Book I: Elegy the Eighth: Messala

The Fatal Sisters did this day ordain,Reeling threads no god can rend,Foretelling to this man should bendThe tribes of Acquitaine;And 'neath his legions' yokeTh' impetuous torrent Atur glide subdued.All was accomplished as the Fates bespoke;His triumph then ensued:The Roman youth, exulting from afar,Acclaimed his mighty deeds,And watched the fettered chieftains filing by,While, drawn by snow-white steeds,Messala followed on his ivory car,Laurelled and lifted high!

Not without me this glory and renown!Let Pyrenees my boast attest!Tarbella, little mountain-town,Cold Ocean rolling in the utmost West,Arar, Garonne, and rushing Rhone,Will bear me witness due;And valleys broad the blond Carnutes own,By Liger darkly blue.I saw the Cydnus flow,Winding on in ever-tranquil mood,And from his awful peak, in cloud and snow,Cold Taurus o'er his wild Cilicians' brood.I saw through thronged streets unmolested flyingTh' inviolate white dove of Palestine;I looked on Tyrian towers, by soundless waters lying,Whence Tyrians first were masters of the brine.The flooding Nile I knew;What time hot Sirius glows,And Egypt's thirsty field the covering deluge knows;But whence the wonder flows,O Father Nile! no mortal e'er did view.Along thy bank not any prayer is madeTo Jove for fruitful showers.On thee they call! Or in sepulchral shade,The life-reviving, sky-descended powersOf bright Osiris hail,--While, wildly chanting, the barbaric choir,With timbrels and strange fire,Their Memphian bull bewail.

Osiris did the plough bestow,And first with iron urged the yielding ground.He taught mankind good seed to throwIn furrows all untried;He plucked fair fruits the nameless trees did hide:He first the young vine to its trellis bound,And with his sounding sickle keenShore off the tendrils green.

For him the bursting clusters sweetWere in the wine-press trod;Song followed soon, a prompting of the god,And rhythmic dance of lightly leaping feet.Of Bacchus the o'er-wearied swain receivesDeliverance from all his pains;Bacchus gives comfort when a mortal grieves,And mirth to men in chains.Not to Osiris toils and tears belong,But revels and delightful song;Lightly beckoning loves are thine!Garlands deck thee, god of wine!We hear thee coming, with the flute's refrain,With fruit of ivy on thy forehead bound,Thy saffron vesture streaming to the ground.And thou hast garments, too, of Tyrian stain,When thine ecstatic trainBear forth thy magic ark to mysteries divine.

Immortal guest, our games and pageant share!Smile on the flowing cup, and hailWith us the Genius of this natal day!From whose anointed, rose-entwisted hair,Arabian odors waft away.If thou the festal bless, I will not failTo burn sweet incense unto him and thee,And offerings of Arcadian honey bear.

So grant Messala fortunes ever fair!Of such a sire the children worthy be!Till generations two and threeSurround his venerated chair!See, winding upward through the Latin land,Yon highway past, the Alban citadel,At great Messala's mandate made,In fitted stones and firm-set gravel laid,Thy monument forever more to stand!The mountain-villager thy fame will tell,When through the darkness wending late from Rome,He foots it smoothly home.

O Genius of this natal day,May many a year thy gift declare!Now bright and fair thy pinions soar away,--Return, thou bright and fair!