Epilogue
And now that my theft stands detected,The first of my extracts may callTo some of the rhymes here collectedYour notice, the second to all.
Ah! friend, you may shake your head sadly,Yet this much you’ll say for my verse,I’ve written of old something badly,But written anew something worse.
Pastor Cum [Translation from Horace]
When he, that shepherd false, ’neath Phrygian sails,Carried his hostess Helen o’er the seas,In fitful slumber Nereus hush’d the gales,That he might sing their future destinies.A curse to your ancestral home you takeWith her, whom Greece, with many a soldier boldShall seek again, in concert sworn to breakYour nuptial ties and Priam’s kingdom old.Alas! what sweat from man and horse must flow,What devastation to the Trojan realmYou carry, even now doth Pallas showHer wrath, preparing buckler, car, and helm.In vain, secure in Aphrodite’s care,You comb your locks, and on the girlish lyreSelect the strains most pleasant to the fair;In vain, on couch reclining, you desireTo shun the darts that threaten, and the thrustOf Cretan lance, the battle’s wild turmoil,And Ajax swift to follow—in the dustCondemned, though late, your wanton curls to soil.Ah! see you not where (fatal to your race)Laertes’ son comes with the Pylean sage;Fearless alike, with Teucer joins the chaseStenelaus, skill’d the fistic strife to wage,Nor less expert the fiery steeds to quell;And Meriones, you must know. BeholdA warrior, than his sire more fierce and fell,To find you rages,—Diomed the bold,Whom like the stag that, far across the vale,The wolf being seen, no herbage can allure,So fly you, panting sorely, dastard pale!—Not thus you boasted to your paramour.Achilles’ anger for a space defersThe day of wrath to Troy and Trojan dame;Inevitable glide the allotted years,And Dardan roofs must waste in Argive flame.