Pervigilium Veneris

Beginning of the poem in the Codex Salmasianus
End of the poem in a humanistic manuscript (codex V)

Pervigilium Veneris (or The Vigil of Venus) is a Latin poem of uncertain date, variously assigned to the 2nd, 4th or 5th centuries. It is sometimes thought to have been by the poet Tiberianus, because of strong similarities with his poem Amnis ibat, though other scholars attribute it to Publius Annius Florus, and yet others find no sufficient evidence for any attribution.[1][2] It was written professedly in early spring on the eve of a three-night festival of Venus (probably April 1–3) in a setting that seems to be Sicily. The poem describes the annual awakening of the vegetable and animal world through the "benign post-Lucretian" goddess,[3] which contrasts with the tragic isolation of the silent "I" of the poet/speaker against the desolate background of a ruined city, a vision that prompts Andrea Cucchiarelli to note the resemblance of the poem's construction to the cruelty of a dream.[4] It is notable because of its focus on the natural world (something never before seen in Roman poetry) which marks the transition from Roman poetry to medieval poetry. It consists of ninety-three verses in trochaic septenarius, and is divided into strophes of unequal length by the refrain:

Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet.
Let him love tomorrow who has never loved, and let him who has loved love tomorrow.

The poem ends with the nightingale's song, and a poignant expression of personal sorrow:

illa cantat; nos tacemus; quando ver venit meum?
She sings; we are silent; when will my springtime come?

English verse translations

There are translations into English verse by the 17th-century poet Thomas Stanley (1651); by the 18th-century "graveyard school" poet Thomas Parnell (1679-1718); by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q"; by F. L. Lucas (1939; reprinted in his Aphrodite, Cambridge, 1948); and by Allen Tate (1947; see his Collected Poems).

Musical settings

The poem has appealed to 20th-century composers and has been set to music by Frederic Austin for chorus and orchestra (first performance, Leeds Festival, 1931); by Timothy Mather Spelman, for soprano and baritone solo, chorus and orchestra (1931); by Virgil Thompson as "The Feast of Love", for baritone and chamber orchestra, text translated by himself (1964); and by George Lloyd for soprano, tenor, chorus, and orchestra (1980).

Modern editions

References

  1. On the text see John William Mackail in Journal of Philology (1888), Vol. xvii.
  2. Korhonen, Kalle (2012). "Sicily in the Roman Imperial period: Language and society". In Tribulato, Olga. Language and Linguistic Contact in Ancient Sicily. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 360. ISBN 9781107029316. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
  3. "la benigna dea post-Lucreziana" (i.e., the Venus genetrix derived from Lucretius's De Rerum Natura), see Andrea Cucchiarelli, La Veglia di Venere: Pervigilium Veneris (Milano: BUR Classici Greci e Latini, Rizzoli: 2003), p. 7.
  4. Cucchiarelli (2003), p. 7.
  5. Tiziana Privitera, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, June 3, 2004 On the Carthaginian so-called "Latin Anthology", see also Andrew H. Merrills, Vandals, Romans and Berbers: new perspectives on late antique North Africa (Ashgate, 2004)., pp. 110 and passim.

External links

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