Gunner

an obituary by Claude Selwyn, Classics master at King's Mead School,

to his dog

Musa, canem luge defunctum, nomine Gunner,
Qui pueris olim spesque dolorque fuit.
Corpus erat monstro nigrum, longissima cauda:
Quis fuerat mater nescio quisve pater.
Restat iners nunquam, semper tamen arva peragrat
Quicquid humi spectat protinus ore capit.
Huc illuc pueri vano clamore sequuntur
Sed frustra: laetus Gunner ubique fugit.
Per flores veluti tempestas ille ruebat
Caulibus atque novis maxima pestis erat.
Tandem finis erat: quandam mordere parentum
Audet, ut in prato sola tenebat iter.
Edicit dominus mortem: teque improbe Gunner,
Nunc habet ut comitem Cerberus ipse suum.


(C.P. Selwyn)

Courtesy of Earl Howe (who offers this translation keeping faith with the elegiac couplets)

 

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