[Latin verses at Eton]

You can add notes or queries to any part of the poetic text by simply clicking on the line in
  question and filling in the annotations form with your details. All
  contributions will be submitted to the editor in the first instance 
  for review.
 [Latin verses at Eton] 
         —Quem te Deus esse 
 Jussit et humana qua parte locatus es in re 
 Disce—[Persius, Satires, iii. 71-73.] 

Pendet Homo incertus gemini ad confinia mundi 
Cui parti accedat dubius; consurgere stellis 
An socius velit, an terris ingloria moles 
Reptare, ac muto se cum grege credere campis: 
Inseruisse choro divum hic se jactat, et audet 
Telluremque vocare suam, fluctusque polumque, 
Et quodcunque videt, proprios assumit in usus. 
'Me propter jam vere expergefacta virescit 
'Natura in flores, herbisque illudit, amatque 
'Pingere telluris gremium, mihi vinea foetu 
'Purpureo turget, dulcique rubescit honore; 
'Me rosa, me propter liquidos exhalat odores; 
'Luna mihi pallet, mihi Olympum Phoebus inaurat, 
'Sidera mi lucent, volvunturque aequora ponti.' 
    Sic secum insistit, tantumque haec astra decores 
AEstimat esse suae sedis, convexaque coeli 
Ingentes scenas, vastique aulaea theatri. 
    At tibi per deserta fremit, tibi tigris acerbum 
Succenset, nemorum fulmen, Gangeticus horror? 
Te propter mare se tollit, surgitque tumultu? 
    Hic ubi rimari, atque impallescere libris 
Perstitit, anne valet qua vi connexa per aevum 
Conspirent elementa sibi, serventque tenorem; 
Sufficiant scatebrae unde mari, fontesque perennes 
Jugis aquae fluviis, unde aether sidera pascat, 
Pandere? nequaquam: secreta per avia mundi 
Debile carpit iter, vix, et sub luce maligna 
Pergit, et incertam tendit trepidare per umbram. 
Fata obstant; metam Parcae posuere sciendi, 
Et dixere: veni huc, Doctrina, hic terminus esto. 
Non super aethereas errare licentius auras 
Humanum est, at scire hominem; breve limite votum 
Exiguo claudat, nec se quaesiverit extra. 
Errat, qui cupit oppositos transcendere fines, 
Extenditque manus ripae ulterioris amore; 
Illic gurges hiat late, illic saeva vorago, 
Et caligantes longis ambagibus umbrae. 
    Oceani fontes, et regna sonantia fluctu, 
Machina stellantis coeli, terraeque cavernae 
Nullis laxantur mortalibus, isque aperiret 
Haec qui arcana poli, magnumque recluderet aequor, 
Frangeret aeternos nexus, mundique catenam. 
    Plurimus (hic error, demensque libido lacessit) 
In superos, coelumque ruit, sedesque relinquit, 
Quas natura dedit proprias, jussitque tueri. 
Humani sortem generis pars altera luget 
Invidet armento, et campi sibi vindicat herbam. 
'Oh quis me in pecoris felicia transferet arva, 
'In loca pastorum deserta, atque otia dia? 
'Cur mihi non Lyncisve oculi, vel odora canum vis 
'Additur, aut gressus cursu glomerare potestas? 
'Aspice, ubi, tenues dum texit aranea casses, 
'Funditur in telam et late per stamina vivit! 
'Quid mihi non tactus eadem exquisita facultas, 
'Taurorumve tori solidi, pennaeve volucrum?' 
    Pertaesos sortis doceant responsa silere. 
Si tanto valeas contendere acumine visus, 
Et graciles penetrare atomos; non aethera possis 
Suspicere, aut lati spatium comprendere ponti. 
Vis si adsit major naris; quam, vane, doleres, 
Extinctus fragranti aura, dulcique veneno! 
Si tactus, tremat hoc corpus, solidoque dolore 
Ardeat in membris, nervoque laboret in omni; 
Sive auris, fragor exanimet, cum rumpitur igne 
Fulmineo coelum, totusque admurmurat aether: 
Quam demum humanas, priscasque requirere dotes 
Attonitus nimium cuperes, nimiumque reverti 
In solitam speciem, veterique senescere forma. 
    Nubila seu tentes, vetitumque per aera surgas, 
Sive rudes poscas sylvas, et lustra ferarum; 
Falleris; in medio solium Sapientia fixit. 
Desine sectari majora, minorave sorte, 
Quam Deus, et rerum attribuit natura creatrix. 

Expanding the poem lines () shows notes and queries taken from various critical editions of Gray's works, as well as those contributed by users of the Archive.  There are 0 textual and 1 explanatory notes/queries.
All notes and queries are shown by default.



		Hide Explanatory notes

		

		Hide Textual notes
0 [Latin verses at Eton] 1 Explanatory Skip to next line  Title/Paratext] "[Prose translation by J. R. [...]" H.W. Starr/J.R. Hendrickson, 1966.
"[Prose translation by J. R. Hendrickson:]

"Latin verses at Eton"


[What God has ordered you to be and in what human role you have really been cast, learn. . . . Persius . . .]


    Man lingers uncertainly on the borders of two worlds, doubtful which one he should draw near to; he knows not whether he
should wish to rise up and mingle with the stars or creep over the face of the earth, an inglorious hulk, and entrust himself to the fields with the dumb beasts.

    He boasts that he has joined the chorus of the gods and dares to call the earth his own, and the seas thereof, and the vault of heaven; whatever he beholds, he appropriates for his own use. 'For my sake awakening Nature
blossoms into flowers in the spring and puts forth plants in gay profusion, and loves to paint the lap of earth; for me the vine swells with purple buds and blushes with ripe fruit; for my sake, for my sake only, the rose breathes pure fragrance; for me the moon sheds her pale light; for me Phoebus floods the heavens with golden radiance; the stars gleam for me, and the waters of the deep roll.' So Man thinks to himself, and believes that these stars are merely the ornaments of his abode, and that the dome of the sky is an immense stage, the canopy of a vast theatre.

    But is it for you that the tiger rages through the desert, is it for you that he blazes fiercely, the fell lightning-bolt of the forest, the terror of the Ganges? Is it for your sake that the sea towers aloft and heaves in tumult?

    When Man devotes himself to the pursuit of knowledge and grows pale over his books, does he acquire the power to reveal the force by which the elements, once they have been linked together, continue their harmonious union throughout the ages and preserve their state without change? Can he reveal the source from which the bubbling springs fill up the sea and the everlasting fountains the rivers of fresh water, or how the ether feeds the stars?

    By no means! He makes his feeble
way along lonely by-paths of the universe, hardly advancing at all, and pushes on under scanty light, and strives to make his fearful way through the dim shadows. The decrees of fate stand in his way; the Fates have set a limit to knowledge and have said,'Only so far you may advance, O Learning; let this be your limit.'

    Man is not meant to roam too freely above the upper air, but to know Man; let him confine his limited desire within narrow bounds, and let him not seek to know what is outside himself. That man errs who wishes to transcend the limits placed in his way and who stretches out his hands with love of the farther shore. At this point the flood stretches wide; at this point a savage whirlpool yawns, and shadows wrapped in a mist of vast obscurities.

    The fountains of the deep, the kingdom of the roaring waves, the working of the starry heavens, and the caverns of the earth are revealed to no mortal; that man who would uncover these secrets of the sky and unlock the mighty deep would break the eternal ties, the bond of the universe.

    Many a man (this perversity and insane desire leads to destruction) tries to rush
into heaven, the dwelling of the gods, and leave behind the dwellings that Nature has given him for his own, and bade him keep.

    Another group laments the fortune of the human race, envies the beast, and lays claim to the grass of the field for Man.'Oh, who will carry me off to the happy fields of the herd, to places abandoned by the shepherds and to quiet retreats under the open sky? Why was I not given the eyes of the lynx or the keen scent of dogs
or the ability to prance and gallop?

    'Behold, when something is caught in
the spider's web, while she weaves her delicate snares, it sends a lively motion far along the strands! Why is not the same exquisite faculty of touch mine, or the massive brawn of bulls, or the wings of birds?'

    Let the answers teach those who have been chafing at their lot to be silent. If you should be able to vie in such great keenness of vision and to see into tiny atoms, you would not be able to look up at the heavens nor to take in the sweep of the broad ocean. If you had a keener sense of smell, how greatly, vain man, would you suffer—killed by a perfumed breeze, a sweet poison! If a livelier sense of touch were yours, your body would tremble, it would burn with
unremitting pain in all its parts, it would suffer affliction in every nerve. Or, if your sense of hearing were sharper, the crash of sound would
knock you senseless, when the sky is split by the fire of lightning and all the air of heaven reverberates: in a word, you would be overwhelmed; how eagerly you would long to regain the human endowments that you had to begin with, to become again the kind of being that you once were, to grow old in your former shape.

    Whether you try to reach the clouds, to fly through the forbidden reaches of the air, or whether you pray for savage forests and the
dens of wild beasts, you will be in error. Wisdom has planted her throne in a middle ground. Cease striving for a lot either greater or less than the one that God and Nature, the creatrix of things, has assigned."
The Complete Poems of Thomas Gray: English, Latin and Greek. Edited by Herbert W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1966, 119-121.
Add a note or query to this line

         —Quem te Deus esse 
 Jussit et humana qua parte locatus es in re 
 Disce—[Persius, Satires, iii. 71-73.] 

1 Pendet Homo incertus gemini ad confinia mundi  Skip to next line
2 Cui parti accedat dubius; consurgere stellis  Skip to next line
3 An socius velit, an terris ingloria moles  Skip to next line
4 Reptare, ac muto se cum grege credere campis:  Skip to next line
5 Inseruisse choro divum hic se jactat, et audet  Skip to next line
6 Telluremque vocare suam, fluctusque polumque,  Skip to next line
7 Et quodcunque videt, proprios assumit in usus.  Skip to next line
8 'Me propter jam vere expergefacta virescit  Skip to next line
9 'Natura in flores, herbisque illudit, amatque  Skip to next line
10 'Pingere telluris gremium, mihi vinea foetu  Skip to next line
11 'Purpureo turget, dulcique rubescit honore;  Skip to next line
12 'Me rosa, me propter liquidos exhalat odores;  Skip to next line
13 'Luna mihi pallet, mihi Olympum Phoebus inaurat,  Skip to next line
14 'Sidera mi lucent, volvunturque aequora ponti.'  Skip to next line
15     Sic secum insistit, tantumque haec astra decores  Skip to next line
16 AEstimat esse suae sedis, convexaque coeli  Skip to next line
17 Ingentes scenas, vastique aulaea theatri.  Skip to next line
18     At tibi per deserta fremit, tibi tigris acerbum  Skip to next line
19 Succenset, nemorum fulmen, Gangeticus horror?  Skip to next line
20 Te propter mare se tollit, surgitque tumultu?  Skip to next line
21     Hic ubi rimari, atque impallescere libris  Skip to next line
22 Perstitit, anne valet qua vi connexa per aevum  Skip to next line
23 Conspirent elementa sibi, serventque tenorem;  Skip to next line
24 Sufficiant scatebrae unde mari, fontesque perennes  Skip to next line
25 Jugis aquae fluviis, unde aether sidera pascat,  Skip to next line
26 Pandere? nequaquam: secreta per avia mundi  Skip to next line
27 Debile carpit iter, vix, et sub luce maligna  Skip to next line
28 Pergit, et incertam tendit trepidare per umbram.  Skip to next line
29 Fata obstant; metam Parcae posuere sciendi,  Skip to next line
30 Et dixere: veni huc, Doctrina, hic terminus esto.  Skip to next line
31 Non super aethereas errare licentius auras  Skip to next line
32 Humanum est, at scire hominem; breve limite votum  Skip to next line
33 Exiguo claudat, nec se quaesiverit extra.  Skip to next line
34 Errat, qui cupit oppositos transcendere fines,  Skip to next line
35 Extenditque manus ripae ulterioris amore;  Skip to next line
36 Illic gurges hiat late, illic saeva vorago,  Skip to next line
37 Et caligantes longis ambagibus umbrae.  Skip to next line
38     Oceani fontes, et regna sonantia fluctu,  Skip to next line
39 Machina stellantis coeli, terraeque cavernae  Skip to next line
40 Nullis laxantur mortalibus, isque aperiret  Skip to next line
41 Haec qui arcana poli, magnumque recluderet aequor,  Skip to next line
42 Frangeret aeternos nexus, mundique catenam.  Skip to next line
43     Plurimus (hic error, demensque libido lacessit)  Skip to next line
44 In superos, coelumque ruit, sedesque relinquit,  Skip to next line
45 Quas natura dedit proprias, jussitque tueri.  Skip to next line
46 Humani sortem generis pars altera luget  Skip to next line
47 Invidet armento, et campi sibi vindicat herbam.  Skip to next line
48 'Oh quis me in pecoris felicia transferet arva,  Skip to next line
49 'In loca pastorum deserta, atque otia dia?  Skip to next line
50 'Cur mihi non Lyncisve oculi, vel odora canum vis  Skip to next line
51 'Additur, aut gressus cursu glomerare potestas?  Skip to next line
52 'Aspice, ubi, tenues dum texit aranea casses,  Skip to next line
53 'Funditur in telam et late per stamina vivit!  Skip to next line
54 'Quid mihi non tactus eadem exquisita facultas,  Skip to next line
55 'Taurorumve tori solidi, pennaeve volucrum?'  Skip to next line
56     Pertaesos sortis doceant responsa silere.  Skip to next line
57 Si tanto valeas contendere acumine visus,  Skip to next line
58 Et graciles penetrare atomos; non aethera possis  Skip to next line
59 Suspicere, aut lati spatium comprendere ponti.  Skip to next line
60 Vis si adsit major naris; quam, vane, doleres,  Skip to next line
61 Extinctus fragranti aura, dulcique veneno!  Skip to next line
62 Si tactus, tremat hoc corpus, solidoque dolore  Skip to next line
63 Ardeat in membris, nervoque laboret in omni;  Skip to next line
64 Sive auris, fragor exanimet, cum rumpitur igne  Skip to next line
65 Fulmineo coelum, totusque admurmurat aether:  Skip to next line
66 Quam demum humanas, priscasque requirere dotes  Skip to next line
67 Attonitus nimium cuperes, nimiumque reverti  Skip to next line
68 In solitam speciem, veterique senescere forma.  Skip to next line
69     Nubila seu tentes, vetitumque per aera surgas,  Skip to next line
70 Sive rudes poscas sylvas, et lustra ferarum;  Skip to next line
71 Falleris; in medio solium Sapientia fixit.  Skip to next line
72 Desine sectari majora, minorave sorte,  Skip to next line
73 Quam Deus, et rerum attribuit natura creatrix. 
Works citedThe Complete Poems of Thomas Gray: English, Latin and Greek. Edited by Herbert W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1966.

Contractions, italics and initial capitalization have been largely eliminated, except where of real import. Initial letters of sentences have been capitalized, all accents have been removed. The editor would like to express his gratitude to library staff at Pembroke College, Cambridge, at the British Library, and at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, for their invaluable assistance.

[Latin verses at Eton]

[Latin verses at Eton]

0 [Latin verses at Eton] 1 Explanatory Skip to next line

Works cited

About this text