You're wondering what I'm up to on this Kalends of March
and what these flowers mean,
and the spice box smoking with incense,
and the charcoal heaped on the freshly raised earth-mound.
even though you know the lore of both tongues, Latin and Greek. Hah!
If you must know,
I've dedicated amazing feasts and a white goat to Liberus, after I was nearly buried...
by a falling tree.
As the year swings round again
this festive day will remove the cork
sealed with pitch from the jar
that has been taught to drink smoke
in the time of the Consul Tullus.
Maecenas, take up a hundred drinking ladles!
in honour of your safe-and-sound friend
carry the sleepless lanterns into morning; Let all anger and shout be distant.
Banish your statesman worries about the City: the army of Dacian Cotiso has fallen
the Persian are at odds with themselves with grief-bringing weapons.
Our old enemy of the Spanish coast, the Cantabri are enslaved, tamed by late fetters.
Now the Scythians are intending to fall back to the Steppes with bow unstrung.
Don't worry that in some way the people are in trouble,
spare yourself (you're a private citizen too) from too much wariness
and seize the gifts of the immediate hour happily.
Quit your gravity!
and what these flowers mean,
and the spice box smoking with incense,
and the charcoal heaped on the freshly raised earth-mound.
even though you know the lore of both tongues, Latin and Greek. Hah!
If you must know,
I've dedicated amazing feasts and a white goat to Liberus, after I was nearly buried...
by a falling tree.
As the year swings round again
this festive day will remove the cork
sealed with pitch from the jar
that has been taught to drink smoke
in the time of the Consul Tullus.
Maecenas, take up a hundred drinking ladles!
in honour of your safe-and-sound friend
carry the sleepless lanterns into morning; Let all anger and shout be distant.
Banish your statesman worries about the City: the army of Dacian Cotiso has fallen
the Persian are at odds with themselves with grief-bringing weapons.
Our old enemy of the Spanish coast, the Cantabri are enslaved, tamed by late fetters.
Now the Scythians are intending to fall back to the Steppes with bow unstrung.
Don't worry that in some way the people are in trouble,
spare yourself (you're a private citizen too) from too much wariness
and seize the gifts of the immediate hour happily.
Quit your gravity!