Frasi di Publio Papinio Stazio

pagina 3

“Libera dalle improvvise ceneri il tuo volto semidistrutto, o Partenope, e le tue chiome, sepolte sotto il monte scosso dall'aria che soffia al suo interno, poni sul tumulo e sulle reliquie del tuo grande figlio.”

“E già avevi concepito il disegno di piangere in un pietoso canto l'eruzione del Vesuvio e di ripagare coi tuoi lamenti i danni subiti dalla tua patria allorché il Padre svelse dal suolo il monte, lo sollevò sino alle stelle e lo riversò per larga estensione sulle misere città.”

“Pure la nostra sirena vedrai, Partenope, alla quale, condotta di qua dal mare, lo stesso Apollo indicò con la colomba Dionea il fertile suolo. A questa mia sede natale io ti invito. Qui è mite l'inverno e fresca l'estate: qui con le onde sue lente batte il mare tranquillo, ed è la pace sicura e il dolce far niente e una quiete senza fine; e si dorme qui, tanto!”

“Esca omai fuor con le mentite frodi, | figlie del suo timore, il sacerdote | o ch'io farò veder quanto sia vano | il volar degli augelli.”

“La viltade, e il timor fecero i Numi.”

“Oh, mirabile senso di fiducia! Crederà mai la futura generazione degli uomini, quando di nuovo verdeggeranno le messi, quando ormai si copriranno di verdi erbe questi luoghi ora deserti, che sotto i loro piedi giacciono sepolte città e popolazioni e che antichissime campagne sono state da per tutto inghiottite dal mare?”

“Source: Presente anche in Petronio Arbitro.”

“Thrace, steeped in the passionate love of war.”
Studiis multum Mavortia, Thrace.

“Soon, if any envy still spreads clouds before you, it shall perish, and after me you shall be paid the honours you deserve.”
Mox, tibi si quis adhuc praetendit nubila livor, occidet, et meriti post me referentur honores.

“The crowd is at silent odds with the prince. As is the way of a populace, the man of the future is the favourite.”
Tacitumque a principe vulgus<br/>dissidet, et, qui mos populis, venturus amatur.

“But now the route that used to wear out a solid day barely takes two hours.”
At nunc, quae solidum diem terebat, horarum via facta vix duarum.

“As when a tigress hears the noise of the hunters, she bristles into her stripes and shakes off the sloth of sleep; athirst for battle she loosens her jaws and flexes her claws, then rushes upon the troop and carries in her mouth a breathing man, food for her bloody young.”
Qualis ubi audito venantum murmure tigris horruit in maculas somnosque excussit inertes, bella cupit laxatque genas et temperat ungues, mox ruit in turmas natisque alimenta cruentis spirantem fert ore virum.

“What sweat in muddy dust for horses and for men! Ah, how high shall rivers be cruelly reddened!”
Quantus equis quantusque viris in puluere crasso sudor! io quanti crudele rubebitis amnes!

“Yet no stiff and frowning face was hers, no undue austerity in her manners, but gay and simple loyalty, charm blended with modesty.”
Nec frons triste rigens nimiusque in moribus horror sed simplex hilarisque fides et mixta pudori gratia.

“The towers shine in a larger blue, and the portals bloom with a mystic light. Silence was ordered and mute in terror fell the world. From on high he begins. His holy words have weight heavy and immutable and the Fates follow his voice.”
Radiant majore sereno culmina et arcano florentes lumine postes. postquam jussa quies siluitque exterritus orbis, incipit ex alto: grave et inmutabile sanctis pondus adest verbis, et vocem fata sequuntur.

“One of them, whose bent it was to harm the highest with lowly venom nor ever to bear with a willing neck the rulers placed over him.”
Aliquis, cui mens humili laesisse veneno summa nec impositos umquam ceruice volenti ferre duces.

“In your calm bosom have made their dwelling a dignity that charms and virtue gay yet weighty. Not for you lazy repose or unjust power or vaulting ambition, but a middle way leading through the Good and the Pleasant. Of stainless faith and a stranger to passion, private while ordering your life for all to see, a despiser too of gold yet none better at displaying your wealth to advantage and letting the light in upon your riches.”
Tu cujus placido posuere in pectore sedem blandus honos hilarisque tamen cum pondere virtus, cui nec pigra quies nec iniqua potentia nec spes improba, sed medius per honesta et dulcia limes, incorrupte fidem nullosque experte tumultus et secrete, palam quod digeris ordine vitam, idem auri facilis contemptor et optimus idem comere divitias opibusque immittere lucem.

“But the child, lying in the bosom of the vernal earth and deep in herbage, now crawls forward on his face and crushes the soft grasses, now in clamorous thirst for milk cries for his beloved nurse; again he smiles, and would fain utter words that wrestle with his infant lips, and wonders at the noise of the woods, or plucks at aught he meets, or with open mouth drinks in the day, and strays in the forest all ignorant of its dangers, in carelessness profound.”
At puer in gremio vernae telluris et alto gramine nunc faciles sternit procursibus herbas in vultum nitens, caram modo lactis egeno nutricem clangore ciens iterumque renidens et teneris meditans verba inluctantia labris miratur nemorum strepitus aut obuia carpit aut patulo trahit ore diem nemorique malorum inscius et vitae multum securus inerrat.

“O live, I pray! Nor rival the divine Aeneid, but follow afar and ever venerate its footsteps.”
Vive, precor; nec tu divinam Aeneida tempta, sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora.

“So strange is Chance, so blind the purposes of men!”
Pro fors et caeca futuri mens hominum!

“Atlas' grandson obeys his sire's words and hastily thereupon binds the winged sandals on to his ankles and with his wide hat covers his locks and tempers the stars. Then he thrusts the wand in his right hand; with this he was wont to banish sweet slumber or recall it, with this to enter black Tartarus and give life to bloodless phantoms. Down he leapt and shivered as the thin air received him. No pause; he takes swift and lofty flight through the void and traces a vast arc across the clouds.”
Paret Atlantiades dictis genitoris et inde summa pedum propere plantaribus inligat alis obnubitque comas et temperat astra galero. tum dextrae uirgam inseruit, qua pellere dulces aut suadere iterum somnos, qua nigra subire Tartara et exangues animare adsueuerat umbras. desiluit, tenuique exceptus inhorruit aura. nec mora, sublimes raptim per inane volatus carpit et ingenti designat nubila gyro.

“Fraternal warfare, and alternate reigns fought for in unnatural hate.”
Fraternas acies alternaque regna profanis decertata odiis.

“Black Death sits upon an eminence, and numbers the silent peoples for their lord; yet the greater part of the troop remains. The Gortynian judge shakes them in his inexorable urn, demanding the truth with threats, and constrains them to speak out their whole lives' story.”
In speculis Mors atra sedet dominoque silentes adnumerat populos; maior superinminet ordo. arbiter hos dura versat Gortynius urna vera minis poscens adigitque expromere vitas usque retro.

“Did not shame restrain him and awe of the mother by his side.”
Ni pudor et junctae teneat reverentia matris.

“Do ye not think ye are making war on Hyrcanian tigers or facing angry Libyan lions?”
Nonne Hyrcanis bellare putatis tigribus, aut saeuos Libyae contra ire leones?

“So a lioness that has newly whelped, beset by Numidian hunters in her cruel den, stands upright over her young, gnashing her teeth in grim and piteous wise, her mind in doubt; she could disrupt the groups and break their weapons with her bite, but love for her offspring binds her cruel heart and from the midst of her fury she looks round at her cubs.”
Ut lea, quam saeuo fetam pressere cubili venantes Numidae, natos erecta superstat, mente sub incerta torvum ac miserabile frendens; illa quidem turbare globos et frangere morsu tela queat, sed prolis amor crudelia vincit pectora, et a media catulos circumspicit ira.

“So does he strive to rescue your shade from the pyre and wages a mighty contest with Death, wearying the efforts of artists and seeking to love you in every material. But beauty created by toil of cunning hand is mortal.”
Sic auferre rogis umbram conatur et ingens certamen cum Morte gerit, curasque fatigat artificum inque omni te quaerit amare metallo. Sed mortalis honos, agilis quem dextra laborat.

“Strife, the companion of shared sovereignty.”
Sociisque comes discordia regnis.

“Or to describe to his pupil upon his lyre the heroes of old time.”
Aut monstrare lyra veteres heroas alumno.

“Grief and mad wrath devoured his soul, and hope, heaviest of mortal cares when long deferred.”
Exedere animum dolor iraque demens et, qua non gravior mortalibus addita curis, spes, ubi longa venit.

“What if by such crime you sought both of heavens boundaries, that to which the Sun looks when he is sent forth from the eastern hinge and that to which he gazes as he sinks from his Iberian gate, and those lands he touches from afar with slanting ray, lands the North Wind chills or the moist South warms with his heat?”
Quid si peteretur crimine tanto limes uterque poli, quem Sol emissus Eoo cardine, quem porta vergens prospectat Hibera, quasque procul terras obliquo sidere tangit avius aut Borea gelidas madidive tepentes igne Noti?

“He plants trees to benefit another generation.”
Serit arbores, quae alteri saeclo prosint

“So when ebbing Nile hides himself in his great caverns and holds in his mouth the liquid nurture of an eastern winter, the valleys smoke forsaken by the flood and gaping Egypt awaits the sounds of her watery father, until at their prayers he grants sustenance to the Pharian fields and brings on a great harvest year.”
Sic ubi se magnis refluus suppressit in antris Nilus et Eoae liquentia pabula brumae ore premit, fumant desertae gurgite valles et patris undosi sonitus expectat hiulca Aegyptos, donec Phariis alimenta rogatus donet agris magnumque inducat messibus annum.

“Oedipus had already probed his impious eyes with guilty hand and sunk deep his shame condemned to everlasting night; he dragged out his life in a long-drawn death. He devotes himself to darkness, and in the lowest recess of his abode he keeps his home on which the rays of heaven never look; and yet the fierce daylight of his soul flits around him with unflagging wings and the Avengers of his crimes are in his heart.”
Impia jam merita scrutatus lumina dextra merserat aeterna damnatum nocte pudorem Oedipodes longaque animam sub morte trahebat. illum indulgentem tenebris imaeque recessu sedis inaspectos caelo radiisque penates seruantem tamen adsiduis circumuolat alis saeva dies animi, scelerumque in pectore Dirae.

“He straightway spreads his arms about the garlanded fire, and absorbs the prophetic vapours with glowing countenance.”
Ille coronatos iamdudum amplectitur ignes, fatidicum sorbens vultu flagrante vaporem.

“Fear first made gods in the world.”
Primus in orbe deos fecit timor.