Meleager, The Garland 9.363
Windy winter has left the skies, and the purple season of flowery spring smiles. The dark earth garlands herself in green herbage, and the plants bursting into leaf wave their new-born tresses. The meadows, drinking the nourishing dew of dawn, laugh as the roses open. The shepherd on the hills delights to play shrilly on the pipes, and the goatherd joys in his white kids. Already the mariners sail over the broad billows, their sails bellied by the kindly Zephyr. Already, crowning their heads with the bloom of berried ivy, men cry euoi! to Dionysos the giver of the grape. The bees that the bull’s carcass generates take thought of their artful labours, and seated on the hive they build the fresh white loveliness of their many-celled comb. The races of birds sing loud everywhere : the kingfishers by the waves, the swallows round the house, the swan by the river’s brink, the nightingale in the grove. If the foliage of plants rejoices, and the earth flourishes, and the shepherd pipes, and the fleecy flocks disport themselves, and sailors sail, and Dionysos dances, and the birds sing, and the bees bring forth, how should a singer too not sing beautifully in the spring?