Latin phrase meaning "hail, brother, farewell." It appears at the end of a poem by Catullus:
Through many countries and over many seas
I have come, Brother, to these melancholy rites,
to show this final honour to the dead,
and speak (to what purpose?) to your silent ashes,
since now fate takes you, even you, from me.
Oh, Brother, ripped away from me so cruelly,
now at least take these last offerings, blessed
by the tradition of our parents, gifts to the dead.
Accept, by custom, what a brother's tears drown,
and, for eternity, Brother, 'Hail and Farewell'.
The poem and phrase were further immortalized 1,900 years later by Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem Frater, Ave Atque Vale:
Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row!
So they row'd, and there we landed, 'O venusta Sirmio!'
There to me thro' all the groves of olive in the summer glow,
There beneath the Roman ruin where the purple flowers grow,
Came that 'Ave atque Vale' of the Poet's hopeless woe,
Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen-hundred years ago,
'Frater Ave atque Vale' as we wander'd to and fro
Gazing at the Lydian laughter of the Garda Lake below
Sweet Catullus's all-but-island, olive-silvery Sirmio!
Last updated: January 25, 2005.
