ELEGIA VI.

Now the new moon has shone nine times in the serene sky,

While my weary eyes lack the gift of sleep.

Cruel Love does not harm me, nor does the scorching air,

Nor dreadful poisons swallowed by a careless hand.

You have broken my studies and my play, you have broken

All the joys of life by your death, O Stibarus.

I call to witness the honored spirits, and the recent shade,

And whatever gods and souls see my grief:

That I have felt such great sorrow at no funeral,

Not even when my brother was covered by the cold earth.

Nor when the black day, its light extinguished,

Carried off my aged parents (forgive me, devotion).

Now my thin veins grow pale, my blood drained away,

And all the moisture of my body departs into tears.

And no less does fever feed upon my burning limbs,

And parches my panting mouth with continuous thirst.

Nor does it help to fill the sky with groans, nor do any

Vows move the gods as my spirit fails.

Whenever therefore, struck by the fate of your friend,

You sorrowfully set foot in the city of Felsina.

Come to the tomb yourself, I pray, and greet my shade,

And do not deny flowery garlands and roses to my ashes.

Then you may say to our companions, sighing from the depths of your chest,

"For him, longing was the cause of death."

Or whether the South wind has brought the seeds of the plague,

eluding our senses, from the putrid, infected ground.

The cause lies hidden, but the fierce pestilence grows worse by the hour:

mad, alas, is whoever remains in the city of Padua.

You too, why do you delay to escape the perilous hazards

while you may, and to depart safely in swift flight?

Not, however, so that you abandon your mistress, spurning devotion,

nor let your loyalty fall, slipping through excessive fear.

It will be shameful for an undeserving girl to weep because of you,

who has entrusted to you every right over her own soul.

You are not cruel in this, nor is it right for me to believe so much,

so greatly is it fitting for poets to be loyal.

Therefore, whether you skirt the lake of Benacus, green with citron trees

and myrtle, where a better breeze warms it.

Or the banks of the Athesis, where the Italian land ends,

or yours, Abdua, or yours, Timavus.

Or if it pleases you to wander the cities of the two-named Eridanus,

or to travel the long path of the winding Tiber.

Wherever your feet shall lead you, wherever your will,

let her be your companion, and let her hang upon your neck.

Nor let a rough cabin in the secluded woods be vile to you,

provided everything is safe from the unclean pestilence.

The home of the Aonides holds me, and the renowned fatherland of Poets,

Felsina, the sole confidant of my sadness.

Felsina, which the Rhenus glides through with a gentle stream,

noble among the waters born of the Apennines.

Bright peace dwells here, nor is any land more wholesome,

while the thirsty Lion bakes the parched fields.

But for me there is no rest, neither when he hides himself in the waves,

nor when the Sun returns in the morning with turned steeds.

Dire contagions creep through the Euganean city,

It is time to leave the glassy waters of the Medoacus.

Whether the dog of Erigone pollutes the tainted breezes,

Or the lake, and the soil rich with many a swamp.