Some passages of Livy bear evident marks of having been originally portions of Saturnian ballads, although the historian has mutilated the metre by the process of translating them into more modern Latin. The prophetic warning of C. Marcius[80] has been thus restored by Hermann with but slight alteration of the words of Livy:
Amnén, Trojúgena, Cánnam fuge, ne te alienigenæ Cogánt in cámpo Díomedéi manús consérere; Sed nec credes tu mihi, donec complessis sangui Campum, miliaque multa occisa tua tetulerit Is amnis in portum magnum ex terra frugifera. Piscibus avibus ferisque quæ incolunt terras, eis Fuat esca carnis tua; ita Juppiter mihi fatus.
The oracle which tradition recorded as having been brought from Delphi respecting the waters of the Alban lake[81] was evidently embodied in a Saturnian poem, probably the composition of the same Marcius, or one of his contemporaries, such as Fabius Pictor, Cincius Alimentus, or Acilius. This lay has also been conjecturally restored by Hermann.
Romane aquam Albanam lacu cave contineri, Cave in mare immanare suopte flumine siris; Missam manu per agros rigassis, dissipatam Rivis extinxis, tum tu insistito hostium audax Muris memor, quam per tot annos circum obsides Urbem, ex ea tibi his, quæ nunc panduntur fatis, Victoriam datam; bello perfecto donum Amplum ad mea victor templa portato; sacra patria Nec curata instaurato, utique adsolitum, facito.
In later times Livius Andronicus translated the whole Odyssey into Saturnians, and Nævius wrote in the same metre a poem consisting of seven books, the subject of which was the first Punic war. Detached fragments of both these have been preserved by Aulus Gellius, Priscian, Festus, and others, which have been collected together by Hermann.[82]
The structure of the Saturnian is very simple, and its rhythmical arrangement is found in the poetry of every age and country. Macaulay[83] quotes the following Saturnians from the poem of the Cid and from the Nibelungen-Lied—
Estás nuevás a mío | Cíd erán venídas A mí lo dían; á ti | dán las órejádas. Man móhte míchel wúnder | vón Sifríde ságen Wa ích den kúnic vínde | dás sol mán mir ságen.
He adds, also, an example of a perfect Saturnian, the following line from the well known nursery song—
