Quite, though Ovid was certainly equally present in Swinburne's
thoughts. And somebody else was alluding to both of them ("Pervigilium"
& "Itylus") as follows:
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina/
/Quando fiam uti chelidon - O swallow swallow
Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie
The Philomela-Itylus story, deriving from Ovid, turns up in *The
Cantos*, too, overlaid by a story from a Provencal *razo*.
cheers
mj
Jon Corelis wrote:
> 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!
>
>=====
>
>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."
>
>
>____________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
