Book X, 16

Already the fair-foliaged field, at her fruitful birth-tide, is aflower with roses bursting from their buds; already on the branches of the alleyed cypresses the cicada, mad for music, soothes the sheaf-binder, and the swallow, loving parent, has made her house under the eaves and shelters her brood in the mud-plastered chamber. The sea sleeps, the calm dear to the Zephyrs spreads tranquilly over the expanse that bears the ships. No longer do the waters rage against the high-built poops, or belch forth spray on the shore. Mariner, roast first by his altar to Priapus, the lord of the deep and the giver of good havens, a slice of a cuttle-fish or of lustred red mullet, or a vocal scarus, and then go fearlessly on thy voyage to the bounds of the Ionian Sea.