Introduction | Fastorum Liber Quartus: Aprilis
IV.1-132, Ovid engages in conversation with Venus.
“Alma, fave,” dixi “geminorum mater Amorum!”
ad vatem voltus rettulit illa suos:
“quid tibi” ait “mecum? certe maiora canebas.
num vetus in molli pectore volnus habes?”
“scis, dea,” respondi “de volnere.” risit, et aether 5
protinus ex illa parte serenus erat.
“saucius an sanus numquid tua signa reliqui?
tu mihi propositum, tu mihi semper opus.
quae decuit, primis sine crimine lusimus annis,
nunc teritur nostris area maior equis: 10
tempora cum causis annalibus eruta priscis
lapsaque sub terras ortaque signa cano.
venimus ad quartum, quo tu celeberrima mense:
et vatem et mensem scis, Venus, esse tuos.”
mota Cytheriaca leviter mea tempora myrto 15
contigit et “coeptum perfice” dixit “opus.”
sensimus, et causae subito patuere dierum:
dum licet et spirant flamina, navis eat.
Si qua tamen pars te de fastis tangere debet,
Caesar, in Aprili, quo tenearis, habes. 20
hic ad te magna descendit origine mensis
et fit adoptiva nobilitate tuus.
hoc pater Iliades, cum longum scriberet annum,
vidit et auctores rettulit ipse tuos:
utque fero Marti primam dedit ordine sortem, 25
quod sibi nascenti proxima causa fuit,
sic Venerem gradibus multis in gente receptam
alterius voluit mensis habere locum;
principiumque sui generis revolutaque quaerens
saecula cognatos venit adusque deos. 30
Dardanon Electra nesciret Atlantide natum
scilicet, Electran concubuisse Iovi?
huius Ericthonius: Tros est generatus ab illo:
Assaracon creat hic, Assaracusque Capyn.
proximus Anchises, cum quo commune parentis 35
non dedignata est nomen habere Venus.
hinc satus Aeneas, pietas spectata, per ignes
sacra patremque umeris, altera sacra, tulit.
venimus ad felix aliquando nomen Iuli,
unde domus Teucros Iulia tangit avos. 40
Postumus hinc, qui, quod silvis fuit ortus in altis,
Silvius in Latia gente vocatus erat.
isque, Latine, tibi pater est. subit Alba Latinum:
proximus est titulis Epytus, Alba, tuis.
ille dedit Capyi repetita vocabula Troiae 45
et tuus est idem, Calpete, factus avus.
cumque patris regnum post hunc Tiberinus haberet,
dicitur in Tuscae gurgite mersus aquae.
iam tamen Agrippam natum Remulumque nepotem
viderat: in Remulum fulmina missa ferunt. 50
venit Aventinus post hos, locus unde vocatur,
mons quoque. post illum tradita regna Procae.
quem sequitur duri Numitor germanus Amuli.
Ilia cum Lauso de Numitore sati.
ense cadit patrui Lausus: placet Ilia Marti 55
teque parit, gemino iuncte Quirine Remo.
ille suos semper Venerem Martemque parentes
dixit et emeruit vocis habere fidem;
neve secuturi possent nescire nepotes,
tempora dis generis continuata dedit. 60
sed Veneris mensem Graio sermone notatum
auguror: a spumis est dea dicta maris.
nec tibi sit mirum Graeco rem nomine dici;
Itala nam tellus Graecia maior erat.
venerat Euander plena cum classe suorum: 65
venerat Alcides, Graius uterque genus
(hospes Aventinis armentum pavit in herbis
claviger, et tanto est Albula pota deo):
dux quoque Neritius; testes Laestrygones exstant
et quod adhuc Circes nomina litus habet. 70
et iam Telegoni, iam moenia Tiburis udi
stabant, Argolicae quod posuere manus.
venerat Atridae fatis agitatus Halaesus,
a quo se dictam terra Falisca putat.
adice Troianae suasorem Antenora pacis 75
et generum Oeniden, Apule Daune, tuum.
serus ab Iliacis et post Antenora flammis
attulit Aeneas in loca nostra deos.
huius erat Solymus Phrygia comes unus ab Ida,
a quo Sulmonis moenia nomen habent, 80
Sulmonis gelidi, patriae, Germanice, nostrae.
me miserum, Scythico quam procul illa solo est!
ergo ego tam longe—sed supprime, Musa, querellas!
non tibi sunt maesta sacra canenda lyra.
quo non livor adit? sunt qui tibi mensis honorem 85
eripuisse velint invideantque, Venus.
nam quia ver aperit tunc omnia, densaque cedit
frigoris asperitas, fetaque terra patet,
Aprilem memorant ab aperto tempore dictum,
quem Venus iniecta vindicat alma manu. 90
illa quidem totum dignissima temperat orbem;
illa tenet nullo regna minora deo,
iuraque dat caelo, terrae, natalibus undis,
perque suos initus continet omne genus.
illa deos omnes (longum est numerare) creavit: 95
illa satis causas arboribusque dedit:
illa rudes animos hominum contraxit in unum
et docuit iungi cum pare quemque sua.
quid genus omne creat volucrum, nisi blanda voluptas?
nec coeant pecudes, si levis absit amor. 100
cum mare trux aries cornu decertat; at idem
frontem dilectae laedere parcit ovis.
deposita sequitur taurus feritate iuvencam,
quem toti saltus, quem nemus omne tremit.
vis eadem, lato quodcumque sub aequore vivit, 105
servat et innumeris piscibus implet aquas.
prima feros habitus homini detraxit: ab illa
venerunt cultus mundaque cura sui.
primus amans carmen vigilatum nocte negata
dicitur ad clausas concinuisse fores, 110
eloquiumque fuit duram exorare puellam,
proque sua causa quisque disertus erat.
mille per hanc artes motae; studioque placendi,
quae latuere prius, multa reperta ferunt.
hanc quisquam titulo mensis spoliare secundi 115
audeat? a nobis sit furor iste procul.
quid, quod ubique potens templisque frequentibus aucta,
urbe tamen nostra ius dea maius habet?
pro Troia, Romane, tua Venus arma ferebat,
cum gemuit teneram cuspide laesa manum: 120
caelestesque duas Troiano iudice vicit
(a! nolim victas hoc meminisse deas!),
Assaracique nurus dicta est, ut scilicet olim
magnus Iuleos Caesar haberet avos.
nec Veneri tempus quam ver erat aptius ullum: 125
vere nitent terrae, vere remissus ager,
nunc herbae rupta tellure cacumina tollunt,
nunc tumido gemmas cortice palmes agit.
et formosa Venus formoso tempore digna est,
utque solet, Marti continuata suo est: 130
vere monet curvas materna per aequora puppes
ire nec hibernas iam timuisse minas.
1 “Ο gracious Mother of the Twin Loves,1” said I, “grant me thy favour.” The goddess looked back at the poet. “What wouldst thou with me?” she said, “surely thou wast wont to sing of loftier themes. Hast thou an old wound rankling in thy tender breast?” “Goddess,” I answered, “thou wottest of my wound.” She laughed, and straightway the sky was serene in that quarter. “Hurt or whole, did I desert thy standards? Thou, thou hast ever been the task I set myself. In my young years I toyed with themes to match, and gave offence to none; now my steeds treat a larger field. I sing the seasons, and their causes, and the starry signs that set beneath the earth and rise again, drawing my lore from annals old. We have come to the fourth month in which thou art honoured above all others, and thou knowest, Venus, that both the poet and the month are thine.” The goddess was moved, and touching my brows lightly with myrtle of Cythera, “Complete,” said she, “the work thou hast begun.” I felt her inspiration, and suddenly my eyes were opened to the causes of the days: proceed, my bark, while still thou mayest and the breezes blow.
19 Yet if any part of the calendar should interest thee, Caesar,2 thou hast in April matter of concern. This month thou hast inherited by a great pedigree, and it has been made thine by virtue of thine adoption into a noble house. When the Ilian sire3 was putting the long year on record, he saw the relationship and commemorated the authors of thy race: and as he gave the first lot in the order of the months to fierce Mars, because he was the immediate cause of his own birth, so he willed that the place of the second month should belong to Venus, because he traced his descent from her through many generations. In seeking the origin of his race, he turned over the roll of the centuries and came at last to the gods whose blood he shared. How, prithee, should he not know that Dardanus was born of Electra, daughter of Atlas, and that Electra had lain with Jupiter? Dardanus had a son Erichthonius, who begat Tros; and Tros begat Assaracus, and Assaracus begat Capys. Next came Anchises, with whom Venus did not disdain to share the name of parent. Of them was born Aeneas, whose piety was proved when on his shoulders through the fire he bore the holy things and his own sire, a charge as holy. Now at last have we come to the lucky name of Julus, through whom the Julian house reaches back to Teucrian ancestors. He had a son Postumus. who, because he was born in the deep woods, was called Silvius among the Latin folk. He was thy father, Latinus; Latinus was succeeded by Alba, and next to Alba on the list was Epytus. He gave to his son Capys a Trojan name, revived for the purpose, and he was also the grandfather of Calpetus. And when Tiberinus possessed his father’s kingdom after the death of Calpetus, he was drowned, it is said, in a deep pool of the Tuscan river. Yet before that he had seen the birth of a son Agrippa and of a grandson Remulus; but Remulus, they say, was struck by levin-bolts. After them came Aventinus, from whom the place and also the hill took their name. After him the kingdom passed to Proca, who was succeeded by Numitor, brother of hard-hearted Amulius. Ilia and Lausus were born to Numitor. Lausus fell by his uncle’s sword: Ilia found favour in the eyes of Mars and gave birth to thee, Quirinus, and thy twin brother Remus. He always averred that his parents were Venus and Mars, and he deserved to be believed when he said so; and that his descendants after him might know the truth, he assigned successive periods to the gods of his race. But I surmise that the month of Venus took its name from the Greek language: the goddess was called after the foam of the sea.4 Nor need you wonder that a thing was called by a Greek name, for the Italian land was Greater Greece. Evander had come to Italy with a fleet full of his people; Alcides also had come; both of them were Greeks by race. As a guest, the club-bearing hero fed his herd on the Aventine grass, and the great god drank of the Albula. The Neritian chief also came5: witness the Laestrygones and the shore which still bears the name of Circe.6 Already the walls of Telegonus7 were standing, and the walls of moist Tibur, built by Argive hands. Driven from home by the tragic doom of Atrides, Halaesus had come, after whom the Faliscan land deems that’ it takes its name. Add to these Antenor,8 who advised the Trojans to make peace, and (Diomedes) the Oenid. son-in-law to Apulian Daunus. Aeneas from the flames of Ilium brought his gods into our land, arriving late and after Antenor. He had a comrade, Solymus, who came from Phrygian Ida; from him the walls of Sulmo take their name—cool Sulmo, my native town, Germanicus. Woe’s me, how far is Sulmo from the Scythian land! Therefore shall I so far away—but check, my Muse, thy plaints; ’tis not for thee to warble sacred themes on mournful strings.9
85 Where doth not sallow envy find a way? Some there are who grudge thee the honour of the month, and would snatch it from thee, Venus. For they say that April was named from the open (apertum) season, because spring then opens (aperit) all things, and the sharp frost-bound cold departs, and earth unlocks her teeming soil, though kindly Venus claims the month and lays her hand on it. She indeed sways, and well deserves to sway, the world entire; she owns a kingdom second to that of no god; she gives laws to heaven and earth and to her native sea, and by her inspiration she keeps every species in being. She created all the gods—’twere long to number them; she bestowed on seeds and trees their origins. She drew rude-minded men together and taught them to pair each with his mate. What but bland pleasure brings into being the whole brood of birds? Cattle, too, would not come together, were loose love wanting. The savage ram butts at the wether, but would not hurt the forelabel of the ewe he loves. The bull, whom all the woodland pastures, all the groves do dread, puts off his fierceness and follows the heifer. The same force preserves all living things under the broad bosom of the deep, and fills the waters with unnumbered fish. That force first stripped man of his savage garb; from it he learned decent attire and personal cleanliness. A lover was the first, they say, to serenade by night the mistress who denied him entrance, while he sang at her barred door, and to win the heart of a coy maid was eloquence indeed; every man then pleaded his own cause. This goddess has been the mother of a thousand arts; the wish to please has given birth to many inventions that were unknown before. And shall any man dare rob this goddess of the honour of giving her name to the second month? Far from me be such a frenzy. Besides, while everywhere the goddess is powerful and her temples are thronged with worshippers, she possesses yet more authority in our city. Venus, Ο Roman, bore arms for thy Troy, what time she groaned at the spear wound in her dainty hand10; and by a Trojan’s verdict she defeated two heavenly goddesses.11 Ah would that they had not remembered their defeat! And she was called the bride of Assaracus’ son,12 in order, to be sure, that in time to come great Caesar might count the Julian line among his sires. And no season was more fitting for Venus than spring. In spring the landscape glistens; soft is the soil in spring; now the corn pushes its blades through the cleft ground; now the vine-shoot protrudes its buds in the swelling bark. Lovely Venus deserves the lovely season and is attached, as usual, to her dear Mars: in spring she bids the curved ships fare across her natal seas and fear no more the threats of winter.
M, the editor of Ovid Daily, has also written a translation of Liber IV.
Eros and Anteros.
Augustus, adopted by Julius Caesar, who traced his descent from Venus, through Aeneas.
Romulus, as descended from Aeneas and so from Ilus, founder of Ilium.
Aphrodite, from ἀφρός, “foam.”
Ulysses, after the hill Neriton in Ithaca. Lamus, king of the Laestrygones, was thought to have founded Formiae. Ulysses visited the Laestrygonians, as described in Hom. Od. x. 81.
The promontory Circeium.
Tusculum.
Said to have founded Patavium.
Wounded by Diomede, Iliad, v. 335.
Paris, the Trojan, adjudged to her the apple, the prize of beauty; and her rivals, Juno (Hera) and Athena, bore a grudge for their defeat.
Anchises, grandson of Assaracus. The Julian line claimed descent from Iulus, son of Aeneas.