Carmina Cantabrigiensia

A Cambridge Song, 10th century AD
What a marvelous idol of Venus,
In whose design there is no carelessness,
May the Ruler protect you, the one whose toil
Spun the earth and the stars and laid the seas and the soil.


And so that you do not suffer a theif's ingenious trap,
I hope Clotho loves you, because she holds the spindle in her lap.
"Save this boy," I ask not as an exercise,
Lachesis, but with a hard longing I agonize,
Sister of Atropos, so that some heresy may not mesmerize.


May you have Neptune as a shipmate, and also Thetis,
While you are carried across the river Thesis.
Where could you flee--I would like to know--where I will not love you?
What a shambles I will be, when I can't see you.


The hard matter of our mother's bones
Created humans when it was thrown over a shoulder as so many stones,
From which one came that little child
Who couldn't care less about a tearful sigh.
As I wallow in sadness, my rival will gladly make his play.
I will roar like a doe, when her buck dashes away.