January is over. The year progresses with my song: even as this second month, so may my second book proceed.
My elegiacs, now for the first time ye do sail with ampler canvas spread: as I remember, up till now your theme was slender. Myself I found you pliant ministers of love, when in the morn of youth I toyed with verse. Myself now sing of sacred rites and of the seasons marked in the calendar: who could think that this could come of that? Herein is all my soldiership: I bear the only arms I can: my right hand is not all unserviceable. If I can neither hurl the javelin with brawny arm, nor bestride the back of war horse; if there is no helmet on my head, no sharp sword at my belt—at such weapons any man may be a master of fence—still do I rehearse with hearty zeal thy titles, Caesar, and pursue thy march of glory. Come, then, and if the conquest of the foe leaves thee a vacant hour, O cast a kindly glance upon my gift.
Our Roman fathers gave the name of februa to instruments of purification: even to this day there are many proofs that such was the meaning of the word. The pontiffs ask the King and the Flamen for woollen cloths, which in the tongue of the ancients had the name oi februa. When houses are swept out, the toasted spelt and salt which the officer gets as means of cleansing are called by the same name. The same name is given to the bough, which, cut from a pure tree, wreaths with its leaves the holy brows of priests. I myself have seen the Flamen’s wife (Flaminica) begging for februa; at her request for februa a twig of pine was given her. In short, anything used to cleanse our bodies went by that name in the time of our unshorn forefathers. The month is called after these things, because the Luperci purify the whole ground with strips of hide, which are their instruments of cleansing, or because the season is pure after that peace-offerings have been made at the graves and the days devoted to the dead are past. Our sires believed that every sin and every cause of ill could be wiped out by rites of purgation.
Greece set the example: she deems that the guilty can rid themselves of their crimes by being purified. Peleus cleansed Actorides, and Acastus cleansed Peleus himself from the blood of Phocus by the Haemonian waters. Wafted through the void by bridled dragons, the Phasian witch received a welcome, which she little deserved, at the hands of trusting Aegeus. The son of Amphiaraus said to Naupactian Achelous, “O rid me of my sin,” and the other did rid him of his sin. Fond fools alack! to fancy murder’s gruesome stain by river water could be washed away! But yet, lest you should err through ignorance of the ancient order, know that the month of Janus was of old the first, even as now it is; the month that follows January was the last of the old year. Thy worship too, O Terminus, formed the close of all the sacred rites. For the month of Janus came first because the door (janua) comes first; that month was nethermost which to the nether shades was consecrated. Afterwards the Decemvirs are believed to have joined together times which had been parted by a long interval.
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