Epitaphium Damonis

Argument

Thyrsis and Damon, shepherds from the same environs and pursuing the same interests, were since boyhood the greatest friends possible. Thyrsis, traveling abroad for knowledge, heard the news of Damon’s death. Later, having returned home and so verified it, in this song mourns for him and for his own desolation. By the person of Damon is understood Charles Deodati, through his father’s family from the Etrurian city of Lucca, otherwise English; a young man outstanding, while he lived, for intelligence, learning, and other most splendid attributes.

Damon’s Eulogy

Himerian nymphs (for you remember Daphnis, Hylas,

And the death of Bion, now so long bewept),

Tell my Sicilian song through hamlets of the Thames:

How miserable Thyrsis poured complaint and moan

And with what constant outcry he assailed the caves,

The rivers and the wandering streams, the forest delves

While he mourned Damon torn from him, nor was the depth

Of night free of his sorrow as alone he wandered.

Twice the grain with its green stalk has risen; barns

Have counted just as many golden ripenings

Since that last day took Damon to the shades below,

Still Thyrsis keeps away; love of the honeyed muse

Still holds him in a Tuscan city, though a shepherd.

But when mind is sated, care and his abandoned

Flocks recall him home. And seated once beneath

His well known elm at last he feels his missing friend

And thus he starts unburdening a boundless sorrow.

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

Alas what spirits of the earth or heavens shall I

Call, when it was they snatched Damon, you to savage

Death; how can it be you leave us so, your virtue

Gone thus lacking fame, and will you mingle only

With dark shades? No, he who with a golden wand

Departs souls, let him will it not, but lead you to crowds

Worthy of you, shunning base and voiceless cattle.

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

Whatever be, unless a wolf shall see me first,

You surely will not moulder in the grave unmourned,

Your honor certain, long to thrive among the shepherds.

All their vows on you bestowed excepting only

Daphnis, after Daphnis they will joy to speak

Your praise so long as Pales and while Fauna love

The countryside − if it be worthy to have prized

An ancient and a pious faith, Palladian arts,

And to have still preserved a fellowship in singing.

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

For you these certain things remain, these prizes, Damon.

What at last is there for me? What faithful comrade

Clings now to my side as you so often have

In rugged cold and all through places steeped in frost

Or under blazing sun, the thirsty grasses dying?

Whether drawing near to fearsome lions, or else

Scaring rabid wolf from sheepfold in the heights;

Who now will put my day to rest in speech and singing?

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

My heart, whom shall I trust it to and who will teach

Me to allay my biting cares, and who will cheat

Long nights with sweet discourse while ripe pears hiss upon

A lovely fire, and in the hearth nuts crackle as

A south wind roars abroad, above us elms resounding.

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

Or in the summer when the day revolves mid axle,

When Pan takes his sleep recessed in oaken shade,

And nymphs resume their former seats beneath the waters.

Shepherds hiding, under hedgerows farmers snoring.

Who will bring me back your charm, who then your laughter

And Athenian wit, your easy cultivation?

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

And now I wander fields alone, alone through pastures.

Where in valleys any branching shadows crowd

There I await the evening; showers and the east wind

Sound above forlorn, and dusk subdues the forest.

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

Ay, how my sometime tended field is all involved

With brazen weeds, the crop itself wilts where it stands!

The grape, unmarried to neglected cluster, withers;

Nor does myrtle thrive; I weary of my sheep

But even they grieve, turning faces to their master.

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

Now Tityrus calls upon the hazel; to the ash

Alphesiboeus; Aegon to the willow; fair

Amyntas to the rivers. Here are cooling springs

Here grass bestrown with moss, here Zephyrs, placid waters

With arbutus interspersed; all these descant

But to the deaf; I turned away, drawn into thickets.

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

To all this Mopsus spoke as he by chance saw me

Returning (skilled in tongues of birds and constellations):

“Thyrsis, what is this,” he said, “why stew in such

Black bile? Have you lost love or have the stars bewitched you;

Gloomy Saturn often is the star of shepherds,

He casts slanting lead to pierce your inmost bosom.”

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

Astonished nymphs cry, “Thyrsis what is to become

Of you? What would you do? The face of youth should not

Be clouded so, or eyes so wild or features grave.

By right youth should seek dance and nimble games and always

Love. He is twice sad who comes to love too tardy.”

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

Comes Hyas, Dryope, and Aegle, Baucis’ daughter,

Skilled in measures and upon the lyre but scornful.

Chloris of the Idumanum comes that flows

Nearby. No charms for me, no soothing words for me,

No thing at all moves me, nor any future promise.

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

Ay me, how much alike are these young bulls that frolic

On the plain, each friend to each, by one law joined.

None plucks out of the herd a separate companion.

Just so jackals come in crowded packs to feed,

And in the wild the shaggy donkeys pair by turns.

The same law rules the sea, for on a lonely shore

Will Proteus count seals in droves; that humble bird

The sparrow always has another, freely flying

All around the grain and late returning home.

If chance sends death to one, felled by a hook-beaked kite

Or when some fool lets loose an arrow, straight the other

Searches out a new companion in his flight.

But we a flinty species, vexed by dire fate

This race of men is alien in spirit, and

In heart perverse. One hardly will from thousands find

Another like him. Or if friendly fate through prayer

Relent at length, then on a sudden day and in

An hour all unlooked for it will snatch him off,

Abandoning forever and forever damning.

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

Oh, what dragged me to shores unknown, a vagrant?

Or to clamber through high cliffs and snow drenched Alps?

Was it so needful to have seen Rome sepulchered?

Not even if she were as Tityrus himself

Once saw her, leaving all his sheep and rural home.

That I could leave you, such a sweet companion lack,

That I could put between us seas so many, mountains,

Woods so many, rocky places, roaring streams.

Ah, surely at the last I might have touched your hand

And gently closed those eyes composed for death and said,

“Farewell, remember me when you have reached the heavens.”

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

Yet still, indeed, I never tire to recall you,

Tuscan shepherds, youth devoted to the muses.

Here was grace and charm − and Damon you were likewise

Tuscan, tracing lineage antique from Lucca.

What it was to stretch out by the murmurs of the

Cooling Arno, on soft herbs of poplar grove,

And pluck violas now, and now the myrtle spray,

Where I could hear Menalcum vie with Lycidas.

Myself dared try, nor do I think I much displeased,

For round about me are your gifts, the wicker baskets,

Drinking bowls, and shepherds’ pipes conjoined with wax,

And did not Datis and Francinus, noted both

For learning and for singing, both of blood Lydean,

Make my name familiar to their native beeches.

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

Times past, the dewy moon foretold me of such things ,

When happy and alone I closed the tender kids

In wicker stalls. Alas, how often have I said

When you already were black ashes “Damon sings now,

Now he sets a net for hares or weaves the willow

For whatever use. And how I prized the future

In my easy mind and mildly held my hopes

And thought them certain. Say, no work to do, my friend?

If nothing keeps you, shall we rest a little while

In murmuring shade or go to river Colne, or else

Cassivelaunus’ acres? You may parse for me

Your healing herbs, your plants and tinctures, hellebore,

The humble crocus, leaf of hyacinth, whatever

Plants the marsh has, all the art of medicine.

Ah, let them perish − herbs, the art of medicine,

The plants and all − since these did nothing for their master.

I’d speak too. My pipes – I don’t know why – were sounding

Grander notes this night and some eleven days.

Perhaps then I used newer stalks but with disrupted

Fastenings they burst and could no longer bear

Those deep notes. I suspect me grandiose, and yet

I’ll tell of it, and you, woods, yield me your forbearance.

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

Of Trojan ships on Rutupian waters I would

Speak, the ancient realm of Imogen, Pandrasus’

Daughter, generals Arviragus, Brennius,

And ancient Belinus. Then too the Armorican

Settlers under British law. And pregnant with her

Arthur by a fatal fraud, Igraine - deceived

With those false arms and face of Gorlois, Merlin’s trick.

O, if I have but life enough, pipe, you will hang

Far off upon a pine, forgot by me entirely,

Or else changed for native muse, for British stridor.

What? One cannot do or hope to be all things.

My recompense is large enough, my honor ample,

Though I be unknown in all the outside world,

If but the blond haired Ouse should read me, or some

Drunkard by the Alne, or Humber wracked with whirlwinds,

Or the forests of the Trent; or if my Thames

Above all and Tamara dark with ores, the Orkney’s

Waves far flung, if only these might recognize me.

Lambs, go home unfed, your master heeds you not.

I kept such thoughts for you beneath the laurel’s pliant

Bark and more also and, too, the pair of cups

That Manso, not the least of glories on the shores

Of Cumae, gave me, marvelously worked. And he,

Himself a marvel, carved a twin design around them.

In the middle, Red Sea waves, the fragrant spring,

A long Arabian shore, and woods exuding balsam,

There between, a Phoenix, holy bird unrivaled,

Gleaming blue with many colored wings, looks back

Upon a dawn resurgent from the glassy swells.

Apart, the all embracing heavens, grand Olympus.

Who would think it, here is Love as well, his quiver

Painted all in cloud with arms aglitter, torch,

And arrows gold alloyed. Nor does he strike the weaker

Spirits, any vulgar breast; revolving still

In flaming light he aims his arrows ever upward,

Vibrant through the spheres, and never pointing down,

That only sacred minds might burn and forms divine.

You too are there, no falsifying hope deceives me;

Damon, you are surely there are among these things.

Where else should sweet and sacred purity retire

And where your radiant virtue? It is wrong to seek you

In Lethean Orcus, nor should tears belong

To you, and I shall weep no more. Go, tears, from me.

For Damon dwells in heaven’s purity, and, pure,

Possesses heaven; with his foot he pushes back

The rainbow. He, among the souls of godlike heroes

Everlasting, drinks from the ethereal streams,

And now his sacred mouth drinks joy. But will you not,

Receiving all the rights of heaven, be at my

Right hand, and gently minister, however named.

If you will be my Damon or if Diodatus

You prefer, by which divine name all in heaven

Shall have known you, still the woods will call you Damon.

Since a rosy blush and faultless youth were dear

To you; because you never sipped the pleasures of

A marriage bed, see now how virgin honors will be

Yours, a crown of gold around your shining head,

And bearing happy branches of a leafy palm

You will enact immortal marriages forever;

There is song and lyre mixed with blissful dancing,

Festive revels, bacchic rites of Zion’s thyrsus.