Ausonius (c. AD 310–c. 395) was a Latin poet and teacher from Bordeaux, known in Gallo-Roman times as Burdigala. He was also a Christian, which may come as a surprise, for his poetry often feels thoroughly pagan. Among his many careers, Ausonius served as tutor to the future emperor Gratian (ruled 367–383 AD). Like the Greek novelists before him, Ausonius took a picture as the inspiration for this intriguing tale of the distress that Cupid – love – has caused women in literature. Here, love finally gets his comeuppance.

Preface

From Ausonius to my dear “son”:

Have you ever seen a picture painted on a wall? You’ve certainly seen one and remember it. Naturally this painted picture in Zoilus’s dining room in Treves: lovesick women fix Cupid to a cross—not women of our time, who sin of their own free will, but those heroines who excuse themselves and blame God—some of whom our Virgil lists in the Fields of Mourning. I admired this painting for its beauty and subject. Afterwards I translated my dazzled admiration into the ineptitude of my poetry: except for the title, nothing pleases me; still, I send you my meanderings. We love our own warts and scars and, not content to fail alone in our defects, we seek that they be loved by others. But why do I defend this little poem so zealously? I’m sure you’ll like whatever you know is mine: this I hope more than that you praise it. Farewell, and remember your “father” affectionately.

Cupid Crucified

In heaven’s fields, which Virgil’s muse describes,

where a myrtle grove conceals distracted lovers,

heroines held their rituals—and each one

bore her mark of her long ago death—

wandering through vast woods in grudging light,

through reedy goat’s-beard, heavy flowering poppy,

and silent, still lakes and unmurmuring streams

whose flowers sigh through banks in misty light,

mourning the names of youths and kings of old:

gazing Narcissus; Oebalus’ Hyacinth;

gold-haired Crocus; Adonis, purple-dyed;

Ajax of Salamis, limned with tragic pain.

All the griefs that spur sad memories

after death, with tears, sorrowing loves

call heroines back again to their lost lives:

pregnant Semele, deceived, moans in birth and destroys

a burning cradle, and brandishes the fire

of a thunderbolt. Mourning her worthless gift,

Caenis grieves—changed back to her former shape,

having been pleased with her gender as a man.

Procris, stabbed, is tending to her wounds

and even now loves Caephalus’s deadly hand.

The girl at Sestus goes headlong from the tower

bearing her smoking clay lamp; and mannish Sappho,

who’d die from the barbs of love for a man of Lesbos,

threatens to leap to death from cloud-wrapped Leucas.

Sad Eriphyle shuns Harmonia’s necklace,

doomed by her son, unlucky in her marriage;

the whole tale also of Minos’s lofty Crete

flickers, a faint image of a depicted scene:

Pasiphae follows the tracks of the snow-white bull;

deserted Ariadne holds the ball of threads,