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Saturday 29 April 2023

priscae vestigia fraudis


Brand plucked from Dvivedi's Vashkarni at Samaldas
You crossed Black Waters, Mohandas,
Con now- 'Sic te diva potens Cypri'
English hard for Sanskrit slippery.

'Twixt Dad's Pushtimarg & Mum's Pranami Dhera
sic fratres Helenae, lucida sidera
To divide a Stella Maris ; twin djinn Fury 
 Ind's Ashvins- the Drink's Dioscuri!

Hoping to make it big, in horsehair wig, Babus who Horace peruse
Become but the Stagirite's Porus- worthy of Sen-tentious abuse
Till on 'priscae vestigia fraudis' Bapu pauses, determines our causes
Propemptic to Ezekiel's Miss Pushpa tossed to Tarshish Waters
Alas! Mohandas!
E'en Nahars, utterly Martian, have daughters.

Envoi-

That it, our every betterment, yet besiege
Peace hath a Prince! Not Love a Liege.


NB. 

Horace had written a 'propemptica' or 'bon voyage' poem to Virgil in which he reproached the impious invention of the Mariner's craft. For the young Mahatma, who had 'lost caste' by crossing the 'Black Water', this particular poem, which he might well have studied- if only to matriculate and to gain a better handle on the 'Roman Law' paper he needed to pass to qualify as a barrister-  would have been didactically linked to Virgil's 4th Eclogue- in which it is written, of the Millenarian Age to be established by the Universal Emperor, - pauca tamen suberunt priscae vestigia fraudis, quae temptare Thetim ratibus, quae cingere muris oppida

In  Timothy Ades translation-  

Few traces will survive of such old frauds
As Shipping, Agriculture and Defence

This is pretty much a description of Nehru's policy for India. Sadly, his daughter rebelled a little. What to do? Women are like that only. 







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