Poetic-Verses from ATHANASE
POMPEII (English)
for Scribonia
'Litterarum amor multaque eruditio, quod in illa domo facile erat...'
(She had a love of literature and was highly cultured, something that was natural in that household...)
Macrobius, Saturnalia,2, 5.
'My name was Paquius Proculus, and I lived here
with a wife, good-natured, loving and loveable,
the mother of our seven children...'
Athanase Vantchev de Thracy
What a beautiful day! You say, admiring the sky
as it pours silken tenderness over the gardens,
in its joy the autumn breeze lifts the vines so that it seems as if
they're offering their abundant grapes to the marble altar.
Naked, our seven children are playing in the fountain
trying to grasp the blue water as its slips through their laughing hands,
their shouts caressing the pure air with the pious joy
so precious to our simple country souls.
If I'd only known then, if I'd only known , my frail and mortal patrician,
that savage destiny was sleeping by our door
and that ancient death and its tragic cohorts
would strike down our serene lives with their fury.
In vain the millennia try to console my heart
as I look for letters of happiness among the ashes.
Translated from the French of Athanase Vantchev de Thracy by Norton Hodges
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POMPEII (English)
POMPEII (English)
