He laments the death of the parrot which he had given to Corinna.

The parrot, the imitative bird 353 sent from the Indians of the East, is dead; come in flocks to his obsequies, ye birds. Come, affectionate denizens of air, and beat your breasts with your wings; and with your hard claws disfigure your delicate features. Let your rough feathers be torn in place of your sorrowing hair; instead of the long trumpet, 354 let your songs resound.

Why, Philomela, are you complaining of the cruelty of Tereus, the Ismarian tyrant? Surely, that grievance is worn out by its length of years. Turn your attention to the sad end of a bird so prized. It is is a great cause of sorrow, but, still, that so old. All, who poise yourselves in your career in the liquid air; but you, above the rest, affectionate turtle-dove, 360 lament him. Throughout life there was a firm attachment between you, and your prolonged and lasting friendship endured to the end. What the Phocian youth 361 was to the Argive Orestes, the same, parrot, was the turtle-dove to you, so long as it was allowed by fate.

But what matters that friendship? What the beauty of your rare plumage? What your voice so ingenious at imitating sounds? What avails it that ever since you were given, you pleased my mistress? Unfortunate pride of all birds, you are indeed laid low. With your feathers you could outvie the green emerald, having your purple beak tinted with the ruddy saffron. There was no bird on earth more skilled at imitating sounds; so prettily 362 did you utter words with your lisping notes.

Through envy, you were snatched away from us: you were the cause of no cruel wars; you were a chatterer, and the lover of peaceful concord. See, the quails, amid all their battles, 363 live on; perhaps, too, for that reason, they become old. With a very little you were satisfied; and, through your love of talking, you could not give time to your mouth for much food. A nut was your food, and poppies the cause of sleep; and a drop of pure water used to dispel your thirst. The gluttonous vulture lives on, the kite, too, that forms its circles in the air, and the jackdaw, the foreboder 364 of the shower of rain. The crow, too, lives on, hateful to the armed Minerva; 366 it, indeed, will hardly die after nine ages. 367 The prattling parrot is dead, the mimic of the human voice, sent as a gift from the ends of the earth. What is best, is generally first carried off by greedy hands; what is worthless, fills its destined numbers. 368 Thersites was the witness of the lamented death of him from Phylax; and now Hector became ashes, while his brothers yet lived.

Why should I mention the affectionate prayers of my anxious mistress in your behalf; prayers borne over the seas by the stormy North wind? The seventh day was come, 369 that was doomed to give no morrow; and now stood your Destiny, with her distaff all uncovered. And yet your words did not die away, in your faltering mouth; as you died, your tongue cried aloud, "Corinna, farewell!" 370

At the foot of the Elysian hill 371 a grove, overshaded with dark holm oaks, and the earth, moist with never-dying grass, is green. If there is any believing in matters of doubt, that is said to be the abode of innocent birds, from which obscene ones are expelled. There range far and wide the guiltless swans; the long-lived Phoenix, too, ever the sole bird of its kind. There the bird itself of Juno unfolds her feathers; the gentle dove gives kisses to its loving mate. Received in this home in the groves, amid these the Parrot attracts the guileless birds by his words. 372

A sepulchre covers his bones; a sepulchre small as his body; on which a little stone has this inscription, well suited to itself: "From this very tomb 377 I may be judged to have been the favorite of my mistress. I had a tongue more skilled at talking than other birds."