1 “Be friendly,” I said. “Kindly mother of twin Cupids.” She turned her expressive eyes back to me, the poet:
3 “What do you want,” she said. “With me? Certainly by now you celebrate greater things. Surely you don’t have an old wound in your tender heart?”
5 “You know, Goddess,” I replied. “About the wound.”
5 She laughed, and immediately cheerful brightness radiated from her face.
7 “Hurt or healthy, have I ever abandoned your banner? You are my purpose, you are always in my work. It was appropriate when we played together without guilt in my earliest years. Now a greater track is ground down by our horses: I celebrate the Seasons and their reasons, pulling them from Ancient Calendars. I celebrate the Constellations slipping beneath the Earth and rising again.
13 “We have come to the fourth month, in which you are most honored: you know, Venus, both the poet and the month to be yours.”
15 Moved, she lightly crowned my temples with Cytheriacian myrtle and said: “Finish the work that has been started!”
17 I understood, and suddenly the reasons for the days were obvious: while she allows me, and while the winds blow, our ship might sail.
19 Indeed, if any part of the calendar ought to interest you, Caesar, you keep in April that which you might maintain. This month was handed down to you by a great ancestor, and became yours thanks to adopted nobility.
23 The Trojan father knew this, when he wrote out the long year, and he himself recalls his own ancestors: and though he dedicated the first lot in the series to Wild Mars, who was the immediate cause for his own life, he later found Venus far back in his family tree, and he decided that She should have the honor of the second month. Having sought the origins of his conception and having unrolled the generations before him, he came right up to his godly relatives.
31 Doesn’t he know Dardanus, born of Electra, daughter of Atlas? Certainly she slept with Jupiter. His son is Ericthonius; and his is Tros. Continuing this family line, Tros begets Assaracus, and he fathers Capys. Anchises follows, with whom Venus does not disdain to share the name of ‘parent.’ From this union Aeneas was born, whose scrupulous religiousness has been noted by the Gods. Through the fires of Troy’s destruction he carried Holy Images, and his father, among other sacred items, on his shoulders.
39 We have come at last to the auspicious name of Julus, through whom the Julian House touches her Trojan Ancestors. His son was Postumus, who, because he was born in the deep forests, was called Silvanius by the Latin clan. And he, Latinus, is your father. Alba follows Latinus: Epytus holds your royal title next, Alba. He gives the recurring Trojan name to his son Capys. And you two, Calpetus, share the same grandfather. While after this Tiberinus was granted his father’s kingdom, it is said he was pulled into the great whirlpool of the Tuscan river and drowned. However, before his death he fathered Agrippa, and had even seen his grandson Remulus, who was struck dead by thrown thunderbolts. Aventinus follows these, after whom the place, and also the mountain, is named.
52 After him the kingdom was surrendered to Procas. Numitor, the elder brother of severe Amulus, followed him. Rhea Silvia and Lausus were conceived by Numitor. Lausus was felled by his uncle’s sword; Rhea Silvia satisfies Mars, and she brought you into the world, Romulus, along with your twin Remus.
57 He always said his own parents were Venus and Mars, and his words deserved credence. His descendants, about to succeed him, could not be ignorant of their heritage, and so he gifted back-to-back seasons to the gods of his bloodline.
61 But, I suppose, the month of Venus was first written down in the Greek language (it is said that the Goddess was born of sea-foam, if you’ve never heard the marvelous event named in Greek), for, back then, the territory by Italy was Greater Greece.
65 Evander had come with ships full of his own people, so had the descendant of Alceus, both of them Greek in origin (the foreign-guest, the Club-Bearer, pastured his herd on the Aventine grass; and it is with so great a God that you drink the Tiber!) As well as the Ithacan leader; Laestragonians lurked over his eye-witnesses, and still now that shore holds the name of Circe, and at one time, Telegonus. In fact, the walls of the wet Tiber, their stones laid by Greek hands, continue to stand tall.
73 Halesus had come here, driven by the curse on the descendants of Atreus (the Faliscan nation believes itself to be named after him). Add to the mix Antenor, Troy’s advocate for peace with the Greeks, and your son-in-law, Oenides, Apulian Daunus. And later, after Antenor, Aeneas came out of Troy’s destruction, carrying his gods into our regions. One comrade of this group was Solymus, who hailed from Trojan Ida, from whom the walls of Sulmo get their name. He was of frosty Sulmo, of our homeland, Germanicus. I am miserable, how far Sulmo is from Scythian dirt! So, I am so far off—but suppress my whining, Muse! Sacred hymns should not be played to you on a sorrowful lyre.
85 Where doesn’t Envy go? There are those who might wish to snatch away the honor of the month from you and who may give you the evil eye, Venus, certainly because the Spring uncovers everything. A thick blanket of snow and the severity of coldness disappear, and the fertile soil is exposed. They say April is named after this time of snow-melt and exposure, over which kindly Venus asserts her claim by laying down her hand.
91 Indeed, she, the most worthy, guides the entire universe; she holds a smaller authority than no god, and she gives laws to heaven, to earth, and to the waves that birthed her. She controls all species through her own arrival. She created all gods (there are too many to count); she has given reasons to cultivate the trees. She has collected the unformed souls of humanity into one, and she has taught them how to connect with their own partners.
99 How does every type of bird reproduce, if not for delightful pleasure? Cattle won’t come together if light love is absent. The fierce ram duals with his masculine horns, but he refrains from injuring the same forehead of his beloved ewe. The bull, who shakes entire pastures and every grove, having set aside his ferocity, follows the heifer. That same power lives beneath the broad sea, protecting and filling up the waters with uncountable fish. This first force takes away the wild demeanor of people: personal care and maintenance, and eagerness for elegance, came from it. It is said that the first lover, his nighttime-sleepover denied, kept himself awake with song, and had sung her praises at the shut doors. And his eloquence has to persuade her obstinate chambermaid, each skillfully expressed word was pleaded for his own case.
113 Uncountable works of art have been set in motion by this goddess; and with enthusiasm those who feel they must please her utilize many tools, many just discovered, which had previously been unknown.
115 Would anyone dare to strip this goddess from the honor of the second month? Keep that fucking madness far away from me! And, what is more, has her power been extended everywhere with crowded temples? Does the goddess have yet greater authority in our city?
119 On behalf of your Troy, Romans, Venus took up weapons, although when she was injured with a spear-tip, she lamented her hand, soft and untrained in war: according to a Trojan judge, she conquered two celestials. (Oh, don’t let me remember her defeat here!) It has been said that she was the daughter-in-law of Assaracus, so that, in due time, great Caesar might certainly have Julian ancestors.
125 Nor is any time more appropriate for Venus than Spring: truly the lands glitter with sprouts, truly the fields are restored, now the tips of grasses and herbs are poking out from cracked earth, now the bough is bursting with new leaf-buds on its swollen bark. And beautiful Venus is suited to this beautiful time, as she is used to continuing on after Mars himself: certainly she instructs a curved boat to go through her maternal sea, no longer afraid of wintery menaces.