Lines 380-424 Flashcards
et mater, ‘Cape Maeonii carchesia Bacchi:
Oceano libemus,’ ait. Simul ipsa precatur
Oceanumque patrem rerum Nymphasque sorores
centum quae silvas, centum quae flumina servant.
And his mother said: ‘Take the cup of Maeonian wine:
let us pour a libation to Ocean.’ And at once she herself prayed
to Ocean the father of things, and her sister Nymphs
who tend a hundred forests, who (tend) a hundred streams.
Ter liquido ardentem perfundit nectare Vestam,
ter flamma ad summum tecti subiecta reluxit.
Omine quo firmans animum sic incipit ipsa:
Three times she sprinkled the glowing hearth with liquid nectar,
three times the flame flared, shooting towards the height of the roof.
With this omen strengthening his spirit, thus she herself began:
‘Est in Carphatio Neptuni gurgite vates
caeruleus Proteus, magnum qui piscibus aequor
et iuncto bipedum curru metitur equorum.
‘A seer, sea-green Proteus, lives/is in Neptune’s Carpathian waters,
who traverses the vast ocean in a chariot
yoked by fishes and two-footed horses.
Hic nunc Emathiae portus patriamque revisit
Pallenen, hunc et Nymphae veneramur et ipse
grandaevus Nereus; novit namque omnia vates,
quae sint, quae fuerint, quae mox ventura trahantur;
Even now he is revisiting the harbour of Thessaly,
and his native Pallene. Here we nymphs venerate both him,
and aged Nereus himself: for the seer knows all things,
what is, what has been, what is soon destined to (be about to) come:
quippe ita Neptuno visum est, immania cuius
armenta et turpes pascit sub gurgite phocas.
Hic tibi, nate, prius vinclis capiendus, ut omnem
expediat morbi causam eventusque secundet.
Of course in this way it is seen by Neptune, whose monstrous
sea-cows and ugly seals he grazes under the deep.
You must first capture and chain him, my son, so that he
might explain every cause of the disease, and prosper the outcome.
Nam sine vi non ulla dabit praecepta, neque illum
orando flectes; vim duram et vincula capto
tende; doli circum haec demum frangentur inanes.
For he will not give you any wisdom without force, nor will you
make him relent by prayer: capture him with brute force and hold him in chains: only with these around him will his tricks fail uselessly.
Ipsa ego, te, medios cum sol accenderit aestus,
cum sitiunt herbae et pecori iam gratior umbra est,
in secreta senis ducam, quo fessus ab undis
se recipit, facile ut somno adgrediare iacentem.
When the sun has gathered midday heat, when the grass thirsts,
and the shade is more welcome now to the flock, I’ll guide you myself
to the old man in secret, where tired he retreats from the waves
so you can easily approach him lying in sleep.
Verum ubi correptum manibus vinclisque tenebis,
tum variae eludent species atque ora ferarum
Fiet enim subito sus horridus atraque tigris
squamosusque draco et fulva cervice leaena,
aut acrem flammae sonitum dabit atque ita vinclis
excidet, aut in aquas tenues dilapsus abibit.
When you seize him in your grip, with chains and hands,
then varied appearances, and the faces of wild beasts, will elude you.
For suddenly he will become a bristling boar, and a hateful tiger,
and a scaly serpent, and a lioness with tawny mane,
or he will give out the fierce roar of flames, and in this way he will slip his bonds,
or he will disappear into tenuous water, having dissolved.
Sed quanto ille magis formas se vertet in omnes,
tanto, nate, magis contende tenacia vincla,
But by however much he changes himself into every form,
by so much more you, my son, tighten the stubborn chains,
donec talis erit mutato corpore, qualem
videris, incepto tegeret cum lumina somno.
until, having altered his body in such a way, he becomes such as you saw
when he closed his eyes at the start of his sleep.
Haec ait et liquidum ambrosiae defundit odorem,
quo totum nati corpus perduxit; at illi
dulcis compositis spiravit crinibus aura
atque habilis membris venit vigor. Est specus ingens
exesi latere in montis, quo plurima vento
cogitur inque sinus scindit sese unda reductos,
deprensis olim statio tutissima nautis;
intus se vasti Proteus tegit obice saxi.
She spoke, and spread about him liquid perfume of ambrosia,
with which she drenched her son’s whole body:
thus a sweet fragrance breathed from his ordered hair,
and strength entered his supple limbs. There is a huge cave
carved in a mountain side, from which many a wave
is driven by the wind, and separates itself into secluded bays,
safest of harbours at times for unwary sailors:
Proteus hides himself there within a huge wall of rock.
Hic iuvenem in latebris aversum a lumine Nympha
collocat; ipsa procul nebulis obscura resistit.
Here the Nymph placed the young man, removed from the light into a hiding-place,
she herself stood far off, veiled in mist.
