Living
Wine and Venus
Translated by John Addington Symonds (1884) · From Wine, Women, and Song (1884)
Ho, comrades mine!
What is your pleasure?
What business fine
Or mirthful measure?
Lo, Venus toward our crew advancing,
A choir of Dryads round her dancing!
Good fellows you!
The time is jolly!
Earth springs anew,
Bans melancholy;
Bid long farewell to winter weather!
Let lads and maids be blithe together.
Dame Venus spurns
Her brother Ocean;
To Bacchus turns;
No colder potion
Deserves her godhead's approbation;
On sober souls she pours damnation.
Let then this band,
Imbued with learning,
By Venus stand,
Her wages earning!
Laymen we spurn from our alliance,
Like brutes to art deaf, dumb to science.
Two gods alone
We serve and mate with;
One law we own,
Nor hold debate with:
Who lives the goodly student fashion
Must love and win love back with passion!
Cite this poem
MLA
The Goliards (Wandering Scholars). “Wine and Venus.” Translated by John Addington Symonds. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/goliards/49/.
Chicago
The Goliards (Wandering Scholars). “Wine and Venus.” Translated by John Addington Symonds. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/goliards/49/.
Read this poem with the Codex →