What festival is ancient Rome preparing?
Where flow the crowds in noisy waves?
Why these aromas, myrrh's sweet smoke
And censers all around abrim with fragrant herbs? ...
As a wild flower hangs its head and wilts
Beneath the reaper's killing scythe,
Ill, I awaited my untimely end
And thought: the fateful hour's nigh. ...
Beloved maidens! Playful and carefree,
You sing, you dance and frolic in the glades.
I, too, once dwelt in gay Arcadia,
I, too, in early days found moments ...
Through horrors of land and horrors of sea
Bereft and wandering, Odysseus,
God-fearing wretch, sought Ithaca;
Unfaltering, he plunged into the gloom of Hades; ...
This is what I vow;
He shall have my heart to keep,
Sweetly will we stir and sleep,
All the years, as now.
Swift the measured sands may run;
Love like this is never done;
He and I are welded one:
This is what I vow.
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