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SILVAE, I. ii. 257–277

impulse that makes me sing: thou, Stella, hast a Muse like to and closely joined with mine, at similar altars do we feel the poet’s rage, and together draw water from the springs of song. Thee, lady, at thy birth my own Parthenope[1] first fostered in her bosom, and in thy infancy thou wert the glory and delight of my native soil. Let the Euboean[2] land be exalted to the starry pole, and Sebethos swell with pride of his fair nursling; nor let the Lucrine Naiads boast more of their sulphur caves, nor Pompeian Sarnus[3] in his sweet repose.

Come now, hasten ye to bestow on Latium noble sons who will make her laws and rule her armies, and practise poesy. May merciful Cynthia hasten the tenth month for the bringing-forth, but spare her, Lucina, I pray thee; and thou, O babe, spare thy mother, hurt not her tender womb and swelling breasts; and when Nature in secrecy has marked thy features, much beauty mayst thou draw from thy father, but more from thy mother. And thou, loveliest of Italian maids, won at last by a husnabd worthy of thee, cherish the bonds he sought so long; so may thy beauty suffer no loss, and the fresh prime of youth abide for many a year upon thy brow, and that comeliness be slow to age.

  1. ↑ i.e., Naples.
  2. ↑ i.e., Cumae, originally a colony of Chalecis in Euboea. Sebethos was the name of a small stream flowing past Naples.
  3. ↑ A river flowing into the bay of Naples, to-day about two miles from Pompeii, but formerly past its walls.

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