Virgil, Aeneid VI.883
Melphi speaks
Manibus date lilia plenis,
The priest translates
«Give lilies with full hands,»
And interprets
This line arrives gently: it speaks of a tribute given with full hands, without measure, to someone loved. Perhaps you are living through a loss, large or small, a person, a project, a season that ended too soon. The line does not ask you to hold back your grief or to pretend it is not there: it invites you to turn it into a gesture. Flowers do not change fate, and Virgil knows it well, but they honor the one who has gone and comfort the one who remains. It is the right time to say thank you, to remember aloud, to be generous with memory and with those still beside you.
The historical translations
Annibal Caro (1581)
Datemi a piene mani ond’io di gigli
E di purpurei fiori un nembo sparga,
Datemi a piene mani ond’io di gigli
E di purpurei fiori un nembo sparga,
Theodore C. Williams (1910)
O bring me lilies! Bring with liberal hand!
O bring me lilies! Bring with liberal hand!
Source
Publius Vergilius Maro, Aeneis, ed. J. B. Greenough (1900)
Virgil, Aeneid VI.883