a way to the liquid whey. Let the ram be lusty, and let my mate give back the conceived seed, and let there be many a lamb in my stall. Let wool come forth to wound no girls, soft and fit for tender hands of every kind. Let what I pray come to pass, and we shall make next year great cakes for Pales, the mistress of the shepherds." With these words the goddess must be appeased: this, turned toward the east, say four times, and wash your hands in the living dew, then you may take, in a wooden bowl set out as a mixing-bowl, snow-white milk and the purple new wine; and at once through the burning heaps of crackling straw hurl your nimble limbs with a quick foot. The custom is set out: the origin of the custom remains for me: the crowd of explanations makes me doubt and holds back my task. The devouring fire purges all things and refines the dross from metals: therefore it purges the sheep with the shepherd. Or is it because the contrary seeds of all things are two discordant gods, fire and water, and the fathers joined the elements and thought it fit to touch the body with fire and sprinkled water? Or because in these is the cause of life, which the exile loses, and by these the bride is made new, and they think these two great things? I scarcely believe it: there are those who think Phaethon is referred to, and the excessive waters of Deucalion. Some too say that when the shepherds struck stones with stones, a spark suddenly leapt out; the first indeed died, the second was caught by the straw: does the flame of the Parilia have this for its reason? Or did the piety of Aeneas rather make this custom, to whom the fire gave a harmless passage when he was conquered? Yet is it not nearer the truth that, when Rome was founded, the Lares were ordered to be moved into new homes, and changing their house, the country folk set fire beneath their rural dwellings and the cottage soon to be left, that the flock leapt through the flames, that the farmers leapt, which is done even now, Rome, on your birthday?

The place itself gives the poet his theme: the founding of the city comes; be present, great Quirinus, at your own deeds! Now Numitor's brother had paid the penalty, and all the herdsmen's crowd was under the twin leaders. It pleased both to gather the country folk and lay walls: the question was, which should lay the walls. "There is no need of any contest," said Romulus; "great is the trust in birds; let us try the birds." The plan pleases: one goes to the rocks of the wooded Palatine, the other in the morning climbs the height of the Aventine. Remus sees six birds, Romulus twelve in order; by the pact they abide, and Romulus holds the rule of the city. A fit day is chosen on which to mark the walls with the plough. The rites of Pales were near: from this the work is begun. A trench is dug down to the solid ground, fruits are thrown into the bottom and earth fetched from the neighbouring soil. The trench is filled with earth, an altar set on the full ground, and a new hearth busies itself with the kindled fire. Then pressing the plough-handle he marks the walls with a furrow; a white cow bore the yoke with a snowy ox. These were the king's words: "Jupiter, and father Mavors, and mother Vesta, be present as I found this city; and all you gods whom it is right to summon, attend, every one. Under your auspices may this work of mine rise. Long be its life, and the power of this land its mistress, and beneath it both the rising and the setting day." He prayed, and Jove gave omens with thunder on the left, and lightning hurled from the left pole. Glad at the augury the citizens lay the foundations, and in a short time there was a new wall. Celer hastens this work, whom Romulus himself had called, and had said, "Celer, let these be your care, and let no one cross the walls or the trench made by the share: put to death any who dares such a thing." Remus, not knowing this, began to scorn the lowly walls and to say, "Will the people be safe behind these?" At once he leapt over. Celer strikes the one who dared with his spade; he, bloodied, presses the hard ground. When the king learned this, he swallowed the tears that rose within him and kept the wound shut in his breast. He will not weep openly, and keeps the example of fortitude, and says, "So let the enemy cross my walls." Yet he grants the funeral rites, and can no longer hold back his weeping, and the piety he concealed is laid bare; he pressed his last kisses on the bier set down, and said, "Brother, taken against my will, farewell!" He anointed the limbs that were to burn; Faustulus did the same, and Acca, her sorrowing hair unbound. Then the Quirites, not yet so named, wept for the youth; and at last the fire was set beneath the bewailed pyre. The city rises (who then could have believed it of any?) destined to set its conquering foot upon the lands. Rule all things, and be ever beneath a great Caesar, and often hold many bearers of that name; and as often as you stand sublime over a conquered world, let all things be lower than your peaks.

I have spoken of Pales, and I shall speak of the Vinalia; yet one day lies between the two. Common girls, celebrate the divinity of Venus: Venus suits well the gains of those who profess the trade. With incense offered, ask for beauty and the people's favour, ask for charm and words fit for jesting, and give the mistress her own grateful mint with myrtle and rush-bonds covered with arranged rose. Now it is fitting that her temple near the Colline gate be thronged; it takes its name from a Sicilian hill; and when Claudius took with arms Syracuse of Arethusa and captured you too, Eryx, in war, Venus was brought over by the song of the long-lived Sibyl, and chose rather to be worshipped in the city of her own stock. You ask why then they call the festival of Venus the Vinalia, and why this day belongs to Jove. There was war over whether Turnus or Aeneas should be the son-in-law of Latian Amata: Turnus implores the Etruscan power. Mezentius was renowned and, with arms taken up, fierce, great on horseback, and greater on foot; the Rutulians and Turnus try to win him to their side, but against them the Tuscan leader spoke thus: "My valour stands me in no small worth: I call to witness my wounds and the arms I have often stained with my own blood. You who seek my aid, share with me no great reward—the next new wine from your vats. There is no delay in the service: yours to give, ours to conquer. How Aeneas would wish that this were denied me!" The Rutulians had nodded assent. Mezentius put on his arms, Aeneas put them on too, and addressed Jove: "The enemy's vintage is vowed to the Tyrrhenian king: Jupiter, you shall have new wine from the Latian vine!" The better vows prevail: huge Mezentius falls and beats the ground with his indignant breast. Autumn had come, foul with the trodden grapes: the wine owed is duly paid to Jove. Hence the day is called the Vinalia: Jupiter claims it for his own and rejoices to be present at his own festivals.

When April has six days left of those that remain, the seasons of spring will be at mid-course, and in vain will you seek the ram of Helle, daughter of Athamas; the rains give the signs, and the Dog rises. On this day, as I was returning to Rome from Nomentum, a white-robed crowd blocked the middle of the road. A flamen was going to the grove of ancient Robigo, to give the entrails of a dog and the entrails of a sheep to the flames. At once I drew near, that I might not be ignorant of the rite: your flamen, Quirinus, uttered these words: "Rough Robigo, spare the corn-blades of Ceres, and let the smooth tip tremble at the top of the soil. Suffer the crops, nourished by the favouring stars of heaven, to grow until they are ripe for the sickle. Your power is not slight: the grain you have marked, the mournful farmer counts among his losses; neither winds nor rains have harmed Ceres so much, nor does she grow so pale, scorched by the marble frost, as when Titan warms the wet stalks: then is there room for your anger, goddess to be feared. Spare, I pray, and take your rough hands from the harvest, and harm not the tilled fields: it is enough that you can harm. Embrace not the tender crops, but the hard iron, and what can destroy others, destroy first. More usefully will you seize on swords and harmful weapons: there is no need of them, the world is at leisure. Now let the hoes and the hard mattock and the curved share, the wealth of the country, shine; let rust foul the arms, and let anyone who tries to draw the sword from its sheath feel that it is stuck fast from long disuse. But do not you defile Ceres, and may the farmer ever be able to pay his vows to you in your absence." He had spoken: at his right was a napkin with its loose nap, and a casket of incense with a saucer of pure wine. He gave incense and wine to the hearths, and the entrails of a sheep, and the foul entrails (we saw it) of an obscene dog. "Then why," you ask, "is a strange victim given to the rites?" (I had asked.) "Hear the cause," the flamen said. "There is a Dog, the Icarian they call it, at whose rising the parched earth thirsts and the crop ripens too soon. For the starry dog this dog is set on the altar, and the only reason it dies is its name."

When Tithonus' bride, leaving behind the brother of Phrygian Assaracus, has lifted her radiance three times over the vast world, a goddess comes wreathed with a thousand garlands of varied flowers: the stage holds the manner of freer jesting. The rite of Flora goes out also to the Kalends of May; I shall take it up then, now a greater work presses me. Take the day, Vesta! Vesta has been received on her kinsman's threshold: so the righteous fathers decreed. Phoebus holds a part, a second part fell to Vesta; what is left over the third himself holds. Stand, laurels of the Palatine, and let the house stand decked with oak: one house holds three eternal gods.