Baucis and Philemon Part 2

Ergo ubi caelicolae parvos tetigere penates

Therefore, when the heaven-dwellers arrived at the little house,

Summissoque humiles intrarunt vertice postes,

And entered the low doorposts with bowed head,

Membra senex posito iussit revelare sedili;

The old man bid [them] relax their limbs on a positioned couch;

Cui superiniecit textum rude sedula Baucis

Over which busy Baucis threw a rough covering.

Inde foco tepidum cinerem dimovit et ignes

Then she raked through the warm ashes on the hearth and rekindled

Suscitat herternos foliisque et cortice sicco

Yesterday’s fire and fed [it] with leaves and dry

Nutrit et ad flammas anima producit anili

Bark and coaxed it towards flames with an old woman’s breath.

Multifidasque faces ramaliaque arida tecto

And down from the roof she brought finely-split sticks and dry twigs

Detulit et minuit parvoque admovit aeno

And she chopped [them up] and placed [them under] a little pot,

Quodque sus coniunx riguo collegerat horto

And the greens, which her husband had gathered in the well-watered garden,

Truncat holus foliis; furca levat ille bicorni

She stripped off [their] leaves; he, with a two-pronged fork, lifted down

servatoque diu resecat de tergore partem

And he cut off from the long-saved back a very small

Exiguam sectamque domat ferventibus undis.

Part and he tenderised the cut in boiling water.

sordida terga suis nigro pendentia tigno

the smoked back of pig, hanging from a blackened beam,