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PERDITA IUVENTUS.

DAMNED YOUTH

Tree standing on the edge of a river, swans on the water.
[Click on image to enlarge]

Frugisperda[1] Salix, cui dat circunfluus humor
Nutrimen, calamos inter arundineos.
Filius est cui patris opes alimenta ministrant,
Ut fluat in molles undique delicias.
Inter adulantum pulchras specie, sed inanes
Turbas, blanditiae flexilis & Coracas.[2]
Aetatis cum flore suae qui semina perdens
Virtutum: nulla posteą fruge valet.

The fruitless willow, fed by water that flows around it among the reedy rushes, is a boy for whom his father’s wealth secures a living, so that he can lose himself in sweet delights of all sorts, amenable to flattery among crowds of flatterers and ravens, fine to look at but empty. He loses with the flower of his beauty the seeds of virtue; later, he will produce no fruit.

Notes:

1.  frugisperda, a calque formed after Homeric clesakarpoj (Odyssey, 10.510).

2.  corax in Greek: a raven: the object of frequent play with kolax, ‘flatterer’. See Boissard, 1588: ‘Le flateur et le corbeau, sont de mesme nature’ ([FBOa030]).

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