Extant Works

My son, desire; although she often denies, mourning, that she must bear
The yoke of a second marriage, I have already felt her yielding,
And in turn, warming toward the man. Thus she lightened the fates of her
Starry limbs, and having left the proud threshold of the bridal chamber,
She called the Amyclaean swans to the reins.
Love joins them, and carrying the joyful mother through the clouds,
She sits on the jeweled pole. Now the high house of the Ilians the Romans
Displays its shining Penates household gods to the Tiber.
And the joyous swans have applauded the clear thresholds.
150 A dwelling worthy of a goddess, and it does not pale beside the stars.
Here Libyan and Phrygian stone, here the hard rocks of the Laconians Spartans
Are green; here the veined Onyx, and stone the color of the deep
Sea. And the cliffs shine, which the Oebalian Spartan purple often
Stains, and the moderator of the Tyrian bronze.
The gables hang, resting on countless columns.
Dalmatia The timbers shine, sated with Dalmatian metal.
They exclude the cold cast off from the ancient forests;
Transparent fountains live in the marble.
And nature does not keep its turns: here Sirius the Dog Star grows cold,
160 Winter is warm, and the house tempers the year to its own needs.
Kind Venus rejoices at the sight, and at the roofs of her powerful foster-child,
No differently than if she were approaching Paphos from the sea,
Or the Idalian homes, or the Erycinian temples.
al. reclinem Then, addressing her as she lay on the floor-bed,
"Why such sleep until now, and such modesty of an empty couch,
You who are beloved to me among the Laurentian girls?
What is this measure of your manners and faith? Will you never
Submit to the manly yoke? A sadder age will soon come:
Exercise your beauty, and use the gifts that are fleeting."