Amores III.9

If Memnon was bewailed by his mother, if a mother bewailed Achilles, and if sad fates are touching to great goddesses, be thou in tears, O Elegy, and loose thine undeserving hair! Ah, all too truthful now will be thy name! — he, that singer of thy strain, that glory of thine, Tibullus, lies burning on the high-reared pyre, an empty mortal frame. See, the child of Venus comes, with quiver reversed, with bows broken, and lightless torch; look, how pitiable he comes, with drooping wings, how he beats his bared breast with hostile hand! His tears are caught by the locks hanging scattered about his neck, and from his lips comes the sound of shaking sobs. In such plight, they say, he was at Aeneas his brother's laying away, when he came forth of thy dwelling, fair lulus; nor was Venus' heart less wrought when Tibullus died than when the fierce boar crushed the groin of the youth she loved. Yes, we bards are called sacred, and the care of the gods; there are those who even think we have the god within.

Too true it is, death rudely profaneth every sacred thing, and layeth darksome hands on all! Of what avail to Ismarian Orpheus was his sire, of what avail his mother? Of what that the wild beast stopped in amaze, o'ermastered by his song? The same sire, 'tis said, mourned Linus, too, singing "aelinon! " in the deep wood to unresponsive lyre. Add to these Maeonia's child, from whom as from fount perennial the lips of bards are bedewed with Pierian waters — him, too, a final day submerged in black Avernus. 'Tis song alone escapes the greedy pyre. The work of bards — the renown of the toils of Troy, and the tardy web unwoven with nightly wile — endures for aye. So Nemesis, so Delia, will long be known to fame, the one a recent passion, the other his first love.

What boot your sacrifices? What now avail the sistrums of Egypt? What your repose apart in faithful beds? When evil fate sweeps away the good — forgive me who say it! — I am tempted to think there are no gods. Live the duteous life — you will die; be faithful in your worship — in the very act of worship heavy death will drag you from the temple to the hollow tomb; put your trust in beautiful song — behold, Tibullus lies dead : from his whole self there scarce remains what the slight urn receives! Is it really thee, thou consecrated bard, whom the flames of the pyre have seized, and is it thy breast they have not feared to feed upon? Flames that shrank not from such awful wrong could have burned the golden temples of the blessed gods! She turned her face away who holds the heights of Eryx; some, too, there are who say she kept not back the tear.

And yet, 'tis better so than if Phaeacian land had laid mean soil o'er thy nameless corse. To this 'tis due that at least thy mother closed thy swimming eyes as thou didst pass from life, and bestowed on thy ashes the final boon; to this 'tis due that thy sister came, with hair disordered and torn, to share the poor mother's grief, and Nemesis, and her thou lovedst before, added their kisses to those from thine own kin, and left not desolate thy pyre. " More happily," spake Delia, descending from the pyre, " was I beloved by thee; thou wert living as long as I kindled thee." To whom Nemesis, " Why," said she, " do you mourn for a loss which is mine? 'Twas I to whom he clung when his hand failed in death."

Yet, if aught survives from us beyond mere name and shade, in the vale of Elysium Tibullus will abide. Mayst thou come to meet him, thy youthful temples encircled with the ivy, and thy Calvus with thee, learned Catullus; thou too, if the charge be false thou didst wrong thy friend, O Gallus lavish of thy blood and of thy soul. To these is thy shade comrade; if shade there be that survives the body, thou hast increased the number of the blest, refined Tibullus. O bones, rest quiet in protecting urn, I pray, and may the earth weigh light upon thine ashes!