See introduction to d2_MelA_033. Metre: elegiac couplets.
Ad. G. Buchananum (1582)
[p115]
Ad. G. Buchananum
Qui in Latium Solymam in patriam Latium omne tulisti,
orbi infers patriae resque ducesque tuae.
Quo Solyma ac Latio major stat maximus orbis,
hoc major tute es, se quoque nunc patria.
Ad eundem
Multum oro Phœbi numen, doctasque sorores,
dent mihi, dem quae te carmina digna tibi.
[p116]
At Phœbus necquicquam audit, mutaeque sorores,
et concreta rigent mollia corda gelu.
Nil Phœbus sine te, sine te nil turba sororum,
unus tu des te carmina digna tibi.
[p115]
To George Buchanan
You are the man who has brought all of Jerusalem into Latium, a and all Latium to your homeland, bearing forth the affairs and leaders of your homeland to the world. As the greatest world b stands greater than Jerusalem and Latium, you are greater than this, as also now is your homeland.
To the same man
I beg a great deal of goodwill from Phoebus, and the learned sisters, that they grant it to me that I might give you poems which are worthy of you. [p116] But Phoebus hears nothing, and the sisters are silent, and their tender hearts have hardened and grow stiff with cold. Phoebus is nothing without you, without you the crowd of sisters is nothing, you alone might give yourself poems worthy of you.
Notes:
Translation
a: Old Latium, in terms of modern-day Italian geography, was bounded to the north-west by the rivers Tiber and Anio and to the east by the Apennines. However it also embraced, through the territories known as Greater Latium, land extending as far south-east as the borders of Campania. Latium was the home of Latin culture, and was culturally active even before the emergence of city-states in the 6th century BC. The Latin states were ultimately absorbed into Rome's hegemony in the 4th century.
b: Heaven.
