Hail bride and bridegroom, children both of Jove,
With fruitful joys let Hera bless your love!
Let Venus furnish you with full desires,
Add vigor to your wills and fuel your fires!
Let Jove, and luck, augment your wealthy store,
Give much to you, and to your children more!
From generous loins a generous race will spring,
Each girl will be a queen, each boy a king.
So sleep if sleep you can, but while you rest,
Sleep close, with folded arms, and breast to breast.
Rise in the morn, but oh! before you rise,
Do not neglect your morning exercise!
Just as, when night and winter disappear,
The purple morning, rising with the year,
Salutes the spring, so you, with wond’ring eyes,
Should light the world and brighten all the skies!
-Theocritus
