Pervigilium Veneris

Pervigilium Veneris (or The Vigil of Venus) is a Latin poem of uncertain date, variously assigned to the 2nd, 4th or 5th centuries.

It is sometimes thought to have been by the poet Tiberianus, because of strong similarities with his poem Amnis ibat, though other scholars attribute it to Publius Annius Florus, and yet others find no sufficient evidence for any attribution.^[1][2] It was written professedly in early spring on the eve of a three-night festival of Venus (probably April 1–3) in a setting that seems to be Sicily. The poem describes the annual awakening of the vegetable and animal world through the "benign post-Lucretian" goddess,^[3] which contrasts with the tragic isolation of the silent "I" of the poet/speaker, against the desolate background of a ruined city, a vision that prompts Andrea Cucchiarelli to note the resemblance of the poem's construction to the cruelty of a dream.^[4] It is notable for its Romanticism which marks a transition between Classical Roman poetry and medieval poetry. It consists of ninety-three verses in trochaic septenarius, and is divided into strophes of unequal length by the refrain:

Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet.

"Let the one love tomorrow who has never loved, and let the one who has loved love tomorrow."

Or by Parnell:

"Let those love now who never loved before,
Let those who always lov'd, now love the more."