Thou bride, why tarry? Neither potent herbs, nor prayer, nor magic spells shall make of thee a mother; submit with patience to the blows dealt by a fruitful hand, soon will your husband’s sire enjoy the wished-for name of grandsire. For there was a day when a hard lot ordained that wives but seldom gave their mates the pledges of the womb. Cried Romulus (for this befell when he was on the throne), “What boots it me to have ravished the Sabine women, if the wrong I did has brought me not strength but only war? Better it were our sons had never wed.” Under the Esquiline Mount a sacred grove, untouched by woodman’s axe for many a year, went by the name of the great Juno. Hither when they had come, husbands and wives alike in supplication bowed the knee, when of a sudden the tops of the trees shook and trembled, and wondrous words the goddess spake in her own holy grove: “Let the sacred he-goat,” said she, “go in to Italian matrons.” At the ambiguous words the crowd stood struck with terror. There was a certain augur (his name has dropped out with the long years, but he had lately come an exile from the Etruscan land): he slew a he-goat, and at his bidding the damsels offered their backs to be beaten with thongs cut from the hide. When in her tenth circuit the moon was renewing her horns, the husband was suddenly made a father and the wife a mother. Thanks to Lucina! this name, goddess, thou didst take from the sacred grove (lucus), or because with thee is the fount of light (lucis). Gracious Lucina, spare, I pray, women with child, and gently lift the ripe burden from the womb.
When that day has dawned, then trust no more the winds: at that season the breezes keep not faith; fickle are the blasts, and for six days the door of the Aeolian gaol unbarred stands open wide. Now the light Water-Carrier (Aquarius) sets with his tilted urn: next in turn do thou, O Fish, receive the heavenly steeds. They say that thou and thy brother (for ye are constellations that sparkle side by side) did support twain gods upon your backs. Once on a time Dione, fleeing from the dreadful Typhon, when Jupiter bore arms in defence of heaven, came to the Euphrates, accompanied by the little Cupid, and sat down by the brink of the Palestinian water. Poplars and reeds crowned the top of the banks, and willows offered hope that the fugitives also could find covert there. While she lay hid, the grove rustled in the wind. She turned pale with fear, and thought that bands of foes were near. Holding her child in her lap, “To the rescue, nymphs!” she said, “and to two deities bring help!” Without delay she sprang forward. Twin fish received her on their backs, wherefore they now possess the stars, a guerdon meet. Hence scrupulous Syrians count it sin to serve up such fry upon the table, and will not defile their mouths with fish.
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