Small house and quiet roof tree, shadowing elm,
Grapes on the vine and cherries ripening,
Red apples in the orchard, Pallas' tree
Breaking with olives, and well-watered earth,
And fields of kale and heavy creeping mallows
And poppies that will surely bring me sleep.
And if I go a-snaring for the birds
Or timid deer, or angling the shy trout,
'Tis all the guile that my poor fields will know
Go now, yea, go, and sell your life, swift life,
For golden feasts. If the end waits me too,
I pray it find me here, and here shall ask
The reckoning from me of the vanished hours.
Petronius Arbiter [Gaius Petronius Arbite, aka Titus Petronius Niger] (c. 27 – c. 66) Italy (ancient Rome)
Translated by Helen Waddell
Grapes on the vine and cherries ripening,
Red apples in the orchard, Pallas' tree
Breaking with olives, and well-watered earth,
And fields of kale and heavy creeping mallows
And poppies that will surely bring me sleep.
And if I go a-snaring for the birds
Or timid deer, or angling the shy trout,
'Tis all the guile that my poor fields will know
Go now, yea, go, and sell your life, swift life,
For golden feasts. If the end waits me too,
I pray it find me here, and here shall ask
The reckoning from me of the vanished hours.
Petronius Arbiter [Gaius Petronius Arbite, aka Titus Petronius Niger] (c. 27 – c. 66) Italy (ancient Rome)
Translated by Helen Waddell
Source: Mediaeval Latin lyrics, Helen Waddell, Henry Holt and Company, 1938
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