Tityrus, reclining beneath the cover of a spreading beech tree you practice a woodland melody on the slender pipe. We are leaving the borders of our fatherland and the sweet fields. We are fleeing from our fatherland. You, Tityrus, at your ease in the shade teach the woods to echo beautiful Amaryllis' name.
Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi
silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avena;
nos patriae finis et dulcia linquimus arva.
nos patriam fugimus; tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra
formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
Pages
▼
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Gaza
Vergil, Eclogues 1.1-5: