Epithalamion in nuptias eruditi et pii iuvenis Ioannis Oldendorpii secundi, celeberrimi huius temporis iurisconsulti, & consiliarii principis Hassiae primarii, doctoris Ioannis Oldendorpii, filii: et castissimae virginis Christinae, reverendi viri Ioannis Soniceri theologiae doctoris, et linguarum in celebri Academia Marpurgensi professoris, filiae

To ADAM LONICERUS, DOCTOR OF MEDICINE AND PHYSICIST OF FRANKFURT. Wendelin von Helbach of Mulberg sends greetings.

Accept, Doctor Adam, these few verses that I have composed with haste for the wedding of your sister. They are, I confess, of a very thin vein, and not well written with a polished style. Yet perhaps such things might be worthy of forgiveness, because I have little leisure time for the Muses. For I am pressed down, exhausted, by the hard labors of my hands, building my mud-walled nest like a swallow. As is the custom in certain regions, which are equally lacking in stones and trees. Add to this that domestic care torments me incessantly, and I am compelled to be indoors and compelled to be out. I perform the duties of a husband, and now of a servant; I am the steward, the storekeeper, the camp-follower, the minister, and the master. For my wife still struggles with a splene enlarged spleen or melancholy, and Agnes suffers daily from the pangs of a harsh fever. I am forced to harvest fruits by the growth of the Moon, and at the same time, I must educate the youth. Therefore, let the rejoicing bridegroom, whose honors are celebrated, take this unrefined poem in good part, I pray. Or am I mistaken, and will PAGANUS, the great glory of the Clarian choir, celebrate these weddings with a proper poem? Or some other person, who has great power in poetry, who has wetted his lips in the Pierian springs? For poets always frequent the city of Mars Marburg, and this place is accustomed to be fertile for Swans.

YEAR 1566