“O GRACIOUS Mother of the Twin Loves,” said I, “grant me thy favour.” The goddess looked back at the poet. “What wouldst thou with me?” she said, “surely thou wast wont to sing of loftier themes. Hast thou an old wound rankling in thy tender breast?” “Goddess,” I answered, “thou wottest of my wound.” She laughed, and straightway the sky was serene in that quarter. “Hurt or whole, did I desert thy standards? Thou, thou hast ever been the task I set myself. In my young years I toyed with themes to match, and gave offence to none; now my steeds tread a larger field. I sing the seasons, and their causes, and the starry signs that set beneath the earth and rise again, drawing my lore from annals old. We have come to the fourth month in which thou art honoured above all others, and thou knowest, Venus, that both the poet and the month are thine.” The goddess was moved, and touching my brows lightly with myrtle of Cythera, “Complete,” said she, “the work thou hast begun.” I felt her inspiration, and suddenly my eyes were opened to the causes of the days: proceed, my bark, while still thou mayest and the breezes blow.
Yet if any part of the calendar should interest thee, Caesar, thou hast in April matter of concern. This month thou hast inherited by a great pedigree, and it has been made thine by virtue of thine adoption into a noble house. When the Ilian sire was putting the long year on record, he saw the relationship and commemorated the authors of his race: and as he gave the first lot in the order of the months to fierce Mars, because he was the immediate cause of his own birth, so he willed that the place of the second month should belong to Venus, because he ascertained his descent from her through many generations. In seeking the origin of his race, he turned over the roll of the centuries and came at last to the gods whose blood he shared. How, prithee, should he not know that Dardanus was born of Electra, daughter of Atlas, and that Electra had lain with Jupiter? Dardanus had a son Erichthonius, who begat Tros; and Tros begat Assaracus, and Assaracus begat Capys. Next came Anchises, with whom Venus did not disdain to share the name of parent. Of them was born Aeneas, whose piety was proved when on his shoulders through the fire he bore the holy things and his own sire, a charge as holy. Now at last have we come to the lucky name of Julus, through whom the Julian house reaches back to Teucrian ancestors. He had a son Postumus, who, because he was born in the deep woods, was called Silvius among the Latin folk. He was thy father, Latinus; Latinus was succeeded by Alba, and next to Alba on the list was Epytus. He gave to his son Capys a Trojan name, revived for the purpose, and he was also the grandfather of Calpetus. And when Tiberinus possessed his father’s kingdom after the death of Calpetus, he was drowned, it is said, in a deep pool of the Tuscan river.
Yet before that he had seen the birth of a son Agrippa and of a grandson Remulus; but Remulus, they say, was struck by levin-bolts. After them came Aventinus, from whom the place and also the hill took their name. After him the kingdom passed to Proca, who was succeeded by Numitor, brother of hard-hearted Amulius. Ilia and Lausus were born to Numitor. Lausus fell by his uncle’s sword: Ilia found favour in the eyes of Mars and gave birth to thee, Quirinus, and thy twin brother Remus. He always averred that his parents were Venus and Mars, and he deserved to be believed when he said so; and that his descendants after him might know the truth, he assigned successive periods to the gods of his race. But I surmise that the month of Venus took its name from the Greek language: the goddess was called after the foam of the sea. Nor need you wonder that a thing was called by a Greek name, for the Italian land was Greater Greece. Evander had come to Italy with a fleet full of his people; Alcides also had come; both of them were Greeks by race. As a guest, the club-bearing hero fed his herd on the Aventine grass, and the great god drank of the Albula. The Neritian chief also came: witness the Laestrygones and the shore which still bears the name of Circe. Already the walls of Telegonus were standing, and the walls of moist Tibur, built by Argive hands. Driven from home by the tragic doom of Atrides, Halesus had come, after whom the Faliscan land deems that it takes its name. Add to these Antenor, who advised the Trojans to make peace, and (Diomedes) the Oenid, son-in-law to Apulian Daunus. Aeneas
from the flames of Ilium brought his gods into our land, arriving late and after Antenor. He had a comrade Solymus, who came from Phrygian Ida; from him the walls of Sulmo take their name—cool Sulmo, my native town, Germanicus. Woe’s me, how far is Sulmo from the Scythian land! Therefore shall I so far away—but check, my Muse, thy plaints; ’tis not for thee to warble sacred themes on mournful strings.
Cite This Text