Book III, Elegy 7

Thou, therefore, money, art the cause that life is full of care! 'tis for thee we go down to death ere our time; 'tis thou that givest men's vices cruel nourishment, thou art the fount whence spring the seeds of woe: 'twas thou that thrice and four times didst whelm with raging seas Paetus that set his sails toward Pharos' haven.

"Poor wretch, while he followed thee he was snatched away from life's first bloom, and floats strange food for fishes far away. His mother might not give burial due to the dust of him that loved her, nor lay him in earth amid the ashes of his kin. But the birds of the sea stand now above thy bones, and thou hast for sepulchre the whole Carpathian main. Ah! cruel North Wind, ravished Orithyia's dread, what great harvest of spoil couldst thou win from him? Or why, Neptune, delightest thou in shipwreck? Righteous men were they that voyaged in that hull. Paetus, why count'st thou o'er thy years? Why, as thou swimmest, is thy dear mother's name upon thy lips? The wave hath no gods to hear thee. Thy cables were made fast to the rocks, but the storms of the night wore through their strands and swept them all away.

Give back his body to earth, his life lies lost in the deep; sands without worth, drift at your will and cover Paetus. And oft as the mariner passes Paetus' tomb let him say: "Thou canst bring terror even to the brave!" Go to now, build curving keels, weave engines of death: 'tis from man's hands come deaths like this. Earth was too small for death, we have added the waves: by our craft have we enlarged the cruel paths of fortune. Should the anchor hold thee, whom thy home could not hold? What shouldst thou say he merits, that finds his native land too small? Whate'er thou buildest is sport of the winds; no keel hath e'er grown old; even the haven keeps not faith. Nature with guile hath made the sea a path for greed: scarce once may success be thine. There are shores that bear witness to Agamemnon's woe, where the doom of Argynnus brands the waves of Mimas; for the loss of this boy Atrides would not launch his ships and for this tarrying was Iphigenia slain. The rocks of Caphareus brake a triumphant fleet, when shipwrecked Greece was engulfed by the wild brine. Ulysses wept the loss of his comrades one by one; against the sea alone his wiles had no power.

But if Paetus had been content to plough his fields with his father's kine, and had counted my words of weight, still would he live to feast in merriment before his household gods; poor though he were, yet on dry land would he have naught to beweep, save only lack of wealth. Paetus could not endure to hear the shrieking gale, nor to wound his delicate hands with the hard cordage; his rather to lie in a chamber of Chian marble or on a couch of Orician terebinth, his head propped on down of rainbow hues. Yet from him while still he lived did the wave rend his nails, and right loth, poor wretch, his gasping throat gulped down the waters: yet him did the wild night see borne on a slender plank: so many ills conspired for the death of Paetus. Natheless with his last lamentations he gave this charge and wept, when the dark wave was closing his dying lips: "Ye gods of the Aegean that have power over the waters, ye winds and every wave that weighs down my head, whither snatch ye the hapless years of my first bloom? Was there guilt on the hands that I brought to your seas? Ah! woe is me! The sharp rocks where the seamew nests shall batter me! The god of the blue deep hath smitten me with his trident. Yet at least may the tide cast me up on Italian shores: little though there be left of me, 'twill suffice if but it reach my mother." Even as he spake these words the wave with twisting eddy dragged him down; thus passed from Paetus speech and life together.

Ye hundred daughters of Nereus, maids of the sea, and thou Thetis, whom a mother's love once drew from out the deep, ye should have placed your arms beneath his weary chin: he was no heavy burden for your hands. But thou, fierce wind of the North, never shalt thou see my sails; mine rather before my mistress' doors to lay me down, adventuring naught.