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Elegia X.1
Ad Cererem, conquerens quod ejus sacris cum amica concumbere non permittatur.

Come were the times of Ceres' sacrifice;
In empty bed alone my mistress lies.
Golden-haired Ceres crowned with ears of corn,
Why are our pleasures by thy means forborne?
Thee, goddess, bountiful all nations judge,
Nor less at man's prosperity any grudge.
Rude husbandmen baked not their corn before,
Nor on the earth was known the name of floor.2
On mast of oaks, first oracles, men fed;
This was their meat, the soft grass was their bed.
10
First Ceres taught the seed in fields to swell,
And ripe-eared corn with sharp-edged scythes to fell.
She first constrained bulls' necks to bear the yoke,
And untilled ground with crooked ploughshares broke.
Who thinks her to be glad at lovers' smart,
And worshipped by their pain and lying apart?
Nor is she, though she loves the fertile fields,
A clown, nor no love from her warm breast yields.
Be witness Crete (nor Crete doth all things feign),
Crete proud that Jove her nursery maintain.
20
There he who rules the world's star-spangled towers,
A little boy, drunk teat-distilling showers.
Faith to the witness Jove's praise doth apply;
Ceres, I think, no known fault will deny.
The goddess saw Iasion on Candian Ide,
With strong hand striking wild beasts' bristled hide.
She saw, and as her marrow took the flame,
Was divers ways distract with love and shame.
Love conquered shame, the furrows dry were burned,
And corn with least part of itself returned.
30
When well-tossed mattocks did the ground prepare,
Being fit-broken with the crooked share,
And seeds were equally in large fields cast,
The ploughman's hopes were frustrate at the last.
The grain-rich goddess in high woods did stray,
Her long hair's ear-wrought garland fell away.
Only was Crete fruitful that plenteous year;
Where Ceres went, each place was harvest there
Ida, the seat of groves, did sing1 with corn,
Which by the wild boar in the woods was shorn.
40
Law-giving Minos did such years desire,
And wished the goddess long might feel love's fire.
Ceres, what sports2 to thee so grievous were,
As in thy sacrifice we them forbear?
Why am I sad, when Proserpine is found,
And Juno-like with Dis reigns under ground?
Festival days ask Venus, songs, and wine,
These gifts are meet to please the powers divine.

[1]Not in Isham copy or ed. A.

[2]Threshing-floor (“area”).

[1]Marlowe has made the school-boy's mistake of confusing “caneo” and “cano.”

[2]The original has

“Quod tibi secubitus tristes, dea flava, fuissent, Hoc cogor sacris nunc ego ferre tuis”
Marlowe appears to have read “Qui tibi concubitus,” &c.

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Elegia X. Ad Cererem, conquerens quod ejus sacris cum amica concumbere non permittatur. - Christopher Marlowe, The Works of Christopher Marlowe, vol. 3 (Poems) [1598]

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Elegia X.1Ad Cererem, conquerens quod ejus sacris cum amica concumbere non permittatur.

Elegia X.1
Ad Cererem, conquerens quod ejus sacris cum amica concumbere non permittatur.