Rivers of strength and sweetness ever flow.
The veil of Acheron is rent in twain;
His phantom precincts vanish. Ne'er again
Can Earth conceal the secret:—it is ours;
And all that once was hidden is made plain.
Hail, mighty Master, hail! The world was thine,
For thou hadst read her riddle line by line,
Scroll upon scroll; and now ... oh, ecstasy
Of awe and rapture,... thou hast made her mine.
D.A. Slater.
70
I give a part of this piece in the version of Dryden, beginning from Cerberus et furiae. 'I am not dissatisfied', says Dryden, 'upon the review of anything I have done in this author.'
AS for the Dog, the Furies and their Snakes,
The gloomy Caverns and the burning Lakes,
And all the vain infernal trumpery,
They neither are, nor were, nor e'er can be.
But here on earth the guilty have in view
The mighty pains to mighty mischiefs due,
Racks, prisons, poisons, the Tarpeian Rock,
Stripes, hangmen, pitch and suffocating smoke,
And, last and most, if these were cast behind,
The avenging horror of a conscious mind,
Whose deadly fear anticipates the blow,
And sees no end of punishment and woe,
But looks for more at the last gasp of breath.
This makes a hell on earth, and life a death.
Meantime, when thoughts of death disturb thy head,
Consider: Ancus great and good is dead;
Ancus, thy better far, was born to die,
And thou, dost thoubewail mortality?
So many monarchs, with their mighty state
Who ruled the world, were over-ruled by Fate.
That haughty King who lorded o'er the main,
And whose stupendous bridge did the wild waves restrain—
In vain they foamed, in vain they threatened wrack,
While his proud legions marched upon their back,—
Him Death, a greater monarch, overcame,
Nor spared his guards the more for their Immortal name.
The Roman chief, the Carthaginian's dread,
Scipio, the Thunder Bolt of War, is dead,
And like a common slave by Fate in triumph led.
The founders of invented arts are lost,
And wits who made eternity their boast.
Where now is Homer, who possessed the throne?
The immortal work remains, the mortal author's gone.
Dryden.
74
DIANA guardeth our estate,
Girls and boys immaculate;
Boys and maidens pure of stain,
Be Diana our refrain.
O Latonia, pledge of love
Glorious to most glorious Jove,
Near the Delian olive-tree
Latona gave thy life to thee,
That thou should'st be for ever queen
Of mountains and of forests green;
Of every deep glen's mystery;
Of all streams and their melody.
Women in travail ask their peace
From thee, our Lady of Release:
Thou art the Watcher of the Ways:
Thou art the Moon with borrowed rays:
And, as thy full or waning tide
Marks how the monthly seasons glide,
Thou, Goddess, sendest wealth of store
To bless the farmer's thrifty floor.
Whatever name delights thine ear,
By that name be thou hallowed here;
And, as of old, be good to us,
The lineage of Romulus.
R.C. Jebb.
82
GEM of all isthmuses and isles that lie,
Fresh or salt water's children, in clear lake
Or ampler ocean: with what joy do I
Approach thee, Sirmio! Oh! am I awake,
Or dream that once again my eye beholds
Thee, and has looked its last on Thynian wolds?
Sweetest of sweets to me that pastime seems,
When the mind drops her burden: when—the pain
Of travel past—our own cot we regain,
And nestle on the pillow of our dreams!
'Tis this one thought that cheers us as we roam.
Hail, O fair Sirmio! Joy, thy lord is here!
Joy too, ye waters of the Garda Mere!
And ring out, all ye laughter-peals of home.
C.S. Calverley.
83
This beautiful and delicate piece remains the despair of the translator. I quote a few lines of Cowley's sometimes rather clumsy version (beginning from Sic, inquit, mea uita):
'MY little life, my all,' said she,
'So may we ever servants be
To this best god, and ne'er retain
Our hated liberty again:
So may thy passion last for me
As I a passion have for thee
Greater and fiercer much than can
Be conceived by thee a man.
Into my marrow is it gone,
Fixt and settled in the bone,
It reigns not only in my heart
But runs like fire through every part.'
She spoke: the god of Love aloud
Sneezed again, and all the crowd
Of little Loves that waited by
Bowed and blest the augury.
Cowley.
85 b