"Ho, friar with the donkey, turn in and be our guest! Your donkey--Vesta's darling--is weary; let him rest. In every tree the locusts their shrilling still renew, And cool beneath the brambles the lizard lies perdu. So test our summer-tankards, deep draughts for thirsty men; Then fill our crystal goblets, and souse yourself again. Come, handsome boy, you're weary! 'Twere best for you to twine Your heavy head with roses and rest beneath our vine, Where dainty arms expect you and fragrant lips invite; Oh, hang the strait-laced model that plays the anchorite! Sweet garlands for cold ashes why should you care to save? Or would you rather keep them to lay upon your grave? Nay, drink and shake the dice-box. Tomorrow's care begone! Death plucks your sleeve and whispers: 'Live now, I come anon.'"
Memories of the Neapolitan bay! The _Copa_ should be read in the arbor of an _osteria_ at Sorrento or Capri to the rhythm of the tarantella where the modern offspring of Vergil's tavern-maid are still plying the arts of song and dance upon the passerby.[4]
[Footnote 4: Unfortunately the evidence does not suffice to assign the _Moretum_ to Vergil, though it was certainly composed by a genuine if somewhat halting poet, and in Vergil's day. It has many imaginative phrases, and the meticulous exactness of its miniature work might seem to be Vergilian were it not for the unrelieved plainness of the theme. Even so, it might be considered an experiment in a new style, if the rather dubious manuscript evidence were supported by a single ancient citation. See Rand, _loc. Cit._ p. 178.]
There are also three brief _Priapea_ which should probably be assigned to this period. The third may indeed have been an inscription on a pedestal of the scare-crow god set out to keep off thieving rooks and urchins in the poet's own garden:
This place, my lads, I prosper, I guard the hovel, too, Thatched, as you see, by willows and reeds and grass that grew In all the marsh about it; hence me, mere stump of oak, Shaped by the farmer's hatchet, they now as god invoke. They bring me gifts devoutly, the master and his boy, Supposing me the giver of the blessings they enjoy. The kind old man each morning comes here to weed the ground, He clears the shrine of thistles and burrs that grow around. The lad brings dainty offerings with small but ready hand: At dawn of spring he crowns me with a lavish daisy-strand, From summer's earliest harvest, while still the stalk is green, He wreathes my brow with chaplets; he fills me baskets clean With golden pansies, poppies, with apples ripe and gourds, The first rich blushing clusters of grapes for me he hoards. And once to my great honor--but let no god be told!-- He brought me to my altar a lambkin from the fold. So though, my lads, a Scare-Crow and no true god I be, My master and his vineyard are very dear to me. Keep off your filching hands, lads, and elsewhere ply your theft: