Moretum Iam nox hibernas bis quinque peregerat horas

excubitorque diem cantu praedixerat ales,

Simylus exigui cultor cum rusticus agri

tristia venturae metuens ieiunia lucis

membra levat vili sensim demissa grabato

sollicitaque manu tenebras explorat inertes

vestigatque focum, laesus quem denique sensit.

parvulus exusto remanebat stipite fomes

et cinis obductae celabat lumina prunae.

admovet his pronam summissa fronte lucernam

et producit acu stuppas umore carentis

excitat et crebris languentem flatibus ignem.

tandem concepto, sed vix, fulgore recedit

oppositaque manu lumen defendit ab aura

et reserat clausae quae pervidet ostia clavis.

fusus erat terra frumenti pauper acervos:

hinc sibi depromit quantum mensura patebat,

quae bis in octonas excurrit pondere libras.

Inde abit assistitque molae parvaque tabella,

quam fixam paries illos servabat in usus,

lumina fida locat; geminos tunc veste lacertos

liberat et cinctus villosae tergore caprae

pervertit cauda silices gremiumque molarum.

advocat inde manus operi partitus utrique:

laeva ministerio, dextra est intenta labori.

Haec rotat adsiduom gyris et concitat orbem

(tunsa Ceres silicum rapido decurrit ab ictu)

interdum fessae succedit laeva sorori

alternatque vices. modo rustica carmina cantat

agrestique suom solatur voce laborem,

interdum clamat Scybalen (erat unica custos,

Afra genus, tota patriam testante figura,

torta comam labroque tumens et fusca colore,

pectore lata, iacens mammis, compressior alvo,

cruribus exilis, spatiosa prodiga planta)

hanc vocat atque arsura focis imponere ligna

imperat et flamma gelidos adolere liquores.

Postquam implevit opus iustum versatile finem,

transfert inde manu fusas in cribra farinas

et quatit ac remanent summa purgamina dorso.

subsidit sincera foraminibusque liquatur

emundata Ceres. levi tum protinus illam

componit tabula, tepidas super ingerit undas

contrahit admixtos nunc fontes atque farinas,

transversat durata manu liquidoque coacto,

interdum grumos spargit sale, iamque subactum

levat opus palmisque suum dilatat in orbem

et notat impressis aequo discrimine quadris.

Infert ince foco (Scybale mundaverat aptum

ante locum) testisque tegit, super aggerat ignis.

dumque suas peragit Volcanus Vestaque partes,

Simylus interea vacua non cessat in hora,

verum aliam sibi quaerit opem neu sola palato

sit non grata Ceres, quas iungat comparat escas.

non illi suspensa focum carnaria iuxta,

durati sale terga suis truncique vacabant,

traiectus medium sparto sed caseus orbem

et vetus adstricti fascis pendebat anethi:

ergo aliam molitur opem sibi providus heros.

Hortus erat iunctus casulae, quem vimina pauca

et calamo rediviva levi muniebat harundo,

exiguo spatio, variis sed fertilis herbis.

nil illi deerat ,quod pauperis exigit usus:

interdum locuples a paupere plura petebat.

nec sumptus erat ullis, sed regula curae:

si quando vacuom casula pluviaeve tenebant

festave lux, si forte labor cessabat aratri,

horti opus illud erat. varias disponere plantas

norat et occultae committere semina terrae

vicinosque apte circa summittere rivos.

hic holus, hic late fundentes bracchia betae

fecundusque rumex malvaeque inulaeque virebant,

hic siser et nomen capiti debentia porra,

[hic etiam nocuum capiti gelidumque papaver,]

grataque nobilium requies lactuca ciborum

………. crescitque in acumina radix

et gravis in latum dimissa cucurbita ventrem.

verum hic non domini (quis enim contractior illo?),

sed populi proventus erat, nonisque diebus

venalis umero fasces portabat ad urbem:

inde domum cervice levis, gravis aere redibat

vix umquam urbani comitatus merce macelli.

caepa rubens sectique famem domat area porri

quaeque trahunt acri voltus nasturtia morsu

intibaque et venerem revocans eruca morantem.

Tunc quoque tale aliquid meditans intraverat

hortum.

ac primum, leviter digitis tellure refossa,

quattuor educit cum spissis alia fibris,

inde comas apii gracilis rutamque rigentem

vellit et exiguo coriandra trementia filo.

haec ubi collegit, laetum consedit ad ignem

et clara famulam poscit mortaria voce.

singula tum capitum nodoso corpore nudat

et summis spoliat coriis contemptaque passim

spargit humi atque abicit. servatum germine bulbum

tinguit aqua lapidisque cavom demittit in orbem.

his salis inspargit micas, sale durus adeso

caseus adicitur, dictas super ingerit herbas

et laeva vestem saetosa sub inguina fulcit:

dextera pistillo primum flagrantia mollit

alia, tum pariter mixto terit omnia suco.

it manus in gyrum: paulatim singula vires

deperdunt proprias; color est e pluribus unus,

nec totus viridis, quia lactea frusta repugnant,

nec de lacte nitens, quia tot variatur ab herbis.

saepe viri nares acer iaculatur apertas

spiritus et simo damnat sua prandia voltu,

saepe manu summa lacrimantia lumina terget

immeritoque furens dicit convicia fumo.

Procedebat opus nec iam salebrosus ut ante

sed gravior lentos ibat pistillus in orbis.

Ergo Palladii guttas instillat olivi

exiguique super vires infundit aceti

atque iterum commiscet opus mixtumque retractat.

tum demum digitis mortaria tota duobus

circuit inque globum distantia contrahit unum,

constet ut effecti species nomenque moreti.

Eruit interea Scybale quoque sedula panem,

quem laetus recipit manibus, pulsoque timore

iam famis inque diem securus Simylus illam,

ambit crura ocreis paribus, tectusque galero

sub iuga parentis cogit lorata iuvencos

atque agit in segetes et terrae condit aratrum. Latin text from Fairclough, H. Rushton. Virgil with an English translation in two volumes. Volume II. Aeneid VII-XII, The Minor Poems. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 1918.

Moretum Already night had passed ten of its winter hours and the bird that wakes

us with its song had foretold the day, when Simulus, the rustic tenderer

of a tiny plot, fearing the hunger-pangs of the approaching dawn, lifts

his limbs laid softly on his lowly pallet and groping carefully through

the darkness probes the hearth, which he finally felt through pain, for

the smallest of embers was still left in a burned-out log, and ashes were

hiding the glow of the hidden embers. He brings his lamp close by to

these with his head bowed low, he pulls out with a needle the wick’s

threads which are not moist with oil, and stirs up the flagging fire,

blowing hard on it. While it is barely alight he moves away, and with

cupped hand shields the light from the draughts, and opens up the

closed cupboard door, peering inside. A humble heap of grain was

poured out on the ground; from this he drew for himself as much as his

measure allowed, which exceeded eight pounds in weight twice over.

He goes from there, and standing by his quern he places his trusty

light on a small shelf which the wall held firm for that very purpose;

then he freed both arms, and clad in the skin of a shaggy goat he gives

a thorough wipe with its tail to the surfaces and the lap of the millstones.

Next he summons his hands to the work, sharing it out to both: his left

concentrates on supply, while the right provides the effort. This one

turns round the familiar disc and urges it on (Ceres, crushed, flows

down from the swift pounding of the hard stones). From time to time

the left hand takes over from her exhausted sister, changing places. Now

he sings some countrymen’s songs and eases his toil with his rustic voice,

and occasionally shouts out ‘Scybale’. She was his only helpmate, African

by birth – her whole face testified to her native land, with frizzy hair,

swollen lips and dusky colouring, broad-chested, with drooping breasts

and a flattened stomach, slender thighs and wondrously extensive feet.

He calls her and commands her to put wood on the fire to burn and to

heat the cold fluids with flame. Once the whirling work had reached

the appropriate point, he transfers the flowing flour to a sieve in his

hand and shakes it; and the unwanted siftings are left on the very top,

while the pure Ceres drops through the holes, and is sifted clean.

Straightaway he piles it on a smooth board, pours warm ripples over it,

pulls together the mixture of both spring water and flour, kneading and

turning it as by hand and water it is made firm, from time to time

sprinkling the mounds with salt. Now that it is thoroughly kneaded he

lifts his work and squashes it into a round disc in his palms, and marks

it with intended divisions, equally spaced. Then he carries it to the

hearth (Scybale had cleaned the place fittingly beforehand) and covers

it with a testum and heaps the fires over it. While Vulcan and Vesta

each play their part, Simulus does not stop work in the empty hour

that intervenes, but searches out another resource for himself. Lest Ceres

unaccompanied is unpleasing to the palate, he gets ready some

accompanying foodstuffs. No +sides of bacon, butchered+ and hardened

with salt, weighed down his meat racks by the hearth; but a cheese,

pierced through the middle of its orb with a string made of broom, and

an old bunch of dill, were hanging there: therefore the resourceful hero

toils at another resource for himself. There was a garden adjoining

his little house, over which a few hurdles and recycled rushes with their

thin stems stood guard; it was tiny in extent, but productive with its

different plants. He lacked nothing that a poor man needs; sometimes

a wealthy man used to look for more from this poor one. His little plot

cost him nothing save his attention: if ever rainy weather or a festival

day kept him idle in his little home, if perhaps his work at the plough

was done, that time was devoted to the garden. He knew how to set out

different plants, how to sow seeds in the broken earth, and how to

divert nearby streams round his plot in a skilful way. Here grew

cabbages, here beets which spread wide their leaves, prodigious sorrel,

mallow and elecampane, here skirret and leeks which owe their name

to their heads, and lettuce, a pleasant relief to noble foods, and many a

radish forces its pointed root into the earth, and the heavy marrow

which grows into a broad belly. But this harvest was not for its master

(for who was more stinting than he?) but for the populace, and on

market days he would carry his bundles on his shoulder into the city to

sell them, and would return home from there with an unburdened neck

and a heavy purse, scarcely ever with a purchase from the city market in

his train: red onions and a patch of welsh onions tamed his hunger,

and cress that screws up your face with its bitter taste, and endives, and

rocket that revives flagging Venus. Now he was planning something

along these lines as he entered the garden; and first with his fingers he

gently loosens four garlic bulbs from the earth and lifts them along

with their tightly-packed innards, then he plucks the delicate fronds of

celery, and rue that grows up straight, and coriander that trembles on

its slender stalk. When he has gathered these, he sits beside the cheerful

fire and with a loud voice asks his maid for the mortar. Then one at a

time he lays bare each bulb in its knotty body and strips off its outer

layer, and scatters the waste product all over the floor as he throws it

aside; the bulb, kept back with its fresh green leaf, he bathes with

water and places it in the hollow circle of stone. On them he sprinkles

grains of salt, the cheese, hardened by the shriveling salt, is added, he

heaps on top the aforementioned herbs, and with his left hand he gathers

his tunic under his hairy thigh, while his right hand first softens the

pungent garlic with the pestle, and then grinds all together equally in a

mingled paste. His hand goes round and round; gradually each

ingredient loses its own characteristics, and there is one colour out of

many, not all green, because the hard lumps of cheese resist, and not all

pale from the milk product, because it is so often changed by the

herbs. Often a keen waft is launched at the man’s open nostrils, and he

damns his breakfast with his face turned away, he often wipes his

tearful eyes with the back of his hand and in his wrath utters curses to

the undeserving fumes. The work was making progress; the pestle

no longer jerking but moving in slow circles with greater pressure.

Therefore he drizzles on drops of Pallas’ olive oil, pours over it a dash of

strong vinegar, and again stirs it up and examines the mixture. Then at

last he scrapes round the whole mortar with two fingers and pulls the

contents into a single ball, so that there stands together the name and

appearance of a moretum. Meanwhile Scybale, herself busy, rooted out

the bread, which he took in his hands with joy, and with fear of hunger

now driven away Simulus walks confidently to meet this day; clad below

the knee in matching leggings and in a cap, he forced his obedient oxen

under the yoke bound with thongs and drove them to the cornfield,

where he plunged the plough into the earth. English translation from Kenney, E. J. “The Ploughman’s Lunch: Moretum.: A Poem ascribed to Virgil.” Bristol Classical Press, 1984.