Catalepton 9

Some few thoughts, few but not unknown to shining Phoebus, impart to me, ye learned Muses!

A conqueror comes — lo! the mighty glory of a mighty triumph — conqueror he, where'er lands and where'er seas are outspread, bearing grim tokens of barbaric strife, like unto Oeneus' mighty son, or unto proud Eryx; nor less on that account most mighty in drawing forth your songs and worthy to enter your holy choirs. Therefore, noblest of men, the more am I fretted with unwonted cares, wondering what about thee or what for thee I have power to pen. For that which — yea, I will avow it — ought to have been chief reason for holding me back, has been chief reason for urging me along.

Some few of thy songs have found place in my pages — songs of Attic speech as well as Attic wit — songs that, welcomed by ages yet to be, are worthy to outlive the aged Phrygian, worthy to outlive the aged man of Pylos. Herein, under a spreading oak's green covert, were the shepherds Moeris and Meliboeus at their ease, throwing off in alternate verse sweet songs such as the learned youth of Sicily loves. Emulously all the gods graced the heroine; emulously the goddesses graced her with their several gifts.

O maiden happy beyond others with thee for her herald! None other may claim to excel her in fame: not she who, had she not been tricked by the Hesperides' gift, had outrun in the race fleet Hippomenes; not the fair daughter of Tyndareus, born of the swan's egg; not Cassiopea, gleaming in the heavens above; not she, close-guarded long by the contest of steeds, whom each gift-laden hand craved for its own, for whom her wicked father oft drained the life of him who fain would be his son, and oft the ground, of like hue, flowed with red blood; not queenly Semele, not the Inachian daughter of Acrisius, who knew Jove in the pitiless lightning and in the shower; not she, for whose ravishing the Tarquins, son and sire, were driven forth, leaving their fathers' gods, what time Rome first changed proud tyranny for peaceful consuls.

Many, and not unearned, are the rewards Rome has bestowed upon her sons, chiefest the rewards bestowed upon the Messallae Publicolae. For why should I recount thy tasks of toil immeasurable? Why the stern seasons of rugged warfare? How thou dost set the camp before the forum, the camp before the city — the camp that is so far away from this thy son, so far from this thy home? How thou endurest now extremest cold, and now extremest heat, and canst lay thyself down on even flinty rock? How oft, under unkindly stars, thou glidest o'er the savage deep? How oft in thy daring thou conquerest the sea, and oft the storm? And how oft thou flingest thyself upon the serried foe, heedless of the common god of war? How thou makest thy way, now to the nimble Africans, the swarms of a perjured race, now to the golden waters of swift Tagus? How in warfare thou seekest nation after nation, and conquerest even beyond Ocean's bounds?

'Tis not, not, I say, for us to attain to such glories; nay I should dare even this to say, 'tis scarce a task for mortal man. Even of themselves shall these exploits carry their records through the world; of themselves shall beget their own peerless renown. As for me, touching those songs which the gods have fashioned in concert with thee, even the Cynthian and the Muses, Bacchus and Aglaia, if, lowly as I am, I can breathe their praise, if I can approach Cyrene, can approach the wit of Greece with a song of Rome, henceforth I advance even beyond my hopes. This is enough: naught have I to do with the stupid rabble.