Silvae IV.8 (Mozley): A Poem of Congratulation to Julius Menecrates

Fling wide the thresholds of the gods, Parthenope, and fill the chaplet-hung shrines with clouds of Sheba’s incense and the breathing entrails of victims! lo! by yet a third offspring is the house of illustrious Menecrates increased. Thy noble host of princes grows and atones the loss that mad Vesuvius caused thee. Nor let Naples in lonely isolation throng her festal altars; let her fellow-haven and the land that gentle Dicarcheus loved and the Surrentine tract dear to the tipsy god enwreathe their shrines with garlands,—that shore where dwells the babe’s maternal grandsire, with his crowd of grandchildren around him, rivalling each other in their likeness to him. Let the uncle too, famed for his Libyan spear, rejoice, and Polla, who counts them her own sons as she raises them to her loving bosom. A blessing on thee, O youth, who givest in due reward to thy country such bright progeny. Lo! the house rocks with delightful tumult, ringing with the cries of so many masters. Avaunt, black Envy, turn elsewhere thy livid breasts! To these hath white-robed Atropos promised old age and the glory of enduring worth, and their native Apollo vouchsafed the bays of poesy. Therefore was it an omen that the most august sire of the Ausonian City had given thee the glad privilege of triple offspring. Thrice has Lucina come, and again and yet again visited thy dutiful home. Long live that house, I pray, in fruitfulness and never robbed of its hallowed gifts! A blessing on thee also, that thy issue was increased more often by the strength of males, yet the girl too must needs delight her youthful father—for them is prowess more fitting, while she will the sooner bear him grandsons;—so fair a child was Helen, as she walked between her Amyclaean brethren, yet ripe already for her mother’s wrestling-bouts; so fair is the face of heaven, when on a tranquil night two radiant stars draw near to the moon that shines between them.

But I have a complaint, O rarest of youths, and no gentle one, ay, angry am I even, so far as love admits of anger. Was it right that common report should tell me of such joys? and when thy third infant was wailing, did no letter straightway haste full speed to bid me heap the altar with festal flames and entwine my lyre and wreathe my portals, and bring out a cask sooted with Alban smoke and mark the day with song, but only now, a tardy laggard, do I celebrate my vows? Thine is the fault, thine is the shame of it! But I cannot further prolong my plaint; lo! in a merry crowd thy children surround thee, and defend their sire. Whom wouldst thou not conquer with such a troop?

Gods of our land, whom with mighty omens the Abantian fleet conveyed o’er the sea to the Ausonian shore, and thou, Apollo, guide of thy far-wandering folk, whose bird seated on thy left shoulder prosperous Eumelis lovingly beholds and worships, and thou, Attic Ceres, for whom in breathless dance we thy mute votaries cease not to wave the mystic torch, and you, ye Tyndarids, to whom not grim Taygetus, Lycurgus’ mount, nor shady Therapnae gives truer worship: gods of our country, preserve this home with all its souls! May there be those who by speech or wealth shall succour their city that age and many toils have wearied, and keep her as green and youthful as her name! From their father may they learn gentle ways, and from their grandsire splendour that yet is bountiful, and from both the desire of glorious virtue. Assuredly their riches and their birth suffer the maid to enter patrician doors with the first marriage-torches, and the sons, so soon as manhood comes—if only the godhood of invincible Caesar favour the deserving—to tread the threshold of the Senate-house of Romulus.