Cur splendes, o Phoebe
The Radiant Distance
The speaker questions the sun's brilliance and its inability to bridge the gap to his departed mother.
Why do you shine, Phoebe? Can you bring my mother down to us with such a radiant beam?
The Superiority of the Soul
The speaker reflects on how his mother's soul transcends the physical elements and the sun's own light.
Yet she surpasses your head as much as the mind itself surpasses the corpse; the elements only hold the body. Clearly, that is why you shine: this is the reason for your glow, and you add holy joys to your gain.
A Prayer for Connection
The speaker asks the sun to participate in his mourning and help him reach his mother in her eternal state.
But hey, if you cannot bring my mother down from heaven—and such stillness is unaware of all motion—at least make your rays groan so that your right hand might entangle the twisted ones, and I may seek my mother while she remains herself.
Read the original Latin
Cur splendes, o Phoebe? ecquid demittere matrem Ad nos cum radio tam rutilante potes? At superat caput illa tuum, quantum ipsa cadaver Mens superat; corpus solum elementa tenent. Scilicet id splendes: haec est tibi causa micandi Et lucro apponis gaudia sancta tuo. Verum heus si nequeas coelo demittere matrem, Sitque omnis motus nescia, tanta quies, Fac radios saltem ingemines, ut dextera tortos Implicet, et matrem, matre manente, petam.
The Latin Poems companion
Read all 57 of Herbert's Latin poems, one a day
Chosen Portion delivers a Herbert poem (or another royal-court devotional text) as your free daily reading on iOS
Herbert's short poems were written for meditative re-reading; Chosen Portion serves one per day, turning the two collections into a two-month devotional cycle
- All 57 Latin poems in modern English, roughly two months of daily readings
- One short poem a day, readable in under 5 minutes
- Includes the full Sub Rosa archive of 78 historic devotional works