AD IOHANNEM STIGELIVM Poëtam, de monumentis prope Nemau- ſum, in Gallia Narbonenſi. E L E G I A.

While you write of the stars gliding in the vaulted sky,

And the sacred rites and days among your people,

We, Stigelius, live far away on unknown shores,

By the western waters of the tideless sea.

And now we marvel at the ports of Marseille, and the lofty

Stoechades, an ancient refuge for ships,

And the Phocaean bays, and the Atax, rising in the Pyrenean mountains,

Which furrows the most fertile fields.

But if Cynthius were to offer me a favorable ear,

And the fates were gentle to my talent:

I would not relate the custom and causes of sacred rites,

Nor the path of Phoebus through the twelve signs:

Nor would I sing of civil wars in grand meters,

All my time is spent in unwarlike song:

But various nations, and the ancient names of places,

This would be a work suited to my powers.

The chorus of Phoebus does not offer me Castalian waters,

But imagine that I am equal to the ancient bards.

In such a great whirlwind of wretched affairs, forsooth,

Will I be that sacred, talented bard?

Yet I would not entirely pass over the monuments of a former age here,

Which are near your banks, O Gard.

Father Gard, stagnant furrower of the thirsty sand,

Who, full of shallows, silently make your gentle way.

Who was permitted to raise such huge masses to the sky?

And to lay three paths on a single bridge?

With a bridge whose summit rivals the frosty clouds,

From whose sight terror grips the eyes.

In the middle, driven in broad channels (a marvelous thing),

Are waters through the stony bowels of the hard mountain.

Let him who sees the immense arches cut from the cliffs

Judge the skilled hands of the craftsmen.

Add, perceptive one, the theater of the people, sublime with its steps,

And the caverns full of hiding places through secret paths.

Nor will I pass over in silence the woodland temple of javelin-throwing Diana,

Nor your origins, leaping water.

A sacred spring flows richly with copious waters,

such as the valley by the name of Gargaphia possesses.

Poplar leaves, and the tree of Pallas cast their shade,

and the ground is always green with tender grass.

Beneath these branches the Goddess rested, weary from the hunt,

and the Delian quenched her thirst at her spring.

Here the Nymphs, her companions, having laid aside their garments, were accustomed

to bathe their soft bodies in the waters poured over them.

Indeed, this water broke the powers of love;

she who drank it remained in eternal virginity.

O, if only the same power could wash away my old fires,

how great a fame would await these health-bringing waters!

Happy the poets to whom fortune is kind,

happy he who has been the care of Kings and Dukes.

A God moves their lips, and, the earth left behind,

they are carried on a cloud through the clear path of heaven.

Grief, and unstable changes, and a succession of evils,

forbid me to unburden my mind from the shadows.

Twice have we disfigured outstanding cities with destruction,

we have seen great Dukes go into slavery.

And the end is not yet here; there remain, fierce battles remain,

the land is not enough, a thousand ships come across the seas.

Here too, he to whom the power over the world had been entrusted,

the Rhine (oh shame!) worships foreign wealth.

How great a storm threatens the coming years?

Now, Calliope, along with Phoebus, farewell to me.

Spend your time in the shady woods, you who are permitted,

where the Ilm extends Pelignian waters to you.

And run through the begun labors of your sacred work;

no age will overwhelm your praises.

It is necessary for me to obey the fates (wherever they may drag me),

since I am not permitted to be at my own disposal.