XXV THEY made mock of me where the tables were set for feasting; the tongues of the vilest were suffered to make free with my name. For five years I had the heart to be thy faithful slave; oft shalt thou gnaw thy nails and mourn for my lost loyalty. Tears move me not a whit: 'twas tears ensnared me of old: Cynthia, thou never weepest save to deceive. I too shall weep as I depart, but my wrongs are stronger than grief; for thou lettest not the yoke sit easy on my shoulders. Farewell the threshold still weeping with my plaint, farewell that door ne'er broken by my hands for all its cruelty! But thee may weary age bow down with the years thou hast concealed,1 and may ill-favoured wrinkles come to mar thy beauty! Then mayest thou desire to tear out thy white hairs by the root, when the mirror mocks thee with thy wrinkles; mayest thou in thy turn be shut out from bliss and endure another's haughty scorn! Turned to an ancient crone, mayest thou lament what thou hast done! Such curses fraught with doom are the burden of my song for thee: learn to dread the end that awaits thy beauty! 1 Or perhaps "years that steal on unnoticed." LIBER QVARTVS I Hoc quodcumque vides, hospes, qua maxima Roma est, ante Phrygem Aenean collis et herba fuit; atque ubi Navali stant sacra Palatia Phoebo, Euandri profugae concubuere boves. fictilibus crevere deis haec aurea templa, nec fuit opprobrio facta sine arte casa; Tarpeiusque pater nuda de rupe tonabat, et Tiberis nostris advena bubus erat. Curia, praetexto quae nunc nitet alta senatu, 10 THE FOURTH BOOK I ALL that thou beholdest, stranger, where mighty Rome lies spread, was grass and hill before the coming of Phrygian Aeneas; and where stands the Palatine sacred to Phoebus of the Ships, there once lay the herd of Evander's exiled kine. From gods of clay sprang yonder golden temples; of old they spurned not to dwell in huts made by unskilled hands; the Tarpeian sire thundered from a bare crag, and Tiber still seemed strange to our cattle. Where Remus' house is perched yonder at the stairway's height1 the brothers of old counted their tiny hearth a mighty realm. The Senate-house, that towers on high filled with a shining throng of senators clad in the robe with purple hem, once held a rustic company, the city fathers robed in skins of beasts. The trumpet summoned the olden Quirites to debate: a hundred gathered in a meadow oft made a senate. No rippling awnings hung o'er the hollow theatre, nor reeked the stage with saffron, as 'tis wont to-day. Then no man sought to bring in strange gods, when the folk trembled in suspense before the ritual of their sires; but greatly they cared to celebrate 1 See p. 109, note 1. The stairway is the Scala Cacia leading from the Circus Maximus to the Palatine. |