Casimire Sarbiewski SJ (1595-1640), considered the ‘Polish Horace’ by admirers such as Hugo Grotius, was a trailblazing poet. His neo-Latin odes were widely translated and imitated throughout Europe in the 17th century. His Ode V lib. 2/ ‘E Rebus Humanis Excessus’, describing a flight up to the sky’s threshold, inspired an influential English imitation by Abraham Cowley, ‘The Ecstasie’.
Casimire’s Ode XV Lib. 3, in honour of the Barberini Bees (the three bees on the Barberini coat of arms, pictured), delights me. It was composed on the occasion of the election of Urban VIII of the House of Barberini to the papacy. I’ve imitated it. George Hills, who published a selection of English Sarbievius translations in 1646, chose not to translate this one. An English rendering in trochaic tetrameter by the Clongowes Jesuit Francis Sylvester Mahony is available in a 2009 edition Casimir Britannicus: English Translations, Paraphrases, and Emulations of the Poetry of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, eds. Krzysztof Fordónski and Piotr Urbánski. You can read the whole poem in Google Books, but here is one of Mahony’s lighthearted stanzas to give you a taste:
Every plant and flower ye touch on,
Wears, I ween, a fresher grace;
For ye form the proud escutcheon
Of the Barberini race.
Mahony amplifies the poem and injects characteristic humour. Here is the much shorter ode:
Ode XV: Ad Apes Barberinas. Melleum venisse Saeculum.
Ciues Hymetti, gratus Atticae lepos,
Virginae volucres,
Flauæque veris filiæ,
Gratùm fluentis turba prædatrix thymi,
Nectaris artifices,
Bonæque ruris hospitæ,
Laboriosis quid iuuat volatibus,
Crure tenus viridem
Perambulare patriam,
Si BARBERINO delicata Principe
Sæcula melle fluunt,
Parata vobis sæcula?
Here’s my translation (which may not be perfect…):
Citizens of Hymettus, dear charm of Attica,
Birds of the virgin1
And yellow daughters of spring,
Beloved throng of bees plundering the flowing thyme,
Artisans of nectar,
Good guardians of the countryside,
What need is there for laborious flights,
To wander leg-deep
In your green homeland2
If the age of the delicate Prince Barberino
Flows with honey,
Already prepared for you?
Here’s my imitation, which rhymes a bit but lacks regular metre:
Saving graces of the Attic mountains,
insectile nymphs,
spring’s yellow daughters —
you plunder sweet fountains
of roses and thyme, sugar-waters
you sap, nectar-artists, symph
-onious and swift; guardians of spring,
you never cease to sing!
But aren’t you tired of flight, your wings
heavy now, legs leaden, herb-drunk?
Haven’t you heard the poets sing —
a honeyed age this is; your work is done;
a Barberino sits on Peter’s throne.
Casimire wrote several other cute odes to things like grasshoppers and roses, as well as more serious ones. There’s a 1634 copy of the odes, Lyricorum libri IV. Epodon. Lib. Vnus Alterque Epigrammatum, in the All Souls Library. It was previously owned by Warden Sparrow and Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun before him.
The Barberini arms in Rome
The mythological Athenian princess Atthis, after whom Attica was named, died a virgin.
Crure tenus viridem/ Perambulare patriam is causing me some trouble; I think tenus (up to) and leg must indicate that the homeland is being waded through (as bees’ legs are covered in pollen), while viridem modifies patriam (green homeland).