It runs pretty closely, line for line, with the original; because one may love and emulate classical terseness even while despairing to rival it. But it does not attempt to be literal; for even were it worth doing, I doubt if it be possible for anyone in our day to hit precisely the note intended by an author or heard by a reader in the eighth century. Men change subtly as nations succeed to nations, religions to religions, philosophies to philosophies; and it is a property of immortal poetry to shift its appeal. It does not live by continuing to mean the some thing. It grows as we grow. We smile, for instance, when some interlocutor in a dialogue of Plato takes a line from the _Iliad_ and applies it seriously _au pied de la lettre_. We can hardly conceive what the great line conveyed to him; but it may mean something equally serious to us, though in a different way. [1] Facsimiles of the two Codices can be studied in a careful edition of the _Pervigilum_ by Mr Cecil Clementi, published by Mr B.H. Blackwell of Oxford, 1911. PERVIGILIUM VENERIS _Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet_. Ver novum, ver jam canorurn, vere natus orbis est; Vere concordant amores, vere nubunt alites, Et nemus comam resolvit de maritis imbribus. Cras amorum copulatrix inter umbras arborum 5 Inplicat casas virentes de flagello myrteo: Cras Dione jura dicit fulta sublimi throno. _Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet_. _To-morrow--What news of to-morrow? Now learn ye to love who loved never--now ye who have loved, love anew_! It is Spring, it is chorussing Spring; 'tis the birthday of Earth, and for you! It is Spring; and the Loves and the birds wing together and woo to accord Where the bough to the rain has unbraided her locks as a bride to her lord. For she walks--she our Lady, our Mistress of Wedlock--the woodlands atween, 5 And the bride-bed she weaves them, with myrtle enlacing, with curtains of green. Look aloft! list the law of Dione, sublime and enthroned in the blue: _Now learn ye to love who loved never--now ye who have loved, love anew_! Tunc liquore de superno spumeo et ponti globo, Cærulas inter catervas, inter et bipedes equos, 10 Fecit undantem Dionen de maritis imbribus. _Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quiqiie amavit cras amet_. Ipsa gemmis purpurantem pingit annum floribus, Ipsa surgentes papillas de Favoni spiritu Urget in toros tepentes; ipsa roris lucidi 15 Noctis aura quem relinquit, spargit umentes aquas. Et micant lacrimæ trementes de caduco pondere: Time was that a rain-cloud begat her, impregning the heave of the deep, 'Twixt hooves of sea-horses a-scatter, stampeding the dolphins as sheep. 10 Lo! arose of that bridal Dione, rainbow'd and besprent of its dew! _Now learn ye to love who loved never--now ye who have loved, love anew_!