SOURCE: Salemi, Joseph S. “The Faunus Poems of Pietro Bembo.” Allegorica 7, no. 2 (winter 1982): 31-57.

The following excerpt is taken from the introduction to Salemi's English translation of six of Bembo's poems dealing with the god Faunus. Salemi provides background on the mythological figure and declares Bembo's poems “delightful specimens of the neo-Latin lyric at its best.”

Most casual readers of the classics in translation are familiar with Faunus as the divine father of King Latinus in the seventh book of Vergil's Aeneid. Faunus, it will be recalled, has oracular powers, and he cautions Latinus against allowing his daughter Lavinia to marry within their own tribe. The dispute that subsequently arises between Aeneas and Turnus over the possession of this woman forms the conclusion of Vergil's epic.

Faunus is a woodland divinity, a god associated with wild beasts and sylvan mystery—indeed, Latinus must enter the depths of the...