Libretto by Vincent Katz
‘Lucky me! Radiant night!’
CYNTHIA
Cynthia is in her boudoir, seated, in front of a mirror. Her room is sophisticated in its appointments. Her handmaiden is behind her, combing her hair and listening to her tale.
Lucky me! radiant night! and you
couch made fertile by my pleasures!
As many words as we shared while the lamps were on --
once light was removed, that many bouts ensued!
First I wrestle him with naked breasts,
then my concealing tunic brings delay.
I push open his lids, as they slip into sleep,
and say, with my expression, “So, you lie there spent?”
With such varied embrace we exchange positions!
So many of his kisses linger on my lips!
“But if you,” he says, “intend to go to bed and keep your clothes on,
you'll feel my hands ripping your clothing:
in fact, if excessive rage provokes me,
you'll be showing your mom your battered arms.”
Drooping boobs don't yet preclude my play:
let her worry who knows the shame of having given birth.
While the fates permit us, let us sate our eyes on sex:
a long night is coming for us, daylight never to return.
If only he’d agree that we be bound like this in mid-embrace
by a chain no day would ever loosen!
He is mistaken, who seeks a limit for love’s madness:
true lust is incapable of moderation.
Propertius enters Cynthia’s bedroom, slowly approaches. She does not yet notice his presence, even as she addresses him.
But you, while there's light, don't neglect the fruit of life!
If you give all your kisses, you give few.
And just as leaves fall from dried-up garlands,
and you see them floating, strewn over the wine bowls,
it’s the same for us, lovers who now breathe vigorously:
perhaps tomorrow shuts in our fate.
‘O guardian of the world’
APOLLO
Apollo addresses Octavian (soon to be Augustus) before the battle of Actium.
O guardian of the world from Alba Longa,
Augustus, more famous than Hector and your other ancestors,
conquer the sea: the earth is already yours; my bow fights for you
and this whole quiver on my shoulders is on your side.
Their fleet may row with a hundred wings:
don’t let it frighten you. Against its will, that fleet is slipping into the sea:
It is the cause that smashes and exalts powers in a war;
Unless justice is at hand, shame shatters the armor.
The time has come, engage the ships: I, time’s author,
will guide the Julian prows with laurel-bearing hand.
‘The Roman Callimachus’
PROPERTIUS
Propertius explains his origins and goals as a poet to his friend, Tullus.
What class I am and from where, Tullus, who my Penates,
you ask all this in the name of our long friendship, Tullus.
If the Perusine tombs of our country are known to you,
funerals in Italy’s hard times,
when Roman discord hunted her citizens —
this was especially painful for me, my Etruscan soil:
you allowed my relative’s limbs to go abandoned,
you cover the poor man’s bones with no earth —
Wolf of Mars,
battlements nurtured on your milk
I’ll try to lay down in solemn verse!
god help me, for the sound in my mouth is tender!
Whatever stream can flow from my narrow
breast, all of it will serve my nation.
To me, Bacchus, extend your leaves of ivy,
that Umbria, swelling with my books, be proud,
Umbria, land of the Roman Callimachus!
Whoever sees the citadels ascend from the valleys
will value their walls by my genius!