June 13 | Fastorum Liber Sextus: Iunius
D • EID • N | Idibus | VI.649-710, Ovid discusses the Lesser Quinquatrus festival with Minerva.
Nulla nota est veniente die, quam dicere possis.
Idibus Invicto sunt data templa Iovi. 650
et iam Quinquatrus iubeor narrare minores.
nunc ades o coeptis, flava Minerva, meis.
“cur vagus incedit tota tibicen in Urbe?
quid sibi personae, quid stola longa volunt?”
sic ego. sic posita Tritonia cuspide dixit 655
(possim utinam doctae verba referre deae!):
“temporibus veterum tibicinis usus avorum
magnus et in magno semper honore fuit.
cantabat fanis, cantabat tibia ludis,
cantabat maestis tibia funeribus: 660
dulcis erat mercede labor. tempusque secutum,
quod subito gratae frangeret artis opus.
adde quod aedilis, pompam qui funeris irent,
artifices solos iusserat esse decem.
exilio mutant Urbem Tiburque recedunt. 665
exilium quodam tempore Tibur erat!
quaeritur in scaena cava tibia, quaeritur aris;
ducit supremos nenia nulla toros.
servierat quidam, quantolibet ordine dignus,
Tibure, sed longo tempore liber erat. 670
rure dapes parat ille suo turbamque canoram
convocat; ad festas convenit illa dapes.
nox erat, et vinis oculique animique natabant,
cum praecomposito nuntius ore venit,
atque ita ‘quid cessas convivia solvere?’ 675
dixit ‘auctor vindictae nam venit ecce tuae.’
nec mora, convivae valido titubantia vino
membra movent: dubii stantque labantque pedes.
at dominus ‘discedite’ ait plaustroque morantes
sustulit: in plaustro scirpea lata fuit. 680
alliciunt somnos tempus motusque merumque,
potaque se Tibur turba redire putat.
iamque per Esquilias Romanam intraverat urbem,
et mane in medio plaustra fuere foro.
Plautius, ut posset specie numeroque senatum 685
fallere, personis imperat ora tegi,
admiscetque alios et, ut hunc tibicina coetum
augeat, in longis vestibus esse iubet;
sic reduces bene posse tegi, ne forte notentur
contra collegi iussa venire sui. 690
res placuit, cultuque novo licet Idibus uti
et canere ad veteres verba iocosa modos.”
haec ubi perdocuit, “superest mihi discere” dixi
“cur sit Quinquatrus illa vocata dies.”
“Martius” inquit “agit tali mea nomine festa, 695
estque sub inventis haec quoque turba meis.
prima, terebrato per rara foramina buxo
ut daret, effeci, tibia longa sonos.
vox placuit: faciem liquidis referentibus undis
vidi virgineas intumuisse genas. 700
‘ars mihi non tanti est; valeas, mea tibia’ dixi:
excipit abiectam caespite ripa suo.
inventam satyrus primum miratur et usum
nescit; at inflatam sentit habere sonum;
et modo dimittit digitis, modo concipit auras. 705
iamque inter nymphas arte superbus erat:
provocat et Phoebum. Phoebo superante pependit;
caesa recesserunt a cute membra sua.
sum tamen inventrix auctorque ego carminis huius.
hoc est, cur nostros ars colat ista dies.” 710
649 The next day has no mark attached to it which you can note. On the Ides a temple was dedicated to Unconquered Jupiter. And now I am bidden to tell of the Lesser Quinquatrus.1 Now favour my undertaking, thou yellow-haired Minerva. “Why does the flute-player march at large through the whole City? What mean the masks? What means the long gown?” So did I speak, and thus did Tritonia2 answer me, when she had laid aside her spear—would that I could report the very words of the learned goddess! “In the times of your ancestors of yore the flute-player was much employed and was always held in great honour. The flute played in temples, it played at games, it played at mournful funerals. The labour was sweetened by its reward; but a time followed which of a sudden broke the practice of the pleasing art. Moreover, the aedile had ordered that the musicians who accompanied funeral processions should be ten, no more. The flute players went into exile from the City and retired to Tibur3: once upon a time Tibur was a place of exile! The hollow flute was missed in the theatre, missed at the altars; no dirge accompanied the bier on the last march. At Tibur there was a certain man who had been a slave, but had long been free, a man worthy of any rank. In his country place he made ready a banquet and invited the tuneful throng; they gathered to the festal board. It was night, and their eyes and heads swam with wine, when a messenger arrived with a made-up tale, and thus he spoke (to the freedman): ‘Break up the banquet without delay, for see here comes the master of thy rod4!’ Immediately the guests bestirred their limbs, reeling with heady wine; their shaky legs or stood or slipped. But the master of the house, ‘Off with you all!’ says he, and when they dawdled he packed them in a wain that was well lined with rushes. The time, the motion, and the wine allured to slumber, and the tipsy crew fancied that they were on their way back to Tibur. And now the wain had entered the city of Rome by the Esquiline, and at morn it stood in the middle of the Forum. In order to deceive the Senate as to their persons and their number, Plautius5 commanded that their faces should be covered with masks; and he mingled others with them and ordered them to wear long garments, to the end that women flute-players might be added to the band. In that way he thought that the return of the exiles could be best concealed, lest they should be censured for having come back against the orders of their guild.6 The plan was approved, and now they are allowed to wear their new garb on the Ides and to sing merry words to the old tunes.”
693 When she had thus instructed me, “It only remains for me to learn,” said I, “why that day is called Quinquatrus.7” “A festival of mine,” quoth she, “is celebrated under that name in the month of March, and among my inventions is also the guild of flute-players. I was the first, by piercing boxwood with holes wide apart, to produce the music of the long flute. The sound was pleasing; but in the water that reflected my face I saw my virgin cheeks puffed up. ‘I value not the art so high; farewell, my flute!’ said I, and threw it away; it fell on the turf of the river-bank. A satyr8 found it and at first beheld it with wonder; he knew not its use, but perceived that, when he blew into it, the flute gave forth a note, and with the help of his fingers he alternately let out and kept in his breath. And now he bragged of his skill among the nymphs and challenged Phoebus; but, vanquished by Phoebus, he was hanged and his body flayed of its skin. Yet am I the inventress and foundress of this music; that is why the profession keeps my days holy.”
Athena, who by one account was a daughter of Poseidon and the Tritonian lake in Libya.
The flute-players, enraged at some ordinance of the Twelve Tables, seceded to Tibur, and refused to return. Livy says that the magistrates made them drunk, and got them back to Rome in wagons (ix. 30. 5–10); Ovid and Plutarch ascribed the feat to a freedman (Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 55).
The vindicta was the rod with which the freedman had been touched in the ceremony of manumission. The messenger pretends that the freedman’s old master is coming, possibly to reclaim him as a slave.
Censor 312 B.C, his colleague being Appius Claudius, whose action drove the flute-players into exile, according to Livy. Ovid suggests that one of the censors helped them to evade the law. Plautius is a conjection for MS. callidus or Claudius.
i.e. the guild of flute-players.
Marsyas.