Читать книгу Yale Classics (Vol. 2) - Луций Анней Сенека - Страница 70

XVII.

Kind Colonia, fain upon bridge more lengthy to gambol,

And quite ready to dance amain, fearing only the rotten

Legs too crazily steadied on planks of old resurrections,

Lest it plunge to the deep morass, there supinely to welter;

So surprise thee a sumptuous bridge thy fancy to pleasure,

Passive under a Salian god's most lusty procession;

This rare favour, a laugh for all time, Colonia, grant me.

In my township a citizen lives: Catullus adjures thee

Headlong into the mire below topsy-turvy to drown him.

Only, where the superfluent lake, the spongy putrescence,

Sinks most murkily flushed, descends most profoundly the bottom.

Such a ninny, a fool is he; witless even as any

Two years' urchin, across papa's elbow drowsily swaying.

For though wed to a maiden in spring-tide youthfully budding,

Maiden crisp as a petulant kid, as airily wanton,

Sweets more privy to guard than e'er grape-bunch shadowy-purpling;

He, he leaves her alone to romp idly, cares not a fouter.

Nor leans to her at all, the man's part; but helpless as alder

Lies, new-fell'd in a ditch, beneath axe Ligurian ham-strung,

As alive to the world, as if world nor wife were at issue.

Such this gaby, my own, my arch fool; he sees not, he hears not

Who himself is, or if the self is, or is not, he knows not.

Him I'd gladly be lowering down thy bridge to the bottom,

If from stupor inanimate peradventure he wake him,

Leaving muddy behind him his sluggish heart's hesitation,

As some mule in a glutinous sludge her rondel of iron.