Silvae I.4 (Mozley): To Rutilius Gallicus, on His Recovery from Illness

Hurrah! ye exist then, ye gods, nor is Clotho’s spinning inexorable; kindly Astraea hath regard for pious folk, and comes back reconciled with Jove, and Gallicus beholds the stars he doubted e’er to see again. Beloved of heaven art thou, divine Germanicus, who can deny it? Fortune was ashamed to rob thy empire of so great a minister. Those shoulders with their immense burden rise once more next to thine, and have cast off the ruinous doom of eld and revive more vigorous yet for many a year. Therefore let the brisk cohorts that venerate the City’s eagles, and the laws that ofttimes take refuge in thy bosom, complaining of the courts’ confusion, and the cities of the toga wheresoe’er they be, that with far-travelling pleas implore thy Justice—let them vie in their rejoicing, and let our own hill duly join its shouts to theirs, and the mutterings of ill report be silent. For he abides, and long will abide in his new span of life, in whose merciful hand is placed the guardianship of fearless Rome. No such grave reproach will the new age lay upon the fates, nor will the altar of Tarentum, late restored, so deeply sin.

But I will call neither on Phoebus, although my quill is mute without him, nor on the Aonian goddesses with Pallas the tenth Muse, nor on the gentle sons of Tegea and of Dirce: come thou thyself and bring new strength and spirit, thou that art my theme; for not without genius heaven-sent wert thou so mighty to shed great glory upon the Ausonian gown and to give judgement and understanding to the Hundred. Though god-possessed Pimplea shut out the thirsty bard and conspiring Pirene be not granted me, yet dearer are the lavish draughts snatched from the flood of thy own fountain, whether thou dost create free and flowing prose or whether thy sweet eloquence is broken in to rules of art and obeys our laws. Wherefore come—if we make return to Ceres of her gifts and to Lyaeus of his wine, and if Diana though rich in booty yet receives spoils in every temple and the Lord of War our trophies of the fight—and spurn not, Gallicus, since thou hast a mightier utterance and aboundest in wealth of speech sublime, spurn not the worship of a humbler lyre. The wandering moon is ringed with stars, and lesser streams run down into the Ocean.

What rich reward for thy virtues did the City’s loving anxiety give thee! What famous Senators and Knights, what champions of the obscure multitude saw I then in tears! The prosperous Curia feared not so when Numa was failing, nor the noble Knights at Pompey’s danger nor the women at Brutus’ death. And this is the cause thereof: thou wert loth to hear the sullen chains, didst spare the scourge nor go as lofty office bade thee, but didst renounce much of thy armed force, and deign to regard the petitions of the lowly and their humble prayers; thou broughtest back justice to the Forum nor didst vex the curule magistrates, but temperedst force by law. So is a way won to the deep places of the heart, so doth reverence trust the love wherewith it mingles. Terrible too to all was the dire severity of Fate and the impetuous violence of the sudden peril, as the mischief tarried not. ’Twas not the fault of thy age—scarce had that begun to withdraw from its twelfth lustre—but of straining toil and a strong mind’s mastery o’er the body and unsleeping diligence in thy Emperor’ s cause, a labour of love to thee. Hence came creeping deep into the weary limbs a treacherous quiet and dull forgetfulness of life.

Then the god who hard by the peaks of the Alpine ridge sets his sacred name of Apollo upon the groves, turns to behold, long alas! neglectful of so precious a ward. Then cutting short delay: “Come with me on the instant, Epidaurian son,” he cries, “away, and gladly too! ’Tis in our power—the chance must be seized!—to restore to health a mighty hero. Let us advance and grasp the thread that e’en now the distaff stretches. Fear no dread thunderbolt: Jupiter will be the first to praise this skill of ours. For ’tis no plebeian life I save nor one unblest in its begetting. Briefly while we draw nigh his house will I unfold his story. Himself he gives pedigree to his line, and reflects thereon his own nobility; yet his origin is not obscure, but surpassed by the glory that follows it, and gladly gives place to its famous progeny. He too first excelled in the arts of peace: in eloquence brilliant and powerful; then loyal to his oath he served in East and West and under every sun, bearing the brunt of countless camps, nor was he suffered to relax his ardour in peaceful ease nor to ungird his sword. Him did Galatia dare to provoke to war in lusty pride—ay, and me also—and for the space of nine harvests Pamphylia feared him, and the bold Pannonian and Armenia’s dire retreating bowmen and Araxes that now brooks a Roman bridge. Why should I tell of the double command and the twice repeated governorship of Asia? who thrice and four times would fain have him for herself, but our Annals and the higher curule chair, oft promised, call him back. Why extol the tribute and wondrous obedience of Libya, and the spoils of triumph sent to Rome from the midst of peace, and such wealth as not even he who gave the charge had dared to expect? Trasimene and the Alps exult and the ghosts of Cannae; and the mangled shade of Regulus first appears and claims its glorious reward. Time allows not to recount the armies of the North and rebellious Rhine and the prayers of captive Veleda, and, latest and greatest glory, Rome given thee in charge, when the Dacians were falling before us and thou wert chosen, Gallicus, to take up the reins of so great a chief, and Fortune marvelled not.

“Him then, if my words find favour, we will rescue, my son, from Pluto’s cruelty. This is the prayer of the illustrious Father of the Latian City, and he has deserved it; for not in vain of late did ye sing my praise, ye boys, clad in patrician purple. If there be any herb in twy-formed Chiron’s health-giving cave, all that Trojan Pergamus stores for thee in thy shrine or blest Epidaurus nurtures in her healing sands, all the aid of flowering dittany that Crete brings forth in the glens of Ida, the abundant spume of serpents—<these bring>, and I will join thereto my skill of hand, and every kindly juice that I learned in Arabia’s balmy fields, or gathered as a shepherd in the meadows of Amphrysus.”

He ended; they find the sufferer lying languid and battling foe life: each girds himself in Paeonian wise, and willingly both teach and both obey, until with varied art of healing they have shattered the deadly plague and dispersed the dire cloud of baneful lethargy. He himself aids the heavenly ones, and prevailing o’er the utmost power of the disease anticipated the help they bring. Not more swiftly was Telephus restored by Haemonian skill, nor the cruel wounds of which Atrides stood in terror stanched by Machaon’s healing balm.

What place, amid such a gathering of Senators and people, for anxious prayers of mine? Yet I call the high stars to witness, and thee, Thymbraean sire of bards, what terror held me night and day while I clung to the portals and in unremitting vigilance caught every hint with eye or ear: just as a tiny skiff trailing behind a mighty vessel, when the tempest rages, bears its small share of the waters’ fury and is tossed in the self-same gale.

Twine now, ye Sisters, joyfully twine your threads of shining white! Let none reckon the measure of life already spent: this day is the birthday of life to be. Thou dost deserve to outlast the age-long lives of Troy, the Euboean Sibyl’s dust and Nestor’s mouldering decay. What censer of mine can avail, needy as I am, to supplicate for thee? Not if Mevania should empty her valleys or the fields of Clitumnus vouchsafed their snow-white bulls, were that sufficient. Yet amid such offerings a simple turf, some meal and a humble salt-cellar have ofttimes pleased the gods.