E L E G I A V.

We renew our bitter laments with longing,

You have this too, greater than which I cannot give.

Nor (I hope indeed) will the despised earth shut you away

Without honor under an unknown turf, paternal shades:

And when long age has reduced the body to ashes,

The better part will survive by our voice.

And the stone placed upon the tomb will have a short poem

So that it may point out your bones to onlookers.

And the day on which you left the vital breezes in death

I shall always hold among the honored ones.

And I shall be the first to see Phoebus raising his lamp,

And I shall say, "He brings my tears."

Meanwhile, with wars throwing all things into turmoil, brother,

Take care of our anxious mother.

And be constantly mindful of me, happier in your absence,

Whether [I perish], which alas I fear, or whether I shall return. Farewell.

Will I therefore always be driven by bitter fates?

And will I so often be equal to new tears?

Was not the harsh inclemency of the Sarmatian sky,

was not the barbarous enemy enough for my sorrows?

Was this fate also owed to my wretched youth,

O star, heavy and cruel to me at my birth!

But, madly, I used to imagine my return while my father was safe,

and that time was already before my eyes.

Thus my father will receive me first, thus he will stretch out both

hands, as joy shakes away his tears.

Then with the old man I will inhabit the countryside through which the Eder flows

with its glassy waters, or which the swift Aura moistens.

Here it will delight him to remember the former time,

and in turn he himself will hear my cares.

But as soon as he has reached the limit of his granted age,

I will ensure the day of his death is not bitter.

And closing his cold eyes with my hand, I will say,

"Father, may peace and rest be yours eternally."

Then, kneeling over it, and prostrating myself upon the tomb,

I will bring the final gifts, in the usual pious manner.

These vain things I imagined, the fates refusing;

that hope was a comfort for our woes.

Indeed, I asked for the same things with pure prayers and vows,

when holy prayers with vows availed nothing.

Therefore, was no opportunity given me at least to see you

before your passing, nor to walk in your funeral procession?

Could I not be present to hear your final words?

Did I not say something that it would please to remember?

You too complained with pouring tears that I was absent,

asking with a groan, "Where is my other son?"

He, O pitiable parent, removed to the North,

Does not know that your final day of fate is here.

Why did I delay, why did my companions hold me back?

Why was I lingering in a wintry region?

Know, however, dear shades, that of this bitter fate

I could not have been informed in those frozen places.

Not steep mountains, lacking access,

Not ridges equal to the clouds would have delayed me.

Nor the blasts of mad Boreas, and the raging Northwest winds,

Nor the rocks of the Hercynian cliff clothed in snow.

Through swords devotion would have found an open path,

Even with a fierce enemy blocking all roads.

If, however, a shade is placable even by tears,

Insofar as it is permitted, you are a shade appeased by my tears.

I pay those funeral rites (although I am far away),

Whether day or dark night comes, I weep.

And wearing the funereal headbands, the mark of grief,

I complain that nothing sweet remains for miserable me.

You, among the pure shades and venerable gatherings,

Spend your time, received in the Elysian valley.

There you now behold the bright stars, having left the darkness behind,

And you see the many things that are hidden from our eyes.

And your granddaughter plays with her grandfather, mixed with the recent shades,

The firstborn burden to her mother.

Here your son leads you through the joyful fields of the pious,

And rejoices to be closest to your side.

Happy in his death, he neither saw the funeral of his dear

Father, nor suffered anything from a cruel enemy.

We lament that you have been taken away, dear father,

Nor do our cheeks cease to be wet with a sad rain.

While I live far away near the Bears that never touch the sea,

Where the land of the North Wind lies sluggish with cold:

The author of the year who guides the ethereal horses

Has twice completed the twelve illustrious signs of the sky.

Up to this time, hostile fate always wearies me,

And all things turn out harsher than what I have endured.

Either heavy weariness wears down my weak limbs,

And does not allow my frail body to have strength.

And more than once have I escaped swords destined for my throat,

While I am driven as an exile, enduring snow and hail.

Or, beyond my tender strength and the lot of youth,

I bear arms, a loss of precious time.

To say nothing of the many hardships of war that do harm,

And the many things I must pass over, lest they do harm.

Yet would that you had been content with these evils, O Lachesis,

Satiated with this portion of my grief.

But now rumor, the herald of your death, has come

Even here from afar, while I linger in the Arctic world, father.

And it has delivered the mournful news of a granddaughter snatched away,

Whom death carried from the cradle to the hollow tomb.