Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

PHOENIXdamp. Above the plains no cloud stretches itsfleece, nor falleth from on high the stormy moistureof rain. But there is a well in the midst, the wellof life they call it, crystal-clear, gently-flo^\'ing, richin its sweet waters : bursting forth once for eachseveral month in its season, it drenches all the grovetwelve times with its flood. Here is a kind of treethat rising with stately stem bears mellow fruitswhich will not fall to the ground.In this grove, in these woods, dwells the peerlessbird," the Phoenix, peerless, since she lives renewedby her own death. An acolyte worthy of record,*she yields obedience and homage to Phoebus : suchthe duty that parent Nature assigned to her for observance.Soon as saffron Aurora reddens at her rising,soon as she routs the stars with rosy light, thriceand again that bird plunges her body into the kindlywaves, thrice and again sips water from the livingflood. Soaring she settles on the topmost height ofa lofty tree which alone commands the whole of thegrove, and, turning towards the fresh rising ofPhoebus at his birth, awaits the emergence of hisradiant beam. And when the Sun has struck thethreshold of the gleaming portal and the light shaftof his first radiance has flashed out, she begins topour forth notes of hallowed minstrelsy and to summonthe new day in a marvellous key which neithertune of nightingale nor musical pipe could rival in /" " alone of its kind," " unparalleled " :cf. Ovid Am. II.vi. 54, et vivax phoeniz, tmica semper avis.^ In most accounts the phoenix appears as a male bird{pater, etc.). Contrast, however, Ovid's unica avis {I.e.)with Claudian's Titanius ales {Carm. Min. xxvii.7) and hisidem (masc.) in De Cons. Stil. II. 415. AureUus Victor, DeCaesaribus 4, has quam volucrem in reference to the phoenix.653