Poems Page 12
of aged Priam and proved true in time;
I’ll prophesy too: ‘Troy falls, Trojan Rome
rises.’ I’ll tell of sunlit realms of land and sea.
‘Roll back the horse, you Greeks. Your victory’s
worthless. Ilium will live. Jupiter will arm these cinders.’
Ennius can twine a rough garland for his words:
Bacchus, give me a spray of your ivy plant.
I’m trying to build ramparts in dutiful verse:
damn it, the sound is so small in my mouth!
However miserable, though, the trickle from
my little lungs, it all will serve my home –
Umbria can swell with pride in my writing,
Umbria, home of the Latin Callimachus.
Let people seeing those towers climbing out
of the valleys judge the walls by my genius.
Rome, help me: this poem’s for you; citizens, grant
good omens, may bird calls be auspicious as I begin:
rites, gods, old place-names – of these I shall sing:
my horse must sweat its way towards that line.
* * * * * * * *
‘Whoa! Not so fast! You’re rash to look in the future,
Propertius! The Fates are frowning on your plan.
It will end in tears: Apollo is singing a different tune;
you’re plucking words you’ll regret from an unwilling lyre.
‘My predictions are certain, my sources impeccable – or
I’m a seer who can’t even handle an astrolabe.
From the line of Archytas, Orops of Babylon sired me:
Horos, whose house boasts Conon as ancestor.
The gods will witness I’ve upheld family
traditions – truth comes first in my almanacs.
These days the gods are a cash-cow, their king
misinterpreted for gold, like the signs of the zodiac,
the planets – benign Jupiter, ravening Mars,
or Saturn, baleful to everything,
what Pisces portends, or rampant Leo’s stars,
or Capricorn, washed by Atlantic waves.
‘When Arria packed her twin sons off to battle,
giving them weapons despite divine veto,
it was I who said they would not bring their spears back:
two graves now confirm my truthfulness.
Lupercus, protecting his horse, hit in the muzzle,
saved his fallen mount’s life, not his own.
Gallus, guarding the standards of the legion,
died in front of his eagle’s blood-stained beak.
Two star-crossed boys, victims of mother’s avarice:
I wish I could not say: I told you so.
‘And when Cinara’s labour pains were dragging on
and the bundle in her womb was holding back,
it was I who said: “Make Juno a vow she can’t refuse.”
She gave birth: another triumph for my books.
You won’t get this service from Jupiter’s sandy cave
in Libya, entrails speaking the secrets of heaven,
observations of the wingbeats of a raven,
or some spirit rising from a magic basin.
You must watch the path of the sky, the road of truth
through the stars, put trust in the five zones.
‘Calchas is instructive: he untied the fleet
that wisely clung to Aulis’ rocky shores;
he stained a blade on the neck of Agamemnon’s
daughter, and the king spread blood-red sails.
But the Greeks did not return: demolished Troy
with one glance at the Gulf of Evia staunched its tears.
Nauplius lit fires of vengeance in the night
and Greece sank under the weight of its own spoils.
Triumphant Ajax, take the prophetess and enjoy,
tearing her from Minerva’s sheltering gown.
‘So much for history; now your horoscope:
brace yourself to face fresh challenges.
Old Umbria produced you from distinguished stock
(am I wrong or is that your native landscape?)
where mist coats dew on the Bevagna plain
and the Umbrian lake’s waters warm up in summer;
you gathered bones you were too young to gather –
your father’s – and had to live with modest means;
many oxen had worked your fields but the pitiless
bailiff’s rod gave away your rich cropland.
When you took childhood’s gold amulet off your neck
and donned a man’s toga in your mother’s home,
Apollo taught you snatches of his music, banned
you ranting in the lunatic Forum.
‘“Write love poems: treacherous work, but it’s your mission,
and the rest of the crowd will scribe by your example.
You’re in Venus’ army, wielding her soft-edged weapons,
a worthy sparring-partner for her boys.
And whatever trophies you may land,
one girl will always slip through your palms;
she’ll shake your hook out of her mouth as though
it had never been, and her jaws will come after you.
Your night, your day will be whatever she says;
no tear fall from your eyes but by her command.
Put a thousand guards on her house, seal up her door –
no use: all a woman needs to cheat is one crack.”
‘Whether your boat tosses in the ocean,
or you stray, defenceless, among armed men,
or the earth opens wide in some temblor,
beware the eight-footed Crab’s sinister back!’
IV.2
One body, so many shapes.
The age-old features of the god Vertumnus.
I’m Tuscan, from Tuscany, but I’m not sorry
I left Etruria when war raged.
I like the crowd here;
I don’t want an ivory temple:
a view of the Roman Forum will do for me.
Old Tiber once flowed this way – legend has it
you could hear the oar-plash through the shallows;
once he made a land-grant to the community,
they said I was called VERTumnus
after the stream’s diVERTing;
or, because we pluck fruit in auTUMN,
it was thought to be VerTUMNus’ rite.
Idle chit-chat, wrong about my name;
the god himself is the only reliable source.
I have the gift of assuming any figure:
whatever you turn me into,
I’ll look good.
Dress me in silk – I’ll be a compliant girl.
A toga? No one’s disputing my virility.
Give me a scythe, a bent straw in my mouth,
you’d say I’d just been mowing the fields.
I put on armour once – they complimented
my performance, I remember.
But I was a harvester too, weighed down with a pannier.
In court, I’m sober as the judge,
but put a garland on me,
you’ll shout out that the wine’s gone to my head.
In a turban, I can be confused with Bacchus;
or Apollo, with a plectrum in my hand.
With nets I’m a hunter; with a limed twig
the bird-catcher am I.
Vertumnus can also be a charioteer,
a trick rider leaping from horse to horse.
In an angling hat I cast for fish,
in a baggy suit I’m a travelling salesman.
I can lean on my crook as a shepherd, hawk roses
from a wicker basket by the dusty roadside.
Do I need to underline
my principal claim to fame –
the gifts of the garden from my green fingers?
The cucumber bears my stamp, the pot-bellied marrow,
I make early grapes redden in clusters,
the spiky corn-ear swell with milky grain;
see these sweet cherries, those late-season plums,
the gleam of blackberries on a summer day;
this necklace of fruit is a grafting job done,
when a reluctant pear tree puts forth apples;
no flower opens in the fields that did not
first decorously droop across my forehead.
Yet I, master of every form,
when the Etruscan force arrived to help,
crushing fierce Tatius’ Sabine army,
saw front lines buckling, weapons dropped,
the enemy turn in ignominious flight;
my homeland’s language named me from that action,
Rome paid back my Tuscans,
so the Vicus Tuscus has its name today.
Father of the gods, let the Roman crowd,
in their togas, pass my feet for evermore.
Six lines left; I’ll not detain you as you hurry
to your court hearing: this is the home straight.
I WAS A MAPLE TRUNK, RUDELY CARVED WITH A SICKLE,
A POOR GOD IN A POOR TOWN BEFORE NUMA’S DAY.
MAMURRIUS, WHO MOULDED ME IN BRONZE,
MAY CAMPANIA’S EARTH SPARE YOUR SKILLED HANDS,
WHICH MADE ME PLIABLE FOR SO MANY USES.
ONE WORK, RECEIVING MULTIPLE HONOURS.
IV.3
Arethusa to her husband Lycotas
(if ‘her’ is the right term, seeing you’re away so often).
Should you notice a gap in the writing as you read,
assume that part has been blotted out by tears;
should you fail to make out some garbled words,
that will show my right hand was faltering.
One day Afghan archers have you in their sights,
the next it’s a steel-plated soldier on a warhorse,
freezing Bulgaria, the painted chariots of Britain,
some swarthy Indian scalded by Orient seas …
Is this spousal devotion? Was this in our marital vows
when I gave you my unskilled body for your urgent needs?
The torch in my wedding procession to your home
sucked black light from an overturned funeral pyre,
I was sprinkled with Styx-water, my hair-band was crooked,
the marriage god boycotted the proceedings.
All gates sport my offerings – and much good they did me!
I’m now on the fourth cloak woven for your campaigns.
Death to him who cuts helpless trees to build fortifications
or shapes hollow bones into mournful martial trumpets!
He deserves more than Ocnus does to sit twining rope,
forever feeding the hunger of the donkey.
Doesn’t that breast-plate blister your sensitive shoulders?
That heavy spear chafe your unwarlike hands?
Better those pains than that some girl’s teeth
leave love-bites on your neck that will make me cry.
Poor food, they say, has made you thin in the face:
I’d rather your pallor came from missing me.
As for me, when evening gives way to depressing night,
I kiss any armour of yours that’s left lying around.
I complain that the blanket slides off
(though I’ve got the whole bed)
and the birds haven’t got around to their dawn chorus.
On winter nights I work on your camp gear,
weaving Tyrian wool I’ve chosen for your cloaks;
read up on the Aras River you’re supposed to capture,
how far Parthian camels can run without water,
which countries are frozen solid, which crack in the heat,
which wind brings ships safely to Italy.
What use to me is fancy imported clothing,
or translucent jewelry to adorn my hands?
The doorway is quiet, maybe once a month
a girlfriend opens it to visit me,
and it’s nice to hear the whimper of my puppy
(she’s claimed your side of the bed now for her own).
Just my sister sits with me, and the nurse, pale with worry
at your delay: ‘Must be the bad weather,’ she lies.
Hippolyte had it easy: bared her chest,
took up arms, put a helmet round her gentle head.
But then she was a foreigner…
If only Roman camps were open to women!
I’d have gone as your trusty kitbag on your campaign.
I’d skip over the mountains of Scythia, when Jupiter
sends frost to turn the deepest waters to pack-ice.
Love is always great, but when they draft your spouse
it’s greater; Venus herself keeps the torch burning.
I cover shrines with flowers, smother crossroads with foliage,
Sabine herbs crackle in the old fireplace.
If an owl hoots, perched on a nearby rooftop,
or the slow-burning lamp needs a touch of wine,
that day will spell doom for this year’s lambs
and the priest’s men will tie on their robes in their zeal for fresh cash.
Don’t let storming Afghan ramparts be so important,
or stripping some perfumed general of his linen robes,
when the whirling sling launches its lead weights
and the crafty bow twangs from retreating horsemen;
I hope you do subdue the Parthian troops
and carry the conqueror’s spear on your triumphal chariot –
just so long as you keep our marriage vows unblemished:
on that one condition I pray you make it home;
when I hang up your weapons at the Capena Gate,
I’ll sign: A GIRL SAVED BY HER MAN’S SAFE RETURN.
IV.4
The Tarpeian grove, the shaming tomb of Tarpeia will be
my theme, and the capture of Jupiter’s ancient threshold.
Imagine Rome at that time, when a trumpeter from Cures
rattled Jove’s crags with a lengthy blast.
Where laws are now dictated for subjugated lands
in the Roman Forum, Sabine spears stood.
Hills were the city walls; where the Senate’s now fenced off,
a warhorse drank from a bubbling spring.
Tatius barricaded the spring with a maple-wood stockade,
encircling his camp for safety with piled-up earth.
A verdant copse was hidden in an ivy-covered glen,
trees rustling to echo the natural waters,
the woodland home of Silvanus, where a shepherd’s melodious pipe
called the ewes to drink, away from the heat.
Tarpeia had drawn fresh water for Vesta, carrying
an urn of earthenware upon her head.
She saw Tatius exercising on the dusty plain,
raising weapons sporting yellow plumes:
dumbfounded by the king’s face and his regal armour,
she let the urn slip through negligent hands.
Thereafter she blamed omens from the innocent moon
for her need to go to the stream to wash her hair,
took silver lilies for the kindly nymphs, to have them
shield Tatius’ beauty from a Roman spear;
going back to the misty Capitol at the first smoke of evening,
her arms were scratched by the trailing brambles;
resting in the citadel, she lamented suffering
no neighbour of Jupiter should have to endure:
‘Camp fires, staff headquarters of Tatius’ battalions,
Sabine armour that dazzles my eyes,
I wish that I could be a captive in your homeland,
if I could only look at Tatius’ face!
Goodbye Roman hills, and Rome cresting those hills,
and Vesta, who’ll blush at my wickedness:
that horse whose mane Tatius is dressing to the right,
that horse will bring my love back to his camp.
‘Why marvel that Scylla cut off her father’s magic lock,
her pale loins turned into savage dogs?
Or that Ariadne betrayed her monstrous horned brother,
when the reeled-in thread found a way through the maze?
What infamy I’ll bring on Italian girls, a servant
picked for the virginal hearth gone to the bad!
If anyone’s surprised that Minerva’s fire has gone out,
forgive me: it was my tears drenching her altar.
‘Tomorrow, they say, there’ll be drinking throughout the city: Tatius,
take the spine of the thorny ridge at dawn.
The whole path is slippery and treacherous: the tricky
route hides secret watercourses along it.
If only I knew the spells of magic incantations:
my tongue, too, would then help my handsome hero.
A king’s coloured toga would suit you – not that motherless child
suckled on the hard teat of a wild she-wolf.
‘Tell me, Tatius, shall I walk as a queen in your court?
Rome betrayed is no mean dowry for you.
If not, let the Rape of the Sabine Women not go unpunished:
take me: even the score by the law of reprisal.
As a bride, I can ease apart embattled infantry lines:
so sign a treaty across my wedding dress.
Marriage god, play the music; bugler, stop those reveilles;
believe it – my lovemaking will end your war.
‘The horn is sounding the fourth watch and day’s approach,
the tired stars are dropping into the ocean.
I’ll try to sleep; I hope that I will dream about you:
bring your calming image before my eyes.’
She spoke and spread out her arms in an uneasy sleep,
not knowing new demons lay in her embrace:
Venus, resolved to keep the Trojan embers glowing,
fed her sin, spreading fire through her bones.
She raved like a bacchant beside the rushing Terme River,