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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [H2r p115]

In oblivionem patriae.

Forgetting one’s country

Men grouped round, and eating the fruit of, a tree which is in the shape of a woman.
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Iam dudum missa patria, oblitusque tuorum,
Quos tibi seu sanguis, sive paravit amor:
Romam habitas, nec cura domum subit ulla reverti,
Aeternae tantům te capit urbis honos.
Sic Ithacum praemissa manus[1] dulcedine loti
Liquerat & patriam, liquerat atque ducem.

You have long since given up your country and, forgetful of your own people given you by blood or love, you dwell in Rome, and no thought of returning home ever occurs to you. Only the glory of the eternal city possesses you. Even so the advance party of Ithacans, through the sweetness of the lotus, had abandoned homeland and abandoned leader too.

Notes:

1.  Ithacum...manus, ‘party of Ithacans’. See Homer, Odyssey 9.83ff. for the story of Ulysses’ crew (men from the island of Ithaca) in the land of the Lotus Eaters, where those who ate the lotus had no more thought of returning home. See Erasmus, Adagia 1662 Lotum gustavit.

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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [H1v p114]

Musicam Diis curae esse.

The gods care for music

Lyre with a cicada on it lying on a table with a key beside it.
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Locrensis posuit tibi Delphice phoebe cicadam
Eunomus hanc, palmae signa decora suae.
Certabat plectro Sparthyn commissus in hostem,
Et percussa sonum pollice fila dabant.
Trita fides rauco coepit cům stridere bombo,
Legitimum harmonias & vitiare melos:
Tum citharae argutans suavis sese intulit ales,
Quae fractam impleret voce cicada fidem.
Quaeque allecta, soni ad legem descendit ab altis
Saltibus, ut nobis garrula ferret opem.
Ergo tuae ut firmus stet honos, ň sancte, cicadae,
Pro cithara hic fidicen aeneus ipsa sedet.[1]

Phoebus, god of Delphi, Locrian Eunomus set up this cicada in your honour, an appropriate symbol of his victory. He was competing in the lyre contest against his rival Sparthys and the strings resounded as he plucked them with the plectrum. A worn string began to buzz with a hoarse rattle and spoil the true melody of the music. Then a sweet-voiced creature, a cicada, flew chirping onto the lyre to supply with its song the broken string. Recruited to follow the rules of musical sound, it flew down from the high glades to bring us aid with its chirping song. Accordingly, so that the honour due to your cicada, o holy god, may last undiminished, on top of the lyre she sits here herself, a minstrel in bronze.

Notes:

1.  This is a translation of Anthologia graeca 6.54. See Strabo, Geography 6.1.9 for the story of Eunomus and the statue he set up at his home town of Locri commemorating this incident in the song contest at the Pythian Games (celebrated near Delphi, in honour of Apollo, Artemis and their mother Leto); also Erasmus, Adagia 414, Acanthia Cicada.

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