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Amores
III:15
translated by David Drake
You must find a new bard, mother of the little Cupids: my elegies will go no farther. I am the offspring of the Paelignian countryside, and I'm not ashamed of the sophisticated verses which I've composed to date. If it's of any interest to you, my family was of the equestrian order back to ancient times; I'm not a centurion whirled into the order yesterday at the end of his military service.
Mantua rejoices in Vergil, Verona in Catullus; I am known as the glory of the Paelignian peoples, who took arms rightly in the cause of their liberty when Rome trembled during the Social War. A visitor looking on the walls of Sulmo and its few acres of river-bounded plain might say, "However small you are, any land which could send forth so great a poet is itself worthy of being called great!"
Urbane Cupid and Venus, mother of the urbane child, may you always hold your golden standard above the fields where I grew up. Horned Bacchus has shaken his mighty thyrsus above them.
But a larger race courses require the strength of greater horses; peaceful elegies and my smiling Muse, farewell. You, my works, will long survive me.
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