E L E G I A VI.

I do not cling to life because I am swept away without glory in my early years,

Nor because I am far from my ancestral hearth.

You are the reason, ah pitiable mother, and your advanced age,

Why I should wish to survive for a brief span:

Lest I be the cause of an untimely death for you,

As my passing adds to your sorrows.

If, however, relentless Fate carries me off, and the fateful goddesses

Gather my final threads here:

Bestow offerings, I pray, upon my buried shades,

When you return, sweet friend, to the soil of our homeland.

And lest the passing traveler trample the covered bones,

See that a stone points them out with carved inscriptions.

After death, as a comfort for the light that has been taken away,

Permit my ashes to bear that hope, if I am worthy.

Then I would not desire a tomb hewn from Parian marble,

Nor the gifts of a spice-bearing nation.

But far from the mourning assembly of silent Avernus,

I shall pass the time, rejoicing in the honor of my grave.

Farewell, dear mother, and you, brother, and sister,

And whoever was a faithful friend to me while I was away.

And you, poet, sharer of my birthplace, and you, land of my fathers,

Never to be revisited by me in my sickness, farewell.

And the bird, the comfort of the groves, hiding beneath the foliage,

Builds its home with claws and a skillful beak.

A stream, green with moss, flows through meadows fragrant with violets,

And a gentler breeze nurtures the flowers.

And the Nymphs pluck roses and white lilies,

So that they may weave flowery garlands with a snowy hand.

And now gentle fires return to warmed bones,

And bodies themselves thrive along with the whole mind.

Therefore the time had come for me to seek my homeland and desolate household gods,

With winter's frost no longer delaying me.

Or, devoting useful time to the Muses in my green youth,

I should strive to make a name by my talent.

Now I lie sick, drained of my robust strength,

A helpless soldier alone in unknown lands.

Nor does my youthful beauty remain to me, pallor infects my limbs,

And marks my body with a bloodless hue.

And the breath drawing in vital air fails,

And my dry mouth scarcely provides a path for my voice.

And my sinews forsake my step with an unsteady knee,

Nor does my pulse, when felt, beat with an even rhythm.

Surely these are given to me as signs of approaching death,

I have lived my life, my time is finished, the Fates call.

Nor does any hope now remain to me of seeing my homeland,

This land must be inhabited by my shade.

But yet, as I die, I would wish to turn my final gaze,

If it be permitted, to where that sweet region lies.

Where the small Cynthius nourishes willows and shady alders,

And cuts through the fields with winding courses.

O, if only a draught of cold water, fetched from the spring

Of the flowing Acis, would wash over this throat.

How pleasing it would be to turn one's body on the grassy turf,

O banks, a sweet bed in the middle of the day.

Give cold cups to your poet, O Pegasides,

so that the useful liquid may relieve me from the consuming fire.

Bring health-giving herbs, and grasses torn from

your ridges, suitable for Paeonian uses.

Wretched me, with how great a burning heat am I tormented?

How rapid are the blows that each side feels?

Sleep does not come to soothe my breast and enter my eyes,

while all weary things lie in the midst of rest.

All is silent, both men and beasts snatch their sleep,

and the dense tree conceals the slumbering birds.

Only the nightingale grieves with me, imitating my complaints,

and gives forth a sound full of groans.

Hidden in the neighboring branches, perhaps touched

by my grief, she renews her sad melodies.

By songs she lightens her fate, the happier Daulian

bird; they bring no help to an invalid.

Spring waters do not help, nor do the juices pressed from roots,

cups have often been denied to me in vain.

All medicines are of no avail; the wasting disease grows

hour by hour, and drives away my strength with time.

But a mother imagines to herself the empty returns of her son,

to whom the reporting rumor of my death will come.

She will weep, and alas, striking her maternal breast, will say:

"Son, my solace, where are you? Under what sky do you lie?"

And she will begin to feel heavy old age for the first time,

of which I, surviving, was the pleasing rest.

If anyone has any faith in the soul while the breath now flees,

(Thus I pray this hour may end my griefs.)

Now the air grows warm from the Zephyrs blowing once more,

The full winter of immoderate cold has retreated.

In the new spring the earth is clothed with soft grass,

And the tall tree puts on its shady foliage.

Now too, as the bulls renew the fertile field,

The plowed land receives the cast seed.

And the nourishing crop comes forth from the furrows and nods with a tender tip,

And grows green, the hope of a heavy harvest.