⚠Page has significant foxing and brown staining, particularly on the left side and bottom, though the text remains legible.

FOREST POEMS

While I dedicate the hide, struck twice in my excitement,

He fell before my feet,

Facing the North Star.

original: "polum Arcticum." With you as our guide, we climb the crags and the rocks

Close to the stars: even though

The leaping wild goat attacks us.

original: "capricornus." This refers to the Alpine ibex or mountain goat. Recently I struck down three wild goats from the cliff top.

A difficult goal indeed,

But it is a rewarding labor.

Clothed in these skins, I mock striped silks;

And I look down on fleeces

Dyed in expensive purple.

original: "Sidonio rore," literally "Sidonian dew." This refers to the famous and costly purple dye produced in the city of Sidon.

A N T I T H E S I S.

This is my warning: take care that you are not called a second Icarus,

Led to your destruction

In the pathless wilds while chasing deer.

In Greek mythology, Icarus fell into the sea and died after flying too close to the sun with wings of wax. Just as his fall gave his name to a famous sea:

By a headlong step,

You might also make these mountains infamous.

The Martinswand, upon which high Tyrol rests; original: "Martini Paries." The Martinswand is a massive limestone cliff near Innsbruck in Austria.

When its icy peak

Lifts its steep face toward the heavens:

That cliff, noble Duke Maximilian, famous for your daring deeds, Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519) famously became stranded on the Martinswand while hunting and, according to legend, was rescued by an angel or a daring climber.

Is so rugged it frightens even the Satyrs

Away from these tracks.

Satyrs are mythical woodland spirits with the legs and tails of goats. You would have been mourned as dead, had God Himself not lifted you,

Where no road is open,

Brought back by a miraculous path.

Why do we wretched men seek out slippery dangers of our own accord?

They arrive anyway,

Uninvited and without warning.

Toward sudden disasters, mortals, we stand and we move.

Fate rides on horseback:

And it often charges in crowds.

Cephalus once pierced his beloved Procris, the joy of his home,

Ah, wretched archer,

original: "arcitenens."

Among the trees.

In mythology, Cephalus accidentally killed his wife Procris with a javelin while hunting, mistaking her movement in the brush for a wild animal.