Of Tarpeian crime and Tarpeia's¹ dishonorable tomb

I shall tell, and how the thresholds of ancient Jupiter² were captured.

What was Rome then, when a bugler from [Sabine] Cures-town

was close enough to shake Jupiter's boulders with his long blast?

The city-wall was the hills: where now the Senate-house is fenced in,

from that spring a war-horse used to drink.

And where now laws are pronounced for subjected lands

Sabine missiles were standing in the Roman forum.³

There was a fruitful grove, bosomed in an ivy-filled grotto,

and many a tree echoes with the waters that rise there:

Silvanus's⁴ bough-filled home, where the sweet pipe

used to order sheep to go drink, away from summer's heat.

In front of it, Tatius⁵ girds his camp with a maple palisade

and encompasses it safely with outworks of piled-up earth.

From here Tarpeia took a little liquid for her goddess:⁶ the earthenware

jar pressed hard on the crown of her head.

She saw that Tatius was training in the sandy fields

and lifted up ornate weapons along [his horse's] tawny mane.

She was thunderstruck at the king's looks and regal weapons

and the jar fell from between her distracted hands.

Often she pleaded omens from the undeserving moon,

and said she must rinse out her tresses in the stream;

often she brought silvery lilies to the alluring Nymphs

so that a Roman spear might not wound the visage of Tatius.

And while the cloudy Capitoline sank under the first haze

she brought back arms cut by bristly shrubs.

And lingering, from her own citadel Tarpeia wept over her

wounds unendurable to nearby Jupiter:

"Fires of the camp and tents of Tatius's squadron,

and Sabine weapons lovely in my eyes,

if only I might sit captive by your family gods,

so long as, as a captive, I might espy the face of my own Tatius!

Roman hills, and Rome built on the hills,

and Vesta too, farewell, who must feel shame at my disgrace!

That horse, that one, will return my darling to the camp,

whose mane Tatius himself dresses to the right.

"What wonder that Scylla⁷ savaged her father's hair,

and her ivory loins turned into savage dogs?

What wonder that [Ariadne's] monster-brother's horns were betrayed

when a wound-up thread laid open the twisted way?⁸

How great an indictment am I about to make for Italian maidens:

an immoral attendant chosen to the virgin hearth?

If anyone will wonder that Pallas's⁹ fires are put out,

let him excuse it: the altar is sprinkled with my tears.

"Tomorrow, as the rumor says, the whole city will stand down:

that's the time to sieze the thorny ridge's dewy back!

The whole way is slippery and treacherous, since the turf hides

lurking waters with its deceitful pathway.

Oh, would that I knew the incantations of the magic Muse!

This tongue too would have brought aid to a gorgeous man.¹⁰

The embroidered toga¹¹ suits you, not the man whom, without a mother's grace,

the leathery pap of an inhuman wolf gave suck.¹²

"Thus, visitor, do I range, a queen within your halls?

As dowry, not a lowly one, you're getting Rome betrayed.

If that's too much, yet don't let the Sabine women have been ravished unavenged:

ravish me and pay back the trade by the law of tit for tat!

Married, I can dissolve the armies that are engaged:

enter into a treaty between you by means of my matron's gown.

Hymenaeus,¹³ add your measures! bugler,¹⁴ put up your untamed blasting!

Have faith, my marriage-bed will soften your weapons.

"And already the fourth horn sings the coming light,

the very stars, exhausted, fall into Ocean.

I shall make trial of sleep, about you shall I try to find dreams:

see that you come to my eyes as a well-meaning shade!"

She spoke, and relaxed her arms to uneasy sleep,

not knowing she had lain down with new furies.

For Venus,¹⁵ fruitful guardian of the Trojan ember,

feeds up her fault and plants more torches in her bones.

[Tarpeia] rages like a bare-breasted Thracian woman

near the swift river Thermodon, the bosom of her garment torn away.

The city had a holiday (our fathers called it "Parilia"):

this day began to be the first for the city-walls,

annual shepherds' banquets, playing in the city,

when rustic barrows drip with riches

and when the drunken crowd flings up its dirty feet

over haphazard heaps of flaming hay.

Romulus decreed that the outposts should be released at ease

and the camps be silent, the bugle interrupted.

Thinking this was her time, Tarpeia accosts the enemy.

She binds her terms, herself a future partner in the terms.

All things were patently asleep; but Jupiter alone

decided to stand guard over his own penalties.

The hill was mounted, relaxed for feasts and festival,

nor was there a delay: barking dogs she cuts off with a sword.

She had betrayed the trust of the gate and of her native country as it lay:

she seeks the marriage date he should desire.

Yet Tatius (for the enemy did not give honor to a crime)

said, "Marry, and mount my kingdom's bed!"

He spoke, and crushed her with his comrades' piled-up weapons.

This, virgin, was a fitting dowry for your services.

Nor could a single death be enough for an evil maiden

who wished to deceive your flames, Vesta.

From the guide the hill took its familiar name "Tarpeian".¹⁶

Oh, watcher, you have the reward of your unjust fate.

Notes

16. Thus the poem takes the traditional form of explaining the story behind a name: the Capitoline Hill, and especially the part of it where the Romans executed traitors by throwing them off it, was called the "Tarpeian Rock". BACK