Book IV, Elegy 7

The Shades are no fable: death is not the end of all, and the pale ghost escapes the vanquished pyre. For Cynthia seemed to bend o'er my couch's head, Cynthia so lately buried beside the roaring road, as fresh from love's entombment I slept a broken sleep and mourned that the bed that was my kingdom was void and cold. Her hair, her eyes were the same as when she was borne to the grave: her raiment was charred against her side, and the fire had eaten away the beryl ring her finger wore, and the water of Lethe had withered her lips. Spirit and voice yet lived, but the thumb-bones rattled on her brittle hands.

"False heart!" she cried, "— yet ne'er may woman hope for truer — can sleep have power on thee so soon? So soon hast thou forgotten the guile we practised in the sleepless Subura and my window worn by our cunning in the night? — that window from which so oft for thy sake I let down the rope and hung in mid air, as with alternate hand descending I came to thine embrace. Oft at the cross-roads were our rites accomplished and the street grew warm beneath our cloaks. Alas for that wordless bond whose cheating terms the deaf wind of the South-West has swept away! Yet no man called upon my name as I passed and mine eyelids closed: surely hadst thou recalled me, I had been granted one more day. No watchman rattled his cleft reed for my sake, and a broken tile wounded my defenceless brow. who saw thee bowed with grief at my graveside? Who saw thy robe of mourning grow hot with thy tears? If it vexed thee to go further than my portal, yet thus far thou mightest have bidden my bier be borne more slowly. Why, ungrateful, prayedst thou not for winds to fan my pyre? Why were the flames wherein I burned not fragrant with nard? Was this also a burden, to cast hyacinths — no costly gift — upon me and to appease mine ashes with wine from the shattered jar?

"Let Lygdamus be burned, let the branding-iron glow white for the slave of mine house! I knew his guilt when I drank the wine that struck me pale. And as for Nomas, let her hide her secret poisons if she will! The burning potsherd shall convict her hands of guilt. She that of old was public to all men's gaze and asked so little for her love, now marks the dust with her train's golden hem, and if some chattering slave hath praised my beauty, requites her unjustly with heavier tasks of wool. For bearing wreaths to my sepulchre aged Petale is shackled to a foul clog of wood, while Lalage is hung by her twisted hair for daring to ask a boon in my name.

And thou didst suffer her to melt mine image of gold, that so she might win her dowry from the flame that consumed me. Yet I chide thee not, Propertius, though thou deservest my chiding: long did I reign supreme in thy songs. I swear by the chant of the Fates that none may make unsung (and may the three-headed hound lull his baying for me, as I speak true) I swear that I kept faith to thee. If I lie, may the adder hiss on my tomb and couch above my bones. Two mansions are there allotted beside the foul stream of Hell, and all the dead must ply the oar this way or that. One bark bears the adultery of Clytemestra, another the monstrous timber of the feigned Cretan cow; but lo! yet others are swept away in wreathed boat, where blessed airs fan the roses of Elysium, where the harp makes music and the round cymbals of Cybelle, and turbaned dancers strike the Lydian lyre. Andromede and Hypermestra, souls renowned, wives without blame, tell forth their story. The one complains that her arms are bruised with the chains brought on her by her mother's pride, and that her hands deserved not to be bound to icy crags. Hypermestra tells how her sisters dared a mighty deed, and how she had not heart for such a crime. Thus with the tears of death we heal the passions of life; I hide in silence the many sins of thy faithlessness.

"But now I charge thee, if perchance my words move thee, and the spells of Chloris hold not all thy soul: let my nurse Parthenie lack naught in her years of palsied eld; she was kind to thee and clutched not at thy gold. And let not my darling Latris, whose name came from her service, hold up the mirror for another mistress. And all the verses thou didst make in mine honour, burn them, I pray thee; cease to win praise through me. Drive the ivy from my tomb, that with grappling cluster and twining leaves binds my frail bones, where apple-bearing Anio broods o'er its orchard meadows and by the favour of Hercules the ivory ne'er grows yellow. And write these verses on a pillar's midst; they shall be worthy of me, but brief, that the traveller may read them as he hastens by: HERE GOLDEN CYNTHIA LIES IN THE FIELDS OF TIBUR. ANIO, NEW PRAISE IS ADDED TO THY BANK.

"Nor spurn thou visions that come through holy portals; when dreams are holy they have the weight of truth. By night we range in wandering flight; night frees the prisoned shades, and Cerberus himself strays at will, the bar that chains him cast aside. At dawn Hell's ordinance bids us return to the pools of Lethe: we are ferried over and the mariner tells o'er his freight.

"Now let others possess thee! Soon shalt thou be mine alone; with me shalt thou be, and I will grind bone with mingled bone."

When thus in querulous plaint she had brought her tale to a close, her spirit vanished from my embrace.