Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

Rather a largesse fair pay to me, envy me not.

Stars dash blindly in one! so might I glitter a royal

Tress, let Orion glow next to Aquarius' urn.

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CATULLUS.

O to the goodman fair, O welcome alike to the father,

Hail, and Jove's kind grace shower his help upon you!

Door, that of old, men say, wrought Balbus ready obeisance,

Once, when his home, time was, lodged him, a master in years;

Door, that again, men say, grudg'd aught but a spiteful obeisance,

Soon as a corpse outstretch'd starkly declar'd you a bride.

Come, speak truly to me; what shameful rumour avouches

Duty of years forsworn, honour in injury lost?

DOOR.

So be the tenant new, Caecilius, happy to own me,

I'm not guilty, for all jealousy says it is I.

Never a fault was mine, nor man shall whisper it ever;

Only, my friend, your mob's noisy "The door is a rogue."

Comes to the light some mischief, a deed uncivil arising,

Loudly to me shout all, "Door, you are wholly to blame."

CATULLUS.

'Tis not enough so merely to say, so think to decide it.

Better, who wills should feel, see it, who wills, to be true.

DOOR.

How then? if here none asks, nor labours any to know it.

CATULLUS.

Nay, I ask it; away scruple; your hearer is I.

DOOR.

First, what rumour avers, they gave her to us a virgin—

They lie on her. A light lady! be sure, not alone

Clipp'd her an husband first; weak stalk from a garden, a pointless

Falchion, a heart did ne'er fully to courage awake.

No; to the son's own bed, 'tis said, that father ascended,

Vilely; with act impure stain'd the facinorous house.

Whether a blind fierce lust in his heart burnt sinfully flaming,

Or that inert that son's vigour, amort to delight,

Needed a sturdier arm, that franker quality somewhere,

Looser of youth's fast-bound girdle, a virgin as yet.

CATULLUS.

Truly a noble father, a glorious act of affection!

Thus in a son's kind sheets lewdly to puddle, his own.

DOOR.

Yet not alone of this, her crag Chinaean abiding

Under, a watch-tower set warily, Brixia tells,

Brixia, trails whereby his waters Mella the golden,

Mother of her, mine own city, Verona the fair.

Add Postumius yet, Cornelius also, a twice-told

Folly, with whom our light mistress adultery knew.

Asks some questioner here "What? a door, yet privy to lewdness?

You, from your owner's gate never a minute away?

Strange to the talk o' the town? since here, stout timber above you,

Hung to the beam, you shut mutely or open again."

Many a shameful time I heard her stealthy profession,

While to the maids her guilt softly she hinted alone.

Spoke unabash'd her amours and named them singly, opining

Haply an ear to record fail'd me, a voice to reveal.

There was another; enough; his name I gladly dissemble;

Lest his lifted brows blush a disorderly rage.

Sir, 'twas a long lean suitor; a process huge had assail'd him;

'Twas for a pregnant womb falsely declar'd to be true.

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If, when fortune's wrong with bitter misery whelms thee,

Thou thy sad tear-scrawl'd letter, a mark to the storm,

Send'st, and bid'st me to succour a stranded seaman of Ocean,

Toss'd in foam, from death's door to return thee again;

Whom nor softly to rest love's tender sanctity suffers,

Lost on a couch of lone slumber, unhappily lain;

Nor with melody sweet of poets hoary the Muses

Cheer, while worn with grief nightly the soul is awake:

Well-contented am I, that thou thy friendship avowest,

Ask'st the delights of love from me, the pleasure of hymns;

Yet lest all unnoted a kindred story bely thee,

Deeming, Mallius, I calls of humanity shun;

Hear what a grief is mine, what storm of destiny whelms me.

Cease to demand of a soul's misery joy's sacrifice.

Once, what time white robes of manhood first did array me,

Whiles in jollity life sported a spring holiday,

Youth ran riot enow; right well she knows me, the Goddess,

She whose honey delights blend with a bitter annoy.

Henceforth dies sweet pleasure, in anguish lost of a brother's

Funeral. O poor soul, brother, O heavily ta'en,

You all happier hours, you, dying brother, effaced;

All our house lies low mournfully buried in you;

Quench'd untimely with you joy waits not ever a morrow,

Joy which alive your love's bounty fed hour upon hour;

Now, since thou liest dead, heart-banish'd wholly desert me

Vanities all, each gay freak of a riotous heart.

How then obey? You write 'Let not Verona, Catullus,

Stay thee, if here each proud quality, Rome's eminence,

Freely the light limbs warms thou leavest coldly to languish,'

Infamy lies not there, Mallius, only regret.

So forgive me, if I, whom grief so rudely bereaveth,

Deal not a joy myself know not, a beggar in all.

Books—if they're but scanty, a store full meagre, around me,

Rome is alone my life's centre, a mansion of home,

Rome my abode, house, hearth; there wanes and waxes a life's span;

Hither of all those choice cases attends me but one.

Therefore deem not thou aught spiteful bids me deny thee;

Say not 'his heart is false, haply, to jealousy leans,'

If nor books I send nor flatter sorrow to silence.

Trust me, were either mine, either unask'd should appear.

Goddesses, hide I may not in how great trial upheld me

Allius, how no faint charities held me to life.

Nor shall time borne fleetly nor years' oblivion ever

Make such zeal to the night fade, to the darkness, away.

As from me you learn it, of you shall many a thousand

Learn it again. Grow old, scroll, to declare it anew.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .So to the dead increase honour in year upon year. Nor to the spider, aloft her silk-slight flimsiness hanging, Allius aye unswept moulder, a memory dim.

Well you wot, how sore the deceit Amathusia wrought me,

Well what a thing in love's treachery made me to fall;

Ready to burst in flame, as burn Trinacrian embers,

Burn near Thermopylae's Oeta the fiery springs.

Sad, these piteous eyes did waste all wearily weeping,

Sad, these cheeks did rain ceaseless a showery woe.

Wakeful, as hill-born brook, which, afar off silvery gleaming,

O'er his moss-grown crags leaps with a tumble adown;

Brook which awhile headlong o'er steep and valley descending,

Crosses anon wide ways populous, hastes to the street;

Cheerer in heats o' the sun to the wanderer heavily fuming,

Under a drought, when fields swelter agape to the sky.

Then as tossing shipmen amid black surges of Ocean,

See some prosperous air gently to calm them arise,

Safe thro' Pollux' aid or Castor, alike entreated;

Mallius e'en such help brought me, a warder of harm.

He in a closed field gave scope of liberal entry;

Gave me an house of love, gave me the lady within,

Busily there to renew love's even duty together;

Thither afoot mine own mistress, a deity bright,

Came, and planted firm her sole most sunny; beneath her

Lightly the polish'd floor creak'd to the sandal again.

So with passion aflame came wistful Laodamia

Into her husband's home, Protesilaus, of yore;

Home o'er-lightly begun, ere slaughter'd victim atoning

Waited of heaven's high-thron'd company grace to agree.

Nought be to me so dear, O Maid Ramnusian, ever,

I should against that law match me with opposite, I.