Book III, Elegy 4: Lygdamus' Dream (Postgate)

May the gods send better fortune, nor may the dream prove true which an evil sleep brought me yesternight. Depart from me, vain visions, take your false show away ; cease to seek credit at my cost.

The warnings gods send are true, and true the warnings of the inward parts, approved by seers of Tuscany, announcing the fate to come. But dreams — do they sport at random in a deceiving night, filling affrighted souls with false alarms, and, vainly fearing, do mankind seek to propitiate the menaces of the night with offering of spelt and sputtering salt ? And yet, howsoever it be, whether they are wont to receive true warnings or to give ear to lies of sleep, may Lucina frustrate the terrors of this night and ordain that the innocent shall have been alarmed in vain, if neither my soul be chargeable with ugly sin nor my tongue have wickedly profaned the holy gods.

Night's car of four black steeds had already traversed the firmament of ether and bathed its wheels in the dark blue stream. Yet on me the god who aids the sick spirit had laid no spell : Sleep vanishes before the house of care. At last, when Phoebus looked out above the dawn, late slumber closed the tired sufferer's eyes. Thereon a youth with holy bay encircling his brow, methought, set foot within my dwelling. Nothing more lovely than him did any age of our forerunners see, or any house of mortal folk. Down his long neck his unshorn hair was streaming. From his myrrh-laden tresses trickled dews of Syria. His radiance was such as the moon, daughter of Latona, spreads before her, and over his body's snow was a crimson flush, such as dyes the fair cheeks and blushing face of a maid when she is first escorted to her young husband's home, or like white lilies which flower-girls interweave with amaranths, or argent apples touched with autumn red. The hem of his palla seemed to play about his ankles. For this was the garment that covered his gleaming limbs. On his left side hung his babbling lyre, wrought with rare skill, shining with tortoise-shell and gold. On this, when first he came, he played with ivory quill, and cheering music sounded from his lips. But when fingers and voice had spoken together, then to the tune of a sweet measure he uttered these bitter words :

To thee, favourite of the gods — for to a holy poet Phoebus, Bacchus, and the Pierid maids are fitly friends. But Bacchus, offspring of Semele, and the lettered sisters have no skill to say what future hours shall bring. But to me my Sire has granted the power to see the laws of Fate and what shall issue in the time to come. Wherefore hearken to what I say, no seer untrustworthy, and learn how true are accounted the utterances of Cynthus' god. She who is as precious to thee as is no daughter to her mother nor maiden fair to her yearning husband, for whom thy prayers give the powers of heaven no rest, who never lets thy day pass without misgiving, and when Sleep has wrapped thee in his dusky robe baffles and mocks thee with her semblances in the night, the beautiful Neaera whom thy songs have made renowned, prefers to be the girl of another man. Her unnatural heart pursues an alien fancy of its own, and Neaera delights not to be a wife in a virtuous home. O cruel sex ! Woman a treacherous race ! Away with her who has learned to play her husband false !

" But she may be turned : their minds are changeable: but thou must stretch thy hands to her with much beseeching. Tyrant Love has schooled us to engage in stubborn labours, tyrant Love to endure the lash. It is no story made for idle merriment that once I fed the snow-white kine of Admetus. Then could I take no pleasure in the lyre's loud tones nor my voice sing back in accord to its strings, but on the unstopped reeds I practised, I, Latona's son and Jove's. Young sir, thou knowest not what is love if thou dost shrink to bear with a cruel mistress and ungentle wife. So doubt not to use the gentle arts of complaining : soft pleadings make the hard heart melt. If oracles in holy temples utter truth, then give her this message in my name : This is the mate that the Delian himself awards to thee. Happy in him, cease to desire another man."

He said, and from my limbs slipped off the lethargy of sleep. Ah, may I never live to see such woe! I could not think that thou hast hopes thus crossing hopes, or that sin so great is harboured in thy breast. For thou wast not sprung from the waste sea's fields, or from Chimaera rolling flames from savage jaws, or from the dog with three tongues and a triple head and back by a snaky troop encircled, or Scylla with a girdle of hounds about her woman's body. No cruel lioness conceived and bore thee, nor the barbarous land of Scythia or the fearful Syrtis, but a humane home where the ungentle might not dwell and a mother far kinder than all her sex, and a sire than whom is none more lovable.

May a god turn this cruel dream to good, or bid the hot South Wind carry it away without fulfilment !