Classic Poem

God, whom Niobe’s children encountered, O
you, avenger of boastful words on Tityos
the robber, and Phthian Achilles, all
but proud Troy’s victor,

and a greater fighter than others, but not than
you, though he was the son of sea-born Thetis,
and made the Dardanian towers tremble,
with his fearful spear.

Like a pine-tree slashed by the bite of the axe,
or a cypress struck by an Easterly wind,
he fell, outstretched, to the earth, bowed down his neck
in the Trojan dust.

He’d not have cheated the Teucrians, with their
vain celebrations, nor Priam’s joyfully
dancing court, by hiding deep in the Horse, false
tribute to Minerva:

but he’d have burnt, ah, wickedly, wickedly,
their un-weaned offspring, with Achaean fires,
in open cruelty to his prisoners,
babes hid in the womb,

if Jupiter hadn’t agreed to your pleas,
and those of lovely Venus, that Aeneas
should come to rule the walls of a city built
with better omens.


Phoebus, musician and teacher of tuneful
Thalia, who bathe your hair in Xanthus’ stream,
defend the Daunian Muse’s honour, O
beardless Agyieus.

Phoebus gave me inspiration, Phoebus gave
me skill in singing, and the name of poet.
You noble young girls, and you boys who are born
of famous fathers,

both, protected by the Delian goddess,
who brings down, with the bow, swift deer and lynxes,
follow the Sapphic measure, note the rhythm
of my finger’s beat,

and ritually sing the son of Latona,
ritually sing the fire of the waxing Moon,
the quickener of crops, and swift advancer
of the headlong months.

Married, you’ll say: ‘I sang the song the gods love,
when time brought back the days of the festival,
and I was one who was trained in the measures
of Horace the bard.