“Spring opens all, and the hard severity of the cold
recedes, and the pregnant earth lies exposed,
they say that April is called that because of the time of opening,
which nourishing Venus claims, laying her hand upon it.
She indeed deservedly regulates the world's orb;
she owns a dominion second to no god.
She gives laws to heaven, earth, and the waves that bore her,
and through her impetus she preserves every species.
She created all the gods (it would be long to enumerate them);
she gave their origins to crops and trees.
She drew together the rude souls of men
and taught them to be joined each with his mate.
What creates the race of winged creatures, if not charming pleasure?
Nor would cattle come together, if easy love were absent.
The fierce ram disputes with his horn against the male, but he also
would not harm the forehead of his beloved ewe.
The bull, laying aside his fierceness, follows the heifer,
he at whom all the mountain valleys, every grove, trembles.
The same force preserves whatever lives beneath the broad sea-depths,
and fills the waters with innumerable fish.
That force first removed from man his wild attire, from it came civilization and the cleanly care of oneself.
A lover was the first to sing his wakeful song, in a night denied him,
it is said, at the barred doors,
and it was an act of eloquence to plead with the hard-hearted girl,
and every man was skilled at pleading his own case.
Through the goddess, a thousand arts have been set in motion; from the urge to please,
many skills that were previously hidden, have been discovered.
Shall anyone despoil the goddess of her title to the second month (April)?
Let such madness be far from us.
—Ovid Fasti IV.85-116
recedes, and the pregnant earth lies exposed,
they say that April is called that because of the time of opening,
which nourishing Venus claims, laying her hand upon it.
She indeed deservedly regulates the world's orb;
she owns a dominion second to no god.
She gives laws to heaven, earth, and the waves that bore her,
and through her impetus she preserves every species.
She created all the gods (it would be long to enumerate them);
she gave their origins to crops and trees.
She drew together the rude souls of men
and taught them to be joined each with his mate.
What creates the race of winged creatures, if not charming pleasure?
Nor would cattle come together, if easy love were absent.
The fierce ram disputes with his horn against the male, but he also
would not harm the forehead of his beloved ewe.
The bull, laying aside his fierceness, follows the heifer,
he at whom all the mountain valleys, every grove, trembles.
The same force preserves whatever lives beneath the broad sea-depths,
and fills the waters with innumerable fish.
That force first removed from man his wild attire, from it came civilization and the cleanly care of oneself.
A lover was the first to sing his wakeful song, in a night denied him,
it is said, at the barred doors,
and it was an act of eloquence to plead with the hard-hearted girl,
and every man was skilled at pleading his own case.
Through the goddess, a thousand arts have been set in motion; from the urge to please,
many skills that were previously hidden, have been discovered.
Shall anyone despoil the goddess of her title to the second month (April)?
Let such madness be far from us.
—Ovid Fasti IV.85-116
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