A Wedding

What follows is a description of some of the festivities and songs that young men and maidens used to sing at the weddings of Rome two thousand years ago. The editorial pen of 'The Woman's Voice' renders it from its Latin original as it appears in Catullus's poem number 62.

Catullus, the Latin poet of love, lived two generations before the birth of Christ, and devoted his verse to recounting the tales of his love for the maidens in whose thrall he perished, a young man not yet past thirty. He is the most famous of the Roman lyricists. He cared for diction and for music. Weddings were favored with more than one of his immortal songs.

The Young Men

Evening is here; it has come. Rise, then, young men. See, the evening star has begun to send from Olympus its expected light, so long awaited. The time to rise has come — time to leave the laden tables: for soon the bride will pass, and soon the wedding song will be sung.
Come, O Hymen, come to us, O god of marriage!

The Maidens

Do you not see the young men, maidens? Rise, let us go to meet them. See, the evening star has begun to kindle its fires, and see, the young men come hurrying. Do you think they walk without a purpose? No — they will sing something worth our listening.
Come, O Hymen, come to us, O god of marriage!

The Young Men

Our goal is no easy one, comrades: look how the maidens rehearse what they have been taught. Not in vain have they learned their songs; they store up in their memories what deserves to be stored — and no wonder, for they weary their minds to learn it by heart. We, however, have turned our thoughts in other directions, and our ears have strayed off, listening to the songs; so they will surely defeat us, for victory comes only to the vigilant. But sharpen your wits now, and make ready to contend with the maidens; presently they will begin to speak, and it will be our duty to answer them at once.
Come, O Hymen, come to us, O god of marriage!

The Maidens

What light crueler than yours, O evening star, lingers in the sky? For it does not scruple to tear the girl from her mother's breast — from her mother's breast to tear the girl who clings to it — and to give the pure virgin to the burning youth. Do enemies do worse than this, on the day one of their cities surrenders to them?
Come, O Hymen, come to us, O god of marriage!

The Young Men

What light dearer than yours, O evening star, shines in the sky? For with the flame you send forth, you set your seal upon the union already agreed, pledged beforehand by husbands and fathers, who waited for the rising of your flame to fulfill it. What have the gods to bestow more delightful than that happy hour?
Come, O Hymen, come to us, O god of marriage!

***

The Maidens

The evening star has snatched away one of us, O companions.

***

The Young Men

The watchman is awake at your coming, O evening star. Thieves hide themselves in the night; but you come, O star, O star of many names, and uncover their hiding places.
Come, O Hymen, come to us, O god of marriage!

***

But the maidens love to scold you, and to feign complaint against you. What matter if they complain of what, in the depths of their hearts, they desire?
Come, O Hymen, come to us, O god of marriage!

The Maidens

Like the flower
that springs up hidden in a walled garden —
the cattle know it not, no plow does it harm;
the winds caress it, the sun strengthens it, the rain wets it,
and it becomes the beloved of youths and maidens;
but once it withers one day, plucked by a sharp fingernail,
neither youths nor maidens love it any more:
so the virgin —
she remains her beloved's idol
so long as no touch befalls her...
but once her white flower is plucked and her body is sullied,
the youths forsake her, and she falls from the eyes of the maidens.
Come, O Hymen, come to us, O god of marriage!

The Young Men

Like the vine,
unwedded,
that grows in a barren field,
unable to stand up tall,
without strength to bring forth clusters of ripe grapes,
but bends its slender frame, its shoulder bows, and its topmost shoot strikes against its very roots —
no farmer tends it, no ox draws near it;
yet it rejoices in a throng of farmers who tend it, and in a number
of oxen that draw near it,
once it is bound to its sister, coupled with her:
so the virgin —
she grows old, and no one tends her or draws near her...
so long as no touch befalls her.
But on the day she is joined, in the season of ripeness, to a worthy husband,
her husband's love for her grows great, and her father's displeasure with her fades.
Come, O Hymen, come to us, O god of marriage!

And you, O bride, do not quarrel with your bridegroom,
for it is not right that you should quarrel with the man to whom your
father gave you — your father and your mother gave you — and obedience to them is a duty. For your
virginity is not yours alone: a part of it belongs to your parents:
a third of it is your father's, a third your mother's, and one third only is yours.
Do not, then, dispute with two who have yielded up their shares to their son-in-law — yielded up
the two shares, and the dowry with them.
Come, O Hymen, come to us, O god of marriage.