Amores III.6

O stream whose muddy banks are choked with reeds, I am in haste to see my lady-love — stay for a little time thy waters! Neither hast thou bridges, nor hollowed boat to carry me without stroke of oar by cable stretched across. Small wert thou, I remember, nor did I fear to cross, and thy highest water scarce touched my ankles. Now the snows have melted from the near-by mountain, and thou art rushing on, rolling gross waters in muddy, whirling floods. What boots it I have hastened, what that I gave scant hours to rest, what that I have linked day to night, if I yet must stand here, if by no art I may press with my foot the farther shore? 'Tis now I wish I had the pinions the hero son of Danae wore when he bare away the head thick-tressed with dreadful snakes;a now I wish that mine were the car from which first came the seeds of Ceres when cast on the unfilled ground. But the wonders whereof I speak are false tales of olden bards; no day e'er brought them forth, and no day will.

Do thou choose rather, O stream poured wide beyond thy capacious banks — so mayst thou flow on for ever — to glide within thy bounds! Thine, O torrent, will be hate unbearable, believe, if I perchance am said to have been kept by thee — I, a lover! Rivers ought to aid young men in love; what love is, rivers themselves have felt. The Inachus, they say, went pale for Bithynian Melie, and his chill waves felt love's warmth. Not yet had Troy been under siege two lustrums when Neaera ravished thine eyes, O Xanthus. What? did not Alpheus flow in far-separate lands, driven by faithful love for Arcadian maid? Thou, too, Peneus, they say didst hide away, in the land of the Phthiotes, Creusa, promised bride to Xuthus. Why call to mind Asopus, smitten with Thebe, child of Mars — Thebe, destined mother of daughters five? If I ask of thee, Achelous, where are now thy horns, thou wilt complain of their breaking by wrathful Hercules' hand; what neither Calydon could win from him, nor all Aetolia, Deianira none the less alone could win. Rich Nile yonder, who flows through seven mouths and hides so well the homeland of his mighty waters, 'tis said could not drown out with his own floods the fires Asopus' child Euanthe kindled in him. Enipeus, to dry himself for the arms of Salmoneus' child, bade his waters retire; the waters, so bid, retired.

Nor do I pass thee by, stream tumbling over the hollowed rocks and moisting the fruit-bearing acres of Argive Tibur, thee whom Ilia charmed, ill kept though she appeared, with hair that showed the nail, and cheeks that showed the nail. Bemoaning the crime of her uncle and the wrongs of Mars, with unshod feet she wandered through lone places. Her did eager Anio behold, looking forth from his sweeping floods, and reared from amid the wave his hoarse-toned mouth, and " Why dost thou anxiously," thus spake he, " tread my shores, O Ilia, blood of Idaean Laomedon? Whither hath gone thy comely raiment? Why art abroad alone, with no white fillet to keep thy hair bound up? Why art thou weeping, and staining thine eyes with dropping tears? and why dost lay open and beat thy breast with maddened hand? He hath both flint and native iron in his breast who can look unmoved on the tears in thy tender eyes. Ilia, lay aside thy fears! To thee my royal hall shall open, and thee my waves shall honour. Ilia, lay aside thy fears! Thou shalt be mistress among a hundred nymphs, or more; for a hundred, or more, are the nymphs that dwell in my stream. Only spurn me not, I entreat, thou sprung of the Trojan line; thou shalt win gifts of greater richness than my promise."

He had said. She stood with modest eyes downcast upon the ground, letting spray on her tender bosom a rain of tears. Thrice made she to flee, and thrice stopped she beside the deep flood, her power of flying swept away by fear. Yet, after long time, rending her hair with unfriendly finger, she sounded with trembling lips the words her wrongs called forth : " Oh, would that my bones had been gathered and laid away in the tomb of my fathers when they yet could be gathered the bones of a maid! Why, but now a Vestal, am I bid to any marriage-torch, disgraced and to be denied my place at Ilion's altar-fires? Why tarry I alive to be pointed out a jade by the ringer of the crowd? Perish the face that bears the brand of shame and disrespect! "

Thus far, and she held her cloak before her tumid eyes, gave up all hope, and so threw herself into the rushing waters. The smooth-gliding stream, they say, laid his hands to her breast and bore her up, and shared with her the rights of the wedded couch.

Thou, too, 'tis easy to believe, hast warmed for some fair maid; but grove and forest cover up thy fault. Even while I speak, thy waters have grown more deep and wide, and thy channel, though deep, contains not the headlong waves. What have I with thee, mad stream? Why dost thou defer the joys I am to share? Why dost thou, churl, break off the journey I have begun? What? wert thou called rightly stream, wert thou a river of name, were thine greatest fame o'er all the earth — but thou hast no name, thou art but gathered from failing rivulets, and hast neither fountain-source nor fixed abode! In place of source thou hast only the rain and the melted snows, riches that sluggish winter serves to thee; either thou runnest a muddy course in the brumal time, or hast a dried and dusty bed. What thirsty water has e'er been able then to drink of thee? Who in grateful tone has said of thee : " Mayst thou flow on for ever? "

Thou art a current harmful to the flocks, more harmful to the fields. These wrongs perhaps touch others; me my own wrongs touch.

To a stream like this — out upon it! — I was fool enough to tell of the loves of rivers! I shame to have uttered unworthily names so great. To think that, looking on this nothing of a stream, I could mention your names, Achelous and Inachus, and thine, O Nile! Indeed, for thee, as thou deservest, O torrent aught but clear, I pray that suns be ever fierce and winter ever dry!