44
CATULLUS.
"Yon pinnace, friends, now hauled ashore,
Boasts that for speed none ever more
Excelled, or 'gainst her could avail
In race of oars, or eke with sail.
This, she avers, nor Adria's bay
Nor Cyclad isles will dare gainsay—
Fierce Thrace, or Rhodes of ample fame,
Or Pontus with ill-omened name;
Where whilom it, a pinnace now,
Was a maned tree on mountain-brow:
Yea, from its mane on tall Cytorus
Soft music sighed in breeze sonorous.
Whose box-clad heights, Amastris too,
Avouch this origin as true;
And witness what my pinnace vows,
It first saw light on yonder brows—
First dipt its oars in neighbouring sea,
And then through wild waves carried me,
Its master, in its stanch, smart craft,
Breeze foul or fair, or wind right aft.
No calls to gods of sea or shore
She lifted; and, the voyage o'er,
From farthest tracts of brine, to rest,
Came to our smooth lake's placid breast.
'Tis over now. Her mission done,
Here she enjoys a rest well won,
And dedicates her timbers here
To Castor and to Castor's peer."—(D.)
Boasts that for speed none ever more
Excelled, or 'gainst her could avail
In race of oars, or eke with sail.
This, she avers, nor Adria's bay
Nor Cyclad isles will dare gainsay—
Fierce Thrace, or Rhodes of ample fame,
Or Pontus with ill-omened name;
Where whilom it, a pinnace now,
Was a maned tree on mountain-brow:
Yea, from its mane on tall Cytorus
Soft music sighed in breeze sonorous.
Whose box-clad heights, Amastris too,
Avouch this origin as true;
And witness what my pinnace vows,
It first saw light on yonder brows—
First dipt its oars in neighbouring sea,
And then through wild waves carried me,
Its master, in its stanch, smart craft,
Breeze foul or fair, or wind right aft.
No calls to gods of sea or shore
She lifted; and, the voyage o'er,
From farthest tracts of brine, to rest,
Came to our smooth lake's placid breast.
'Tis over now. Her mission done,
Here she enjoys a rest well won,
And dedicates her timbers here
To Castor and to Castor's peer."—(D.)
The fascination of the piece, of which this is a transcript, has been so widely felt, that it has yielded itself to dozens of clever and graceful parodies and imitations at various times. One of the most recent is in a little volume of 'Lays from Latin Lyres,' recently published at Oxford, where the pinnace re-
