Laudator Temporis Acti

Honorato Fascitelli (1502-1564), Carmina XXIII (De Annia Villa), lines 1-40, tr. Richard Aldington in Medallions in Clay (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1921), p. 92 (titled The Villa Annia):

Sacred citron-trees of the grove of Annia, sacred spring rippling through the wood, shrine of the quiet sea-beach upon the hill, and you, forest gods and goddesses of the race of Zeus—sadly do I leave you and most joyfully return.

I delight to flee away to god-like idleness in your breast. Either I lie hid beneath the dark tresses of the grove, and in short loose tunic grow cool from the breath of the wavering West-Wind; or beside the murmuring of the rill I sit long and long above its cool mirror, sleepily splashing the alluring water with languid fingers. Sorrow drifts away to the sound of the trembling lute. From the height I watch the mirrored sails of a thousand passing ships. And the Dog-star burns hot over land and sea, and Arctos with his frosts and dreary clouds flies from Hyperion.

The Latin, from Jacobi...Sannazarii...Poemata...Item Gabrielis Altilii et Honorati Fascitelli Carmina Quae Exstant, 2nd ed. (Patavii: Josephus Cominus, 1731), pp. 292-293:

Annii nemoris sacra
Citria, & liquido sacer
Fons fluens pede per nemus,
Quodque colle habet in sacro
    Mollis acta sacellum:    5

Vosque agrestia numina,
Dii deaeque genus Jovis
Frigidum quibus est nemus,
Fonsque jugis, & inclyta
    Ara rite dicata:    10

Rite si nemore horrido
Fonte seposito procul
Imminens pelago capit
Ulla vos super arduo
    Ara colle dicata:    15

Quam relinquo dolens querens,
Quam reviso volens lubens
Vos ego! & tenerum in sinum,
Dia ad otia, gaudeo
    Memet abdere vestrum!    20

Sive sub nemoris nigri
Delitere comis juvat
Et fluente brevi in tuni-
ca ad vagi Zephyri levem
    Frigerarier auram:    25

Sive dulce loquaculi
Fontis ad gelidos specus
Sessitare, & aquam hac & hac
Somnuli illecebram manu
    Usque pellere lenta.    30

Tum modo spatiarier
Garrula cithara gravem:
Collis e specula modo
Mille cernere puppium
    Vela praetereuntum:    35

Cum calore Canis gravi
Terra & aequore perfurit
Fervidoque Hyperione
Arctos icta vacat gelu,
    Tristibusque tenebris.    40