Book 5

5. You ask from where I think the month of May was given its name? The cause is not clearly enough known to me. As a traveller stands uncertain, not knowing which way to go, when he sees a road on every side: so, since it is possible to give differing causes, I do not know which way to turn; the very abundance harms me. Tell me, you who hold the springs of Aganippean Hippocrene, the cherished signs of the Medusan horse. The goddesses disagreed, of whom Polyhymnia began first; the others are silent and note her words in mind. "After chaos, as soon as the three bodies were given to the world, and all the work withdrew into new shapes, the earth sank by its own weight and drew down the seas, but lightness bore the sky to the highest places; the sun too, with the stars, held back by no heaviness, and you, the horses of the moon, leapt up. But for a long while neither Earth yielded to Sky, nor the other constellations to Phoebus; the honour was equal for all. Often some god from the common throng dared to sit on the throne which you, Saturn, held, nor did any newcomer god take his place beside Ocean, and Themis was often received in the last seat, until Honour and Reverence, comely with a calm face, laid their bodies on the lawful marriage-couch. From these was born Majesty, who governs the whole world. On the day she was brought forth she was great. Without delay she sat aloft in the middle of Olympus, golden, conspicuous in her purple robe. Modesty and Awe sat down with her: you might see every divinity compose its face toward her. At once respect for honours entered their minds: worth has its reward, and no one pleases himself. This state remained in heaven for many years, until the elder god fell by the fates from the citadel. Earth brought forth fierce offspring, monstrous Giants, who would dare to go against the house of Jove; she gave them a thousand hands and serpents for legs, and said, 'Take up arms against the great gods.' They prepared to pile up mountains to the highest stars and to harass great Jove with war; Jupiter, hurling thunderbolts from the citadel of heaven, turned the vast masses back upon their makers. Well defended by these arms, the Majesty of the gods remains, and from that time stays honoured; thence she sits by Jove, she is Jove's most faithful guardian and grants Jove to hold his sceptre without force. She came to earth as well: Romulus worshipped her and Numa, and then others, each in his own time. She guards the fathers and mothers in their pious honour, she comes as companion to boys and maidens, she commends the bestowed rods and the curule ivory, she rides high in triumph on garlanded horses." Polyhymnia had ended her words: Clio approved what was said, and Thalia skilled in the curved lyre. Urania takes up the tale: all kept silence, and no voice could be heard but hers. "Great once was the reverence for a grey head, and the old man's wrinkle was held in its own esteem. The young men did the work of Mars and waged spirited wars, and stood on guard for their gods: the old man, lesser in strength and unfit to bear arms, often brought help to his country by counsel. The senate-house then was not open except after ripe years, and the senate was a name gentle with age. The elder gave laws to the people, and a definite law fixed the age at which office might be sought; and a man went among the young, they themselves not resenting it, and on the inner side, if one companion walked with him. Who would dare to speak words deserving a blush before an old man? Long old age conferred the right of censure. Romulus saw this and called his chosen spirits 'fathers': to these the chief affairs of the new city were referred. Hence I am moved to think the elders gave their name to May and took thought for their own time of life. And Numitor could have said, 'Romulus, give this month to the old,' and the grandson could not refuse his grandfather, nor does June, named from the name of the young, hold a light pledge of the design of an honour bestowed in turn." Then thus, her neglected hair wreathed with ivy, Calliope, first of her choir, began: "Ocean once married the Titaness Tethys, he who encircles the earth, as far as it reaches, with flowing waters. From them, it is said, was born Pleione, who is joined to sky-bearing Atlas, and bears the Pleiades. Of these, Maia is said to have surpassed her sisters in beauty and to have lain with most high Jove. She gave birth, on the ridge of cypress-bearing Cyllene, to him who plucks the airy path with winged foot. The Arcadians duly worship him, and ravenous Ladon and huge Maenalus, a land believed older than the moon. Evander, an exile from Arcadia, had come into the Latian fields, and had brought his gods set on his ship. Here, where now Rome is, the head of the world, there was tree and grass and a few cattle and a rare cottage. When they came there, 'Halt!' said the foreseeing mother, 'for that countryside will be the seat of empire.' The Nonacrian hero obeys his mother and the seer and settled as a guest on the foreign soil, and taught these peoples many rites, but first those of two-horned Faunus and of the wing-footed god. Half-goat Faunus, you are worshipped by the girded Luperci, when their thronging companies purify the streets with the cut hide. But you, inventor of the curved lyre, fitted to its bounds, gave the month its name from your mother. Nor is this your first act of devotion: you are thought to have given the lyre seven strings, the number of the Pleiades." This one too had ended: she was praised by her sisters' voices. What am I to do? Every part of the throng holds the same view. May the favour of the Pierides attend me equally, and let none be praised by me more or less.

Let the work rise from Jove. On the first night a star is to be seen, the dutiful star at Jove's cradle: the rainy sign of the Olenian Goat is born; she has the sky as the reward of the milk she gave. The Naiad Amalthea, famous on Cretan Ida, is said to have hidden Jove in the woods. She had a beautiful she-goat, mother of two kids, conspicuous among the Dictaean flocks, with high horns curving back over her own back, with an udder such as the nurse of Jove might have. She gave milk to the god; but she broke a horn on a tree and was robbed of half her beauty. The nymph took it up and bound it with fresh herbs and brought it, full of fruit, to the mouth of Jove. When he held the affairs of heaven and sat on his father's throne, and there was nothing greater than unconquered Jove, he made his nurse a constellation, and the fruitful horn of his nurse a constellation, which now too bears its mistress's name.

The Kalends saw an altar set up to the Tutelary Lares of Maia and small images of the gods: Curius had indeed vowed it; but much antiquity destroys, and long age harms the stone. The cause of the surname given to them was this, that they keep all things safe with their eyes. They stand on our behalf and watch over the city walls and are present and bring help. But a dog, made of the same stone, stood before their feet: what cause was there for its standing with the Lar? Each guards the house, each is faithful to the master too: the crossroads are dear to the god, the crossroads dear to the dog. Both the Lar and the band of Diana drive off thieves: wakeful are the Lares, and wakeful the dogs. I sought the twin images of the twin gods, made to fall by the strength of long age: a thousand Lares and the Genius of the leader, who gave them, the city holds, and the districts worship the threefold powers. Where am I being carried? The month of Augustus has the right of this song: meanwhile the Good Goddess must be sung. There is a natural mass in the place; the thing made the name: they call it the Rock; it is a good part of the hill. On this Remus had stood in vain, at the time when the Palatine birds gave the first signs to your brother. There the Fathers founded a temple that hates male eyes, on the gently sloping ridge. This was dedicated by an heiress of the old Clausan name, who had suffered no man to touch her virgin body: Livia restored it, so that she might not fail to imitate her husband and to follow her own in every respect.

When next, with the stars of Hyperion driven off, the Dawn lifts her rosy lamp on her morning horses, the chill Argestes will soothe the topmost ears of corn, and white sails will be spread from the Calabrian waters. But as soon as the dim twilight brings on the night, no part of the Hyades from the whole flock is hidden. The face of the Bull shines, radiant with seven flames, which the Greek sailor calls the Hyades from the rain; some think they nursed Bacchus, some believed them the granddaughters of Tethys and old Ocean. Not yet did Atlas stand with his shoulders laden by Olympus, when Hyas was born, conspicuous for his beauty; the offspring of Ocean, Aethra, brought him forth in due labour, and the nymphs, but Hyas was born first. While his down is new, he frightens the timid deer with terror, and the hare is a welcome prey to him. But after his manhood ripened with the years, he dares to go against boars and shaggy lionesses hand to hand, and while he seeks the lairs and cubs of a lioness with young, he himself became the bloody prey of the Libyan beast. His mother wept for Hyas, and his sorrowing sisters wept for Hyas, and Atlas, soon to set his neck beneath the pole. Yet the love of the sisters overcame both parents: it gave them the sky; Hyas gave the name.

"Mother of flowers, come, to be honoured with playful games! I had put off your part in the month before. You begin in April, you cross into the season of May: the one holds you as it flees, the other as it comes. Since the borders of the months are yours and yield to you, either one or the other suits your praises. The Circus games end in this month, and the palm acclaimed in the theatres: let this song too go along with the Circus's gift. Teach me yourself who you are. The opinion of men is deceptive: you yourself will be the best author of your own name." So I; and so the goddess answered my questions (while she speaks, she breathes spring roses from her mouth): "I was Chloris, who am called Flora: the Greek letter of my name was corrupted by the Latin sound. I was Chloris, a nymph of the happy field, where, you hear, in old time there was wealth for fortunate men. What my beauty was, it is hard for a modest one to tell, but it found a god for a son-in-law to my mother. It was spring, I was wandering: Zephyrus saw me, I was going away. He pursues, I flee: he was the stronger, and Boreas had given his brother every right of rape, who had dared to bear off plunder from the house of Erechtheus. Yet he makes amends for the force by giving me the name of wife, and there is no complaint about my marriage-bed. I enjoy perpetual spring: the year is always brightest, the tree has leaves, the ground its fodder always. I have a fruitful garden in the fields of my dower: a breeze cherishes it, it is watered from a spring of clear water. My husband filled it with noble flowers and said, 'Have, goddess, the rule of the flower.' Often I have wished to count the ordered colours and could not: the abundance was greater than the number. As soon as the dewy frost has been shaken from the leaves, and the varied foliage has warmed in the sun's rays, the Hours, girt with painted robes, gather and pick our gifts into light baskets. At once the Graces approach and weave garlands and wreaths to entwine the locks of the gods. I was first to scatter new seeds among countless peoples! The earth before was of one colour. I first made a flower from Therapnaean blood, and the lament remains written on its leaf. You too have a name through the cultivated gardens, Narcissus, unhappy, because you were not another and another. Why should I tell of Crocus, or Attis, or the son of Cinyras, from whose wound an honour rises through me? Mars too, if you do not know, was brought forth by my arts: may Jupiter, as until now, never know it, I pray. Holy Juno grieved that Jove had not needed her service, since Minerva was born without a mother. She went to complain to Ocean of her husband's deed; weary with the labour she stopped at our doors. As soon as I saw her, I said, 'What has brought you here, daughter of Saturn?' She tells what place she seeks, and added the reason; I was consoling her with friendly words: 'No,' she said, 'my care is not to be lightened by words. If Jupiter has become a father by neglecting the use of a wife, and alone holds both names, why should I despair of becoming a mother without a husband, and of bearing, while still chaste, untouched by man? I will try all the drugs in the wide lands, and search the seas and the depths of Tartarus.' Her speech was in mid-course: I had the look of one who doubts. 'You seem, nymph, able to do something,' she said. Three times I wished to promise help, three times my tongue held back: the wrath of great Jove was the cause of my fear. 'Bring help, I pray!' she said; 'the author will be concealed, and I will call to witness the divinity of the Stygian water.' 'What you ask,' I said, 'a flower sent to me from the Olenian fields will give: it is the only one in my gardens. He who gave it said, "Touch with this even a barren heifer, and she will become a mother." I touched, and at once she was a mother.' At once with my thumb I plucked the clinging flower: she is touched, and being touched in the bosom she conceives. And now, heavy with child, she enters Thrace and the left side of Propontis, and the wish is fulfilled, and Mars was begotten. He, mindful that his birth was granted through me, said, 'Have you too a place in the city of Romulus.' Perhaps you may think my realm lies only in tender garlands? My power touches the fields as well. If the crops have flowered well, the threshing-floor will be rich; if the vine has flowered well, there will be wine; if the olives have flowered well, the year will be brightest, and the apples have the yield of this season. The flower once harmed, the vetches and the beans perish, and your lentils perish, foreign Nile. Wines too, laboriously stored in great cellars, flower, and mist covers the surface of the jars. Honey is my gift: I call the bees that will give honey to the violet and the cytisus and the grey thyme." I silently marvelled as she spoke such things, but she said, "You have the right to learn, if you ask anything." "Tell me, goddess," I answered, "what is the origin of the games." I had scarcely well finished, when she replied to me: "The other instruments of luxury did not yet flourish; the rich man had either cattle or broad land; from this came the word for 'wealthy,' from this 'money' itself. But now each was gathering riches from what was forbidden: it had become a custom to graze the public pastures bare, and this was long allowed, and there was no penalty. The common folk guarded their public lands with no protector; and now it was a mark of sloth to graze on private ground. Such licence was brought before the plebeian aediles, the Publicii: men had lacked the spirit before. The people takes up the case, the guilty pay a fine: public concern was a credit to the protectors. A great part of the fine was given to me, and with great favour the victors instituted new games. With part they let out the slope, which was then a steep cliff: now it is a useful road, and they call it the Publician." I had believed the spectacles were made yearly; she denied it, and added other words to her speech: "Honour touches us too: we delight in festivals and altars, and we heavenly ones are an ambitious throng. Often someone has made the gods unjust by sinning, and a coaxing victim atoned for the offences; often I have seen Jove, when he was already about to hurl his thunderbolts, hold back his hand at the offering of incense. But if we are neglected, the wrong is paid for with great penalties, and anger passes the just measure. Look at the son of Thestius: he burned with flames that were absent; the cause is that the altar of Phoebe was without fire. Look at the son of Tantalus: the same goddess held back his sails; a virgin, yet she avenged her slighted hearths twice over. Unhappy Hippolytus, you would have wished to worship Dione, when you were torn apart by your terrified horses. It would be a long delay to tell of forgetfulness corrected by losses. Me too the Roman fathers passed over. What was I to do, by which I might make my grief plain? What punishment was I to exact for the slight to my name? My care fell from me in my grief. I guarded no fields, nor was the fertile garden in esteem: the lilies had fallen, you might see the violets wither, and the threads of the crimson crocus grow languid. Often Zephyrus said to me, 'Do not corrupt your own dowry': my dowry was worthless to me. The olives were in flower; the wanton winds harmed them: the crops were in flower; the crop was struck by hail: the vine was in promise; the sky blackens from the south winds, and the leaves are shaken down by sudden rain. I did not wish it to happen, nor am I cruel in my anger, but I had no care to drive the harm away. The fathers gathered, and vowed yearly festivals to my divinity, if the year should flower well. I assented to the vow. Laenas the consul, with his colleague Postumius, the consul, paid the games to me." I tried to ask why there should be greater wantonness in these games, and freer jesting, but it came to my mind that the divinity is not stern and brings gifts fitted to delights. The drinkers' brows are bound with stitched garlands, and the bright table is hidden under scattered roses; the drunken guest, his hair girt with linden bark, dances and unwittingly practises the art of wine; the drunken lover sings at the hard threshold of his lovely mistress, and soft garlands deck his anointed hair. Nothing serious is done with a garlanded brow, nor are clear waters drunk by those bound with flowers; as long as you, Achelous, were mixed with no grapes, there was no charm in taking a rose. Bacchus loves flowers: that a garland pleased Bacchus you may know from the star of Ariadne. The light stage suits this goddess: she is not, believe me, not to be counted among the buskined goddesses. Why the harlot throng should celebrate these games, the reason sought is not far to seek. She is not of the gloomy ones, nor of those who profess greatness, she wishes her rites to lie open to the plebeian choir, and warns us to use the bloom of our age while it flowers; the thorn is scorned when the roses have fallen. Yet why, as white garments are given at the Cerealia, is she becoming in many-coloured dress? Is it because the harvest grows white with ripe ears, and flowers have every colour and shape in them? She nodded, and as her hair moved the flowers fell, as a rose set on the tables is wont to fall. The lamps remained, the cause of which was hidden from me, when she thus took away my error: "Either because the fields glow with crimson flowers, the lamps were thought to suit our days; or because neither the flower nor the flame is of dull colour, and each splendour draws the eyes to itself; or because nightly licence suits our delights, the third cause comes from the truth." "There is one short thing besides, on which it remains for me to ask, if I may," I said: she too said, "You may." "Why instead of Libyan lionesses are the harmless does and the anxious hare shut up in your nets?" She answered that not the woods had been given to her, but the gardens and fields not to be approached by a warlike beast. She had ended all: she withdrew into the thin air, the fragrance remained: you might know a goddess had been there. That the song of Naso may flower for all time, sprinkle, I pray, my heart with your gifts.

On the fourth night Chiron will bring out his stars, half-man and mingled with the body of a tawny horse. Pelion is a mountain of Haemonia facing the south winds: its top is green with pine, oak holds the rest. The son of Phillyra dwelt there; the caves stand of ancient rock, which they recall the just old man inhabited. He is believed once to have detained in lyric measures the hands that would send Hector to his death. Alcides had come, part of his labours drained, and the last commands almost remained for the hero. You might see by chance the two fates of Troy standing together: here the boy son of Aeacus, here the one born of Jove. The Phillyrean hero receives the young man in hospitality, and asks the cause of his coming; the other tells. Meanwhile he looks at the club and the lion's spoil, and the man says, "These arms are worthy of the man, the man of the arms!" Nor could the hands of Achilles hold back from daring to touch the fleece bristling with its hairs. And while the old man handles the shafts foul with poisons, an arrow fell and was fixed in his left foot. Chiron groaned and drew the iron from his body, and Alcides groans, and the Haemonian boy. Yet he himself tempers herbs picked on the Pagasaean hills and soothes the wounds with idle aid: the devouring venom overcame the aid, and the plague had entered deep into the bones and the whole body. The blood of the Lernaean serpent, mixed with the Centaur's blood, gave no time for help. Achilles stood, bathed in tears, as before a father: so was Peleus to be wept for, if he were dying. Often he pressed the sick hands with friendly hands (the teacher had the reward of the character he made); often he gave kisses, and often said to him as he lay, "Live, I pray, and do not leave me, dear father!" The ninth day was at hand when you, most just Chiron, girt your body with twice seven stars.

The curved Lyre would wish to follow him, but the way is not yet fit: the third night will be the suitable time. Scorpio will be in the sky, when we say that tomorrow the Nones will dawn, to be marked from its middle.

When from here the lovely Evening-star has thrice put forth his face, and the stars have thrice given Phoebus his place, there will be the rite of an old sacred thing, the nightly Lemuria: they will give offerings to the silent shades. The year was shorter, nor did they yet know the pious purgations, nor were you, two-faced Janus, the leader of the months: yet even then they brought their gifts to the extinguished ash, and the grandson appeased the tomb of his buried grandfather. The month was May, named from the name of the elders (maiores), which still holds a part of the ancient custom. When the night is now at its midst and gives silence to sleep, and you, dog and varied birds, have grown still, he, mindful of the old rite and fearing the gods, rises (his twin feet have no bonds) and makes a sign with his fingers, the thumb joined to the middle, lest a light shade meet him in his silence. And when he has washed his pure hands in spring water, he turns and first takes black beans, and throws them with face averted; but as he throws he says, "These I cast; with these beans I redeem myself and mine." This he says nine times and does not look back: the shade is thought to gather them and to follow behind, with none seeing. Again he touches the water and clashes Temesaean bronze and asks the shade to go out from his house. When he has said nine times, "Go forth, ancestral shades," he looks back and thinks the rite duly done. From where the day was named, what is the origin of the name, escapes me: it must be found out from some god. Son of the Pleiad, instruct me, you to be revered with the mighty wand: often have you seen the palace of Stygian Jove. The wand-bearer came at my prayer: receive the cause of the name; the cause was learned from the god himself. When Romulus had buried his brother's shade in the tomb, and the rites were paid to too-swift Remus, unhappy Faustulus and Acca with loosened hair were sprinkling the burnt bones with their tears. Then they return home, sad, at the first twilight, and lay down, as they were, on the hard couch. The bloody shade of Remus seemed to stand by the bed and to speak these words in a faint murmur: "Behold, I who was half of you, the other part of your vow, see what I am, who was lately what I was! I who lately, had I had the birds bidding me to rule, might have been the greatest among my people, now am an empty image, slipped from the flames of the pyre: this is the shape left to me from that Remus! Alas, where is Mars our father? If you spoke the truth lately, and he gave us, exposed, the beast's udders, him whom the she-wolf saved, the rash hand of a citizen destroyed: how much gentler was she! Cruel Celer, may you yield up your cruel soul through wounds, and go, bloodied, beneath the earth, as I did. My brother did not wish this; his love equals mine: what he could, he gave—his tears to my shade. Ask him, by your tears, by your nursing of us, to mark a day to be honoured in my honour." They long to embrace him as he charges them, and stretch out their arms: the slippery shade escapes their grasping hands. When the fleeing image had drawn off sleep with it, both bear the brother's words to the king. Romulus complies and calls that day Remuria, on which the rites are paid to the buried forefathers. In long course of time the rough letter that stood first in the whole name was changed to a soft one; soon too they called the souls of the silent dead lemures: this was the sense of the word, this the force of the sound. The ancients, however, closed the shrines on those days, as you now see them shut at the time of the dead, nor are the times fit for the torches of widow or maiden: she who married then did not live long. For this cause too, if proverbs touch you, the common folk say it is ill to marry in the month of May. But these three festivals fall at the same season, none of them joined to another by a continuous day.

If in the middle of these you seek Boeotian Orion, you will be deceived. The cause of the sign must be sung by me. Jupiter, and his brother who reigns in the broad sea, and Mercury were treading the road together. It was the time when the inverted ploughs are brought back from the yoke, and the lamb, lying down, drinks the milk of the full ewe. By chance old Hyrieus, the tiller of a narrow plot, sees them as he stood before his small cottage; and thus he said, "The road is long, nor is much time left, and our door lies open to guests." He added a look to his words and asked again: they obey his promises and hide that they are gods. They enter the old man's hut, foul with black smoke; there was a little fire in yesterday's log. He himself, kneeling, kindles the flames with his breath and brings out and breaks up the shattered torches. Cups stand ready; the smaller held beans, the other greens, and each foams, pressed under its own lid. And while there is delay, he gives the red wine with trembling right hand: the sea-god receives the first cups. When he had drained them, "Now give Jupiter to drink in turn," he said. At the name of Jove the old man grew pale. When his spirit returned, he sacrifices the ploughing-ox of his poor field and roasts it in the great fire; and the wine that he as a boy had once stored in his early years, he brings out from the smoky jar. Without delay they reclined on couches, not high, stuffed with river sedge covered with linen. Now with the feast, now with Bacchus set out, the tables shone: the mixing-bowl was red earth, the cups were beech-wood. The words of Jove were these: "If your heart prompts anything, choose: you shall have it all." The peaceful old man's words were these: "Dear was my wife, known to me in the bloom of my early youth; where is she now, you ask? The urn covers her. To her I swore, calling you to witness the words, 'You alone shall enjoy my marriage.' I both swore and keep it; but indeed a different wish is mine: I wish to be not a husband, but a father." All had nodded assent: all stood at the bullock's back— shame forbids to tell what followed— then they covered the wet ground with earth heaped over it; and now ten months had passed, and a boy was born. Him Hyrieus, because he was begotten thus, calls Urion: the first letter lost its ancient sound. He had grown immense; the Delian goddess took him as her companion, he was the goddess's guard, he her attendant. Words not considered move the anger of the gods: "There is no beast," he said, "that I cannot conquer." Earth sent a scorpion: it was its impulse to bear its curved stings against the goddess who bore twins; Orion stood in the way. Latona added him to the shining stars and said, "Have the reward of your merit."

But why do Orion and the other stars hasten to give place to the world, and the night cuts short its course? Why does the bright day, with the Morning-star going before, lift its radiance from the clear sea sooner than usual? Am I deceived, or do arms sound? I am not deceived, arms were sounding: Mars comes, and coming gave the signs of war. The Avenger himself came down from heaven to his own honours and his temple to be admired in the forum of Augustus. Both the god is mighty and the work: in no other way ought Mars to dwell in the city of his son. This shrine is worthy of the trophies over the Giants: from here it is fitting that Gradivus should stir fierce wars, whether some impious foe provoke us from the Eastern world, or whether one must be tamed from the setting sun. The lord of arms looks up at the peaks of the lofty work and approves that unconquered gods hold the heights. He looks at the weapons of varied shape on the doors, and the arms of the lands conquered by his soldier. Here he sees Aeneas burdened with his dear weight and the many forebears of Julian nobility; here he sees the son of Ilia bearing the leader's arms on his shoulders, and the famous deeds set beneath the ordered men. He looks too at the temple inscribed with the name of Augustus, and the work seemed greater for the reading of Caesar's name. The youth had vowed this then, when he took up his pious arms: a Princeps had to begin from deeds so great. He, stretching out his hands, with the just soldier standing here, the conspirators there, gave such words: "If my father and the priest of Vesta is the author of my warring, and I prepare to avenge both divinities: Mars, be present and sate the iron with the guilty blood, and let your favour stand for the better cause. You shall have a temple and, when I am victor, shall be called Avenger." He had vowed, and returns rejoicing from the routed foe. Nor is it enough to have earned the surname for Mars once: he pursues the standards held by the Parthian's hand. There was a race safe in its plains, its horses, and its arrows, and unapproachable, ringed by rivers. The deaths of the Crassi had given the race its courage, when soldiers and standards and leader perished together. The Parthian held the Roman standards, the glory of war, and an enemy was the standard-bearer of the Roman eagle. And that shame would still have remained, had not the brave arms of Caesar protected the resources of Ausonia. He removed the old marks and the disgrace of a long age: the recovered standards knew their own again. What now availed you, Parthian, your wonted arrows sent behind your backs, what your country, what the use of the swift horse? You bring back the eagles, you stretch out your conquered bows too: now you hold no pledges of our shame. Rightly to the god twice avenger a temple and a name were given, and the merited honour pays the debts of the vow. Celebrate the solemn games in the Circus, Quirites! The stage seemed not to suit the brave god.

You will see all the Pleiades and the whole band of sisters, when there is one night left before the Ides. Then, by no doubtful authorities, summer begins for me, and the season of warm spring has its end.

The Ides show the Bull lifting his starry face before the others; a well-known tale lies beneath this sign. As a bull Jupiter offered his back to the Tyrian girl and bore false horns on his brow, she held the mane with her right hand, her garments with the left, and the very fear was a cause of new beauty. The breeze fills her robe, the breeze stirs her golden hair: Sidonian, so were you to be looked upon by Jove. Often she drew up her girlish feet from the sea and feared the touch of the leaping water: often the god knowingly let down his back into the waves, that she might cling more strongly to his neck. When the shores were reached he stood without any horns, Jupiter, turned from a bull into a god. The bull enters the sky: Jupiter, he fills you, Sidonian, and a third part of the earth bears your name. Others have called this sign the Pharian heifer, who from a human became a cow, from a cow became a goddess.

Then too the maiden is wont to send the images of ancient men of rushes from the oaken bridge. The old story is that, when the land was called Saturnia, such were the words said to be spoken by Jove: "Send to the old man with the sickle two bodies, you peoples, offered up, to be received by the Tuscan waters." Until the Tirynthian came into these fields, every year the gloomy rites were performed in the Leucadian manner; he, they say, threw straw figures into the water, that by the example of Hercules false bodies might be cast. Some think that, so the young alone might cast their votes, they hurled the feeble old men from the bridges. He who believed that bodies were sent to death after sixty years condemns his ancestors of a charge of crime. Tiber, teach the truth: your bank is older than the city, you can well know the origin of the rite. Tiber lifted his reed-bearing head from the middle of his channel and parted his hoarse lips with such sounds: "I have seen these places as deserted grass without walls: each bank pastured scattered cattle, and I, whom now the nations know and fear as Tiber, was then even to be despised by the herd. The name of Arcadian Evander is often recalled to you: he, a stranger, churned my waters with his oars. Alcides came too, attended by an Achaean throng (Albula, if I remember, was then my name): the Pallantian hero receives the young man in hospitality, and at last the deserved penalty came upon Cacus. The victor departs and drags off with him the cattle, the Erythean spoil. But his companions refuse to go farther (and a great part of them had come from deserted Argos): on these hills they set their hope and their home. Yet often they are touched by the sweet love of their country, and one dying gives this brief command: 'Cast me into the Tiber, that, borne on the Tiberine waves, I may go as empty dust to the Inachian shore.' The heir dislikes the charge of the commanded tomb: the dead guest is buried in Ausonian ground, and a rush image is thrown into the Tiber for the master, to seek again, over the long seas, his Greek home." So far he spoke, and went into caves dripping with living rock: light waters, you stayed your course.

Famous grandson of Atlas, be present, whom once on the Arcadian mountains a Pleiad bore to Jove, arbiter of peace and arms for the gods above and below, who pluck your path with winged foot, glad in the lyre's stroke, glad too in the shining wrestling-ground, by whose teaching the tongue learned to speak with elegance, the fathers set a temple to you facing the Circus on the Ides: from then this day is your festival. You, whoever profess to sell their wares, with incense offered, ask that you grant them profit. There is a water of Mercury near the Capene gate; if it helps to believe those who have tried it, it has a divine power. Here comes the merchant, girt in his tunic, and with an urn fumigated and pure draws the water he is to carry, from this the laurel is wetted, and with the wet laurel all things are sprinkled that are to have new masters; he sprinkles too his own hair with the dripping laurel and pours out prayers in his wonted deceiving voice: "Wash away the perjuries of past time," he says, "wash away the treacherous words of the past day. Whether I have made you a witness, or falsely invoked the great divinity of Jove, who would not hear, or whether I have knowingly deceived another god or goddess, let the swift south winds carry off the wicked words, and let the perjuries lie open to me as the day comes, and let the gods not care for anything I shall have said. Only give me profits, give me joys in the profit made, and grant that it may please me to have cheated the buyer." At one asking such things Mercury laughs from on high, remembering that he himself stole the Ortygian cattle.

But unfold to me, I pray, since I seek far better things, from what time Phoebus passes into the Twins. "When you see as many days left of the month as are the labours of Hercules' toil," he said. "Tell me," I answered, "the origin of this sign for me." The god gave the cause with eloquent mouth: "The brothers, sons of Tyndareus, had carried off Phoebe and Phoebe's sister, the one a horseman, the other a boxer. Idas and his brother prepare war and demand back their own, both pledged to become the son-in-law of Leucippus. Love urges these to demand them back, those not to give them up; and from a like cause each fights. The sons of Oebalus could have escaped by running from their pursuers, but it seemed shameful to conquer by swift flight. There is a place free of trees, a fitting field for battle: they had taken their stand there; Aphidna is the name of the place. Pierced through the breast by the sword of Lynceus, Castor, by a wound he did not expect, pressed the ground. Pollux comes as avenger and pierces Lynceus with his spear, where the neck, continuous with the shoulders, presses on them. Idas was going against him and was scarcely repelled by Jove's fire, yet they say his weapons were not snatched from his right hand by the lightning. And now the high heaven lay open to you, Pollux, when you said, 'Receive my words, father: the heaven that you give to me alone, share between two: half will be greater than the whole gift.' He spoke, and redeemed his brother by alternate station. Each star is useful to the anxious ship."

Let him who asks what the Agonia are return to Janus: yet they too have this time in the calendar.

On the night that follows the day, the Erigonian dog goes out: the cause of the sign has been given in another place.

The next day is Vulcan's, the Tubilustria they call it: the pure trumpets that he makes are purified.

From here there is a place with four marks, in which, read in order, is either the custom of the rites or the flight of the king.

Nor do I pass you by, Public Fortune of the powerful people, to whom a temple was given on the following day. When Amphitrite, rich in waters, has received this day, you will see the beak of the tawny bird dear to Jove.

The coming dawn will take Bootes from our eyes, and on the day after there will be the star of Hyas.