Happy who are mentioned in my pamphlets, the songs shall be a fine tomb-stone over their beauty. But against this? Neither expensive pyramids scraping the stars in their route, Nor houses modelled upon that of Jove in East Elis, Nor the monumental effigies of Mausolus, are a complete elucidation of death. Flame burns, rain sinks into the cracks And they all go to rack ruin beneath the thud of the years. Stands genius a deathless adornment, a name not to be worn out with the years. II I had been seen in the shade, recumbent on cushioned Helicon, the water dripping from Bellerophon’s horse, Alba, your kings, and the realm your folk have constructed with such industry Shall be yawned out on my lyre--with such industry. My little mouth shall gobble in such great fountains, “Wherefrom father Ennius, sitting before I came, hath drunk.” I had rehearsed the Curian brothers, and made remarks on the Horatian javelin (Near Q. H. Flaccus’ book-stall). “Of” royal Aemilia, drawn on the memorial raft, “Of” the victorious delay of Fabius, and the left-handed battle at Cannae, Of lares fleeing the “Roman seat” ... I had sung of all these And of Hannibal, and of Jove protected by geese. And Phoebus looking upon me from the Castalian tree, Said then “You idiot! What are you doing with that water; “Who has ordered a book about heroes? You need, Propertius, not think “About acquiring that sort of a reputation. “Soft fields must be worn by small wheels, “Your pamphlets will be thrown, thrown often into a chair “Where a girl waits alone for her lover; “Why wrench your page out of its course? “No keel will sink with your genius “Let another oar churn the water, “Another wheel, the arena; mid-crowd is as bad as mid-sea.” He had spoken, and pointed me a place with his plectrum: Orgies of vintages, an earthern image of Silenus Strengthened with rushes, Tegaean Pan, The small birds of the Cytharean mother, their Punic faces dyed in the Gorgon’s lake; Nine girls, from as many countrysides bearing her offerings in their unhardened hands,