illa cantat: nos tacemus. quando uer uenit meum?
quando fiam uti chelidon ut tacere desinam?
perdidi Musam tacendo nec me Phoebus respicit.
sic Amyclas cum tacerent perdidit silentium.
cras amet qui numquam amauit quique amauit cras amet!
She is singing: we are silent. When shall my spring come again?
When shall I be like the swallow so that I may find my voice?
I have lost my Muse in silence, nor does Phoebus look on me.
Thus Amyclae, being silent, perished through its voicelessness.
Tomorrow will the loveless love, the lover will find love again!
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Swinburne was no doubt alluding to the anonymous, (probably) late Roman Empire
poem Pervigilium Veneris, the last stanza of which I've given and translated,
with some paraphrasing, above. For me, this is the first modern poem: though
written in technically correct classical Latin, it breathes a spirit which has
virtually nothing to do with classical antiquity. We are in Europe now, and
closer to the Elizabethans than to Horace.
Amyclae was proverbial for its silence, one explanation being that, having
passed a law forbidding false reports of invasion, a true report of invasion
was suppressed, leading to the fall of the unprepared city.
Robert Graves said that one of his earliest memories was being petted in his
perambulator by Swinburne. As I recall, he remarks something to the effect
that "I was too young to know he was a poet, but I knew that he was a public
menace."
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