Silvae V.3 (Mozley): The Poet’s Lament for His Father

Do thou thyself, most learned sire, vouchsafe me from Elysian springs a bitter potency in the music of grief, and the touch of an ill-omened lyre. For without thee I may not move the Delian grottoes, or awake Cirrha to wonted strains. All that Phoebus of late revealed in his Corycian bower, and Euhan upon the hills of Ismara, I have unlearnt. The fillets of Parnassus have dropped from my brow, and I have beheld in fear the deadly yew creep in among the ivy-leaves, and the trembling bay—ah! horror!—wither and die. Yet surely I am he who, loftily inspired, essayed to extol the deeds of great-hearted kings, and to raise my song to the height of Mars himself. Who has doomed my spirit to decay? Who has drawn a cold shroud of mist about my blighted heart, and drowned my inspiration? The goddesses stand dismayed around the bard, and with neither voice nor finger make sweet melody. Their queen herself sinks her head upon her silent lyre, as when after Orpheus’ loss she halted by thy stream, O Hebrus, and gazed at the troops of beasts that listened no more, and the woods that moved not since the strains were gone.

But thou, whether freed from the body thou soarest to the heights and reviewest the glittering realms and the elements of things, learning what is God, whence cometh fire, what orbit guides the sun, what cause makes Phoebe wane and has power to restore her hidden light, and dost continue the music of renowned Aratus; or whether in the secluded grassy meads of Lethe, among gatherings of heroes and spirits of the blest, thou dost attend the Maeonian and Ascraean sages, thyself no feebler shade, and makest music in thy turn and minglest thy song with theirs: O grant a voice and inspiration, father, to my great grief. For thrice has the moon journeyed o’er the heaven, and thrice displayed her countenance, and still beholds me sluggish, and my sadness unconsoled by any draught of Helicon; ever since thy pyre shed its red light upon my face, and with streaming eyes I gazed upon thy ashes, I have held cheap my poet’s art. Scarce do I for the first time free my mind for tasks like this, and (e’en now with failing hand and no tearless eye) essay to shake my silent sorrow from its torpor, leaning against the tomb in which thou dost rest at peace in our own fields,—those fields where after Aeneas’ death star-bright Ascanius set Alba upon Latian hills, in hatred of the plains that Phrygian blood had drenched, the royal dower of his ill-omened stepdame. Here in thy honour—nor softer is the fragrant breath of Sicanian crocus, nor the rare cinnamon that rich Sabaeans pluck thee, nor perfumed blossoms of Arabia—O thou who deservest full meed of holy offerings, do I make musical lament; ah! receive the groans and the anguish of thy son, and tears such as have been shed for but few fathers. Would it were my fortune, to build an altar to thy shade, a work that would match temples, to raise high the soaring fabric, higher than Cyclopean rock or the Pyramids’ bold masonry, and plant a mighty grove about thy tomb. There had I surpassed the tribute of the Sicilian sepulchre, and Nemea’s precinct and the rites of maimed Pelops. There no naked band of Grecian athletes would cleave the air with the Oebalian disk, no sweat of steeds would water the ground or hoof-beat ring upon the crumbling track; there would be but the choir of Phoebus, and I would duly sing thy praise, O father, and bind on thee the minstrel’s prize of leaves. I myself, as priest of the dead and of thy soul, would with moist eyes lead a mournful dirge, from which neither Cerberus with all his mouths nor Orpheus’ cruel bond could keep thee. There as I sang of thy goodness and thy deeds perchance thy love had deemed me not second to Homer’s mighty utterance, ay, would even fain hold me equal to Maro’s solemn chant.

Why does the mother who sits bereaved by her son’s still-glowing pile assail the gods and the Sisters’ brazen threads more bitterly than I? Why she who looks upon the flames that consume her youthful spouse, and breaks through the hands that stay her and the resisting crowd, to die, do they but suffer her, upon her husband’s blazing corpse? More fiercely even than theirs, perchance, does my reproach strike Tartarus and the gods; perchance even alien eyes find sorrow in the funeral train. Ay, not Nature only nor Affection have lent themselves to my grief for these sad rites: for to me, O father, thou wert cut off on manhood’s earliest threshold, and in the prime of life didst enter cruel Tartarus. For neither did the Marathonian maid lament Icarius’ death, that savage countrymen wrought, more sparingly than his mother mourned Astyanax hurled down from the Phrygian tower. Nay, Erigone stifled her sobs in the noose that took her life; but thou, when mighty Hector was dead, didst stoop to serve a Haemonian lord.

I shall not bring to my father’s pyre that tribute of death-music which the swan when he knows his doom sends to the world beneath, nor the warning strains surpassing sweet that the Tyrrhenian winged maids chant to mariners from the fatal cliff: no sorrowful tongueless plaint of Philomela to her cruel sister: the minstrel knows them all too well. Who by the grave’s side has not recounted all the branches and all the amber tears of the Sun’s daughters, and Phrygia’s flinty rock, and him who dared make music against Phoebus, while Pallas rejoiced that the boxwood-pipe deceived him? Nay, let Pity that has forgotten men, and Justice recalled to heaven, and Eloquence in either tongue bewail thee, and Pallas and the Heliconian train of minstrel Phoebus; those also whose toil it is to guide Aonian song in six-foot measures, and they who fit their strains to the Arcadian tortoise-shell, and find in the lyre their labour and renown, those whom ’neath every sky sublimest Wisdom counts in the sevenfold roll of Fame; they who in the dread buskin have thundered out the fury and the wickedness of kings, and told of the sun’s light hidden from the earth, and they whose joy it is to relax their powers in Thalia’s wantoning, or to maim of one foot the heroic tenor of their lay. For all measures in the broad path of eloquence did thy mind embrace, in all wert thou a master, whether it pleased thee to bind thy utterance in poesy, or to fling it wide in unfettered speech and rival the rainstorms by the unbridled torrent of thy words.

Lift up, Parthenope, lift up thy head half-buried from the dust that suddenly whelmed thee, lay thy tresses merged beneath the mountain’s exhalations upon the tomb of thy great departed son: than whom neither the Munychian towers nor learned Cyrene nor Sparta’s valiant spirit gave birth to aught more excellent. Wert thou lacking in lineage, humble and unrenowned, with nought of thine own race to show, his citizenship would prove thee Grecian and sprung from Euboea by ancestral blood. He, whene’er he celebrated the solemn quinquennial feast in famous verse, as often offered his temples to receive thy laurel-prize, surpassing the utterance of Pylian sage and Dulichian prince alike, and binding the likeness of either on his brow. No mean birth of blood obscure was thine, nor was thy family without distinction (though expenses straitened thy parents’ means); for it was in rich pomp that Infancy chose thee to lay by the purple garb given in honour of thy birth and the proud gold from off thy breast. Straightway at thy appearing the Aonian sisters favourably smiled, and Apollo even then my friend dipped thy boyish lyre and steeped thy lips in the sacred stream. Nor is thy country’s glory single, and the undecided contest of two lands leaves the place of thy origin in doubt. Grecian Hyele, where the drowsy steersman fell from the poop and passed a distressful vigil in the waves,—Hyele, made their own by Latian settlers, claims thee on the score of birth; but then mightier <Parthenope> proves thee hers by thy life’s long course—even so different cities with as many birth-places divide Maeonides among themselves, and prove their case every one; yet is he not the true scion of all, but the vast pride of a false claim puffs up the vanquished. There, while thou didst begin thy lays and offer thy greeting to life, straightway wert thou hurried into the contests of thy native festival that men can scarce sustain, so eager wert thou for praise and bold of wit. The Euboean folk stood amazed at thy youthful verse, and parents showed thee to their sons. Thereafter was thy voice frequent in combat, and at no solemn feast inglorious: not so often did green Therapnae applaud Castor’s victory upon the round course, or Pollux triumphant in the boxing-match. But if to win at home was easy, what a feat to gain Achaean prizes, shading thy temples now with the spray of Phoebus, now with Lerna’s grasses, now with the Athamantian pine, when Victory so often quailed for weariness, yet never missed thee or robbed thee of thy leaves, or touched another’s hair!

Hence came it that thou wert trusted with the fond hopes of parents, and under thy guidance noble youths were ruled, and learnt the ways and the prowess of men of old—the fate of Troy, Ulysses’ tardy return, what power has Maeonides to describe in song the battles and steeds of heroes, how the bards of Ascra and of Sicily enriched the faithful husbandmen, the law that sways the recurrent, winding rhythms of Pindar’s lyre, Ibycus who besought the birds, Alcman whose strains warlike Amyclae sang, proud Stesichorus, and bold Sappho who feared not Leucas, but took the heroic leap, and all others whom the harp has deemed worthy. Skilled wert thou to expound the songs of Battus’ son, and the dark ways and straitened speech of Lycophron, and Sophron’s tangled mazes and the hidden thought of subtle Corinna. But why speak I of lesser names? Thou wert wont to bear an equal yoke with Homer, and match his hexameters in prose, nor ever be outdistanced and fail to keep his pace. What wonder if they left their own land and sought thee, all whom Lucania sent and the acres of stern Daunus, and the home that Venus bewailed and the land that Alcides slighted, and the maiden who from Sorrento’s height watches the Tyrrhenian deep, and the hill above the nearer bay marked by the trumpet and the oar, those too whom Cyme sent, once a stranger to her Ausonian home, and the haven of Dicarchus and Baiae’s shore, where pants the fire deep-mingled with the midmost waves and the smothered conflagrations keep their dwellings? So from every side came the folk to Avernus’ rocks and the dark grotto of the Sibyl, to ask their questions, while she sang of the wrath of heaven and the doings of the Fates, no vain prophet even though she foiled Apollo. Soon dost thou educate the Roman youth and the chieftains that shall be, and firmly leadest them in the footsteps of their sires. Under thy care grew the Dardanian overseer of the hidden fire, who conceals the mysterious theft of Diomede, and from thee while a boy did he learn the rite: thou didst approve the Salii, and teach them their weapons’ use and show to the augurs the sure foreknowledge of the air; thou didst tell to whom belongs the privilege of unfolding the Chalcidic oracle, and why the hair of the Phrygian flamen is concealed; and the girt-up Luperci sorely feared thy blows.

And now of that company one perchance gives laws to Eastern races, another quells Iberian tribes, another at Zeugma sets bounds to the Achaemenian Persian; these curb the rich peoples of Asia, those the lands of Pontus, these by peaceable authority declare pure justice in the courts, those hold loyal watch and ward in camps; thou art the source of their renown. In moulding youthful minds neither Nestor nor Phoenix, guide of his untamed foster-child, had striven with thee, nor Chiron, who with far different strains subdued the heart of Aeacides, fain to hear the bugles and the blast of horns.

Whilst thus thou wert busy, of a sudden civil Strife raised her torch on the Tarpeian mount, and stirred Phlegraean combats. The Capitol glows with impious fire, and Latian cohorts showed the fury of the Gauls. Scarce had the flame abated, still burnt that funeral pyre of gods, when thou undismayed, eagerly forestalling the brands themselves, didst chant with pious voice a solace for the shrines destroyed and lament the captured thunderbolts. The Roman chieftains and Caesar, heaven’s avenger, marvel, and from the midst of the blaze the Sire of the gods gives sign of favour. And already was it thy purpose to bewail in pious chant the conflagration of Vesuvius, and expend thy tears on the ruin of thy native land, when the Father caught up the mountain from the earth and lifted it to the skies, then hurled it far and wide upon the hapless cities.

I too, when I knocked at the groves of song and the glens of Boeotia, and claimed myself thy offspring, was given entrance by the goddesses; for it was not only sky and sea and land that thou didst give me, the due and wonted gift of parents, but this glory of the lyre, such as it is, and thou first taughtest me no common utterance, and to hope for fame even in the tomb. What was thy pride, so oft as I charmed the Latian fathers with my song, while thou wert present, a happy witness of thy own bounty! What confusion of delight and tears was thine, of hope and loving fear and modest joy! That was indeed thy day, the glory as much thine as mine! Such is the father that beholds his son upon Olympian sand, he strikes each blow himself more mightily, deeper in his heart’s depth does he receive the stroke; ’tis he whom the crowded tiers are watching, he on whom the Achaeans gaze, while his eyes grow dim with the whirling dust, and he prays to die so but the prize be grasped. Alas! that in thy sight I bore only native chaplets on my brow, and only Ceres’ gift of the Chalcidic wreath. How proud hadst thou been, scarce had thy Dardan estate of Alba held thee, if through me thou hadst won a garland given by Caesar’s hand! What strength had that day ministered to thee, what relief to thy old age! For in that the oak and olive together did not press my brow, and the hoped-for prize eluded me—ah! how gladly hadst thou received the Tarpeian Father’s unattainable reward! Under thy guidance my Thebaid followed the footsteps of ancient bards; thou didst teach me to give vigour to my song, to describe heroic deeds and modes of war and the setting of the scene. Without thee my course wavers and runs uncertainly, and mist shrouds the sails of my lonely craft. Nor was it I alone thy bountiful love did cherish: such wert thou too toward thy spouse. Thou knewest the torches of but one wedlock: one passion alone inspired thee. Assuredly I cannot separate my mother from thy cold tomb: there doth she feel and know thy presence, she sees thee, and morn and eve salutes thy grave, as other women in feigned loyalty attend on Pharian or Mygdonian grief, and bewail an alien death.

Why should I tell of thy frank, yet earnest nature? thy loving heart, thy contempt of gain, thy care for honour, thy passion for the right? and yet again, when it pleased thee to relax, of the charm of thy converse? of thy mind that knew no age? For these deserts of thine the ruling providence of the gods has granted thee renown and kindly fame, and saved thee from the sadness of any blow. Thou art taken, father, not lacking years, nor overburdened; ten spaces of five years hast thou added to three lustres. But grief and affection suffer me not to count thy days, O thou who wert worthy to surpass the Pylian bounds of life and equal a Priam’s age, worthy to see me too as old! But the gate of death was not dark for thee: gentle was thy passing, nor did a tardy end fore-ordain thy frame in senile dissolution to the ever-threatening grave, but a tranquil unconsciousness and death that counterfeited slumber set free thy soul, and bore thee to Tartarus under the false semblance of repose. Ah! what groans I uttered then! my friends saw me with anxiety, my mother saw me and rejoiced to recognize her son. What lamentation did I make! Pardon me, O shades; father, I may say it with truth: thou wouldst not have wept more for me! Happy was he who grasped his sire with ineffectual arms; ay, he would fain have snatched him away, though set in Elysium, and carried him once more through Danaan darkness: and when he made essay and strove to walk with living steps to the underworld, the aged priestess of Diana, goddess of the dead, conducted him. Even so a lesser cause brought the Odrysian lyre to sluggish Avernus: so was it with Admetus in the land of Thessaly. If one day brought back the shade of Protesilaus, why should thy harp or mine, O father, win no request of the underworld? Might I but touch the face of my sire, might I but grasp his hand with mine, let any law that will o’ertake me!

But do ye, O monarchs of the dead and thou, Ennean Juno, if ye approve my prayer, send far away the Furies’ brands and snaky locks! Let the warder of the gate make no fierce barking, let distant vales conceal the Centaurs and Hydra’s multitude and Scylla’s monstrous horde, and, scattering the throng,—let the ferryman of the dead invite to the bank the aged shade, and lay him gently to rest amid the grasses. Go, spirits of the blest and troops of Grecian bards, shower Lethaean garlands on the illustrious soul, and point him to the grove where no Fury disturbs, where there is day like ours and air most like to the air of heaven. Thence mayst thou pass to where the better gate of horn o’ercomes the envious ivory, and in the semblance of a dream teach me what thou wert ever wont to teach. Even so the gentle Nymph ordained for Numa in the Arician grot the sacred rites for his observing, so—as the Ausonians believe—had Scipio nightly visions full of Latian Jove, so too was Sulla not without Apollo.