Etsi me assiduo confectum cura dolore
sevocat a doctis, Ortale, virginibus,
nec potis est dulcis Musarum expromere fetus
mens animi, tantis fluctuat ipsa malis--
namque mei nuper Lethaeo in gurgite fratris
pallidulum manans alluit unda pedem,
Troia Rhoeteo quem subter litore tellus
ereptum nostris obterit ex oculis.
. . . . . . . .
numquam ego te, vita frater amabilior,
aspiciam posthac? at certe semper amabo,
semper maesta tua carmina morte canam,
qualia sub densis ramorum concinit umbris
Daulias, absumpti fata gemens Ityli--
sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Ortale, mitto
haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae,
ne tua dicta vagis nequiquam credita ventis
effluxisse meo forte putes animo,
ut missum sponsi furtivo munere malum
procurrit casto virginis e gremio,
quod miserae oblitae molli sub veste locatum,
dum adventu matris prosilit, excutitur,
atque illud prono praeceps agitur decursu,
huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor.

Hortalus, though through unremitting pain concern draws me,
who am exhausted, from the Muses, and my mind cannot produce
their sweet fruit, my very thoughts surge like waves for
such troubles— for recently a wave flowing from the sea of
Lethe has washed my brother's pale little foot, which,
removed from our eyes, the Trojan ground crushes under the
shore of Rhoeteum... ...My brother, dearer than life, will I
never look upon you hereafter? No, but certainly I'll always
love you: I'll always sing solemn poems about your death,
which Procne will sing along with me under the dense shadows
of branches as she groans the prophetic utterances of Itys,
removed by death. But in such bouts of grief, Hortalus, I
nevertheless send you these translations of Callimachus,
lest perchance you should think that your words, entrusted
in vain, have slipped from my mind to the wandering winds,
just as an apple, a fiancé's secret pledge given, rolls
forth from his maiden's chaste lap because the apple, having
been placed under the voluptuous dress of the girl who
unhappily has forgotten, is shaken out when she suddenly
jumps up at her mother's approach, and is suddenly thrown in
a fall to the ground as a self-conscious blush runs over her
unhappy face.

Taken with kind permission from Brendan