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[Oh ubi colles]


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[Oh ubi colles]


1 Oh ubi colles, ubi Faesularum,
2 Palladis curae, plaga, Formiaeque
3 Prodigae florum, Genuaeque amantes
4                     Littora soles?

5 Abstulit campos oculis amoenos
6 Montium quantus, nemorumque tractus?
7 Quot natant eheu! medii profundo
8                     Marmore fluctus?

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0 [Oh ubi colles] 1 Explanatory

Title/Paratext] "[Prose translation by J. R. [...]" H.W. Starr/J.R. Hendrickson, 1966.

"[Prose translation by J. R. Hendrickson:]
"Oh ubi colles"

    Oh, where are the hills, where the region of Fiesole, which Pallas loves and protects, and Formiae rich in flowers, and the suns that caress the shores of Genoa?
    How vast a tract of mountains and forests has taken the pleasing fields from my sight? How many waves, alas, roll in the shining deep between?"

The Complete Poems of Thomas Gray: English, Latin and Greek. Edited by Herbert W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1966, 152.

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1 Oh ubi colles, ubi Faesularum,
2 Palladis curae, plaga, Formiaeque
3 Prodigae florum, Genuaeque amantes
4                     Littora soles?

5 Abstulit campos oculis amoenos
6 Montium quantus, nemorumque tractus?
7 Quot natant eheu! medii profundo
8                     Marmore fluctus?

Works cited

  • The 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.

About this text

  • Composition: 1741
  • Publication: 1890
  • Base text: Commonplace Book
  • Metre: Aeolic
  • Stanza: Sapphic
  • Genre: Sapphic ode
  • Finding Aid: MS witnesses
  • Notes/Queries: 1
  • Source: TEI/XML

Editions in the Digital Library

  • 1890: Gray and his Friends. Ed. Tovey. Cambridge, 1890.