Sunday, March 20, 2022
Arrival of Spring
Ovid, Fasti 3.235-242 (tr. James George Frazer, rev. G.P. Goold):
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Moreover, frosty winter then at last retires, and the snows perish, melted by the warm sun; the leaves, shorn by the cold, return to the trees, and moist within the tender shoot the bud doth swell; now too the rank grass, long hidden, discovers secret paths whereby to lift its head in air. Now is the field fruitful, now is the hour for breeding cattle, now doth the bird upon the bough construct a nest and home.
quid, quod hiems adoperta gelu tum denique cedit, 235
et pereunt lapsae sole tepente nives;
arboribus redeunt detonsae frigore frondes,
uvidaque in tenero palmite gemma tumet;
quaeque diu latuit, nunc se qua tollat in auras,
fertilis occultas invenit herba vias? 240
nunc fecundus ager, pecoris nunc hora creandi,
nunc avis in ramo tecta laremque parat.
