AD IOHANNEM ALTVM

And someone will say, with tears pouring forth into words,

"May the gods grant that you swiftly turn your steps from there."

Would that the heavenly power might assent to these prayers, and to mine,

So that I might follow you, Altus, with the least delay.

You know indeed, nor are the grove and caves ignorant of us,

And the oak with its aged trunk, beside the waters.

Often beneath it, on the tender grass, we read

A poem just composed, among the birds soothing the air.

Often (for I remember) it was sweet to relate many things

About war, but now it is a grief to remember.

For swiftly the fierce enemy expelled us from the dear walls,

And ordered us to exchange the sweet soil for exile.

And now bearing weapons hateful to the devotees of ivy,

The profane soldier occupies the temples of the Pegasides.

Perhaps (ah, the crime) he also defiles them with foul blood,

And speaks harsh words against the learned Goddesses.

Trumpets instead of lyres, helmets instead of the virgin laurel,

Instead of the Muses, the wife of a stern soldier is present.

Destitute Phoebus wanders, accompanied by the band of sisters,

And his soothing lyre has now been mute for a long time.

What sight would have been more tearful in a captured city,

Than that which there was when the flock of the Pierides fled?

By a harsh fate, little delay was given to those about to depart,

And the ill-pacified enemy was not far away.

And when the fierce fire, in the morning, had burned the suburban wealth,

The glory and solace of the beautiful countryside,

With profuse tears we bid farewell to the dwellings we inhabited,

And we look back at the smoking cottages on all sides.

Who could recount the groans, and the sobbing complaints?

And the words of those saying, "Farewell, sweet friend"?

Add so many ambushes, and that we made our journey together,

Anxious, through places full of fear.

These dangers have joined our minds more closely,

And the hospitable land has often marveled at the two of us.

Even now I would not refuse to be your companion, wherever it might be,

Through heaped-up snows, where there is no path.

With whom I would dare to traverse even the Scythian swamps,

And go beyond the quiver-bearing Getae.

And even though the air is too stormy with the North Winds,

And even though the earth is white with rigid frost.

But as a new enemy brings about cruel tumults,

I am not allowed to go with you where I would wish.

Nor does the savage cold keep us safe in the meantime,

Through the icy snows they mingle harsh battles.

And neighboring cities roar with varying allegiances,

Nor is it sufficiently clear what they would rather be.

And secretly leaders who have not served their country well

Attempt to win them over to their factions.

Go, however, and you, to whom it is permitted, flee the rigid lands,

Altus, with whom as a companion nothing was sorrowful to me.

Let the rough winter beat me with the blasts of the North Wind,

Torn from the sweet Muses in my blooming years.

You, always cultivate the beloved sacred rites of the Pierian sisters,

By whom care flees from a sorrowful breast.

Perhaps also reminded of me by those arts,

Undertake the vows owed for my return.

By that venerable name of friendship,

Now too I ask you this, perhaps with my final breath.

Moreover, when you bid greeting to our old friends,

Relate all that I have endured, and what I still endure.

And what great instability of affairs now tosses us about,

How a bitter fate envies my undertakings.

These things, once heard, will be able to move our dear companions,

And each one will wish for peaceful days for me.

Now Phoebus, having left the Phillyrian elder behind his back,

slowing his steeds, makes the time of the solstice.

He extends the gloomy darkness, and the longer shadow

of opaque night makes the days short.

Now no visiting ship comes into these ports, as before,

nor does the timber glide, skimming a liquid path.

The ships stick fast with their ropes in the hard ice,

while the water of the river stands still in rigid frost.

And Boreas, saddening the sky with piercing cold,

scatters thick snows from the neighboring pole.

Yet when tomorrow's day will bring the radiant lights

of the ethereal sun from the Eastern world,

you will swiftly seek again your native fields, journeying without me,

which the cold Eder cleaves with its glassy waters:

The Eder, which flows past the cradle of the poet Hessus,

not far from whose shallows you were born, Altus.

Go (I do not begrudge it) and revisit your sweet hearth,

and let not the cruel winter delay your desires.

While it was permitted, we spent our years in gentle studies,

and nothing was more pleasing than the Aonian art.

And it pleased us, kindled by the title of learned poets,

to enjoy the pursuit of praise, our intellect driving us on.