TRANSLATIONS.
FROM THE LATIN OF VINCENT BOURNE.
* * * * *
I.
THE BALLAD SINGERS.
Where seven fair Streets to one tall Column[1]
draw,
Two Nymphs have ta’en their stand,
in hats of straw;
Their yellower necks huge beads of amber
grace,
And by their trade they’re of the
Sirens’ race:
With cloak loose-pinn’d on each,
that has been red,
But long with dust and dirt discolored
Belies its hue; in mud behind, before,
From heel to middle leg becrusted o’er.
One a small infant at the breast does
bear;
And one in her right hand her tuneful
ware,
Which she would vend. Their station
scarce is taken,
When youths and maids flock round.
His stall forsaken,
Forth comes a Son of Crispin, leathern-capt,
Prepared to buy a ballad, if one apt
To move his fancy offers. Crispin’s
sons
Have, from uncounted time, with ale and
buns,
Cherish’d the gift of Song,
which sorrow quells;
And, working single in their low-rooft
cells,
Oft cheat the tedium of a winter’s
night
With anthems warbled in the Muses’
spight.—
Who now hath caught the alarm? the Servant
Maid,
Hath heard a buzz at distance; and, afraid
To miss a note, with elbows red comes
out.
Leaving his forge to cool, Pyracmon stout
Thrusts in his unwash’d visage.
He stands by,
Who the hard trade of Porterage does ply
With stooping shoulders. What cares
he? he sees
The assembled ring, nor heeds his tottering
knees,
But pricks his ears up with the hopes
of song.
So, while the Bard of Rhodope his wrong
Bewail’d to Proserpine on Thracian
strings,
The tasks of gloomy Orcus lost their stings,
And stone-vext Sysiphus forgets his load.
Hither and thither from the sevenfold
road
Some cart or wagon crosses, which divides
The close-wedged audience; but, as when
the tides
To ploughing ships give way, the ship
being past,
They reunite, so these unite as fast.
The older Songstress hitherto hath spent
Her elocution in the argument
Of their great Song in prose; to
wit, the woes
Which Maiden true to faithless Sailor
owes—
Ah! “Wandering He!”—which
now in loftier verse
Pathetic they alternately rehearse.
All gaping wait the event. This Critic
opes
His right ear to the strain. The
other hopes
To catch it better with his left.
Long trade
It were to tell, how the deluded maid
A victim fell. And now right greedily
All hands are stretching forth the songs
to buy,
That are so tragical; which She, and She,
Deals out, and sings the while;
nor can there be
A breast so obdurate here, that will hold
back