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Mine hostess, a Syrian,
head wrapped in a bandeau, Greek style,
skilled at shaking a snaky hip below her castanets,
is dancing, drunk and raunchy in a smoky tavern,
stirring up the raucous aulus at her elbow.
What good does a weary
chap get
from having gone out in Summer's dust
instead of lying down on a drinker's couch?
There's a fancy garden and booths,
wine cups, roses, flutes and lyres
and couches cool with the shade of wreaths.
Look and tootling
sweetly under an Arcadian cave
a rustic pipe sings out shepherd-style.
And there's vino just poured out from a pitched wine-jar
and a stream of water splashes and gurgles in the background.
There are even flowers, woven violet and yellow,
golden melelot mixed with purple roses
and harvested from her maiden river,
lilies which Achelois brought in wicker baskets.
And there are little cheeses dried out in rush baskets,
there are plums grown ripe with Autumn sunshine,
chestnuts and sweetly-shining apples.
Finest foods and love and noisy revelry are here.
And there are blood-red blackberries and grapes from gentle vines
and a shining green cucumber hangs by a reed.
This dive has a guard armed with a willow sickle,
but he inspires no fear with his massive loins.
Come to him, take a seat! Your tired donkey is already sweating.
Show mercy to it: little donkeys are a favourite of Vesta.
Now cicadas break through the shrubbery with their incessant songs.
Now speckled lizards hide in their chilly nooks.
If you are wise, lie down and wet your whistle with a glass of Summer,
unless you want to bring you in cups of crystal.
Come on, tired fellow, rest your head under the shady vine leaves
and wrap your heavy head with a chaplet of roses,
pecking the shapely lips of a tender girl.
Hah! Death to anyone who raises an old-fashioned eyebrow!
What good will sweet-scented garlands be when you are ungrateful ashes?
Or maybe you want your bones covered with a wreath upon your stone.
Set down the wine cups and the dice. Damn him who cares for tomorrow!
Death nips my ear and says, "live it up! I'm coming!"
—Appendix Vergilianus
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Volume III - Issue VIII - 15 May 2004
Poetry, May 18, 2004 - 23:12
Volume III - Issue VIII - 15 May 2004
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