§1.154Collige, et inmunda sedulus effer humo; §1.155Protinus, officii pretium, patiente puella §1.156Contingent oculis crura videnda tuis.
Gather it up, and diligently lift it from the dirty ground; Immediately, as the reward of your service, while the girl permits, her legs will happen to be seen by your eyes.
Look behind besides, whoever sits behind you, lest he press her soft back with his opposing knee.
Small things catch light minds: it has been useful to many to have arranged a cushion with an easy hand.
It has also profited to have moved the winds with a thin tablet, and to have placed a hollow footstool under her tender foot.
These approaches both the Circus will offer to a new love, and the sad sand scattered in the anxious forum.
On that sand the boy of Venus often has fought, and he who watched wounds has a wound himself.
§1.167Dum loquitur tangitque manum poscitque libellum §1.168Et quaerit posito pignore, vincat uter, §1.169Saucius ingemuit telumque volatile sensit, §1.170Et pars spectati muneris ipse fuit.
While he speaks and touches her hand and asks for a booklet and inquires, a pledge having been laid down, which of the two wins, wounded he groans and feels the flying weapon, and he himself became a part of the spectacle he watched.
What, when lately Caesar with the representation of a naval battle introduced Persian and Cecropian ships?
§1.173Nempe ab utroque mari iuvenes, ab utroque puellae §1.174Venere, atque ingens orbis in Urbe fuit.
Surely from both seas young men, from both seas girls came, and the vast world was in the City.
§1.175Quis non invenit turba, quod amaret, in illa?
Who did not find in that crowd what he might love?
§1.176Eheu, quam multos advena torsit amor!
Alas, how many did a foreign love torment!
Lo, Caesar prepares to add what was lacking to the conquered world, to add: now, furthest East, you will be ours.
Parthian, you will pay the penalty: rejoice, buried Crassi, and the standards that ill suffered barbarian hands.
§1.181Ultor adest, primisque ducem profitetur in annis, §1.182Bellaque non puero tractat agenda puer.
An avenger is present, and declares himself a leader in his first years, and a boy, conducts wars to be waged not by a boy.
Refrain, timid ones, from counting the birth-years of the gods: valor falls to Caesars before their time.
Heavenly genius rises swifter than its years, and bears ill the losses of sluggish delay.
§1.187Parvus erat, manibusque duos Tirynthius angues §1.188Pressit, et in cunis iam Iove dignus erat.
Small was the Tirynthian, and with his hands two serpents he squeezed, and in his cradle was already worthy of Jove.
§1.189Nunc quoque qui puer es, quantus tum, Bacche, fuisti, §1.190Cum timuit thyrsos India victa tuos?
You too who are now a boy, how great then, Bacchus, were you, when conquered India feared your thyrsuses?
§1.191Auspiciis annisque patris, puer, arma movebis, §1.192Et vinces annis auspiciisque patris: §1.193Tale rudimentum tanto sub nomine debes, §1.194Nunc iuvenum princeps, deinde future senum; §1.195Cum tibi sint fratres, fratres ulciscere laesos: §1.196Cumque pater tibi sit, iura tuere patris.
By the auspices and years of your father, boy, you will move arms, and you will conquer by the years and auspices of your father: Such a first trial under so great a name you owe, now prince of youth, hereafter to be prince of elders; Since you have brothers, avenge your injured brothers: and since you have a father, protect your father's rights.
§1.197Induit arma tibi genitor patriaeque tuusque: §1.198Hostis ab invito regna parente rapit; §1.199Tu pia tela feres, sceleratas ille sagittas: §1.200Stabit pro signis iusque piumque tuis.
The father of the fatherland and yours puts arms upon you: the enemy snatches kingdoms from an unwilling parent; you will carry pious weapons, he wicked arrows: justice and piety will stand before your standards.
The Parthians are conquered in their cause: let them be conquered also by arms; may my leader add Eastern wealth to Latium.
Father Mars and father Caesar, give divine power to him as he goes: for one of you is a god, the other will be.
I prophesy, lo, you will conquer; and I will render votive songs, and you will have to be sung of by us with a mighty voice.
You will stand, and encourage the battle-line with my words; O may my words not be lacking to your courage!
And I will tell of Parthian backs and Roman breasts, and the weapons which the enemy throws from a turned horse.
§1.211Qui fugis ut vincas, quid victo, Parthe, relinquis?
You who flee to conquer, what, Parthian, do you leave to the conquered?
§1.212Parthe, malum iam nunc Mars tuus omen habet.
Parthian, already now your Mars has an evil omen.
Therefore that day will be, on which you, most beautiful of things, golden will go on four snowy horses.
Before you will go leaders burdened as to their necks with chains, lest they be able to be safe, as before, by flight.
Glad young men and girls mixed together will watch, and that day will cheer the minds of all.
§1.219Atque aliqua ex illis cum regum nomina quaeret, §1.220Quae loca, qui montes, quaeve ferantur aquae, §1.221Omnia responde, nec tantum siqua rogabit; §1.222Et quae nescieris, ut bene nota refer.
And when some one of them asks the names of the kings, what places, what mountains, or what waters are being carried, answer everything, and not only if she asks anything; and what you do not know, relate as if well known.
§1.223Hic est Euphrates, praecinctus harundine frontem: §1.224Cui coma dependet caerula, Tigris erit.
"This is the Euphrates, girt as to his brow with reed: he whose dark-blue hair hangs down will be the Tigris.
Make these Armenians; this is Danaean Persia: that was a city in the Achaemenian valleys.
§1.227Ille vel ille, duces; et erunt quae nomina dicas, §1.228Si poteris, vere, si minus, apta tamen.
That one or that one are leaders; and there will be names for you to say, if you can, truly, if less so, yet suitable ones.
Banquets too provide an approach when the tables are set: there is something besides wine which you may seek from there.
§1.231Saepe illic positi teneris adducta lacertis
Often there, having been placed, drawn by tender arms...