Gregory: two for Caesarius

Gregory's brilliant younger brother, Caesarius, was the first of his family to die: he predeceased their parents and was laid to rest in the tomb that Gregory Senior and Nonna had commissioned in anticipation of their own demise.

There are a couple of Gregory's laments for Caesarius in the selection I have coming out this November, but here are two more, quickly done this morning. The sequence in which they are presented in the Anthology is probably as Gregory intended: the second poem picks up on and contradicts the first. I am missing my own brother, and fretting for his safety.

8.85

On Caesarius his brother

The tomb is merciless. I never dreamed

That it would swallow up the latest-born

Before their elders; nonetheless it took

Caesarius, our parents’ famous son,

Before the ones who had preceded him.

What kind of justice, this? What kind of right?

8.85b

On the same

The tomb is not at fault; don’t call it names.

The deed was Envy’s, for how could it bear

To see a young man wiser than the old?