Silvae V.1 (Mozley): A Poem of Consolation on the Death of Priscilla

Had I but skill of hand to mould likenesses in wax or to leave a living impress upon gold or ivory, thence would I imagine, Priscilla, a grateful solace for thy husband. For his conspicuous devotion merits that thou thyself, whether painted by Apelles’ brush or given life by Phidian art, shouldst be brought back to calm his grief; so valiantly strives he to rescue thy ghost from the pyre, and wages a mighty struggle with Death, and exhausts the cunning of the craftsmen, and in every metal would fain show his love of thee. But mortal is the honour that toil of clever hands can pay: ’tis the poet’s endeavour to bring thee, peerless consort of a youth renowned, a tribute that will endure nor suffer oblivion at the last, the due offering of eternal song, if only Apollo be propitious, and Caesar, who ever in Apollo’s company aids me, gives assent; no other nobler sepulchre wilt thou find.

Late indeed is the balm composed for so great a sorrow, when yet once more the wheels of Phoebus are bringing round the year; but when the stroke is recent and the house still sable-clad in the first shock of woe, what access then to the poor husband in his loss? Then were it solace enough to weep and tear the raiment, to fatigue troops of slaves and outdo their lamentations, to assail the Fates and an unjust heaven with wild and frenzied cries. Though Orpheus himself with woods and streams for company came to assuage thy groans, though all his mother’s sisters and every priest of Bacchus and Apollo sustained the minstrel, yet nought would avail to give relief, not music, not those strings whereto the gods of pale Avernus and the Furies’ locks paid heed: such anguish held sway in his distracted heart. Even now does the sear though smooth yet wince at my lament, and the rain of a husband’s love forces itself into those burdened eyes. E’en yet do those orbs hold pious drops? O marvellous truth! Sooner, as they say, does the Sipylean dame drain dry her tears, or the dews of sorrow fail Tithonia, or Achilles’ mother grow weary and sated of breaking her wild waves against his tomb. Bless thy passionate soul! the god who holds the reins of earth, he who nearer than Jove directs the doings of mankind—he marks thee and beholds thy grief; and hence also doth he take secret knowledge of his chosen minister, because thou lovest her shade and honourest her in death. Here is a zeal that is pure indeed, a passion that merits the praise of thy keen-searching lord.

Yet ’tis no wonder, if long-enduring Harmony bound you by an unbroken chain in the close union of heart with heart. She indeed had known a former husband and the torches of earlier wedlock, yet did she embrace and cherish thee with all her soul and inmost being, as though she were a virgin bride; even so does the elm love the clinging tendrils of the coeval vine, and mingles with its foliage and prays that autumn may bring it richness and rejoices in its dear entwining clusters. Women who lack the graces of the soul are praised for ancestry or gift of loveliness; and falsely great they lack a true renown; but though a brilliant lineage was thine, and the blessing of a beauty that husbands would prize, yet thy own boast is prouder, that thou knewest but one bed, didst feed but one passion in thy secret heart. That love no Phrygian ravisher would have outraged, no Dulichian suitors, nor that adulterer who polluted his brother’s innocent spouse with Mycenaean gold. Ay, did you offer the riches of Babylon or weight of Lydian treasure or the lordly wealth of Ind or Araby or China, she had preferred to die poor in untainted chastity, and given her life to save her honour. Yet was there no forbidding sternness in her look, nor o’ermuch austerity in her ways, but a gay and simple loyalty, and modesty blent with charm. Yet if some dread crisis had summoned her to harder tasks, gladly would she have borne on her lord’s behalf the assault of armed bands or the lightning’s stroke or the perils of mid-ocean. Happier was thy fate, that adversity ne’er proved how true thy devotion, how great thy anxiety for thy spouse. Ay, happier was thy path, and thy prayers merited heaven’s favour for thy husband, while day and night thou didst weary the gods, and lie prostrate at every altar and adore the present godhead of our gentle lord. Thy prayers were heard, and Fortune came with favouring step. For he beheld the quiet industry, the unsullied devotion of a loyal youth, whose mind was busy with schemes, whose alert intelligence and sober judgement were fitted to unravel the skein of circumstance—he saw, who knows the hearts of all his subjects, and with well-tried servants guards safely every quarter. Nor is that wonderful: he scans the East and the West, he knows what the South and what the wintry North is doing, and puts sword and gown to the proof, ay, the very heart itself. He placed upon those bowed shoulders a mighty burden, a weight scarce tolerable—no duties more manifold does the Sacred Palace know—to send far and wide into the great world the commands of the Roman Prince, to handle all the powers and modes of empire; to learn what laurelled message comes from the North, what news from wandering Euphrates or from the bank of twy-named Ister or from the standards of the Rhine, how much we have won of the world’s end or of Thule round which the tidal waters roar—for every spear raises joyous leaves on high, and no lance is marked with the feather of ill-report; moreover, should the Master distribute loyal swords, to make known who suffices to control a century, a knight sent among the companies of foot, who to command a cohort, whom the more excellent rank of illustrious tribune befits, who is suited rather to give orders to a cavalry troop; again, to anticipate a thousand chances, whether Nile has drenched his fields, whether Libya has been moistened by Southern rains; were I to count all his labours, no more numerous are the messages that the winged Tegean with revealing wand bears from the stars on high, or Juno’s maid, who glides down through the liquid air and binds her pictured are about the rainy sky, or Fame, who brings thy laurels, O Germanicus, in her swift flight outstripping the day, and leaves the slow Arcadian beneath the stars and Thaumantia in mid-heaven.

How joyful, Priscilla, wert thou seen of gods and men on that auspicious day when first thy spouse was promoted to his great career! Almost did thy happiness surpass his own, while thou didst eagerly fling thyself prostrate before the sacred feet of thy lord for his great favour, and pour out all thy heart. Not such joy doth she know upon the Aonian mount whom the Delian sire hath put in charge of the openings of the mystic cave, or she to whom Bacchus hath awarded the dread privilege of the foremost wand, and to bear the banner of the frenzied rout. Yet was her tranquillity not changed, nor her goodness puffed up by prosperity; her mind keeps the same course, and her modesty abides, though her fortunes rise. Anxiously she tends her husband’s cares, and cheers and alleviates his toils. Herself she serves his modest board and sober cups, and admonishes him by the example of his chief; just as the Apulian wife of some thrifty husbandman, or sun-burnt Sabine dame, who sees by the peeping stars that her lord will soon be come, his labours o’er, briskly sets the tables and the couches, and listens for the returning plough. I speak of trivial things: nay, at thy side she had willingly braved the gelid North and Sarmatian snows and Ister and the pale frosts of Rhine, at thy side steeled her courage throughout summer heats and gladly borne the quiver, did the camp permit, and gladly shielded her body with an Amazonian targe—so but she might see thee in the dust-clouds of battle hard by the Emperor’s thundering steed, brandishing godlike shafts and bedewed with the sweat of his great spear.

So far my lyre has been propitious; but now it is time to doff thy bays, O Phoebus, and doom my tresses to sad cypress-leaves. What god joined Fortune and Envy in truceless kinship? who bade the cruel goddesses engage in unending war? Will the one set her mark upon no house, but the other must straightway fix it with her grim glance, and with savage hand make havoc of its gladness? Happy and prosperous was this abode, no shock assailed it, no thought of sorrow; what cause was there to have fear of Fortune, treacherous and fickle though she be, while Caesar was favourable? yet the jealous Fates found a way, and barbarous violence entered that blameless home. So do the laden vineyards feel the deadly sirocco’s blast, so rots the high corn with too much rain, so does the air envy the rapid craft it meets, and gathers storm-clouds about its prosperous sails. Fate plucks away the peerless beauty of Priscilla: just as the lofty pine, the glory of the woodland, is wasted of its foliage, be it by fell fire of Jove or that its roots are loosened, and so despoiled answers no more the whispering breeze. What avails goodness, or chaste loyalty, or worship paid to heaven? The dark snares of death encompassed around the wretched woman, the Sisters’ ruthless threads are tightened, and there abides but the last portion of the exhausted span. No succour could crowds of slaves bring her in her distress, nor the physicians’ toilful art; yet while friends on every side feign looks of hopefulness, she marks her husband weeping. He now implores in vain Lethe’s inexorable stream, now sheds anxious tears at every shrine and leaves his imprint at the gates and flings himself down upon the threshold, now calls upon Caesar’s merciful deity. Alas! the cruel course of Fate! is there then aught that Caesar may not do? What tarrying could there have come to mortal lives, if thou, O Sire, hadst been all-powerful! far away would Death be groaning, imprisoned in the unseeing pit, and the idle Fates would have laid their spinning down.

And now her face falls, her eyes take their last wavering glances, and the hearing of the ears is dulled, save when only she recognizes her husband’s voice; him only does her mind returning from the midst of death perceive, him with faint arms does she bravely grasp, turning to him her stiffened cheeks, nor wishes to sate her eyes with the last glimpse of light, but only with her dear spouse. Then dying she thus consoles the loving heart that was one with hers: “O thou, my soul’s still-surviving half, to whom I would fain leave the years that cruel Atropos takes from me, spare thy tears, I pray, beat not thy breast with savage lament, nor vex thy consort’s fleeing spirit. I leave, ’tis true, a marriage-bower, yet in the due order of dying, because I die the first; better the life I have lived than a long old age; I have seen thee in the full splendour of thy fame, I have seen thee draw nearer and more near to the right hand on high. No fate, no god has power over thee now; I take with me their power to harm. Do thou go gladly on in the path thou hast entered, and love unfailingly the sacred presence, the spirit of our Prince. Now—a behest after thine own heart—give to the temple on the Capitol gold that endures for ever, that the countenance of sacred Caesar may gleam in a statue that weighs a hundred pounds, and prove his constant votary’s love. So shall I behold neither Furies nor dire Tartarus, but be admitted, a blessed soul, to Elysian regions.” Thus with failing strength she speaks, and clings to her consort’s arms, and unrepining breathed out her lingering soul into her husband’s lips, and closed her eyes with the hand she loved.

But the heart of her spouse was ablaze with passionate grief; now he fills the bereaved home with frenzied crying, now would fain set free the steel, now climbs to lofty heights—scarce can his friends restrain him—now broods o’er his lost one with mouth joined fast to mouth, and savagely excites the grief that is hidden in his heart: even as the Odrysian bard seeing his wife’s corpse fell dazed and horror-struck, and flinging down his quill on Strymon’s bank in songless sorrow mourned the pyre. He too had courageously cut short the term of life, that thou shouldst not go uncompanioned to Tartarean gloom, but loyalty to his Prince forbids, loyalty that roused the wonder of the Sacred Monarch, and a yet greater love.

Who could recount in worthy song the obsequies and funeral gifts of that unhappy train? There heaped together in long array is all the liquid wealth of Arabian and Cilician springs, Sabaean blooms and Indian produce destined for the flames, and incense, spoil of Palestinian shrines, Hebrew essences withal and Corycian petals and Cinyrean buds; she herself reclines on a lofty couch of silk ’neath the shade of a Tyrian awning. But in all the concourse none looks but at the husband, on him is bent the gaze of mighty Rome, as though he were bearing youthful sons to burial: such grief in his looks, such darkness upon his hair and eyes. Her call they happy in her quiet and peaceful end, ’tis for the husband their tears are shed.

There is a spot before the city where the mighty Appian way has its first beginning, and Cybele lays aside her grief in Italian Almo, nor remembers the streams of Ida any more. Here thy peerless consort—for he could not bear the smoke of burning and the clamour of the pyre—laid thee, delicately arrayed in Sidonian purple, blissfully to rest. Length of years will have no power to harm thee, nor the labours of time to wither and mar thy limbs: such wealth of perfume does the venerable marble breathe. Soon art thou changed into manifold images and born anew: here art thou Ceres in bronze, here the bright Cretan maid, Maia beneath that dome, an innocent Venus in this marble. The deities scorn not to accept thy lovely features: attendants stand about thee, a multitude wont to obey; then couches and tables duly without ceasing. A house hast thou there, a house! Who would call it a gloomy sepulchre? Justly would one exclaim, seeing the devotion of her spouse: “Truly is he the minister of him who lately for his everlasting race founded a sacred shrine, and set his kindred stars in another heaven.” So when some great ship sets forth on a new voyage from the Pharian strand, and already has stretched out on either side a thousand ropes and the broad arms of her sail-bearing mast, and started on her way, some tiny pinnace sails on the same sea, and claims her share of the limitless South wind.

Why now, choicest of youths, dost thou cherish sorrow in thy heart beyond due measure, nor suffer thy long grief to have an end? Fearest thou lest Priscilla tremble at Cerberus’ howling? he is silent for the blessed. Lest the sailor be slow to draw nigh her, or disturb her on the waters? He conveys deserving souls forthwith, and quietly sets them in his welcoming craft. Moreover, whenever a shade approaches that has won the praise of a loving spouse, Proserpine bids summon joyful torches, and the heroines of old to come forth from hallowed bowers and scatter the shades of gloom in radiant light, and strew garlands and Elysian flowers before her. Thus doth Priscilla enter the kingdom of the dead; there with suppliant hand she prays the Fates for thee, and placates the lords of grim Avernus, that having fulfilled the term of human life thou in old age mayst leave thy prince still giving peace to the world and still young! The unfailing Sisters take oath to grant her prayers.