Latin by Timothy Adès
When the Hounds of Spring Are on Winter's Traces
💜When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;
And the brown bright nightingale amorous
Is half assuaged for Itylus,
For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,
The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.
💜Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,
Maiden most perfect, lady of light,
With a noise of winds and many rivers,
With a clamor of waters, and with might;
Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
Over the splendor and speed of thy feet;
For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,
Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.
💜Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?
O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her,
Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!
For the stars and the winds are unto her
As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;
For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,
And the southwest wind and the west wind sing.
💜For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
💜The full streams feed on flower of rushes,
Ripe grasses trammel a traveling foot,
The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes
From leaf to flower and flower to fruit;
And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,
And the oat is heard above the lyre,
And the hoofed heel of a satyr crushes
The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.
💜And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,
Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,
Follows with dancing and fills with delight
The Maenad and the Bassarid;
And soft as lips that laugh and hide
The laughing leaves of the trees divide,
And screen from seeing and leave in sight
The god pursuing, the maiden hid.
💜The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair
Over her eyebrows hiding her eyes;
The wild vine slipping down leaves bare
Her bright breast shortening into sighs;
The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,
But the berried ivy catches and cleaves
To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare
The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.
When the hounds of spring…
vir hiemem indagat: latrans vestigia pellit:
~~ nutrit prata Ceres et novus annus agros:
murmura crebrescunt pluviae frondisque susurri,
~~ dum repleant tenebras aeriosque locos:
fuscaque rursus amans minuit Philomela dolorem,
~~ clara nitens, neque Ityn iam velut ante gemit:
mente cadunt Thressae naves et barbara turba
~~ et quantus vigili lingua resecta dolor.
at venias, virgo sanctissima, lucis origo:
~~ tende ferox arcum: prompta sagitta micet!
detque sonum surgens multo cum flumine ventus:
~~ detque sonum raucae vis resonantis aquae.
indue tu soleas, o velocissima cursu:
~~ ornetur rapidi splendida forma pedis:
nam veniente die veniente et nocte tremescit
~~ pallidus, en! Zephyrus, regna et Eoa nitent.
queis quaerenda locis numerisve adfanda puella est?
~~ haereat apprendens qua manus arte genu ?
o si cor nostrum saliens ceu flamma salutet,
~~ flamma, vel exortae mobile robur aquae !
sidera enim et venti sunt illi talis amictus,
~~ psallentem fertur qui decorasse Linum :
illam oriens sidus, delapsum amplectitur illam :
~~ Africus Orpheos dat Zephyrusque sonos.
nam sat hiems dederat stragis : iam desiit imber:
~~ diffugere nives: tollitur omne nefas :
iam perit et tempus quod amantibus abdit amantes,
~~ quod noctes auget deminuitque dies.
iam est memor horarum, maeroris et immemor, idem:
~~ confectum nascens flos fugat acre gelu:
iam virgulta virent, frondescunt germina gemmis :
~~ verna sub arbustis incipit ipsa dies.
crescit arundinibus pinguis cum floribus amnis:
~~ gramen opimum obstat, quin vetat ire pedem :
vix rubet igne novo tener annus, et impiger heres
~~ flos folio, flori denique fructus adest :
fructusque et folium splendent velut ignis et aurum,
~~ rustica dum cultam vincit avena lyram,
cornipedi et Satyrus contundit calce sub umbra
~~ castaneam siliquam castaneamque nucem.
et pede Pan rapido – non acrior haedus eundo! –
~~ tuve movens noctu, Liber, ut ille die,
saltibus exagitans mirabilibusque choreis
~~ Maenadas oblectas Bassaridumque comas :
et, ceu dissiliunr risu mollita labella,
~~ arboreae molles dissiluere comae :
nec latet ille sequens Bacchantem divus amandam,
~~ nec patet adsiduo tecta puella deo.
delapsi crines, hedera et delapsa puellae :
~~ cumque superciliis lumina clara latent:
labitur et vitis: pectus nudatur anhelum :
~~ occultant nitidum tegmina nulla sinum.
sub pede procumbunt oneroso palmite vites:
~~ ipsa hedera haere nti baccare membra capit,
membra corusca et turbantes animalia plantas,
~~ seu lupus insequitur, seu cita cerva fugit.