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THE 
 
 ODES AND EPODES 
 
 HORACE. 
 
THE 
 
 ODES AND EPODES 
 HORACE, 
 
 TRANSLATED 
 
 LITERALLY AND RHYTHMICALLY. 
 
 BY W. SEWELL, B.D., 
 
 FELLOW AND SUB-EECTOE OF EXETEE COLLEGE, OXFOED. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 MDCCCL. 
 

 PRINTED BY 
 
 COX (BROTHERS) AND WYM11T, GREAT QUEEN STREET, 
 
 LINCOLN' S-INN FIELDS. 
 
 Gift 
 
 W. L. Shoemaker 
 7 S '06 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I hope the object of this translation will not be misunder- 
 tood. It is one thing to attempt the transfusion of a poet's 
 mind, spirit, and grace from one language into another, so 
 that those who cannot read the original, may form some 
 notion of his beauties ; another to construe him literally and 
 grammatically, word for word, as boys are required to do in 
 our classical schools, and at the Universities. I have had no 
 thought of attempting a translation of the former kind. But 
 as the tutor of a college, engaged in that which must ever 
 form the best foundation of all high mental culture, — instruc- 
 tion in classical literature, and also as deeply interested in a 
 still earlier stage of education, I have tried from time to time 
 to aid those placed under my care in uniting two conditions 
 of translation, with the failure of either of which in students 
 very serious evils must follow : first, accuracy, — strict, 
 literal, word-for-word accuracy, and secondly, as much atten- 
 tion as possible to the language of poetry. I believe the 
 former exercise is a most healthy discipline for the mind, 
 which cannot be too carefully enforced. But if prosecuted 
 without the latter, it must destroy all the charm which ought 
 to attend the study of great authors, prevent all improvement 
 in English while we are studying Latin and Greek, and 
 corrupt instead of refining the taste of the young. This is 
 not the place to enter into the theory of such suggestions. 
 But as a tutor in the University of Oxford, may I venture 
 to suggest to heads, both of our public and private schools, 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 the observations which have impressed on my own mind so 
 strongly the importance of introducing into classical edu- 
 cation the practice of translation at once literal and rhyth- 
 mical. 
 
 1. Of the value of strict accuracy, and minute attention to 
 gr amm atical construction, it is not unnecessary to speak. 
 The University of Oxford still requires it. But a long expe- 
 rience as a tutor compels me to fear that it is decaying 
 in our schools. It is a fact which I can vouch for, from 
 my own experience, that in by far the largest number of 
 young men who enter the University, there is scarcely any 
 such habit. Tenses are substituted for tenses, cases for cases, 
 words carelessly disturbed from their order, conjunctions 
 confounded, prepositions omitted or inserted at will, particles 
 treated as nonentities, all the nice discriminations of suffixes 
 neglected ; and nearly the first year of the University course 
 is required for going over this elementary ground, and cor- 
 recting something of the carelessness which has been permitted 
 or encouraged at school. 
 
 The explanation of this evil is to be found, not in the 
 negligence or incompetence of masters. Far from it. For it 
 prevails in schools where the teachers are of the highest 
 attainments, and most sedulously devoted to their work. 
 But it is attributable to the consciousness of the sad effects 
 which flow from accustoming a boy to view the great models 
 of classical poetry through the medium of his own bare 
 prosaic translation, and of allowing him to travestie them in 
 bad English. To escape from this into a free and elegant 
 translation, he is indulged in grammatical liberties. And 
 thus the habit of accuracy is sacrificed, and a slovenly scholar- 
 ship overlooked and even encouraged. To reconcile the two 
 things, strict accuracy and something of a poetical character, 
 is very difficult indeed at the spur of the moment. For my 
 own classes I found it necessary to make such translations 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 beforeliand. And I have hoped they might be useful to 
 other masters. 
 
 2. It is scarcely necessary to explain why such translations of 
 classical poetry should be rhythmical. Without rhythm poetical 
 phraseology becomes bombast ; and the unadorned language 
 which the simplicity of the best ancient writers so frequently 
 requires, when stripped of the rhythm of the original, loses 
 all its charm. Moreover, the habit of composing in rhythm 
 forms the ear to a delicate perception of its power and laws, 
 even in writing prose. The value of rhythm even in a ser- 
 mon, even to the uneducated, is very great. It acts like 
 music, wakens feelings, supports attention, prevents fatigue, 
 pleases and soothes the ear to listen favourably, and assists 
 memory, especially among the poor, to a degree which will per- 
 haps be best understood by supposing our Bible and Liturgy 
 to be stripped of the exquisite rhythm in which they are now 
 clothed, and then comparing the effect of it even upon 
 uneducated minds. 
 
 j 3. There is another use for which I have employed such 
 translations myself, and which I would venture without pre- 
 sumption to suggest to others. We all know how many 
 years it takes to acquire a command over Latin and Greek, 
 while a residence of a few months in a foreign country will 
 make us tolerable masters of its language. The reason is, 
 that in the former case we spend our time in translating Latin 
 into English, in the latter case we are constantly employed 
 in translating English, or what is the same, our own thoughts, 
 into French or German. Constant composition is essential 
 to the mastery of a language, even to a practical grammatical 
 acquaintance with it. And composition is the most wearying 
 and troublesome part of a schoolmaster's duty. The necessity 
 of perpetual correction, which involves on his own part per- 
 petual composition also, — the absence of any certain standard 
 of excellence, or correctness, — the hopelessness of reaching any 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 great perfection, — the weariness of reading over innumerable 
 dull exercises, and that after the labour of teaching, in the 
 hoiu-s of relaxation, — all this tends to make the practice of 
 ' composition by the pupil dreaded by the master, and ne- 
 glected in the school. And yet without it how is a dead 
 language to be learnt any more than a liying one ? There is 
 a mode of meeting this great practical difficulty which I ven- 
 ture to suggest from experience. It is, first, that when boys 
 are learning and have learned their grammar, they should be 
 exercised in this, not by reading Horace or Virgil, but in 
 detached words, separate phrases, taken out of their context ; 
 in which the context can be of no use to suggest a guess ; 
 and nothing can lead to a knowledge of the meaning but the 
 grammatical formation. This would H^l their attention upon 
 the grammatical rules. And it would also prevent the dis- 
 taste which is now too commonly acquired even for the 
 highest poetry of the ancients by the associations of dry 
 grammar. We do not (ought not at least to) allow the Holy 
 Scripture to be profaned by making it an exercise in syntax. 
 For the same reason, though in an infinitely lower degree, we 
 should save the great classical writers from being rendered 
 distasteful, by the same process, to those in whom it is our 
 main object to inspire love and admiration for them. Ana- 
 tomical lectures are not to be illustrated upon living human 
 beings. 
 
 The next thing should be to provide for classes, not Virgil 
 for instance, or Homer, but as accurate and at the same time 
 as poetical a translation of them as can be procured ; accu- 
 racy — strict word-for-word accuracy — being the most essential 
 condition. And then the master, with the original in his 
 hand, should lead them on to write Virgil and write Homer. 
 Eveiy lesson will thus be a lesson in composition ; a lesson 
 in grammar, which they cannot but learn when compelled to 
 practise \ at the same time an exercise of thought \ at the same 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 time an opportunity of acquiring a vast amount of synonyms 
 and forms of expression suggested by the whole class, with 
 the certainty of selecting the best. And the master will be 
 relieved from difficulty by possessing the key in his own 
 hand ; will be able to exercise his boys in discriminating and 
 choosing between seemingly similar phraseology; and their 
 attention will be kept up, their interest of creation main- 
 tained, and their memory assisted, by writing down the sen- 
 tences as fast as they are formed. When in this way boys 
 have composed themselves, as it were, the great compositions 
 of antiquity (in which they will soon acquire an extraordinary 
 facility), they may then be led to read them, not merely con- 
 struing them literally into English, which I think should 
 rarely be required except upon paper, when they have time to 
 study their work carefully and arrange their language rhyth- 
 mically ; but reading them off (which is most important) in 
 the original language, and then with the book closed giving 
 an account of the meaning of each sentence as it was read. 
 The value of this exercise is very great, from the attention, 
 forethought, and constructive power which the architecture, 
 as it were, of the Greek and Latin languages requires, by sus- 
 pending important words to the last, and so compelling the 
 mind to keep every member of the sentence before the eye 
 till the close is reached. Lastly, in a more advanced stage, at 
 the University, the pupil should be able to take up at once 
 a Greek passage, be examined in the higher points of gram- 
 matical construction, read it off fluently into elegant English, 
 and then pass to the higher questions of philosophical criti- 
 cism — a point which, in the present state of grammatical 
 scholarship, when the student arrives at the University, it is 
 scarcely possible to touch on. The tutors in our colleges 
 have to teach the first laws of grammar. And there is often 
 little time to pass beyond. 
 
 My own recollections of a school where this plan was par- 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 tially in use, satisfy me of its great importance. And to 
 assist in its more general introduction, by providing transla- 
 tions which may thus be used by boys, while the original is 
 in the hands of the master, has been the chief motive of the 
 translations I have hitherto attempted, and of the form se- 
 lected ; the combination, namely, of the literal with the 
 rhythmical. 
 
 I will add one word on the employment of rhyme in such 
 translations, when they are to be made by the pupil himself. 
 It is, of course, an additional fetter, and one which at first 
 will seem to render the task almost insurmountable. But it 
 possesses two great advantages. First, it compels the trans- 
 lator to accumulate and compare a great variety of forms of 
 expressions, synonyms, and kindred phrases, before he can 
 succeed ; and this process, even if unsuccessful, at least enables 
 him to accumulate a very copious magazine of language, and 
 to familiarize himself to its whole variety of combination. 
 Especially it will interest him in reading English copiously, 
 for the sake of the language. Secondly, it offers — what is 
 often very much wanted by boys, indeed by us all — a work, 
 and an interesting work, something like a puzzle, on which 
 the mind can employ itself in vacant moments, when it can- 
 not trust to the healthiness of its own spontaneous day- 
 dreams, and cannot draw actively on its own imagination. 
 Those who have to direct the thoughts of the young can best 
 understand the value of such an employment and. (as it soon 
 will become) of such an amusement, at times when other 
 external materials for active occupation are removed. 
 
 These suggestions are the best apology for the present 
 effort. They will account, I hope, for certain laxities in 
 rhymes — for a few expletives marked in brackets, where the 
 rhyme absolutely required it — for some harsh involutions 
 which will present difficulties of meaning to those who have 
 not the original before them — for the occasional use of pleo- 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 nasms, to suggest more copious language — and for a thou- 
 sand failures to produce easy and elegant poetry, — anything 
 in the slightest degree approaching to the charm of Horace. 
 It is intended as a species of Hamiltonian translation ; 
 nothing more. 
 
 Exeter College, 
 
 September 6, 1850, 
 
THE FIRST BOOK 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 ODE I. 
 
 TO M^CENAS. 
 
 Maecenas atavis edite regibus. 
 
 Maecenas, from a regal line 
 
 Ancestral sprung, — O safeguard mine, 
 
 Alike, and darling pride ! There are, 
 
 Whom, in the race-course of the car, 
 
 It joys that they in clouds have gather d 
 
 Olympia's dust ; and whom, nice-weather'd 
 
 "With wheels all glowing hot, the goal 
 
 And palm of glory lifts in soul 
 
 To be as lords of earth, the tenants of the pole : 
 
 One heart it pleaseth if there fight 
 
 The turmoil of the Quirites light 
 
 To throne him high with triple pair 
 
 Of honours ; one, if he, what e'er 
 
 Is swept from Libya's winnowing floor, 
 
 Has garner'd in his private store. 
 
 One who delights his father's farms 
 
 With hoe to cleave, no, not on terms 
 
 Of Attalus's wealth, wouldst thou 
 
 Divert aside, that he should plough 
 
 With plank in Cyprus hewn, the sea 
 
 Of Myrto, — craven sailor he. 
 
 B 
 
ODES OF HORACE. [book : 
 
 Scared at the Siroc when it braves 
 
 The battle with the Icarian waves, 
 
 The man of traffic lauds his ease 
 
 And native hamlet's rural leas, 
 
 Then does his shatter d barks repair, 
 
 111 school'd his penury to bear. 
 
 A man there is, who neither horns 
 
 Of the time-mellow'd Massic scorns, 
 
 Nor e'en a portion to purloin 
 
 From the whole day — with limbs supine, 
 
 Stretch'd now some arbute green below ; 
 
 Now at some fount with gentle now 
 
 Of hallow'd streamlet. Many a wight 
 
 The tented field and blast delight 
 
 Of trump with clarion blent, and frays 
 
 Loathed of mothers. Still there stays 
 
 Beneath the freezing open sky 
 
 The huntsman, losing memory 
 
 Of his soft consort ; whether doe 
 
 By his stanch hounds is spied, or through 
 
 His filmy toils a Marsian boar 
 
 Has burst a passage. Me that dower 
 
 Of lore-crown'd brows, the ivy spray, 
 
 With Gods supreme associates ; me 
 
 Cool grove, and bevies lightly tripping 
 
 Of Nymphs with Satyrs, far are keeping 
 
 From the mere people ; — if her flute 
 
 Neither Euterpe chains as mute, 
 
 Nor Polyhymnia disdain 
 
 To tune her lyre of Lesbian strain. 
 
 But if my name thou dost enscroll 
 
 Midst minstrels of a lyric soul, 
 
 Strike with high crest shall I the planets of the pole 
 
ode it.] ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 ODE II. 
 
 TO AUGUSTUS (LESAR. 
 
 Jam satis terris. 
 
 Now hath the Sire enough of snow 
 
 And hailstorm dread launch'd o'er the land ; 
 And having on our hallow'd towers 
 
 Volley'd his bolts with red right hand ; — • 
 Hath scared the city — scared the nations, 
 
 Lest Pyrrha's grievous age revive : 
 Her who of monsters strange bewaiTd her, 
 
 When all his herd did Proteus drive 
 The lofty mountain crests to visit ; 
 
 And tangled was the finny drove 
 In the elm top, which erst had been 
 
 Familiar haunt for many a dove ; 
 And on the tide o'ermantling spread, 
 Floated the does in panic dread. 
 Seen have we amber Tiber rushing, 
 
 With waves in fury whirl'd again 
 Back from Etruria's strand, to level 
 
 The king's historic piles, and fane 
 Of Vesta ; while to Ilia wailing 
 
 Too sore, he vaunts him vengeance-giver, 
 And on his left bank lawless glides, 
 
 Though Jove mislike, — he spouse-fond river. 
 Hear shall they that their city's sons 
 
 The steel have whetted, wherewithal 
 The Persian's dread would better perish; 
 
 Hear, too, of battle frays they shall — 
 They, by their fathers' vice and sin, 
 A manhood scatter'd wide and thin. 
 b2 
 
ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 Whom may the realm invoke of Gods, 
 
 To save a tottering empire's lot ? 
 With what address may virgins weary 
 
 Vesta, their hymns who listeth not ? 
 To whom the task our guilt of cleansing 
 
 Shall Jove assign ? At this last hour, 
 Come, we beseech thee, with a cloud 
 
 Mantled thine iv'ry shoulders o'er, 
 Augur Apollo ! or, if thou 
 
 Wouldst liefer, thou of Eryx Pride ! 
 Laugh-loving Venus, whom around 
 
 Frolic and Cupid flutt'ring glide ! 
 Or on thy slighted race and line 
 If one fond look thou cast of thine, 
 Woe ! sated thou with sport too long, 
 
 Whom the war-cry and helmets bright, 
 And face of Marsian infantry, 
 
 Keen 'gainst their gory foe, delight ! 
 Or, if with masqued form, a youth 
 
 Plume-clad on earth thou personate, 
 Boon Maia's child ! content to be 
 
 Venger proelaim'd of Caesar's fate ! 
 Late into heaven return, and long 
 
 Glad with Quirinus' nation stay ! 
 Nor may a breeze too rapid wafb thee, 
 
 Wroth at our vices, far away ! 
 Here rather love thy triumphs dread ! 
 
 Here to be sire and sov'reign hight ! 
 Nor brook that Medes should scour the plain 
 Unvenged, with, Caesar, thee to lead the fight. 
 
ode in.] ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 ODE III. 
 TO THE SHIP IN WHICH VIRGIL WAS ABOUT TO SAIL TO ATHENS. 
 
 Sic te Diva potens Cypri. 
 
 So may the goddess power that Cyprus sways, 
 
 So Helens brothers, stars of light, 
 And he the sovran Father of each breeze, 
 
 Guide thee on thy course aright : 
 
 Gyved all and prison'd, save 
 
 Him of Iapygia's wave ; 
 Bark ! which with Yirgil trusted to thy faith 
 
 Art charged, waft him back, I pray, 
 Unto the Attic bourns untouch'd by scathe, 
 
 And save my own life's moiety. 
 That man had oak and triple-plaited mail 
 
 Bucklering his breast, who first 
 Launch'd on the savage deep his shallop frail, 
 
 Nor Siroc fear'd of headlong burst, 
 Holding its tourney. with the Northwinds keen, 
 
 Nor the rueful Hyades, 
 Nor the South's wrath, than whom of Hadria's main 
 
 No despot mightier there is 
 
 To heave its depths, or, if he fain, 
 
 To lay them to repose again. 
 At what approach of death appall'd was he, 
 
 Who floating monsters saw below 
 "With tearless eyes, who saw the billowy sea, 
 
 And rocks of legendary woe, — 
 The high Ceraunians ] Prescient Heaven in vain 
 
 By th' estranging deep each shore 
 
ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 Cut off, if shoals which touch should ne'er profane, 
 
 Still godless barks are bounding o'er. 
 Bolden'd all ills to brook, mankind doth burst 
 
 Through each forfendecl dark abuse; 
 Bolden'd did Japet's race, "with guilt accurst, 
 
 Fire midst the nations introduce. 
 After that fire was from the dome piuioin'd 
 
 Of heaven, on earth there swooping fell 
 Marasmus, and a troop of monster kind 
 
 Of fevers ; and the slow-doom'd spell 
 
 Of death removed afar till then, 
 
 Quick gather' d short its step on men. 
 Daedal, with pinions not to mortals lent, 
 
 Sounded the unsubstantial sky; 
 The travail of Alcides Acheron rent. 
 
 Nought is for dying men too high. 
 Heaven's self, in senseless pride, 
 
 We seek to climb ; 
 
 Nor suffer, by our crime, 
 That Jove his levin-bolts of wrath should lav aside. 
 
 ODE IV. 
 
 TO SEXTIUS. 
 
 Solvitur acris liyems. 
 
 Meltixg is winter keen with grateful — change of spring, and 
 
 western wind, 
 
 And engines drag the dry keels from the shore ; 
 
 And neither now doth flock in stalls — nor hind in heart!] 
 
 their pleasure find ; 
 
 Nor meads with hoary frosts stand silver'd o'er. 
 
ode iv.] ODES OF HORACE. 7 
 
 Now Cythera's Venus leads her — choirs, with Luna o'er her 
 head ; 
 And hand in hand with Nymphs the Graces fair 
 With foot alternate beat the ground, while — Vulcan, glowing 
 hot, doth bid 
 The Cyclops' pond'rous stithies blaze and glare. 
 Now 'tis meet our glossy brow — either with green myrtle 
 spray, 
 Or bloom to twine, which leas unfetter'd bear ; 
 Now, too, meet in groves embower'd — to Faun to offer, 
 whether he 
 Ask with a lamb, or with a kid prefer. 
 ; Ghastly Death, with foot impartial, — knocks at cabins of the 
 poor, 
 And monarchs' towers. O Sextius, thou the blest, 
 1 Life's brief span forbids our laying — plans for hopes of dis- 
 tant hour ; 
 Thee soon shall Night and fabled shades arrest, 
 And the phantom hall of Pluto ; — whither, soon as thou hast 
 
 Neither the wine-throne thou with dice wilt share ; 
 '•Nor young Lycides admire, with — whom at present all the 
 town 
 Is charind, and soon will glow our maidens fair. 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 ODE V. 
 
 TO PYHRHA* 
 
 Quis ?mdtd. 
 
 "What stripling slim, on beds of roses, 
 Bathed in liquid odours, wooes thee, 
 Pyrrha, in some delicious grot? 
 
 For whose pleasure art thou binding 
 Back thy flowing locks of gold, 
 Artless in graceful niceties ? 
 
 TToe I how oft shall he be wailing 
 Thy honour, and his alter'd gods ! 
 And on seas with murky tempests 
 Bough, shall maryel to his fill, 
 All unused to such a sight. 
 
 He who now too fondly trusting, 
 Enjoys thee in thy golden hour ; 
 Who still disengaged, still loyely, 
 Hopes to find thee, recking nought 
 Of the treacherous breeze. hapless 
 They, to whom untried thou shin est ! 
 As for me, with yotiye tablet, 
 
 The hallow' d wall doth show that I 
 Haye my dripping garb suspended 
 Unto the god who rules the sea. 
 
ode vi.] ODES O-F HORACE. 
 
 ODE VI. 
 
 TO AGR1PPA. 
 
 Scriberis Vario. 
 
 Sung shalt thou be by Varius as the brave, 
 
 And victor o'er thy foes — Yarius, a swan 
 
 Of strain Maeonian, whatsoe'er exploit 
 
 Thy fierce-soul'd soldiery on ships or steeds 
 
 Hath wrought, with thee to lead them : "We, Agrippa, 
 
 Neither these themes to celebrate essay, 
 
 ISTor the destructive ire of Peleus' son, 
 
 Who knew not how to yield ; nor the career 
 
 Of the guile-mask'd Ulysses o'er the sea ; 
 
 Nor Pelops' ruthless house — we humble bards, 
 
 Themes of such grandeur ; while the bashful soul, 
 
 And Muse, the queen of the unwarlike lyre, 
 
 Forbids us to deteriorate the lauds 
 
 Of glorious Csesar, and thine own, by fault 
 
 Of our own native wit. Who in fit strain 
 
 Of Mars in adamantine tunic clad 
 
 Could duly write, or Merion, black with dust 
 
 Of Troy, or Tydeus' son, by Pallas' aid, 
 
 Match for the gods above ? We do but chant 
 
 Of feasts convivial ; we of maidens' wars, 
 
 With close-pared nails 'gainst youthful wooers fierce, 
 
 We with hearts disengaged ; or if at all 
 
 We burn, light trifling not beyond our wont. 
 
10 ODES OF HORACE. [book t. 
 
 ODE VII. 
 
 TO MUNATIUS PLA^CUS. 
 
 Lauddbunt alii, 
 
 Otrees sliall laud the glorious Rhodes, 
 
 Or Mitylen, or Ephesus, 
 
 Or the rampire walls of Corinth, 
 Seated on its sister floods ; 
 
 Or Thebes by Bacchus blazon'd wide, 
 
 Or the Delphic peaks by Phcebus, 
 
 Or Thessalian Tempe's vales. 
 There are, whose single task it is, 
 
 In one unbroken minstrel song, 
 To chant the towers of taintless Pallas, 
 
 And upon their brow to fix 
 
 The olive cull'd from every theme. 
 Many a bard to Juno's homage 
 
 Tells of Argos, soil for steeds, 
 
 And the riches-rife Mycenae. 
 Me hath neither half as much 
 
 Hardy Lacedsenion smitten, 
 Nor so much the champaign wealthy 
 
 Of Larissa, as the grotto 
 Of the echoing Albunea, 
 
 And the headlong-shooting Anio, 
 And Tiburnus ? hallow'd grove, 
 
 And its orchards ever dewy 
 With their twinkling rivulets. 
 As from darkling heaven above 
 
 Notus fair is ofttimes sweeping 
 Clouds, nor doth engender showers 
 
 Ever during; so do thou 
 
ode vii.] ODES OF HORACE. 11 
 
 Wisely, Plancus, mind to close 
 
 Thy sorrow, and the toils of life 
 "With mellow Bacchus ; whether thee 
 
 War-camps with their standards flashing 
 Now detain, or shall detain thee 
 
 Thy Tibur's thickly-matted shade. 
 Teucer, when he was escaping 
 
 Salamis and sire, albeit, 
 Is with coronal of poplar 
 
 Said to have his temples twined, 
 
 Temples in Lyseus steep'd ; 
 And his comrades, as they sorrow'd, 
 
 Thus accosted : " Wheresoever 
 Fortune, kinder than a sire, 
 
 Now shall wafb us, will we voyage, 
 O my comrades and companions." 
 Nought with Teucer guide, and Teucer 
 Auspice-giver, must be deem'd 
 
 Lost to hope. For one unerring, 
 Phoebus, promised there shall rise 
 A Salamis, a twinlike rival, 
 
 On a new-found shore. heroes ! 
 And ye chieftains who with me 
 
 Oft have worse disasters suffer'd, 
 Now with, wine your troubles banish : 
 To-morrow ocean vast will we retrace. 
 
12 ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 ODE Yin. 
 
 TO LYDIA. 
 
 Lydia, die, per omnes. 
 
 Lydia, speak, by all the gods 
 I charge thee, why such haste pursuing, 
 "With fondling, Sybaris to ruin ] 
 
 Why should he loathe the listed field 
 In the hot noon, — in days bygone, 
 The patient he of dust and sun ? 
 
 Why neither midst his comrade friends, 
 A mailed knight, doth he bestride 
 His charger, nor subdue and guide 
 
 Its Gaulic mouth, with wolf-fang'd curbs 1 
 Why to touch the amber Tiber 
 Fears he 1 Why than blood of viper 
 
 Oil more heedful doth he shun ? 
 $"or bruised and blacken d now with mail 
 Bears he his arms — of many a tale 
 
 He once the hero, oft for quoit, 
 Oft for javelin hurtled clean 
 Beyond the limit 1 Why unseen 
 
 Skulks he, as the son they say 
 Of Ocean Thetis, hid did lie, 
 As Troja's tearful wreck drew nigh, 
 
 Lest his garb of man should sweep him 
 Headlong into the bloody fray 
 And Lycia's squadron' d chivalry? 
 
ode xi.] ODES OF HORACE. 13 
 
 From Ilion, and, with step unseen, 
 
 The arrogant Atridse twain 
 
 Eluded, and the watchfire posts 
 
 Of Thessaly, and camped hosts, — 
 
 Ruthless enemies to Troy. 
 
 Thou, in the abodes of joy, 
 
 Dost holy spirits lay to rest ; 
 
 And, with golden rod, arrest 
 
 The phantom throng — the favourite thou 
 
 To all of gods, both them above and them below. 
 
 ODE XL 
 
 TO LEUCOXOE. 
 
 Tu ne qucesieris. 
 
 Think not to ask (it is a crime to know) 
 What end to me, what unto thee the gods, 
 Leuconoe, have assign'd ; nor mayst thou tempt 
 Assyrian calculations. How far better, 
 "Whatever shall betide thee, to endure ; 
 Whether more winters, or this one thy last 
 Jove doth bestow, which 'gainst its barrier rocks 
 Is now exhausting the Tyrrhenian sea. 
 Wise be thou — clear thy wines — and to a span 
 Of narrow bound prune back too lengthen'd hope ; 
 E'en while we talk, will envious life have fled. 
 Snatch thou the present hour ; little as may 
 Too fondly trusting to the morrow's light. 
 
3 4 ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 Now let both park and public malls, 
 
 And whisperings soft, as night draws nigh, 
 By thee at the appointed hour 
 
 Be courted ; now, too, traitor sly 
 Of lurking maid, the titter pleased, 
 From some deep nook, and lore-pledge seized 
 
 Off from the arm, or finger ill 
 
 Affecting to retain it still. 
 
 ODE X. 
 
 TO MERCURY. 
 
 Mercuri facunde. 
 
 O Mercury, thou fluent child 
 Of Atlas, who the manners wild 
 Of new-created man didst mould 
 Adroit with voice, and practice school' d 
 Of the graceful wrestling-floor — 
 Thee will I chant, th' ambassador 
 Of mighty Jove, and gods, and Sire 
 Thee too of the curved lyre ; 
 Deft, whatever gave thee pleasure, 
 With frolic theft to hide and treasure. 
 At thee, of old, a stripling yet, 
 While with voice of blust'ring threat 
 He tries to scare thee, if once more 
 Thou shouldst have failed to restore 
 His kine, esloin'd away by craft, 
 Left quiverless, Apollo laugh'd. 
 Moreo'er, with thee his steps to guide, 
 The treasure-laden Priam hied 
 
ode ix.] ODES OF HORACE. 15 
 
 ODE IX. 
 
 TO THALIARCHUS. 
 
 Vides, ut altd. 
 
 Thou seest how Soracte stands, 
 
 Glass'd over with its depth of snow ; 
 
 JSTor may the groaning labouring woods 
 Hold up beneath their burden now ; 
 
 And streams in masses 'neath the force 
 
 Of the sharp frost have stopp'd their course. 
 
 Thaw thou the cold ; with bounteous hand 
 The logs upon thy hearth-fire heaping ; 
 
 And kindlier draw from Sabine jar 
 
 Thy luscious wine of four years' keeping ; 
 
 O Thaliarchus ! all beside 
 
 Surrender to the gods to guide. 
 
 For, soon as they have laid the winds, 
 That battle fierce with seething ocean, 
 
 Nor cypresses, nor mountain ash 
 
 Timeworn are toss'd in wild commotion. 
 
 What on to-morrow there shall be, 
 
 Eschew from searching curiously. 
 
 And what amount of days thy lot 
 
 Shall grant thee, set it down to gain ; 
 
 Nor do thou sweet delicious loves, 
 Nor dances, thou a boy, disdain ; 
 
 While from thee, in thy spring-tide gay, 
 
 Hoar churlish eld afar doth stay. 
 
16 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 ODE XII. 
 
 TO AUGUSTUS. 
 
 Quern virum. 
 
 What chief or hero, Clio, dost thou choose, 
 On lyre or thrilling pipe to waft to fame 1 
 
 What denizen of heaven 1 Of whom shall she, 
 The frolic phantom, echo back the name 1 
 
 Either in Helicon s embow'ring bourns, 
 
 Or Pindus o'er, or Hsemus icy-dew'd ] 
 Whence in a wild disorder d chase the woods 
 
 Their minstrel, Orpheus, on his steps pursued— 
 
 Orpheus, with art, his mother's gift, delaying 
 The rivers rapid flow, and winged airs, 
 
 And arm'd with witching pow'r from tuneful chords, 
 To draw the oaks along with listening ears. 
 
 What should I sing before the wonted lauds 
 Of him, the Sire, who all the fortunes guides 
 
 Of men and gods— who rules the sea and land, 
 And tempers all the world with varying tides 1 
 
 From whom no creature mightier than himself 
 Is gender'd, nor is aught in glory famed, 
 
 His likeness or his second ; yet to him 
 
 Pallas the next prerogatives hath claim'd— 
 
 Pallas, the battle-bold. Nor thee unsung, 
 Bacchus, I'll leave; nor thee, O Virgin, foe 
 
 To the fierce bestial tribe ; nor, Phoebus, thee, 
 Dread with thine arrow of unerring blow ! 
 
ope xii.] ODES OF HORACE. 17 
 
 Alcides, too, I'll cliant ; and Leda's boys, — 
 
 Famed one with steeds for vanquishing his peers, 
 
 With cestuses the other ; soon as whose 
 
 Pale star hath mirror'd gleam'd on mariners, 
 
 Down streams from rocks the agitated spray, 
 
 Winds drop at once, and clouds from sether sweep ; 
 
 And (for they so have will'd) th' o'erpeering wave 
 Sinks in repose again upon the deep. 
 
 Whether, on these succeeding, I may first 
 
 Of Romulus relate, or Numa's throne 
 Of peacefulness, or Tarquin's fasces proud, 
 
 I doubt, or Cato's death, of high renown. 
 
 Regulus, and the Scauri ; and the man 
 
 Of his high spirit, when the Punic foe 
 Triumph'd, profuse, Paulus will I rehearse, 
 
 With muse of blazon, and Fabricius too. 
 
 Him and the Curius, with his locks unkempt, 
 
 And the Camillus, instrument of war, 
 Stern poverty created, and a farm 
 
 Ancestral, with its meet and simple Lar. 
 
 There grows, like tree of deep mysterious age, 
 The glory of Marcellus. Glitters bright 
 
 The Julian planet in the midst of all, 
 Like Dian midst the lesser fires of night, 
 
 O ! of man's race, thou father and preserver ! 
 
 Offspring of Saturn ! by the fates' decree 
 Great Caesar's tutelage to thee is given; 
 
 Reign thou, with Ceesar second but to thee. 
 
18 ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 He, whether Parthia's hosts on Latium hovering. 
 In triumph just before him he hath driven, 
 
 Tamed to the yoke ; or Seric tribes and Inds 
 Cast 'neath the region of the Orient heav'n — 
 
 He, less than thee alone, the wide-spread globe 
 Shall rule in justice. Thou, with pond'rous car, 
 
 Shalt make Olympus tremble, — thou on groves 
 But little holy launch thy levin-bolts of war. 
 
 ODE XIII. 
 
 TO LYDIA. 
 
 Cum tu, Lydia. 
 
 When, Lydia, thou dost lauding speak 
 
 Of Telephus's rose-nush'd neck, 
 
 Of Telephus's arms, with sheen 
 
 As fair as wax — woe, woe ! — my spleen 
 
 Hot burning swells with choking bile. 
 
 Then neither thought in me the while, 
 
 Nor colour in a fixed place 
 
 Abideth : and with secret trace 
 
 The tear-drop on my cheeks is stealing — 
 
 "With what slow fires I waste revealing 
 
 Deep in my breast. I burn [and pine], 
 
 Whether intemp'rate brawls with wine 
 
 Thine iv'ry shoulders have defiled ; 
 
 Or on thy lips, with passion wild, 
 
 The boy with tooth has stamp'd a mark 
 
 Hemember'd long. !No, if thou hark 
 
 To me enough, O, hope thou never, 
 
 That he will constant prove for ever, 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 19 
 
 Who cruel wounds those honey'd lips, 
 Which Venus in quintescence steeps 
 Of her own nectar. Blest are those, 
 Thrice and again, in union close, 
 Whom bond unbroken doth confine, 
 Nor riv'n by jealousies malign, 
 Shall Love their spirits disenthral 
 Before the final day of all. 
 
 ODE XIV 
 
 TO THE KOMAN STATE. 
 
 navis, referent. 
 
 O thou ship ! new waves will sweep 
 Thee back into the open deep. 
 O ! what art thou doing ? Gain 
 The haven straight with might and main. 
 Seest thou not how stripp'd thy side 
 Of its oarage, and beside 
 Struck and splinter'd is thy mast 
 With the winged Afric blast ; 
 And thy yard-arms groan [at length], 
 And thy timbers scarce have strength, 
 Without many a girding band, 
 'Gainst the tyrant sea to stand. 
 Not unscathed in thee thy sails, 
 Not thy imaged gods, [with wails] 
 Whom to call on, when once more 
 Overwhelm'd with evil hour. 
 Though a pine of Pontic brood, 
 Daughter of a noble wood, 
 c2 
 
20 ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 Both birth and useless name thou boast, 
 Nought to painted poops doth trust 
 The craven mariner. Do thou, 
 If a mock thou dost not owe 
 To the hurricanes, beware ! 
 Thou, who late my wearying care, 
 Art now my fond regret, and fear 
 Not light-hearted, shim the seas 
 Spread midst the glittering Cyclades. 
 
 ODE XV. 
 
 TO PARIS. 
 
 Pastor cum traheret. 
 When the shepherd o'er the sea, 
 
 In Ida's barks was Helen dragging, 
 Her his hostess, traitor he — 
 
 In a joyless lull-time [nagging], 
 Nereus whelm'd each winged breeze, 
 To chant their ruthless destinies. 
 
 Home art thou leading with ill omen 
 One, whom Greece will redemand, 
 
 With full many a warrior foeman, 
 Oath-bound in a leagued band, 
 
 Thy bridal bonds to rive and wreck, 
 
 And Priam's sov'reignty antique. 
 
 Woe ! how big a sweat is nearing 
 
 For steeds ! how big for men ! And thou 
 
 'Gainst the Dardan race art stirring 
 What deadly havoc ! Even now 
 
 Pallas casque, and shield [for warring], 
 
 And car, and fury is preparing. 
 
ode xv.] ODES OF HORACE. 21 
 
 Vain shelter'd under Venus' shield, 
 
 Fierce shalt thou comb thy locks, and measure, 
 
 On harp unknown to battle-field, 
 Ditties thy harem train to pleasure ! 
 
 Vainly in thy bridal bower 
 
 Buried shalt thou skulk and cower 
 
 From the massy spears, and stings 
 
 Of the Gnossian reed, and roar 
 Of fight, and Ajax clad with wings 
 
 To chase thee. Yet alas ! in hour 
 Far too late thou shalt and must 
 Daub thy adulterer locks in dust. 
 
 See'st not Ulysses at thy rear, 
 
 Him, perdition of thy race % 
 Not Pylian Nestor % Lost to fear, 
 
 Dogging close thy steps they press — 
 Thee, Salami nian Teucer, thee, 
 Sthenelus, in battle fray 
 
 Deep-school'd, or if need be there, 
 
 His steeds to rule in lordly guise, 
 He no sluggard charioteer. 
 
 Merion too shalt thou agnize. 
 Lo ! to unearth thee foams on fire 
 Tydides, nobler than his sire ; 
 
 From whom, like hart the wolf before, 
 On the glen's farther bank cliscern'd, 
 
 Reckless of grass thou off shalt scour, 
 With gasps from head on high upturn'd. 
 
 Minion ! to thy chosen maid 
 
 Not these professions having made. 
 
22 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Achilles' fleet, with rancour rack'd, 
 To Ilion, and the Phrygians' brides, 
 
 The day of vengeance shall protract ; 
 But after fate-fix'd winter tides, 
 
 Achaia's conflagration [stern] 
 
 Ilion's palaces shall burn. 
 
 ODE XYI. 
 
 matre pulchrd. 
 
 O than thy mother fair, thou daughter 
 
 Fairer still, whatever close 
 Thou wilt upon my strains Iambic, 
 
 Sarcasm fall, shalt thou impose ; 
 Whether by fire thou wouldest fain, 
 Or by the Adriatic main. 
 
 Not Dindymene, not in shrines, 
 Does the indwelling Pythian king 
 
 Convulse his priestly maiden's soul ; 
 Not Bacchus with so fierce a sting ; 
 
 Not Corybantes peal on peal, 
 
 So clash their brazen cymbals shrill, 
 
 As rueful ires, which neither brand 
 
 Of Noric steel, nor wreck-strew'd ocean, 
 
 Nor raging fire, nor Jove himself, 
 Sweeping on in dread commotion, 
 
 Scares from its purpose. He, 'tis said, 
 
 Prometheus, force-constraind, did add 
 
;.] ODES OF HORACE. 23 
 
 Unto the clay his primal base, 
 
 An atom carved from every side ; 
 And the wild rav'ning lion's fury 
 
 Unto the bowels of us applied ; 
 'Twas wrath that laid Thyestes low 
 In dust with whelming deadly blow ; 
 
 And unto cities tall hath proved 
 
 The primal causes why they sunk, 
 Wreck'd from their base, and o'er their walls 
 
 A host, with unwont triumph drunk, 
 The foeman's ploughshare deep did strike. 
 Chain down thy spirit ; — me alike 
 
 In the delicious hour of youth, 
 
 The burning of the breast did try, 
 And into strains Iambic, wing'd 
 
 Like arrows, plunged me franticly. 
 !Now seek I words of bitterness 
 To change for such as soothe and bless ; 
 If thou, a recantation made 
 Of all my obloquies, a maid 
 Become once more of friendly part, 
 And only give me back thine heart. 
 
24 ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 ODE XYII. 
 
 TO TYNDARIS. 
 
 Velox amcenum scepe. 
 
 Swift Faunus oft doth change his haunt 
 To sweet Lucretilis, from vales 
 
 Lyca>an, and doth bid avaunt 
 
 The fiery heat, and showery gales 
 
 Still from my ewes. Throughout the grove 
 
 Secure, as from the path they rove, 
 
 The lurking arbutus, and bank 
 
 Of thyme, are searching out unharm'd 
 
 The harem of the husband rank : 
 Nor are the little kids alarm'd 
 
 At emerald snakes, nor wolves of war, 
 
 "Whene'er my Tyndaris [afar], 
 
 With dulcet pipe have rung the glens, 
 And marble cliffs of soft reclined 
 
 Ustica. Me 'tis heaven defends ; 
 To heaven my holiness of mind 
 
 And Muse is heart-loved. Here for thee, 
 
 Rich with the treasures of the lea, 
 
 Full to the brim shall Plenty well 
 
 From horn of bounty. Here the fire 
 Of Shius in sequester'd dell 
 
 Shalt thou eschew; and on a lyre 
 Of Teos, thou the pair shalt sing- 
 On one loved object labouring, 
 
ode xviii.] ODES OF HORACE. 25 
 
 Penelope and Circe — maid 
 
 As ciystal bright, as crystal vain ; 
 Here many a goblet 'neath the shade 
 
 Of harmless Lesbian thou shalt drain ; 
 Nor shall the Semeleian boy, 
 Thyoneus, his affrays of joy 
 
 Embroil with Mars ; nor yet shalt thou, 
 
 Suspect, the saucy Cyrus fear, 
 Lest on thee, sore ill-match'd, he throw 
 
 Ungovernable hands, and tear 
 
 To shreds thy tress-entangled tire, 
 
 And robe, nought meriting his ire. 
 
 ODE XVIII. 
 
 TO VARUS. 
 
 JSfullam, Vare, sacra. 
 
 Thou mayst not plant a single tree — before the hallow'd 
 
 vine, 
 O, Yarus, round about the soil — of Tivoli benign, 
 And walls of Catilus ; for Heaven — hath doom'd that all 
 
 shall be 
 I Harsh to unmoisten'd lips. And ne'er — by other arts do flee 
 Our soul-corroding anxious thoughts. — Who after draughts 
 
 of wine 
 At warfare with its burden dread — or poverty doth whine 1 
 •Who tells not, Bacchus sire, of thee, — and thee, the queen of 
 
 Grace, 
 Venus, rather ? Yet that not — a wight should dare 
 
 transgress 
 
26 ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 The boons of Liber temper'd right, — there warns the brawl 
 
 fought out 
 With Lapithse above their wine — brawl of the Centaur rout ; 
 There warns us Evius little mild — to the Sithonian throng, 
 When with but narrow bound to check — their lusts, 'twixt 
 
 right and wrong 
 They draw the line with greedy soul. — O Bassareus the fair, 
 I'll never shake thee gainst thy will, — nor drag to open air 
 Mysterious symbols mantled o'er — with leaves of mottled 
 
 ray. 
 Hush thou with Berecynthian horn — thy tambour's madden- 
 ing bray ! 
 Which blind conceit dogs close at heel, — and Vaunt, that far 
 
 too high 
 Uplifts her vain fantastic crest, — and Confidence, the spy 
 Lavish of secrets, more than glass — transparent to the eye. 
 
 ODE XIX. 
 
 TO GLYCERA. 
 
 Mater sceva Cupidinum. 
 
 The Cupids' ruthless mother, 
 
 And the Theban Semele's boy, 
 And my own wanton lawless spirit 
 
 Bids me once again surrender 
 My soul, to passions long giv'n o'er. 
 
 It fires my heart, — 
 The polish'd sheen of Glycera, 
 
 Glittering in clear transparency 
 Than Parian marble purer : 
 
 It fires my heart — 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 27 
 
 Her graceful hoyden air, 
 
 And face too glossy smooth 
 E'en to be gazed upon. 
 
 On me with all her forces rushinof. 
 Yenus her Cyprus hath deserted, 
 
 Nor brooks that I should sing 
 Of Tartar hordes, and Parthian 
 
 Yaliant with his rallied chargers ; 
 Nor things which touch me not. 
 
 Here place me, boys, 
 The living sward, here vervain tufts, 
 
 And incense, with a patera of wine 
 Of two years old ; 
 
 When a victim hath been slain, 
 
 With more of mercy will she come. 
 
 ODE XX. 
 
 TO M^CENAS. 
 
 Vile potabis modicis. 
 
 Sabine wine of humble price, 
 From tankards of a modest size, 
 Thou shalt quaff ; a wine, which I, 
 In a Grecian cask stored by, 
 Seal'd with my own hand the day, 
 When the loud applause on thee 
 In the theatre was shower'd; 
 O Msecenas, friend [adored], 
 Thou, the knight — till Tyber's shores, 
 Elver of thine ancestors, 
 And the frolic phantom sprite 
 Of the Yaticanian height, 
 
28 ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 Back to thee with one accord 
 .Flung thy praises. [At thy board] 
 Thou shalt drink the Csecuban, 
 And the grape by press Calene 
 Tamed and master'd : cups of mine 
 Neither the Falernian vine, 
 Nor the Formian hills refine. 
 
 ODE XXL 
 
 ON DIANA AND APOLLO. 
 
 Dianam tenerce dicite. 
 
 Dian proclaim, ye delicate virgins ! 
 
 Him the unshorn, ye striplings, proclaim ! 
 Monarch of Cynthus ; and Lato loved 
 
 To the depth of the soul by Jove supreme. 
 
 Her chant ye, in streams and the leaf of groves 
 Delighting ; whatever on Algidus frore, 
 
 Or the dark forests of Erymanthus, 
 Or verdant Cragus hangs beetling o'er. 
 
 Tempe, do ye, with full as many 
 
 Laudings extol, ye boyish choir ! 
 And Phcebus's native Delos, and shoulder 
 
 Graced with his quiver, and brothers lyre. 
 
 He tearful war, he woe-stricken famine, 
 
 And plague, from people, with Csesar their lord, 
 
 Sway'd by your prayer shall chase away 
 
 To harbour with Persians and Britain's horde. 
 
ode xxii.] ODES OF HORACE. 29 
 
 ODE XXII. 
 
 TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS. 
 
 Integer vitce. 
 
 The man intact of life, and clear 
 Of trespass, lacks not Moorish shafts, 
 Nor bow, nor quiver, Euscus, wonib'd 
 
 With venom'd arrows. 
 "Whether prepared his path to take 
 Through seething Syrtes, or the wild 
 Unsheltering Caucasus, or realms 
 
 Which the Hydaspes, 
 That legend-haunted stream, cloth lave. 
 Eor me in Sabine wood a wolf, 
 While my own Lalage I chant, 
 
 And o'er my limit, 
 From cares untrammell'd, free am roving, 
 Eled, though unarm'd — a monster such 
 As neither Daunia, hero-land, 
 
 Its beech-groves wide 
 Within, doth feed, nor Juba's realm 
 Doth gender, — she the sun-scorch'd nurse 
 Of lions. Place me where in plains 
 
 Lifeless and dull, 
 ]SFo single tree by summer's breeze 
 Is freshen'd — quarter of the globe 
 Which fogs and noxious Jove oppresses ; — 
 
 Place me beneath 
 The car of Sol too nigh, on ground 
 Denied to man's abodes. Ill love 
 My Lalage, the sweetly smiling, 
 
 The sweetly speaking. 
 
30 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 DE XXIII. 
 
 TO CHLOE. 
 
 Vitas hinnulco me. 
 
 Thou shunn'st me, Chloe, like a fawn 
 Its panic-stricken mother seeking 
 
 On pathless mountains, not without 
 
 Vain fear of airs, and wild wood [creaking]. 
 
 For whether spring's approach hath rustled 
 In nutt'ring leaves, or [midst the trees] 
 
 Green lizards have the bramble parted, 
 She trembles both in heart and knees. 
 
 Yet not as tiger fierce, or lion 
 
 Gsetulian, do I thee pursue, 
 To crush thee. Cease at length to follow 
 
 Thy mother, thou of age for man to woo. 
 
 ODE XXIY. 
 
 TO VIRGIL. 
 
 Quis desiderio sit pudor. 
 
 "What shame or limit can there be 
 In yearning for so loved a head *? 
 
 O teach thou me, Melpomene, 
 
 Funereal dirges ! thou [the maid], 
 
 To whom with harp the Sire of Heav'n 
 
 A voice of melting tone hath given. 
 
ode xxiv.] ODES OF HORACE 31 
 
 Does, then, the sleep etern of death 
 
 Quintilius whelm 1 To whom, when 
 
 Shall Modesty and unbribed Faith, 
 Sister of Justice, and, to man 
 
 Unveiled, Truth an equal find 1 
 
 He died by many a noble mind 
 
 Bewept — more sorely wept by none 
 Than by thyself, my Virgil. Thou, 
 
 As fond and duteous as a son 
 Vainly, alas ! art asking now 
 
 Of Heaven Quintilius ! not on terms 
 
 Like these intrusted to thine arms. 
 
 What though with more of witcheries 
 Than Thracian Orpheus, thou a shell 
 
 Attune, e'en listen'd to by trees, 
 Ne'er can the blood return to swell 
 
 That phantom visionary form, 
 
 Which once with wand of shuddering charm, 
 
 He of no mercy to unlock 
 
 The fates to prayers, he, Mercury, 
 
 Hath driven to join his sable flock. 
 
 Hard fate ! Yet that doth learn to be 
 
 Lighter by patience, whatsoe'er 
 
 It is forbidden to repair. 
 
32 ODES OF HORACE. [book i 
 
 ODE XXV. 
 
 TO LYDIA. 
 
 Parcius junctas quatiunt 
 
 Moke rarely now thy casements closed 
 With knocks on knocks the wanton youth are shaking. 
 Nor do they rob thee of thy sleep — and fondly 
 Thy door to its threshold clings, 
 That which before o'er-facile used to move 
 
 Its hinges. Less and less thou now art hearing, 
 ' While I, thy slave, the livelong nights are dying, 
 
 Lydia, sleepest thou V 
 Beldame thyself in turn shalt thou be weeping 
 Thy supercilious paramours, 
 Light and fantastic standing 
 In the lone alley : 
 While Thracia's blast its revels keeps 
 More fierce towards interlunar tides ; 
 
 What time in thee hot burning love and lust, 
 The dams of horses which is wont to madden, 
 Shall round thy fest'ring liver rage, 
 Not without sorrowing wail, 
 That our blithe youth delights 
 In ivy green the more, and myrtle black ; 
 Dry wither'd leaves consigns 
 To winter's comrade, Hebrus. 
 
ode xxvi. xxvii.] ODES OF HORACE. 33 
 
 ODE XXYI. 
 
 TO ^ELIUS LAMIA. 
 
 Musis amicus. 
 
 Friend to the Muses, grief and fears 
 Will I consign to wanton airs, 
 To waft into the Cretan sea ; 
 By whom 'neath Arctos fear'd may be 
 The ice-clime's monarch — what [of late] 
 May be dismaying Tiridate, 
 Supremely reckless. do thou. 
 Who joy'st in founts of taintless flow, 
 Twine blossoms basking in the sun — 
 Twine for my Lamia a crown, 
 Pimplea, sweet one ! Reft of thee, 
 Nought do my honours profit me. 
 Him, with a shell new chorded — him 
 With Lesbian quill, as sacred theme 
 To hallow both for thee 'tis good, 
 And for thy minstrel sisterhood. 
 
 ODE XXYII. 
 
 TO HIS COMPANIONS. 
 
 Natis in usum. 
 
 To battle with cups framed for service of mirth, 
 
 Is a fashion of Thracians. Away from the earth 
 
 With the barbarous practice ! And Bacchus, the flower 
 
 Of bashfolness, shield from your brawlings of gore. 
 
 'Tis monstrous how vastly the Mede's scimitar 
 
 With wine and with lustres in harshness doth jar. 
 
 D 
 
34 ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 Compose, mv companions, your outcry profane, 
 
 And on elbow deep sunk on your cushions remain. 
 
 Would you fain that I also of Falern austere 
 
 A portion should quaff 1 Let the brother of her, 
 
 The fair maid of Opus, Megilla, now say 
 
 "With what wound blest — what shaft, he is pining away. 
 
 Does his willingness falter ? I'll drink, I declare, 
 
 On no other condition. What Venus soe'er 
 
 Subdues you, with fires, which no blushing demand, 
 
 She scorches you up ; and you ever offend 
 
 With ingenuous passion. Whatever your grief, 
 
 Come, depose it in ears that are perfectly safe. 
 
 Ha, wretch ! in how dread a Charybdis, thou lad, 
 
 Deserving a better amour to have had, 
 
 Were you struggling ! — what witch shall have power — 
 
 what magician, 
 To release thee by Thessaly's drugs from perdition ? 
 What god? With this three-form'd Chimgera [to cage thee,] 
 Trammell'd thus, scarce will Pegasus self disengage thee. 
 
 ODE XXVIII. 
 
 AECHYTAS. 
 
 Te maris et terrce. 
 
 Sailor : 
 
 Thee of the sea, and earth, and countless sand, 
 
 The measurer, Archytas, coffin now 
 Some petty offerings nigh the Matine strand 
 
 Of but a little dust ; nor doth it aught 
 Bestead thee to have strain'd thy powers to scale 
 
 The empyrean mansions, and in thought 
 The vaulted pole to have traversed — thee at point 
 
 To die. 
 
ode xxviii.] ODES OF HORACE. 35 
 
 Archytas : — There sunk in death alike the sire 
 
 Of Pelops — he with Powers above the joint 
 Regaler — and Tithonus, into air 
 
 Translated far ; and Minos, introduced 
 The secret mysteries of Jove to share. 
 
 And the Tartarean halls possess the son 
 Of Panthous, again to Orcus plunged ; 
 
 Though, as he call'd the days of Troy bygone 
 To witness for him with th' unfasten'd shield, 
 
 Nought had he yielded up to gloomy death, 
 Save nerves and skin : he not, with thee his judge, 
 
 Pronouncer mean on Nature and the true ; 
 But all one night awaits ; and once by all 
 
 Must the death-path be trod. The Furies' crew 
 Are ofFring some a sight for grim-faced Mars 
 
 To feast his eyes on. The devouring sea 
 Is death to mariners. The funeral cars 
 
 Of old and young promiscuous close do crowd : 
 Stern Proserpine no siugle crest hath shunnd. 
 
 Me, also, of Orion downward bow'd 
 That swift careering pursuivant, the South, 
 
 Hath whelm'd in waves Illyrian. But do thou, 
 Sailor, ne'er grudge, with soul of little ruth, 
 
 An atom small of floating sand to give 
 Unto my bones and uninterred head. 
 
 So, whatsoever threat Eurus shall heave 
 Against Hesperia's billows, may the woods 
 
 Venusian suffer for it — thee preserved ! 
 And oh ! unto thy hand may store of goods 
 
 Down from what source it may, flow like a stream 
 Prom the just Jove, and Neptune, guardian god 
 
 Of consecrate Tarentum. Dost thou deem 
 It light to brave a crime, which soon shall be 
 ' Hereafter mischief to thy innocent sons, 
 d2 
 
36 ODES OF HORACE. [book i 
 
 It may be, both the rites now due to me 
 And stern reverses may thyself await. 
 
 'Not with unvenged prayers will I be left ; 
 And thee no expiations from thy fate 
 
 Shall e'er release. However thou dost haste, 
 
 (Not long the hindrance), when the dust is thrown 
 
 Thrice on my corse, thou shalt have leave to run. 
 
 ODE XXIX. 
 
 TO ICCITTS. 
 
 Icci, beatis nunc. 
 
 Iccius, the Arabs' treasures blest 
 Thou enviest now, and musest o'er 
 
 Fierce battle against Saba's kings, 
 Ne'er vanquish 1 d thoroughly before ; 
 
 And fetters for the dreadful Mede 
 Thou forgest. "Who of maidens fair, 
 
 Barbarian born, her consort slain, 
 
 Shall be thy slave 1 With perfumed hair, 
 
 What boy from royal hall be posted, 
 
 To serve thy goblet — school'd from bow, 
 
 A father's gift, his Seric shafts 
 
 To stretch and launch 1 Oh, who may now 
 
 Deny that up the mountains steep 
 
 Again may glide the headlong brooks ; 
 
 And Tiber to his founts return ; 
 
 WTien thou Pansetius' far-famed books, 
 
ode xxx. xxxi.] ODES OF HORACE. 37 
 
 Amass'd at price from every mart, 
 
 And thy Socratical abode, 
 To change for Ebro's corslet aini'st, 
 
 Far better labours having vow'd 1 
 
 
 ODE XXX. 
 
 TO VENUS. 
 
 Venus, regina CnidL 
 
 O Venus, thou of Cnidus queen, 
 
 And Paphos, scorn thy Cyprus dear, 
 And unto Glycera's graceful fane 
 
 Transport thee, who invites thee here 
 "With her frankincense profuse. 
 With thee let the hope-nush'd boy, 
 
 And Graces, each with loosen'd zone, 
 And Nymphs, and he scarce made for joy 
 
 Without thee, Youth, make haste to come, 
 And with them Mercurius. 
 
 ODE XXXI. 
 
 TO APOLLO. 
 
 Quid dedicatum poscit. 
 
 What of his newly consecrate 
 Apollo does the bard entreat ? 
 
 What prayer, from patera outpouring 
 The fresh-distilled juice, emit ? 
 
38 ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 Not for rich crops of fertile-teeming 
 
 Sardinia, not of Calabrie, 
 That sultry land, the herds of beauty — 
 
 Not gold, or Indian ivory ; 
 
 Not meads, which Liris eats away 
 
 With tranquil stream — that voiceless river. 
 
 Prune they the vine with hook Calene, 
 To whom of such a life the giver 
 
 Hath Fortune been. And charged with wealth, 
 
 The trafficker may drain him dry 
 From flasks of gold his wines recruited 
 
 By wares of Syrian spicery. — 
 
 He precious to the gods themselves, 
 
 Forsooth, as thrice in every year, 
 And four times to the Atlantic main 
 
 Repairing free from harm or fear. 
 
 Me may the olives nurture, me 
 
 The chicory, and mallows light ; 
 To me, Latona, grant the boon 
 
 My gather'd gains to use aright : 
 
 Both strong of health, and I beseech thee, 
 
 Alike with reason perfect left ; 
 And an old age to pass me, neither 
 
 Disgraced, nor of the harp bereft. 
 
ode xxxit.] ODES OF HORACE. 39 
 
 ODE XXXII. 
 
 TO HIS LYRE. 
 
 JPoscimur. 
 
 Summon'd are we ; if that ought, 
 
 'Neath the shade in vacant thought, 
 
 We have trifled erst with thee — 
 
 Aught that may have life to see 
 
 Both this year and more, — away ! 
 
 Raise my lyre a Latian lay ! 
 
 Thou who first didst tune thy strain 
 
 For a Lesbian denizen ; 
 
 Who in war of Hon soul 
 
 Still amidst the battle's lull, 
 
 Or if he on the oozy strand 
 
 Had moor'd his storm-toss'd bark to land, 
 
 Of Bacchus and the Muses' band, 
 
 And Venus and her boy was singing 
 
 Ever to her fondly clinging, 
 
 And of Lycus passing fair, 
 
 With jet-black eyes and jet-black hair. 
 
 O Apollo's pride, and guest 
 
 At the banquets glad-caress'd 
 
 Of imperial Jove — O, shell 
 
 Sorrow's sweet and soothing spell, 
 
 Unto me, with due appeal 
 
 Calling, teem with blessings still ! 
 
40 ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 ODE XXXIII. 
 
 TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS. 
 
 Albi, ne doleas plus nimio. 
 
 Grieve not, my Albius, over too severely 
 
 Upon the memory dwelling 
 
 Of ruthless Glycera ; 
 Nor harp upon thy piteous elegies, 
 
 Because a younger form 
 
 Outshines thee, now her faith is broken. 
 Lycoris, with the narrow forehead graced, 
 
 The love of Cyrus fires ; 
 Cyrus doth swerve aside 
 
 To woo the cruel Pholoe. Yet shall kids 
 Be wedded first unto Appulian wolves 
 
 Ere Pholoe sin 
 With an ungraceful paramour. 
 
 Thus hath it pleased Yenus ; her whose will 
 It is to pass ill-matched forms and spirits 
 
 Beneath her brazen yoke, 
 
 With cruel frolic sport. 
 E'en me myself, when a far better love 
 
 Was wooing me, with pleasing chain 
 
 Did Myrtale detain — 
 A freedman's daughter she, — more violent 
 
 Than Adria's friths, that scoop 
 
 The coves of Calabrie. 
 
ode xxxiv.] ODES OF HORACE. 41 
 
 ODE XXXIY. 
 
 AGAINST THE EPICUREANS. 
 
 Parous Deorum. 
 
 I but a votary poor of Heaven, 
 
 And rare attendant for the past, 
 While of a wild philosophy 
 
 I stray professor, now at last 
 To back my sails am doom'd perforce, 
 And trace again my quitted course, 
 
 For oft and oft the Sire of day, 
 
 Splitting the clouds with lightning glare, 
 
 Throughout the crystal sky hath driven 
 His thund'ring steeds and winged car ; 
 
 Whereat brute earth, and wand'ring floods. 
 
 Whereat the Styx, and dread abodes 
 
 Of loathed Teenarus, and bounds 
 
 Atlantic shudder to their base. 
 The Deity hath might to change 
 
 Lowest, for things of highest place ; 
 And wastes away the blazon d knight, 
 Dragging forth darkness into light. 
 
 Hence, from one head with ravening grasp, 
 With rush of pinions loud and shrill, 
 
 Fortune the crest hath borne aloft ; 
 Here joys to place it down at will. 
 
42 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 ODE XXXV. 
 
 TO FORTUNE. 
 
 Diva. 
 
 O Goddess, who dost hold thy sway 
 O'er Antium loved — thou ever nigh, 
 
 Either from lowest scale of woe 
 Our mortal frame to lift on high, 
 
 Or trains triumphal proud and stern 
 
 Into funereal pomps to turn. 
 
 Thee in his penury doth court, 
 
 And canvass with a fretful prayer, 
 
 The tiller of his farmland ; — thee, 
 As sov'reign of the main, whoe'er 
 
 Is lashing the Carpathian sea 
 
 With a Bithynian argosy. 
 
 Thee Dacia's son of savage mood, 
 Thee the on-flitting Tartar hordes, 
 
 And towns, and tribes, and Latium fierce, 
 And mothers of barbarian lords, 
 
 And purple tyrants dread, lest thou, 
 
 With foot of wanton mischief, low 
 
 Spurn down the tow'ring shaft ; or lest 
 The populace, with thronging rush, 
 
 To arms the flagging souls, to arms 
 Alarum, and the empire crush. 
 
 Ever in the van of thee 
 
 Walketh thy serf Necessity, 
 
ode xxxv.] ODES OF HORACE. 43 
 
 Beam-clamping bolts and wedges bearing 
 
 In hand of brass — nor distant far 
 Is griping hook and molten lead. 
 
 Thee Hope attends and Honour rare, 
 With patches mantled white as snow ; 
 ISTor doth her comrade she forego. 
 
 Though with changed garb, the great man's halls 
 
 Thou quit in deadly enmity ; 
 While faithless crowd, and perjured quean 
 
 Away retire. Dispersed fly 
 With dreg-drain'd casks, the friends too full 
 Of guile, in pairs the yoke to pull. 
 
 save thou Csesar, soon to pass 
 'Mongst Britons, the remotest men 
 
 Of earth, and that fresh-levied band 
 Of spirits in their prime, which then 
 
 By eastern regions must be view'd 
 
 With terror, and the crimson flood. 
 
 Alas ! For all our scars and crime, 
 
 Shame, shame ! and for our brothers [slain !] 
 
 What have we shrunk from 1 We, an age 
 Of harden'd hearts ? What deed of sin 
 
 Forbidden have we left undrain'd ] 
 
 Whence have our youth their grasp refrain' d, 
 
 By fear of gods 1 What holy shrines 
 
 E'er have they spared ? O would to Heaven 
 
 That on an anvil newly planted, 
 
 O Fortune, thou wouldst hammer even 
 
 And sharpen out our blunted swords 
 
 'Gainst Massaget, and Arab hordes. 
 
44 ODES OF HORACE. [book i. 
 
 ODE XXXYI. 
 
 Et ihure, et fidibus juvat. 
 
 Both with frankincense and lyre, 
 And with the blood of calf, full richly due, 
 
 Sweet is it to propitiate 
 
 The guardian gods of Nrnm'da. 
 He who now in safety 
 
 From the remotest western land, 
 Disperses many a kiss 
 
 To his companions dear ; 
 Yet to none more than to his Lamia loved; 
 In memory of a boyhood pass'd 
 
 No other lord beneath ; 
 
 And of the toga changed 
 On one the self-same hour. 
 Let not the beauteous day 
 
 Its Cretan symbol lack. 
 Nor be there limits to the cask produced, 
 
 Nor of the feet repose 
 
 After the Salian s fashion. 
 Nor let Damalis, the maid 
 
 Of wine profuse, 
 Bassus with Thracian flagon overcome : 
 Nor let roses fail our feasts, 
 Nor parsley full of life, nor lily brie£ 
 All upon Damalis shall rest 
 
 Their melting eyes : 
 Nor shall Damalis be torn 
 
 From her new paramour, 
 Clasping him round more close 
 
 Than wanton ivy wreaths. 
 
de xxxvii.] ODES OF HORACE. 45 
 
 ODE XXXVII. 
 
 TO HIS COMPANIONS. 
 
 Nunc est bibendum. 
 
 Now must we drain the goblets, — now- 
 Must earth he struck with lib'ral tread ; 
 
 Now for the Salian priests to deck 
 
 The gods' divan, with banquets spread, 
 
 Comrades and friends, it were the time ; 
 
 Before this hour it seem'd a crime 
 
 Forth from our grandsires' cells to draw 
 Our Csecub wine ; while frantic ruin, 
 The queen against the Capitol, 
 
 And death against the throne was brewing- 
 She, with her filthy eunuch'd crew 
 Of men, with ailments foul to view — 
 
 She, impotent of soul to cherish 
 
 Any dream of hope she would, 
 And with her sugar'd fortune drunk. 
 
 Yet still her frenzy hot it cool'd : 
 Scarce one solitary sail 
 From the fires survived and hail. 
 
 And her mind, with idle panic 
 
 'Neath the Mareotic juice 
 Scared, into terrors stern, 
 
 And real, Csesar did reduce, 
 As from Italia she was winging, — 
 He close with oars upon her springing 
 
46 ODES OF HORACE. [book i 
 
 (E'en as a hawk the silken doves, 
 Or, as in snow-clad Hsemon's plains 
 
 A hunter swift the hare pursues), 
 
 That he might soon consign to chains 
 
 The monster sight of destiny : 
 
 Her who searching how to die 
 
 A death more like her lineage, neither 
 Startled and cower'd the steel before 
 
 Like woman, — nor with fear-wing'd fleet 
 Made for some distant skulking shore ; 
 
 But brook'd with eye serene to face 
 
 Her palace, grov'lling in disgrace — 
 
 She, hero-soul' d, e'en forked asps 
 
 To stroke, that through her frame entire, 
 
 Black venom she might swallow — she, 
 When death had ponder'd been, with ire 
 
 More savage still, as grudging sooth 
 
 To thy Liburnians void of ruth, 
 
 As one unqueen'd, in triumph proud 
 
 Slow to be trail'd along the crowd, 
 
 She — woman of no vulgar blood. 
 
ode xxxviii.] ODES OF HORACE. 47 
 
 ODE XXXVIII. 
 TO HIS SERVANT. 
 
 Persicos odi, puer. 
 
 I loathe, my boy, the pomps paraded 
 By Persian art. They please me not — 
 
 Of phillyra thy chaplets braided. 
 Cease hunting of all spots in what 
 
 There lingers still the rose late waning. 
 
 I care not thou shouldst task'd refine 
 Aught on the artless myrtle wreath ; 
 
 INor thee, a page, the myrtle twine 
 Doth misbecome, — nor me, beneath 
 
 My close pleach'd vine the goblet draining. 
 
 
48 
 
 THE SECOND BOOK 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 ODE I. 
 
 TO ASmUS POLLIO. 
 
 Motum ex Metello consule civicum. 
 
 Ciyil com motion, from the date 
 Metellus consul, and the springs 
 
 Of war, and crimes, and varying state, 
 And fortune's game, and gatherings 
 
 Of princes dread, and armour wet 
 
 With gory streams inexpiate yet — 
 
 A work with hazardry replete 
 
 Full perilous, thou now art tracing, 
 
 And through the midst of fires deep set 
 'Neath treacherous ashes, thou art pacing. 
 
 Let for a moment disappear 
 
 The Muse of Tragedy austere 
 
 From off the stage. Hereafter, soon 
 
 As public themes thou right hast placed, 
 
 Thy glorious task shalt thou resume, 
 With the Cecropian buskin graced. 
 
 Pollio ! to many a criminal 
 
 In sorrow, and to senate hall 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 49 
 
 Consulting, thou a guardian arm, 
 
 Famed far and wide ! for whom the bay 
 
 Did honours win of deathless charm 
 On thy Dalmatian triumph day. 
 
 E'en now with peal of bugles, telling 
 
 Of, menace, thou our ears art thrilling : 
 
 Now roar the clarions ; now the glare 
 Of arms doth scare the chargers scouring, 
 
 And horsemen's eyes. Methinks I hear 
 
 E'en now [the cries of] chiefs high towering, 
 
 With no disgraceful dust embrued, 
 
 And all the realms of earth subdued, 
 
 Save Cato's spirit stern and sore. 
 
 Juno, and of the heavenly band, 
 Whoe'er more friendly to the Moor 
 
 Had powerless from the unvenged land 
 Retired, the victor's sons repaid 
 As offerings to Jugurtha's shade. 
 
 What plain enrich'd with Latian gore 
 
 Doth not by sepulchres attest 
 Our godless fights, and Mede-heard roar — 
 
 Roar of the ruin of the West 1 
 What sea-gulf, or what rivers [far] 
 Know not of melancholy war ? 
 
 What main hath Daunian carnage ne'er 
 
 Distain'd ? What coast from blood is clear 
 
 Of ours ? Yet flippant Muse, thy sphere 
 Of frolic left, treat not again 
 
 Themes due to Ceos' dirgeful shell ; 
 
 With me 'neath Yenus' grotto still 
 
 Seek measures of a lighter quill. 
 
 E 
 
50 ODES OF HORACE. [book 
 
 ODE II. 
 TO CEISPUS SALLUSTIUS. 
 
 Nullus argento color est 
 
 There is in silver not a sheen, when hoarded 
 In the earth's miser-bosom ; thou decrier 
 Of the mere ore, my Sallust, if it shine not 
 With modest usage. 
 
 Live through a lengthen'd age with Proculeius, 
 Known for a father's spirit to his brethren ; 
 Him shall there waft, on wing afraid of nagging, 
 Fame ever-during. 
 
 Rule may you wider, by a grasping spirit 
 Taming, than if you to remotest Gades 
 Libya join, and either Punic host be 
 Serf to thee only. 
 
 Swells the cursed dropsy by itself indulging, 
 JSTor repels thirst, unless the ailment's cause has . 
 Fled from the art'ries, and the aqueous languor 
 From the pale body. 
 
 What though restored to Cyrus' throne, Phraates 
 Virtue, dissenting from the mob, erases 
 From the blest's lists, and disenchants the world of 
 Using false titles ; 
 
 Kingdom and scatheless diadem, and laurel 
 Wholly his own, to one alone awarding, 
 Whosoe'er gazes on enormous heaps with 
 Eye undiverted. 
 
ode in.] ODES OF HORACE. 51 
 
 ODE III. 
 
 TO QUINTUS DELLIUS. 
 
 jEquwm memento rebus. 
 
 A soul true-balanced in distress, 
 Mind thou maintain ; and not the less 
 Midst blessings, one attemper'd mild 
 From joy presumptuous and wild ; 
 O Dellius, thou about to die, 
 Whether each hour in misery 
 Lived hast thou, or on elbow sank 
 On some sequester'd grassy bank, 
 Hath bless'd thee throughout days divine 
 With inner seal of Falern wine ; 
 Where giant fir and poplar white 
 A hospitable shade delight 
 To blend with boughs, and struggles ill 
 To huddle past with slanting rill 
 The flitting crystal water. Here 
 Wines and spiced unguents bid them bear, 
 And sweet rose-blossoms of a date 
 Too shortlived ; while as yet the state 
 Of things, and age, and sable twine 
 Of the three sisters grant it thine. 
 Thou shalt retire from parks amass'd 
 By purchase oft, and mansion vast, 
 And villa, which that amber river 
 Tiber doth lave — retire for ever ; 
 And of thy wealth, up-piled on high, 
 Thine heir shall have the mastery. 
 Be rich, from Inachus of yore 
 A child, it matters naught, or poor, 
 e2 
 
52 ODES OF HOUACE. [book ii. 
 
 And nuraber'd with the rabble rout, 
 Thy life unhoused eke thou out 
 Beneath the sky, the victim still 
 Of nought-compassionating Hell — 
 There is a hand to one same spot 
 Urging us all ; — of all the lot 
 Is turning in the vase about, 
 Sooner or later to spring out, 
 And in the boat embark us, sent 
 Into eternal banishment. 
 
 ODE IV. 
 
 TO XAOTHIAS PHOCEUS. 
 
 JSfe sit ancittce tibi. 
 
 Let not a passion for a handmaid shame thee, 
 
 Xanthias Phoceus ! long of old Briseis, 
 
 Slave as she was, with snowy tint bewitch'd the 
 
 Bampant Achilles. 
 Ajax, the son of Telamon, Tecmessa's 
 Beauty bewitch'd — a prisoner 's her master ; 
 In the mid triumph with his virgin booty 
 
 Kindled Atrides ; 
 After the barb'rous chivalry fell under 
 Thessaly's victor, and removed Hector 
 To the spent Greeks gave Ilion a lighter 
 
 Prey to be captured. 
 Nought may you wot, if favourites of fortune 
 Pair Phyllis's sires as son-in-law may grace thee ; 
 Surely a princely lineage she wails, and 
 
 Surly Penates. 
 
ode v.] ODES OF HORACE. 53 
 
 Trust me, not sprung from the unholy vulgar, 
 Is she loved by thee ; nor could one so faithful, 
 So lucre-loathing, ever spring from mother 
 
 Fit to be blush'd for. 
 I can her arms, and lineaments, and tap'ring 
 Limbs unaffected flatter; hate suspecting 
 One, whose life just has trembled on the point to 
 
 Close his eighth lustre. 
 
 ODE Y. 
 
 Nondum subacid. 
 
 Not yet hath she the strength to bear 
 
 The yoke, with neck subdued ; 
 Not yet the tasks to satisfy 
 
 Of thy yoke-fellow. 
 
 % * * * * * 
 
 Thy heifers' thoughts are wand'ring round 
 
 Savannahs green, in rivers now 
 The burden of the heat relieving ; 
 
 Now in some stream-fed willow bower, 
 With younglings of the kine 
 
 Delighting more than all to frolic. 
 Hence with thy passion for th' unmellow'd grape ; 
 
 Soon to thy hand shall autumn, 
 "With all its varied tints, 
 
 Mottle the clusters blue with purple stain : 
 Soon will she follow thee. 
 
 For on there runs the fierce careering time, 
 And unto her will add the years 
 
 Which it hath ta'en from thee. 
 
54 ODES OF HORACE. [book it. 
 
 Soon with a forward brow 
 
 Will Lalage her spouse be seeking. 
 Loved so as neither coy, retreating Pholoe, 
 
 Nor Chloris — glittering so with shoulder fair, 
 As the clear moon reflected glitters 
 
 On the night-sea, 
 Or Cnidian Gyges ; whom 
 
 If thou shouldst introduce among 
 The maidens' choir, 
 
 E'en strangers, wondrously sagacious, 
 "Would the faint-shadow' d difference deceive, 
 
 With his loose floating locks, 
 And aspect epicene. 
 
 ODE YI. 
 
 TO SEPTIMIUS. 
 
 Septimi Gades aditure mecum. 
 
 Septimius, who with me wouldst go 
 E'en unto Gades, and the foe 
 Cantabrian, yet untaught to bear 
 Our yokes, and savage Syrtes, where 
 
 Seetheth the Moorish wave for e'er ; 
 I would that Tibur, perch'd above 
 By Argive colonist, may prove 
 The home of my declining life ! 
 Prove my last bourn, when worn with [strife 
 
 Of] sea, and travellings, and war. 
 Whence if unkindly fates debar 
 My footsteps, may I straight repair 
 Unto Galesus' stream, the dear 
 To fleece-clad sheep, and pastures (near), 
 
 By Sparta's son Phalantus sway'd. 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 55 
 
 That nook, beyond all nooks of earth, 
 To me is full of smiles and mirth, 
 "Where honeys yield not of the prize 
 T ' Hymettus ; and the berry vies 
 
 E'en with the green Venafrian glade. 
 Where spring prolong' d, and winter skies 
 Of genial temper Jove supplies ; 
 And blest with Bacchus still profuse 
 Kind Aulon on Falernian juice 
 
 An envious glance doth little send. 
 That spot with me thyself . invites, 
 And yonder favour'd fortress heights ; 
 There with a tear-drop richly due, 
 Wliile tepid still, shalt thou bedew 
 
 The ashes of thy minstrel friend. 
 
 ODE VII. 
 
 TO POMPEIUS VARUS. 
 
 scepe mecum. 
 
 thou, full oft reduced with me 
 Into the last emergency, 
 
 With Brutus of our warrior train 
 
 The chieftain ! WTio hath given again 
 
 Thee, Quirite still, to powers on high 
 
 Ancestral, and Italia's sky 1 
 
 Pompey, thou flower of comrades mine ! — 
 
 With whom the slow hours oft o'er wine 
 
 1 crush'd — with crowns on locks that shone 
 Glossy with balm of Syria's own. 
 
 With thee I felt Philippi's field, 
 And hurrying rout, my petty shield 
 
56 ODES OF HORACE. [book ii. 
 
 Abandon' d in no noble plight, 
 
 That time when "Valour's self in fight 
 
 "Was crush' d, and threat 'ning fronts saluted, 
 
 E'en with the chin the soil polluted. 
 
 But me, in panic crouching, swift 
 
 Mercurius through the^foe did lift, 
 
 "Wrapt in thick mist. Thee back once more 
 
 The re-engulfing billow bore, 
 
 With seething friths, into the war. 
 
 Therefore the feast, thy bounden care, 
 
 Render to «Tore, and lay to rest 
 
 Thy side, with warfare long distress'd, 
 
 My bay beneath ; nor spare the casks 
 
 For thee design' d. Our burnish'd flasks, 
 
 Brini with oblivious Massic juice : 
 
 From copious shells pour balms profuse. 
 
 Who has the task to hasten home 
 
 Of parsley dew'd or myrtle bloom 
 
 Our chajolets ? Whom will Venus choose 
 
 Umpire and lord of our carouse ? 
 
 For me, I'll revel not in mood 
 
 Saner than Thracia's sisterhood. 
 
 'Tis sweet to play the maniac's part, 
 
 My friend recover'd to my heart. 
 
ode viii.] ODES OF HORACE. 57 
 
 ODE VIII. 
 
 TO BARINK 
 
 TJlla si juris tibi. 
 
 If but one pain for perjured troth 
 
 Had brought thee harm, Barine, e'er — 
 
 If by black tooth or single nail 
 Thou wert becoming uglier : 
 
 I'd trust ; but thou, when thou hast bound 
 With vows thy false head, fairer far 
 
 Art glitt'ring out, and issuest forth 
 Of all our youth the general care. 
 
 It doth bestead thee to forswear 
 
 Thy mothers ashes sepultured ; 
 And night's still stars, with heav'n entire, 
 
 And gods from ice-cold death secured. 
 
 Yenus herself at this, I say, 
 
 Doth smile — the artless nymphs do smile ; 
 And Cupid fierce his fire-shafts pointing 
 
 On bloody whetstone all the while. 
 
 Add that our youth entire grows round thee — 
 Grows a new vassalage — and thralls, 
 
 "Who served thee erst, though oft they menaced, 
 Quit not their godless tyrant's halls. 
 
 Thee, mothers for their youthful steers — 
 Thee, frugal crones and maidens dread — 
 
 Sad, though new-wedded — lest thy breath 
 Delay their spouses [from their bed]. 
 
53 ODES OF HORACE. [book it. 
 
 ODE IX. 
 
 TO TITUS YALGIUS. 
 
 Non semper imbres. 
 ISTot ever on the ragged lea 
 Stream showers frora clouds ; nor Caspia's sea 
 Do tempests chafe in fitful gusts 
 For aye : nor, on Armenia's coasts, 
 All the months round, my Yalgius dear, 
 Stands ice impassive, or [for e'er] 
 Are the Garganian groves of oak 
 Straining and groaning 'neath the stroke 
 Of the north blasts, — and are of all 
 Their foliage stripp'd, the ash trees [tall], 
 Thou aye and aye in tearful strain 
 Harp'st on thy Mystes from thee ta'en. 
 Nor do thy loves with Yesper springing 
 Up from Ms couch, nor with him winging 
 His night from the careering sun, 
 E'er quit thee. Yet the aged one, 
 Who served life's office three times o'er 
 "Wail'd not Antilochus [of yore], 
 His darling, all his years. Nor [thus] 
 "Wept for the callow Troilus 
 Parents or Phrygian sisters aye. 
 At length from thy soft plainings stay ; 
 And trophies new let's rather chant 
 Of Caesar the august, and gaunt 
 Niphate, and how the Median flood, 
 Added to nations all subdued, 
 In humbler guise its eddies rolls ; 
 And how within prescribed rules 
 The Gelon hordes in narrow'd plains 
 Give to their chivalry the reins. 
 
ode x.] ODES OF HORACE. 59 
 
 ODE X. 
 
 TO LICINIUS MURENA. 
 
 Rectius vives. 
 
 Yotj will live more aright, my Licinius, by neither 
 Full sail stretching out to the deep evermore, 
 
 Nor while heedful you shudder at storms [and foul weather], 
 By crowding too close on the perilous shore. 
 
 WTioever is fond of the golden mediety, — 
 
 Secure is he free from the scum of a den, 
 3ut of fashion and slovenly — free in sobriety, 
 
 From a mansion but form'd to be envied of men. 
 
 Far often the pine-tree gigantic is dashing 
 To and fro with the tempests ; and turrets of height 
 
 rumble down to the earth with a heavier crashing, 
 And the crests of the mountains the thunderbolts smite. 
 
 "t hopes amidst evil — it fears amidst good, 
 For an alter'd condition, — the well-season'd heart. 
 
 \t is Jove who the winters, grim-visaged [and rude], 
 Brings back — he the same who doth bid them depart.. 
 
 !^ot if fortune is now in ill plight, doth it follow 
 She will be so hereafter alike : there's an hour, 
 
 iVhen the muse sitting silent, with harpstring Apollo 
 Doth waken, nor straineth his bow evermore. 
 
 in distresses approve thee a mettlesome soul, 
 And brave. Thou wilt wisely the very same man. 
 
 When the wind on thy poop may be blowing too full, 
 Furl thy bellying sails into narrower span. 
 
 
60 ODES OF HORACE. [book i 
 
 ODE XL 
 
 TO QUINTIUS HIRPIXUS. 
 
 Quid bellicosus Cantaber. 
 
 What the Cantabrian liot for war, 
 
 And Tartar horde, disparted far 
 
 By Adria's barrier, plans, discard, 
 
 Hirpinus Quintius, to regard 
 
 With curious search ; nor fret with nerve 
 
 Startling and quick, a life to serve, 
 
 That makes but few demands. Apace 
 
 Flies past us light-wing'd youth, and grace ; 
 
 While wither d hoary eld doth fright 
 
 Away wild loves, and slumber light. 
 
 There dwells not in the spring-tide flower 
 
 The same bright glory ev'ry hour. 
 
 Nor shines the moon in crimson fire 
 
 With but one visage. Wherefore tire 
 
 Thy soul, too weak for such a task, 
 
 With plans eternity that ask 1 
 
 Why not beneath some foliage high — 
 
 Plane, wilt thou, — or this fir-tree nigh ? 
 
 Reclining thus in lax repose, 
 
 Our grey hairs scented with the rose, 
 
 And nard Assyrian, while we may, 
 
 Carouse we, bathed in unguents [gay] ? 
 
 Evius doth scatter to the air 
 
 Corroding griefs. What page will there 
 
 Quickest the fiery Ealerns glasses 
 
 Slake in the clear stream as it passes ? 
 
 Who from her home will angling be 
 
 Lyde, that wayward harlotry ? 
 
de xii.] ODES OF HORACE. 61 
 
 Hie, and bid her all haste make, 
 With iv'ry lyre and hair-bound back, 
 Into a sleek and knotted braid, 
 In fashion of a Spartan maid. 
 
 ODE XII. 
 
 TO ALECEXAS. 
 
 Xolis longaferce bella Numantice. 
 Wish not that fierce Nuinantia's long-drawn wars, 
 Nor the stern Hannibal, nor Sicel sea 
 Crimson'd with Punic blood, should wedded be 
 Unto the harp's soft strains : 
 Nor maddening Lapithse, and him too gross 
 In wine, Hylseus, or the youthful brood 
 Of Tellus by Herculean arm subdued ; 
 
 Whence at the peril shook, 
 E'en to its base, old Saturn's glittering dome \ 
 And thou, in chronicles of prose shalt tell 
 Of Caesar's many a battle far more well, 
 
 Maecenas, and of necks 
 1 Of threatening monarchs, through the public ways 
 Led on in triumph. Me the muse so dear 
 Hath will'd the minstrelsies to chant of her, 
 The mistress of my heart, 
 ! Lycimnia ; me her liquid sparkling eyes, 
 
 And bosom true to our right-mutual love — 
 Her whom it neither has misseem'd to move 
 Her footstep in the dance, 
 Nor to compete in frolic, nor to offer 
 
 Her arms to the embrace, when she doth play 
 With the gay virgins on the festal day 
 
 Of vot'rv-follow'd Dian. 
 
62 ODES OF HORACE. [book 
 
 And wouldst thou all that rich Achsemenes 
 Possess'd, or fertile Phrygians Mygdon hoards, 
 Or the full mansions of the Arab hordes, 
 
 Barter for one small hair 
 Of my Lycimnia ? while she coils her neck 
 To meet my burning kisses, or denies 
 With yielding cruelty, what she enjoys, 
 Should rather by the asker's self be snatch'd : 
 Yea, and at times anticipates to seize. 
 
 ODE XIII. 
 
 TO A TREE. 
 
 Ille et nefasto. 
 
 He both on luckless day did plant thee, tree ! 
 
 "Whoever first it was, and with a hand 
 Of sacrilege did rear thee up to be 
 
 Curse of his offspring, and the hamlet's brand. 
 
 Him could I fain believe must both have broken 
 
 Even the neck of his own proper sire, 
 And his home's secret chambers to have soaken 
 
 With the night-blood of friend and guest [for hire]. 
 
 He venom drugs of Colchos did concoct, 
 
 And whatsoever wickedness is brew'd 
 In any quarter of the world, who stock'd 
 
 Thee in my farm, thou melancholy wood ; 
 
 Thee on thy unoffending master's head 
 
 Destin'd to fall ! What each should shun is ne'er 
 Guarded by mortals with sufficient heed, 
 
 Each livelong hour. The Punic mariner 
 
ode xiii.] ODES OF HORACE. 63 
 
 Thrills at the name of Bosphorus with fright, 
 Nor fears from ought beyond his hidden doom ; 
 
 Soldiers at Parthian's shafts and rapid flight ; 
 Parthian at chains and massy beam of Pome. 
 
 Yet Death's stern grasp hath nations, unforeseen, 
 Swept off, and still will sweep. How near did we 
 
 The regal halls of gloomy Proserpine, 
 And -ZEacus in judgment sitting see ! 
 
 And the sequester'd haunts of holy shades ; 
 
 And Sappho on her chords JEolian still 
 Her plaint preferring of her country's maids ; 
 
 And thee, Alcseus, with thy golden quill, 
 
 Sounding in deeper tones disasters fell 
 
 Of shipboard, fell of exile, fell of fights ; 
 While that such themes each utters [from his shell], 
 
 For holy silence meet, admire the sprites ; 
 
 But more on frays, and tyrants chased doth feast 
 
 With listening ear the close-pack'd should'ring throng. 
 
 What marvel ? When the hundred-headed beast 
 Droops his black ears in stupor at his song, 
 
 And the snakes wreathed in the braided tire 
 
 Of the three Furies, cheerful wax and mild ; 
 Moreo'er, Prometheus too, and Pelops' sire, 
 
 With the sweet strain are of their woes beguiled, 
 Nor for a while to chase the lion 
 Or timorous lynxes recks Orion. 
 
64 ODES OF HORACE. [book ii. 
 
 ODE XIV. 
 
 TO POSTUMUS. 
 
 Eheu, fugaces. 
 
 Posthumus ! Posthumus ! years, alas I 
 
 Onward are sliding with fleeting pace ; 
 
 ]S"or unto wrinkles and menacing age 
 
 Will goodness an hour's delay engage, 
 
 And to death untamed. Not, though you try, 
 
 For as many days as are flitting by, 
 
 To soothe, friend, on each, with three hundred steers, 
 
 Pluto, who never melteth in tears ; 
 
 Him who Geryon huge doth chain, 
 
 And Tityos thrice with his river of pain, 
 
 That river sooth to be sailed of us all, 
 
 Who are fed the bounties of earth withal, 
 
 Whether [mighty] kings we shall chance to be, 
 
 Or helpless children of husbandry. 
 
 All in vain shall we keep aloof 
 
 From the battle-god of bloody proof, 
 
 And the broken billows of Adria hoarse ; 
 
 All in vain, through the Autumns' course, 
 
 The baleful South for our bodies dread. 
 
 By all alike must be visited 
 
 Sable Cocytus, wandering his way 
 
 With his listless flood, like one astray, 
 
 And kindred of Danaius, famed for wrong, 
 
 And he condemn'd to his labour long, 
 
 Sisyphus, son of .^Eolus. 
 
 Quitted must be our land by us, 
 
 And hall, and charmful spouse ; nor of these, 
 
 Which thou cherishest now, thy stately trees, 
 
ode xv.] ODES OF HORACE. 65 
 
 Thee, shortlived lord, shall a single one, save 
 
 The loathed cypress, attend to the grave. 
 
 A worthier heir shall squander at ease 
 
 Csecubans, kept 'neath hundred keys, 
 
 And with wine dye the pompous floor of thy hall — 
 
 Wine richer than feasts pontifical. 
 
 ODE XV. 
 
 AGAINST THE LUXURY OF THE ROMANS. 
 
 Jam pauca aratro. 
 
 Soon will our piles of princely pride 
 Leave but few acres for the share ; 
 
 And pools be throng'd on every side, 
 As wondrous sights, spread wider far 
 
 Than Lucrine lake ; and from its realm 
 
 The unwedded plane will beat the elm. 
 
 Then violet tufts and myrtle bower, 
 And of the nostrils all the store 
 
 Fragrance o'er olive-grounds will shower, 
 Fruit-bearing to their lord of yore. 
 
 Then with boughs matted will the bay 
 
 Screen out the sultry shafts of day. 
 
 Not so in the auspicious morn 
 Of Romulus the rule enroll'd : 
 
 And Cato's, with his locks unshorn ; 
 And by our fathers' laws of old. 
 
 With them the private wealth was small, 
 
 Immense the treasury of all. 
 
66 ODES OF HORACE. [book ii. 
 
 No colonnade, by tens of feet 
 
 Meted, for subjects would surprise 
 Dark Arctos ; nor did laws permit 
 
 The turf chance-springing to despise : 
 Bidding at public cost our towns, 
 And fanes of Gods adorn with freshly-sculptured stones. 
 
 ODE XVI. 
 
 TO GROSPHUS. 
 
 Otium Divos. 
 
 Ease doth the wight of heaven implore, 
 
 Surprised in the iEgean wide, 
 Soon as the murky cloud has whelm'd 
 
 The moon, nor stars of faith to guide, 
 On mariners gleam cold. 
 For ease doth Thracia madding wild 
 
 In war, for ease the Medians pray, 
 "With quiver graced, a treasure not 
 
 With gems nor crimson bought to be, 
 
 My Grosphus, nor with gold. 
 For it is not the treasured hoards, 
 
 Nor consul's lictor that aloof 
 Bids stand the spirit's tumults sad, 
 
 And cares which round the fretted roof 
 Are ever winging light. 
 Well is life spent by him. on little, 
 
 For whom, on table fornish'd plain, 
 Glitters the salt, his sire's heirloom, 
 
 Nor doth alarm, or avarice mean 
 
 Snatch off his slumbers light. 
 
ode xvi. ] ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Why aim we, heroes of a day, 
 
 At many a mark ? Why land for land 
 Scorch'd by a stranger sun exchange 1 
 
 What exile from his father's strand 
 Himself did also flee 1 
 She climbs — that festering care — our ships 
 
 Brass-beak'd, nor quits her seat behind 
 The squadrons of our chivalry, 
 
 Swifter than harts, and Eastern wind 
 Chasing the clouds away. 
 Cheer'd for the passing hour, thy soul 
 
 May loathe to cast an anxious thought 
 On all beyond, and bitter draughts 
 
 May soothe with smile elastic. Nought 
 Is bless'd on every side. 
 Achilles in his bright career 
 
 A hurried death did snatch away ; 
 Tithon a lingering eld decay'd, 
 
 And Time perchance will proffer me 
 What thee it hath denied. 
 Round thee a hundred flocks are lowing, 
 
 And Sicel kine ; for thee the mare 
 Match'd for thy four-yoked car doth toss 
 
 Her snorting high ; thee fleeces [rare] 
 Twice dipp'cl in Afric grain 
 Of crimson, mantle ; me, a Fate 
 
 Who ne'er did lie, gave petty fields, 
 And inspiration slight, from muse 
 
 Of Grascia, and the mob of eye 
 Malicious to disdain. 
 
68 ODES OF HORACE. [book ti. 
 
 ODE XVII. 
 
 TO KZECEJSTAS. 
 
 Cur me querelis. 
 
 Why dost thou drain my life away 
 With, thy laments 1 It pleaseth not, 
 
 Maecenas, either heawn or me, 
 
 That before me thon meet thy lot ; 
 
 O thon, of all which I possess. 
 
 Chief pride and bulwark in distress. 
 
 Ah ! thee, one portion of my heart, 
 If grasp untimely snatch away, 
 
 Why linger I, the other part *? 
 Neither as dear, nor like to stay 
 
 Behind thee whole. That day of awe 
 
 Ruin alike on each shall draw. 
 
 No traitor war-oath did I take : 
 On will we — on — wherever thou 
 
 The way shall lead — prepared to make 
 Our latest journey, link'd as now. 
 
 Me not the nre-Chimsera's breath, 
 
 Shall ever tear from thee in death ; 
 
 Nor though again should G-yges rise, 
 With all his hundred arms together. 
 
 Thus is it pleasing in the eyes 
 
 Of sovran right, and Parcse, whether 
 
 Libra or Scorpion dread, the power 
 
 More boist'rous of my natal hour, 
 
ode xvii.] ODES OF HORACE. 69 
 
 On me doth gaze, or Capricorn, 
 The despot of th' Hesperian flood ; 
 
 Each star, that ruled when we were born, 
 Doth sympathize in wondrous mood. 
 
 Thee Jove's bright tutelary ray 
 
 From impious Saturn snatch'd away, 
 
 And stay'd those wings of rapid pace, 
 The wings of fate, what time their shout 
 
 Of joy the thronging populace 
 Thrice in the theatre rung out. 
 
 Me the tree's trunk, which stealthy slid 
 
 Down on my brain, had stricken dead, 
 
 Except that with his own right hand 
 Faunus had lighten'd off the blow : 
 
 He, Power protective of the band 
 To Mercury dear. Remember thou 
 
 Victims and votive fane to pay, 
 
 "We, lowly gift, a lamb will slay. 
 
 ODE XYIII 
 
 AGAINST AVARICE AND LUXURY. 
 
 Non ehur. 
 
 No ivory or gilded fretwork vault 
 Glitters in my abode ; 
 No slabs Hymettian load, 
 
 Columns in farthest Afric quarried out. 
 Nor Attalus's throne 
 Have I, an heir unknown, 
 
 Usurp'd ; nor for me do client dames 
 Of noble birthright spin 
 Purples of Spartan grain. 
 
70 ODES OF HORACE. [book ii 
 
 But honour, and of native wit there is 
 
 A vein of kindly store ; 
 
 And me, a minstrel poor, 
 The rich man courts. Nothing beyond of heav'n 
 
 Importunate I ask ; 
 
 Nor my great patron task 
 For larger boons, with my one Sabine farm 
 
 Wealth-blest abundantly. 
 
 Day is propell'd by day, 
 And crescent moons are hast'ning still to wane : 
 
 Yet thou, but just before 
 
 Thy death and sepulture, 
 For marbles to be quarried dost contract ; 
 
 And, reckless of thy tomb, 
 
 Art rearing many a dome, 
 And striv'st to push far out the ocean's strand, 
 
 Which still, with clam'rous surges, 
 
 Assaults on Baise urges, — 
 Thou poorly dower'd with the mainland shore. 
 
 What, that of thy estate 
 
 Each landmark nearest set 
 Thou still art tearing up, and ev'ry bound 
 
 Of thy dependent poor 
 
 Greedy art vaulting o'er ! 
 Lo ! far away is driv'n both wife and man, 
 
 Each as his bosom loads 
 
 Bearing his fathers' gods 
 And squalid babes. Yet not one doomed hall, 
 
 With all his wealth, awaits 
 
 The lord of those estates, 
 More certain than the end of rav'nous hell. 
 
 Why farther strain thy hopes ] 
 
 The earth impartial opes 
 Its bosom to the poor and monarchs' sons ; 
 
ode xix.] ODES OF HORACE. 71 
 
 Nor did the henchman [black] 
 
 Of Orcus ferry back, 
 For all his craft, Prometheus, caught with gold. 
 
 He fast to his abode 
 
 Chains Tantalus the proud, 
 And Tantalus's offspring. He, to bring 
 
 Relief unto the poor, 
 
 Their cares and labours o'er, 
 Summon'd, and summon'd not, doth hearken stilL 
 
 ODE XIX. 
 
 ON BACCHUS. 
 A DITHYRAMEIC, OR DRINKING SONG. 
 
 Bacchum in remotis. 
 
 I saw on rocks afar retired 
 
 Bacchus teaching hymns inspired, 
 
 (Trust me, O posterity !) 
 
 And JSTymphs his lessons learning [nigh], 
 
 And ears up-prick'd [to list his song] 
 
 Of the goat-footed Satyr throng. 
 
 Evce ! with fresh alarm my soul 
 Throbs, and with breast of Bacchus full, 
 Exults in wild tumultuous joy. 
 Evce ! spare, thou franchised boy ! 
 Spare me, O thou terrible ! 
 With thy wand of potent spell ! 
 
 Privilege for me it is 
 
 To chant the froward Thyades, 
 
72 ODES OF HORACE. [book ii. 
 
 And the fount of grapy juice, 
 And the rills of milk profuse, 
 And honeys o'er and o'er to sing 
 From cavern'd tree-trunks weltering. 
 
 Mine it is moreo'er to story 
 His thrice-bless'd consort's glory, 
 Added to the stars, and hall 
 Gf Pentheus, with no gentle fall, 
 Toss'd to wreck, and the deadly scourge 
 Of the Thracian king, Lycurge. 
 
 Thou the river's course dost bow, 
 Thou the barbaric ocean ! Thou 
 On sequester'd cliffs, in wine 
 Steep'd, all scatheless dost confine 
 In a viper-knot the braids 
 Of thine own Bistonian maids. 
 
 Thou, when, thy father's realms assailing, 
 The Giants' godless crew were scaling 
 Up the steep of heav'n, didst whirl 
 Rhoetus back, and downward hurl, 
 Arm'd with the lion's claw, 
 And its terror-striking jaw. 
 
 E'en though pronounced of fitter port 
 For dance, and frolic jests, and sport, 
 Thou usedst not to be deerud enough 
 Accomplish'd for the battle rough ; 
 Yet thou the same wert prompt to share, 
 And mix alike in peace and war. 
 
 Harmless did Cerb'rus thee behold, 
 Graceful with thy horn of gold ; 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 73 
 
 Soft his tail against thee beating, 
 While, as thou wert slow retreating, 
 With his mouth of triple tongue 
 Thy feet and legs he lick'd along. 
 
 ODE XX. 
 
 TO MAECENAS. 
 
 JSTon usitata. 
 
 Not on a wonted wing, or lowly, 
 In shape biform'd, shall I be wafted 
 
 Through the crystal firmament, 
 A minstrel I. Nor in the regions 
 Of earth shall I be dallying longer ; 
 
 And beyond the power of envy, 
 Cities shall I quit. No never, 
 I, the blood of wealthless parents, — 
 
 I, whom thou, loved friend, art calling, 
 Thou, Maecenas, shall I perish ; 
 Nor in Stygian wave be prison'd. 
 
 Now, e'en now, is settling down 
 On my thighs the skin fast rough'ning, 
 And into a bird of silver 
 
 Changing am I all above. 
 And, my fingers o'er, and shoulders, 
 Glossy plumage forth is springing. 
 
 Than the son of Daedal swifter, 
 Icarus, shall I now voyage 
 To the groaning Bosphorus' shores, 
 
 And Gaetulia's desert sands, 
 And the Hyperborean champaigns, 
 
74 ODES OF HORACE. [book ii. 
 
 X, a bird of sweetest music. 
 
 Me shall Colchia's host, and he 
 Who now striveth to dissemble 
 His terror of the Marsian cohort, 
 
 And remotest Gelons know. 
 Me Iberian school'd shall learn, 
 And the quafFer of the Rhone-stream. 
 
 Hence with dirges from my burial, 
 "Where I am not, and lamentings 
 Full of infamy, and wailings ; 
 
 Hush your outcry, and abandon 
 
 All the superfluous homage of a tomb. 
 
75 
 
 THE THIRD BOOK 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 ODE I. 
 
 ON CONTENTMENT. 
 
 Odi profanum vulgus. 
 
 I loathe the rabble rout profane, 
 
 And bid them far avaunt. 
 Peace with your tongues ! a minstrel strain 
 
 Which none before did list, 
 
 Do I, the Muse's priest, 
 To maidens and to striplings chant. 
 
 Of awful kings the. sovran might 
 
 Is o'er the flocks their own ; 
 O'er kings themselves 'tis Jove's, the bright 
 
 Enthroned in triumph due, 
 
 Won o'er the giant crew, 
 The worlds convulsing with his frown. 
 
 It may be man than man more wide 
 
 In trenched grounds arrays 
 His shrubs ; to loftier blood allied, 
 
 One to the field comes down 
 
 A candidate ; in morals one 
 Nobler competes, and praise. 
 
76 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 Another may a throng more great 
 
 Of client followers claim ; 
 "With law impartial iron fate 
 
 In lottery doth win 
 
 Blazon'd and meanest men; 
 One roomy vase shakes every name. 
 
 For him whose godless neck of crime 
 
 The sword "iinsheath'd hangs o'er, 
 No flavour sweet will there sublime 
 
 The feasts of Sicily ; 
 
 No choral minstrelsy 
 Of birds and lyre will sleep restore. 
 
 Sleep, gentle sleep, with no disdain 
 
 Is looking on the roof 
 Low nestling of the rural swain, 
 
 Or bank embower'd in shades, 
 
 Nor Tempe's breeze-fann'd glades. 
 The soul that only yeameth for enough 
 
 Neither the boisterous sea with dread 
 
 Frets, nor the mad assault 
 Of setting Bear, or rising Kid ; 
 
 Not vineyard by the storm 
 
 Of hailstones scourged, or farm 
 Deceitful, while the tree doth hold at fault, 
 
 One hour the rains from heaven, one hour 
 
 The stars that scorch the leas ; 
 The winters now that harshly lower. 
 
 As many a monster heap 
 
 Is plunged into the deep, 
 The finny tribes perceive the narrow'd seas. 
 
ode ii.] ODES OF HORACE. 77 
 
 Here, crowding with his company, 
 
 His piles in concrete pour'd 
 The contract-builder sinks, and he 
 
 The lord who nauseates 
 
 The land. Yet fear and threats 
 Scale the same places with the lord. 
 
 Nor quitteth care, as spectre black, 
 
 The brass-beak'd ship of war, 
 And sits behind the troopers back. 
 
 But what if, when I groan 
 
 In pain, no Phrygian stone, 
 Nor habit, brighter than the star, 
 
 Of purples, soothes me, nor the vine 
 
 Falerne, or spikenard oil, 
 Of Persia ; why a hall of mine, 
 
 On portals for the eye 
 
 Of envy, tow ring high, 
 In fashion new, should I up-pile ? 
 Why barter 'gainst my Sabine vale 
 Riches that tenfold toil entail ? 
 
 ODE II. 
 
 AGAINST THE DEGENERACY OF THE ROMAN YOUTH. 
 
 Angustam, amici. 
 
 Let pinching poverty, my friend, 
 Thy hardy boy in cutting war 
 Learn with his fellows to endure ; 
 And on his charger borne, a sight of fear, 
 .Harry the savage Parthians with his spear. 
 
ODES OF HORACE. [book hi 
 
 And let him pass his life beneath 
 The vault of heav'n, amidst alarms. 
 Him from the foeman's rampire gazing, 
 Let the belligerent suzran's dame, and she 
 His maid of years mature sigh deep to see ; 
 
 Ah ! lest her own affianced one, 
 Her princely youth, to battle hosts 
 Unused, the lion rouse to wrath, 
 Him savage to be handled, whom through heaps 
 Of carnage gore-besmear'd vengeance sweeps. 
 
 It is a sweet and glorious thing 
 
 To perish for our fatherland ! 
 
 Death e'en the man of coward flight 
 Close chases, nor of youth recreant in war 
 Doth it the hams or craven shoulders spare. 
 
 Virtue of sordid mean rebuff 
 Unconscious, with unsullied honours 
 Bright glitters. Nor the lictors' axes 
 
 Lifts she aloft, or lowers them down beneath 
 
 The wilful bidding of a people's breath. 
 
 Virtue, to souls that merit not 
 To die, the gates of heav'n unclosing, 
 Essays a passage by a path 
 Denied to common men ; and vulgar routs, 
 And the dark earth with flying pinion flouts. 
 
 There is to trustworth silence, too, 
 Its prize secured. Whoe'er divulged 
 The holy truth of secret Ceres, 
 
 Will I forbid 'neath the same beams to be, 
 
 Or to unmoor his fragile bark with me. 
 
ode in.] ODES OF HORACE. 79 
 
 Full oft the Sire of clay, when slighted, 
 Hath the untainted soul involved 
 With him of heart denied. Rarely 
 Hath Vengeance with her halting gait the chase 
 Quitted of guilty man, though foremost in the race. 
 
 ODE III. 
 
 OX STEADINESS AXE» INTEGRITY. 
 
 Justum et tenacem. 
 
 The man of righteousness, and strong 
 Of purpose, not the fire devouring 
 
 Of populace commanding wrong, 
 
 Not despot's visage o'er him low'ring, 
 
 Shakes in his solid soul ; nor he, 
 
 "Wild lord of Adria's restless sea, 
 
 Auster ; nor Jove's almighty arm, 
 Launching his bolts. If o'er h im fail 
 
 The shatter' d globe, without alarm 
 
 The crumbling wrecks will smite him still. 
 
 This was the glorious art whereby 
 Pollux and wandering Hercules 
 Attain' d the flaming tow'rs on high, 
 
 Up having struggled ; and midst these 
 Augustus calm reclining sips 
 Nectar, with purple-flushing lips. 
 
 With this thy meed of glory earning, 
 Thee, father Bacchus, thee they drew, 
 
 With neck untamed such lore for learning, 
 Dragging the yoke, thy tiger crew. 
 
80 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 With this on Mars's coursers set, 
 
 From Acheron Quirinus 'scaped ; 
 When to the gods, in conclave met, 
 
 Juno her grateful plan outshaped : 
 
 Ilion ! Ilion, into dust 
 
 A judge foredoom'd, and foul with lust, 
 
 Is turning ; and a foreign dame, 
 
 Since the hour Laomedon 
 Defaulter to the gods became 
 
 Of their plighted earning won ; 
 
 Ilion by me and Pallas chaste, 
 
 With people and with fraudful king, 
 
 'Neath the ban of ruin placed. 
 Now no more is glittering 
 
 Of Sparta's foul adulterate dame 
 
 The guest black chronicled in fame ; 
 
 Nor doth Priam's house forsworn, 
 The battling Greeks by Hector's aid, 
 
 Crush and shiver back in scorn : 
 And the war, so long delay'd 
 
 By feuds of ours, hath sunk to rest. 
 
 Henceforth both my rancour sore, 
 And the son whom I detest, 
 
 Whom the Trojan priestess bore, 
 Unto Mars will I surrender ; 
 Him will I allow to enter 
 
 Heav'n's empyrean abodes, 
 
 Nectar's juiced draughts to drain ; 
 
 And in the peace-crown'd ranks of gods 
 To stand enroll'd. While the main 
 
ode in.] ODES OF HORACE. 81 
 
 Far outstretch'd madly foam between 
 
 Troy and Borne, on any shore 
 Happy let the exiles reign ; 
 
 While the cattle trample o'er 
 Priam's and Paris' sepulchre, 
 And the wild beasts harbour there 
 
 Their cubs nnvenged. Glittering stand 
 The Capitol, and Pome have sway 
 
 Laws to dispense with haughty hand 
 O'er Media's triumph-led array. 
 
 Wide-fear' d, her name o'er farthest shores 
 Extend she, — where the central deep 
 
 Dissevers Europe from the Moor ; — 
 
 Where swelling Nile its leas doth steep : 
 
 More bold to scorn gold undisclosed, 
 
 And thus more happily reposed, 
 
 When earth conceals it, than with hand, 
 Which every hallow'd thing doth rob, 
 
 T' amass it for a mortal's end. 
 Whatever limit of the globe 
 
 Hath barr'd a passage, this, yclad 
 In arms, achieve she — -joy'd to view 
 
 In what part fires are revelling mad, 
 In what the mists and show'ry dew. 
 
 But to the warrior sons of Borne 
 
 Beneath this bond I read their doom, 
 
 That ne'er too duteous, and with joy 
 
 Confiding in their high estate, 
 The roofs of their ancestral Troy 
 
 They fain desire to reinstate. 
 
 G 
 
82 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 Ilion's fortune reascendin£ 
 
 'ISTeatli a funeral augury, 
 Yfith a havoc sad attending, 
 
 Shall repeated be ; while I 
 Lead to war the victor crew — 
 I, spouse of Jove and sister too. 
 
 Though thrice arise the wall of brass, 
 With Phoebus the emprize to cherish — 
 
 Thrice by my Argives mass from mass 
 Dismantled, should it fall and perish : 
 
 Thrice the wife a captive led, 
 
 Wail o'er spouse and children [dead]. 
 
 These thoughts with lyre for frolic made 
 Comport not. Spirit of my verse, 
 
 Where strain' st thou ? Bold presumptuous maid ! 
 Cease the gods' converse to rehearse ; 
 
 And with thy strains of lowly tone, 
 
 Themes of high vein to humble down. 
 
 ODE IV. 
 
 TO CALLIOPE. 
 
 Descends ccelo. 
 
 Descend thou from the sphere, 
 And utter, haste, a longer strain 
 Forth from thy flute, Calliope my queen ; 
 Or if, with thrilling voice, thou mayst prefer. 
 Or unto chords, attuned, and harp to Phcebus dear. 
 
ode iv.] ODES OF HORACE. 83 
 
 Hear ye ? or doth my soul 
 Delude some sweet delirious spell ? 
 Methinks I voices hear, and rove at will 
 Through hallow'd groves of sainted spirits full, 
 'Neath which both pleasant rills and breezy zephyrs roll. 
 
 For me, while wand'ring o'er 
 Apulian Yultur, past the bourn 
 Of my Apulian foster-land, outworn 
 "With sport and sleep in boyhood's hour, 
 Wove there of foliage strange the fabled doves a bower. 
 
 (Sight which might well be tale 
 Of marvel unto all, whoe'er 
 Tall Acherontia's nestled hamlet share, 
 And Bantium's forest glades, and arable 
 Rich of Ferentum's town, low-seated in its dell.) 
 
 How slumb'ring I did lie, 
 With limbs from vipers black safe-kept, 
 And bears ; how both in hallow'd bay was wrapt, 
 And myrtle sprays cull'd from each thicket nigh, 
 Not without aid of heav'n, a spriteful infant I. 
 
 I, votary of your power 
 Ye Muses ! votary of you, 
 Ascend amid Sabinum's mountain crew ; 
 Or if slope Tibur, or Prseneste frore, 
 Or Baise's crystal streams have charm'd me the more. 
 
 Unto your well-springs me 
 And to your choirs devoted, not 
 The battle at Philippi put to rout, 
 Did quench in death ; not the accursed tree, 
 Not Palinurus whelm'd in the Sicilian sea. 
 g2 
 
84 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 Wherever ye shall stand 
 "With me associate; cheerly glad 
 As mariner will I the raging mad 
 Bosphoric frith essay, and the parch'd sand, 
 As wayfarer, will brave of the Assyrian strand. 
 
 I'll visit Britons, towards 
 The stranger ruthless, and the swarm 
 Concanian gloating o'er their mare's blood [warm] ; 
 Yisit the quiver-deck' d Gelonian hordes, 
 And Scythia's river, I unscathed [by their swords]. 
 
 Caesar sublime o'er foes, 
 When his troops, worn with battle's calls, 
 He hath cusmiss'd to shelter in their walls, 
 Now as he seeks his weary toils to close, 
 Ye in Pierian grot invig'rate with repose. 
 
 Mild gentle counsel you 
 Both give, and joy in it when given, 
 Ye boon ones. "Well we wot how foes of Heaven, 
 The Titans and their savage monster crew, 
 He with his volley'd bolt of thunder overthrew — 
 
 He who the senseless land, 
 He who the tempest-tossing main, 
 And cities, and the realms of grief and pain, 
 And gods, and mortal throngs with single hand, 
 'Neath his just regal sway doth temper and command. 
 
 Struck had they into Jove, — 
 That trustful youth, — a dread alarm, 
 As horrible they rose with many an arm, 
 And the [fell] brotherhood, who Pelion strove 
 To pile upon Olympus dark [with many a grove]. 
 
ode iv] ODES OF HORACE. 85 
 
 But what could they do here, 
 Typhoeus, and the stalwart might 
 Of Mimas, or Porphyrion with his height 
 Of menace big. What Khoetus and [his peer], 
 He with uprooted trunks, that dauntless vollyer, 
 
 Enceladus, in face 
 Of Pallas' thundering iEgis rushing. 
 Here Vulcan stood, with ravening flames outgushing ; 
 On that side Juno in her matron grace, 
 And he who from his arms ne'er will his bow displace — 
 
 He who his locks untied, 
 Bathes in Castalia's crystal dew, 
 "Who -Lycia's bosky brakes, and woodland through, 
 His natal region, — hath dominion wide, 
 He of the Delian isle, and Patara the pride — 
 
 Apollo. Strength unbless'd 
 With counsel by mere bulk its own 
 Down tumbles. Strength of modest temper'd tone 
 E'en gods promote to greatness ; and detest 
 Alike the might that stirs all guilt within the breast. 
 
 Of these my maxims, lo, 
 A witness, he with hundred hands, 
 Gyges, and he the famed throughout the lands, 
 Orion, spotless Dian's tempter foe, 
 He by her virgin shaft o'ermatch'd and levell'd low. 
 
 Earth mutters pain and ire, 
 Hurl'd o'er her own prodigious crew ; 
 And mourns her brood to Orcus burning blue 
 Plunged by the levin bolt ; nor hath the fire, 
 Swift though it dart, gnaw'd through JStna th' incumbent 
 pyre. 
 
86 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 Nor froni the heart abstains 
 That vulture, jailer-ward assign' d 
 To villany : the heart of him with mhid 
 Unbridled, Tityus. Thrice a hundred chains 
 Shackle the paramour Pirithous [in his pains]. 
 
 ODE Y. 
 
 ON THE RECOVERY OF THE STANDARDS FROM PHRAATE8. 
 
 Coelo tonantem. 
 
 Jove, as he thunders through the sky, 
 Long have we deem'd to rule on high : 
 Augustus shall be held of all 
 A God close nigh to list our call, 
 Since Britons to the imperial throne 
 And Persians dread were added on. 
 
 What ! match'd with a barbarian wife 
 
 Did Crassus' soldiery brook life ! 
 
 Base husband ! And in fields of foes 
 
 His sires-in-law, could he repose 
 
 In age ? Thou Senate ! shame ! oh, shame ! 
 
 And Rome's changed character [and fame !] 
 
 Kneeling at Median despot's knee, 
 
 A Marsian and Apulian he ! 
 
 Of shields, and name, and toged attire 
 
 Oblivious, and the deathless fire 
 
 Of Yesta, while unscathed from ill 
 
 Jove stood, and Rome's proud city still. 
 
ode v.] ODES OF HORACE. 87 
 
 This Regulus's prescient thought 
 Had heeded, from conditions, fraught 
 With shame, revolting, and from act 
 Of precedent, which ruin dragg'd 
 Down on a coming age, if youth 
 Once prisoner, died not without ruth. 
 
 " I have," he cried, " our standards seen 
 Nail'd upon many a Punic fane, 
 And mail, without a drop of blood, 
 Stripp'd from our soldiers. I have view'd 
 The arms of citizens of Rome 
 Behind a back born-free wrung home : 
 
 And gates unclosed, and fields in tillage 
 Doom'd by our battle-god to pillage." 
 Sooth will the warrior home return, 
 Redeem'd with gold, more fierce and stern ! 
 Loss do ye heap on infamy ! 
 Neither the fleece with borrow'd dye 
 
 Bedrugg'd, retrieves its faded hue ; 
 Nor recketh Yirtue real and true, 
 Once having lapsed, to be replaced 
 In bosoms by defeat disgraced. 
 If from the hunters toils close twined, 
 Just disentangled, fights the hind ; 
 
 Brave will he be, himself who threw 
 
 Upon the mercy of a foe 
 
 Of broken troth ; and on will scare 
 
 And trample in a second war 
 
 The Punics, he who felt the thong 
 
 On his back-twisted muscles wrung — 
 
ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 Resistless felt, and shrunk in awe 
 At Death. He witless whence to draw 
 Life, did confound base peace with fight. 
 O shame ! O Carthage, queen of might ! 
 On ignominious ruins now 
 Enthroned of Italy [laid low !] 
 
 'Tis said that he did from him put 
 His modest yoke-fellow's salute, 
 And infant progeny, as now 
 A crest-fallen slave ; and with a brow 
 Rugged and stern, his manly face 
 Did on the ground unmoved place ; 
 
 While he the wavering senate-lords 
 The adviser he, with counsel-words 
 Ne'er given in any other strain, 
 Was strength'ning ; and amidst a train 
 Of sorrowing friends, the foremost graced, 
 The exile on his way did haste. 
 
 Yet well he knew what even then 
 The savage torturer for him 
 Was plan ning ; still his kinsmen train 
 Barring his path, and people fain 
 To linger his return, with heart 
 ISTo other did he move apart, 
 
 Than if some client's cause, of sitting, 
 Protracted, he at length were quitting, 
 The suit decided, to his own 
 Yenefrian farm-lands wending down. 
 Or Sparta's own Tarentine town. 
 
ode vi.] ODES OF HORACE. 89 
 
 ODE VI. 
 
 TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 Delicto, majorum immeritus lues. 
 
 Thy fathers crimes, O child of Rome, 
 Thyself nought meriting their doom, 
 Shalt thou atone for, till each shrine 
 And tottering fane of Powers divine, 
 And imaged forms thou hast replaced, 
 With smoky blackness now defaced. 
 
 Vail'd to the gods because thou bearest 
 
 Thy head, the imperial crown thou wearest , 
 
 From this each origin of grace, 
 
 To this each issue back retrace. 
 
 The gods when scorn'd have many a blow 
 
 Dealt on Hesperia's land of woe. 
 
 Twice now Mongeses and the band 
 
 Of Pacorus each onslaught, plannd 
 
 By us with auspices unbless'd, 
 
 Have crush'd, and lift their glittering crest, 
 
 At having added plunder'd gains 
 
 Unto their petty wreathed chains. 
 
 It wanted little, that the walls 
 
 Of Pome, possess'd by factious brawls, 
 
 Dacian and Ethiopia's son 
 
 Pazed out ; with his armado one 
 
 A foeman dread, the other far 
 
 Mightier, with volley'd shafts [in war]. 
 
90 ODES OF HORACE. [book ii: 
 
 Teeming with crime, hath, age on age 
 
 Our bridals first, and lineage, 
 
 And household hearths been sullying ; 
 
 And, streaming down from this well-spring, 
 
 Swept like a flood hath desolation 
 
 In on our fathers' land and nation. 
 
 Not from such parents sjorung as these 
 Did our young manhood stain the seas 
 With Punic blood, and slew for us 
 Pyrrhus and huge Antiochus, 
 And Hannibal cursed ; but a yield, 
 Like men, of soldiers from the field ; 
 
 Taught with their Sabine hoes to turn 
 
 The clods, and of a mother stern 
 
 The will obeying, home to lift 
 
 The axe-lopp'd stakes, when Sol might shift 
 
 The mountain shadows, and their yokes 
 
 Remove from many a wearied ox, 
 
 Slow drawing on that hour of charm 
 
 With car retreating. Fraught with harm 
 
 What hath time fail'd to impair ? 
 
 Our fathers' generation far 
 
 Worse than our grandsires us did bear 
 
 More worthless, — us henceforth about 
 
 A guiltier issue to send out. 
 
ode vii.] ODES OF HORACE. 91 
 
 ODE VII. 
 
 TO ASTERIA. 
 
 Quidjles. 
 
 Why dost thou weep, my Asterie, for one, 
 
 Whom with the earliest spring the Zephyrs fair 
 Will render to thy arms, with Thynian ware 
 
 Enrich'd ; the youth of never-swerving faith, 
 
 Thy Gyges? He to Oricum forced in 
 
 By southern blasts, when Capra's madd'ning stars 
 Were ris'n, his wintry nights, not without tears 
 
 Profuse, in sleepless vigils wastes away. 
 
 And yet the envoy of his careworn hostess, 
 
 Whisp'ring that Chloe sighs for him [and yearns], 
 And with thy rightful fires in misery burns, 
 
 Tempts him all cunning in a thousand forms. 
 
 Offc he rehearses how a traitress wife, 
 With calumnies of falsehood urged on 
 Fond trusting Prcetus gainst Bellerophon, 
 
 Too chaste, his plans of murder to mature. 
 
 He tells of Peleus nearly plunged in Hell, 
 While the Magnesian queen, Hippolyte, 
 In cautious self-denial he doth flee ; 
 
 And tales that teach to sin he doth suggest 
 
 Wily ; but all in vain. For deafer far 
 
 Than the Icarian's watch-heights he doth hear 
 
 His words, still whole. But thou, lest one too near, 
 
 Enipeus, charm thee over well, beware ; 
 
92 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 Though not another of like lore to wind 
 His steed upon the sward of Mars is made 
 The gaze of every eye ; nor with like speed 
 
 Does any swimming shoot the Tuscan channel. 
 
 With earliest nightfall close thy house, nor e'ei 
 At minstrelsy of pipe complaining soft, 
 Gaze down into the streets ; and though he oft 
 
 Call thee the hard of heart, stubborn do thou remain 
 
 ODE YIII. 
 
 TO MAECENAS. 
 
 Martiis coelebs. 
 
 What I on the calends of March, 
 A swain unwedded, am doing ; 
 
 What mean my flowers, and the pan 
 Of incense full, you are viewing 
 
 With marvelling eyes, and the coal 
 On the living turf-plot flung ; 
 
 Oh thou, who well hast been taught 
 The lessons of either tongue : 
 
 I had vow'd a banquet dainty 
 
 To the G-od of Liberty ; 
 And a milk-white, kid when nearly 
 
 Struck dead by the stroke of a tree. 
 
 This day, with each year returning, 
 
 As a festival shall unbind 
 The cork, with pitch close seal'd, 
 
 From the amphora, first design d, 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 93 
 
 When Tullus was our consul, 
 
 To drink the smoky fume — 
 Take, Maecenas, a hundred glasses 
 
 To your friend, now safe at home. 
 
 And the waking lamps prolong thou 
 
 To the morning light, and far 
 Be all clamour and wrath ! Dismiss thou 
 
 For the city, thy public care. 
 
 The Dacian Cotison's band 
 
 Has fallen. The Median foe, 
 Turn'd 'gainst himself, is battling 
 
 With weapons full of woe. 
 
 The Cantaber, he assailant 
 
 Of old of the coasts of Spain, 
 Is now our serf, tamed down 
 
 By his too-late bolted chain. 
 
 E'en now the Tartar hordes, 
 
 With their bow unbent and slack, 
 In their secret thoughts are brooding 
 
 From their steppes to retire them back. 
 
 Releasing now thy care, 
 
 Lest the nation suffer aught ; 
 Abstain thou, a private subject, 
 
 From indulging too heedful thought. 
 Seize glad the gifts of the present hour, 
 
 And quit all musing with strictness fraught. 
 
94 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 ODE IX. 
 
 TO LYDIA. 
 
 Donee grains. 
 
 Horace : 
 
 So long as I was dear to thee, 
 
 And not a youth more precious used to fling 
 His arms around thy neck of snow, 
 
 I flourish'd happier far e'en than the Persian's king, 
 
 Lydia : 
 
 Long as thou burn'dst not for another, 
 
 Rather, nor Lydia after Chloe stood, 
 I, Lydia, maid of high renown, 
 
 More famed than Ilia lived, the pride of Roman blood. 
 
 Horace : 
 
 Me now the Thracian Chloe sways, 
 
 Learn'd in sweet measures, and of science rare 
 To strike the lyre ; for whom to die 
 
 I will not fear, if Fates will her surviving spare. 
 
 Lydia : 
 
 Me Calais burns with mutual fire, 
 
 Calais the Thurian Ornytus' child, 
 For whom I twice will brook to die, 
 
 If to the boy surviving fate will be but mild. 
 
 Horace : 
 
 What if our love of old return, 
 
 And sever'd hearts with brazen yoke constrain ? 
 If Chloe fair is shaken off, 
 
 And for the jilted Lydia opes the door again % 
 
ode x.] ODES OF HORACE. 95 
 
 Lydia ; 
 
 Though lie is fairer than a star, 
 
 Thou lighter than a cork, and prone to ire, 
 More than the wicked Adria — 
 
 With thee I'd joy to live — with thee would fain expire. 
 
 ODE X. 
 
 TO LYCE. 
 
 Extremum Tanaim. 
 
 O, Lyce ! though thou wert drinking 
 Remotest Tanais, wedded there 
 Unto a savage spouse : 
 Yet to expose me, 
 Stretch'd at my length before thy ruthless doors, 
 Unto the native Aquilos, 
 Sure wouldst thou weep. 
 Hark ! with what din the gate — 
 With what a din the grove, 
 Midst thy fair halls implanted, to the winds 
 Rebellows, and how Jove 
 The deep-imbedded snows 
 With bright crystalline power is icing o'er. 
 Lay thou thy haughtiness aside, 
 
 Unloved of Yenus ; 
 Lest, as the wheel runs round, 
 The rope recoil. 
 Not a Penelope to wooers harsh 
 
 Did a Tyrrhenian father thee beget. 
 
96 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi 
 
 ! though nor gifts nor prayers 
 
 Nor the wan aspect of thy lovers dyed 
 With violet, nor thy spouse 
 
 Smitten with a Pierian harlotry, 
 Doth bend thee from thy purpose ; 
 
 Yet spare thy suppliants, thou, 
 That art not softer than th' unbending oak, 
 
 Nor milder in thy sold than Moorish snakes. 
 No, not for ever will this side be patient 
 
 Of the hard threshold, or the rains of heaven. 
 
 ODE XI. 
 
 TO MERCURY. 
 
 MercuH. 
 
 O Mercury; for school'd by thee 
 His teacher, with his minstrelsy 
 Amphion motion breathed in stones, 
 And thou, the deft, thy echoing tones 
 Back from thy seven chords to pour, 
 My shell 1 nor bless'd with speech of yore, 
 Nor grateful — yet a friendly guest 
 Both at the banquets of the blest, 
 And holy sanctuaries now : 
 Pour strains whereto may Lyde bow, 
 And rivet close her stubborn ears ; 
 She who, like filly of three years, 
 In the broad plains doth sport and frisk 
 With bound and start, and dreads to risk 
 A touch ; — from wedlock 'scaped, and raw 
 Still to her passion'd husband's law. 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 97 
 
 Thou canst the tigers lead along, 
 
 And forests following in the throng ; 
 
 And the swift rushing rivers stay. 
 
 For thee bewitching him made way, 
 
 The pointer of the palace dread, 
 
 E'en Cerb'rus, though his furies' head 
 
 There rampire round a hundred snakes, 
 
 And from his three-tongued mouth there breaks 
 
 Foul blast, and gory stream [the while]. 
 
 Moreo'er, Ixion too did smile, 
 
 And Tityos with reluctant eye : 
 
 For one short hour the urn stood dry, 
 
 "While thou with grateful song dost cheer 
 
 The Danaan maids. Let Lyde hear 
 
 The virgins' crime and noted pains ; 
 
 And cask, of water void, which drains 
 
 From the deep bottom quite away ; 
 
 And of the Fates, though late, which stay 
 
 For forfeits e'en in hell below — 
 
 O godless ! (for what deed of woe 
 
 More heinous could they ?) godless maids ! 
 
 They had the heart with steeled blades 
 
 To slay their consorts. Of the quire, 
 
 One only, worth the nuptial fire, 
 
 Unto her perjured sire became 
 
 Sublimely false, and maid of fame 
 
 Through every age — e'en she who " Bouse, 
 
 Arouse thee ! " to her youthful spouse 
 
 Exclaim'd, "lest a slumber long 
 
 Be dealt thee, whence thou fear'st not wrong : 
 
 Thy sire-in-law and guilty crew 
 
 Of sisters, disappoint thou ; who, 
 
 Like lionesses, having found 
 
 Calves, alas ! scatter'd singly round, 
 
 H 
 
98 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 Tear them to pieces. I, than they 
 
 More gentle, thee will neither slay, 
 
 ISTor hold in prison. Me my sire 
 
 May load with chains of ruthless ire, 
 
 Because in mercy I did spare 
 
 My luckless husband ; — me e'en bear 
 
 An exile in his fleet, to shores 
 
 Remotest of Numidian boors. 
 
 Go, whither feet and winds transport thee, 
 
 While night and Venus still support thee : 
 
 Go thou with blessed omen free, 
 
 And on my tomb a ditty see 
 
 Thou carve, in memory of me." 
 
 ODE XII. 
 
 TO NEOBULE. 
 
 Miserarum est, Tieque a/mon. 
 'Tis the lot of hapless maidens, — neither to indulge its play 
 To affection, nor in honied — wine their ills to wash away ; 
 Or to be struck lifeless, dreading — scourges of an uncle's tongue. 
 From thee Cytherea's basket — does that winged stripling 
 
 young,— 
 From thee all thy webs and study — of Minerva, labour's queen, 
 Now is taking, ISeobule, — Liparean Hebrus' sheen. 
 He, when once his oil-bathed shoulders — he has wash'd in 
 
 Tiber's wave, 
 Than Bellerophon himself a — trooper more expert and brave, 
 [Nor with cestus nor with slothful-foot o'ervanquish'd, — he the 
 
 same, 
 At the harts in throng alarm'd scudding o'er the open plain 
 Dexterous to launch his arrows, — and as fleet in foot [or more], 
 Ambush'd in the deep-sunk thicket — to surprise and slay the 
 
 boar. 
 
ode xiii. xiv.] ODES OF HORACE. 9!) 
 
 ODE XIII. 
 
 TO THE BANDUSIAN FOUNTAIN. 
 
 Of cms Bandusice. 
 
 O Fount of Bandusie, brighter than crystal, 
 Worthy of luscious wine, not without blossoms, 
 To-morrow with a kid shalt thou be gifted, 
 Whose brow with its fresh horns is budding. 
 And it on love and on frays is resolving, — 
 Bootlessly all, since thine icy-cold streamlets 
 With crimson blood to greet thee it shall stain, 
 Though the petulant nock's little nursling. 
 Thee the fierce season of Sirius blazing 
 Cannot contaminate ; coolness delicious 
 
 Thou lendest to the plough-bewearied steers, 
 And unto the wide-straying cattle. 
 Thou shalt be ranked, thou alike, in the number 
 Of fountains of story, while I chant the ilex 
 Imperch'd upon thy hollow-grottoed rocks, 
 
 Whence thy clear babbling waters are bounding. 
 
 ODE XIY. 
 
 TO THE ROMANS. 
 ON THE RETURN OF AUGUSTUS FROM SPAIN. 
 
 Herculis ritu. 
 
 People, he late, like Hercules, proclaimed 
 At the death-purchased laurel to have aim'd, 
 Caesar, his own Penates seeks again, 
 
 Victorious from the realms of Spain. 
 h2 
 
 LOFC, 
 
100 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 Let her, the wife who in her spouse alone 
 Joyeth, come forth, when duty she hath done 
 To the just gods ; and her, the sister too 
 
 Of the bright chief ; and fair to view, 
 With suppliant fillet, mothers of each lass 
 And youth late saved. striplings, [as ye pass,] 
 And damsels that by this your consorts know, 
 
 All words of omen ill forego. 
 This day in sooth a festival, all care 
 Of gloom shall lighten from me. I will fear 
 Nor tumult, nor to perish by the sword, 
 
 While Caesar is of earth the lord. 
 Go, for spiced oil, my boy, and crowns repair, 
 And cask still mindful of the Marsian war, 
 If, as he scour d the plains, by any hap, 
 
 One flask could Spartacus escape. 
 Bid, too, Nesera speed — that minstrel maid, — 
 Her myrrh-bathed locks to fasten in a braid. 
 If any hind ranee through the porter rough 
 
 And loath'd occur, do thou walk off. 
 Each whitening hair doth mitigate our passion, 
 Thirsting for brawls and froward altercation. 
 I would not bear this, hot in youthful blood, 
 
 When Plancus as our consul stood. 
 
ode xv.] ODES OF HORACE. 101 
 
 ODE XV. 
 
 TO CHLORIS. 
 
 Uxor pauperis Ibyci. 
 
 Pauper Ibycus's wife. 
 
 To thy good-for-nothing life, 
 
 And thy scandalous labour'd tricks 
 
 Do at length a limit &k ; 
 
 Bordering as thou art [too sure] 
 
 On a funeral mature. 
 
 Cease midst virgin girls to frolic, 
 
 And a vapour melancholic 
 
 O'er the glitt'ring stars to throw. 
 
 Not, if tolerably so 
 
 Aught becometh Pholoe, 
 
 Chloris, too, becomes it thee : 
 
 She, the daughter, better far, 
 
 Gallants' houses storms in war, 
 
 Like a Bacchant, frenzy-smitten. 
 
 Soon as tambourine is beaten ; 
 
 Her like wanton kid and brisk 
 
 Nothus' love compels to frisk ; 
 
 Thee the fleeces shorn around 
 
 Lucerie the far renown' d, 
 
 Not the harps, or purple bloom 
 
 Of the rose, nor casks drain'd home 
 
 To dregs, a beldam thee become. 
 
102 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 ODE XYI. 
 
 TO MAECENAS. 
 
 Inclusam Danaen. 
 
 Imprisoned Danae the tower 
 
 Of brass, and oaken stanchion'd door, 
 
 And sleepless watchdogs' outposts rough, 
 
 From midnight paramours enough 
 
 Had bulwark' d ; had not Jove the while 
 
 And Yenus, mocked with a smile 
 
 Acrisius, him the tim'rous guard 
 
 Of the fair maid so closely barr'd; 
 
 Since safe would be and oped the way, 
 
 The god transmuted into pay. 
 
 Gold loves through body-guards, unknown, 
 
 To steal, and burst through walls of stone, 
 
 Mightier than stroke of lightning flash. 
 
 The Argive augur's house did crash, 
 
 In ruin plunged, for lucre's sake. 
 
 A Macedonian man did break 
 
 Through city gates, and rival kings 
 
 "With gifts supplanted. Gifts, like springs, 
 
 Our navies' ireful chiefs ensnare. 
 
 On waxing wealth there follows care, 
 
 And craving after increase. I 
 
 Justly have shudder'd to lift high 
 
 A crest conspicuous far and wide, 
 
 Maecenas, thou of knights the pride. 
 
 The more that each refuse to give 
 
 To self, the more will he receive 
 
 From Heaven. Stripp'd bare of all I have, 
 
 I seek the camps of men who crave 
 
ode xvi ] ODES OF HORACE. 103 
 
 For nought, and joy the side to fly 
 
 Of rich men, a deserter I — 
 
 I with a lustre far more great, 
 
 The lord of a despised estate, 
 
 Than if, whate'er the sturdy-bred 
 
 Apulian ploughs, myself were said 
 
 Within my granges close to store, 
 
 Amidst enormous riches poor. 
 
 A rill of water clear as dew, 
 
 And woodland of but acres few, 
 
 And the sure promise failing not 
 
 Of my own harvest, in its lot 
 
 More blessed far, doth cheat away 
 
 The palm from him who glitters gay 
 
 In fertile Afric's regal sway. 
 
 Though nor Calabria's bees produce 
 
 Me honeys, nor the Bacchic juice 
 
 In Lsestrygonian hogsheads wanes 
 
 To softness for me, nor in plains 
 
 Of Gallic pastures multiply 
 
 Rich wools ; yet troublous poverty 
 
 Stands far aloof. Nor, should I choose 
 
 Aught more, wouldst thou to give refuse. 
 
 Better my narrow revenues 
 
 May 1 extend, by drawing close 
 
 Desire, than if I pieced in one 
 
 With plains which the Mygdonians own 
 
 The realm of Halyattes. Such 
 
 As ask for much there faileth much. 
 
 "Tis well with him to whom kind Heaven 
 
 With frugal hand enough hath given. 
 
104 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 ODE XVII. 
 
 TO MELIUS LAMIA. 
 
 jEli, vetusto nobilis. 
 
 ^Elius, from ancient Lanms famed, 
 
 Since older Lamiae both, they tell, 
 Were titled hence, and of their sons 
 
 Through many a storied chronicle 
 The race entire its source derives 
 
 From, that great patriarch, who the towers 
 Of Formiae first of all, and Liris 
 
 Gliding into Marica's shores, 
 Is stated to have tenanted, 
 
 A lordly ruler far around ; 
 To-morrow will a tempest, swooping 
 
 From Eurus, strew the woodland ground 
 "With leaves, with worthless weed the shore, 
 
 Unless that prophetess of rain, 
 The raven, with its load of years, 
 
 Deceive me. While you may, store in 
 Dry wood. To-morrow thou shalt serve 
 
 Thy genius with the pure vine-juice, 
 And porkling of a two-month date, 
 
 Thou with thy household from their tasks let loose. 
 
ode xviii. xix. ] ODES OF HORACE. 105 
 
 ODE XVIII. 
 
 TO FAXJNUS. 
 
 A HYMN. 
 
 Faune, Nympharum. 
 
 Faunus, of Nymphs coy runaways the wooer, 
 All my bourns through and sunny fields, benignant 
 Pace thou, and quit them, to my little nurslings 
 Duly propitious. 
 
 If, the year closed, a juicy kid is falling ; 
 Nor to the bowl, the fellow-friend of Yenus, 
 Fail the full wine-draughts ; with abundant incense 
 Reeks the old altar — 
 
 Frisketh each flock the grassy plain along, when 
 Nones of December are to thee returning ; 
 With the slack ox, sports idle in the meads the 
 Festival hamlet : 
 
 Prowls amid lambs unterrified the wolf-foe ; 
 Grove sheds its wild-wood foliage to greet thee ; 
 Triumphs each hedger thrice in having footed 
 Earth, his aversion. 
 
 ODE XIX. 
 
 TO TELEPHUS. 
 
 Quantum distet ab Inacho. 
 
 How far is Codrus from Inachus, 
 He for his land no coward to die, 
 
 You tell, and the lineage of ^Eacus, 
 
 And battles fought 'neath the holy Troy. 
 
106 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 At what price we may purchase a Chian cask, 
 
 Who may the waters with fires allay, 
 Who lending house-room, and when, I may 'scape 
 
 These Pelignian frosts, you nothing say. 
 
 Fill to the new moon — quick, boy, fill 
 To midnight ; fill to our augur friend, 
 
 Mursena, with glasses three or nine, 
 Suited to each let the goblets blend. 
 
 He who loves the uneven Nine 
 
 Tor thrice three glasses distraught will call, 
 
 A minstrel he ; but more than three 
 
 The power that dreadeth riot and brawl, 
 
 She, link'd in hand with the unveil'd sisters, 
 
 Grace, forbids us to touch. To play 
 The maniac is luxury. Why do blasts 
 
 Of Berecynth's pipe their strain delay ? 
 
 Why hangs the flute with the silent lyre ? 
 
 Grudging hands I am loathing. Scatter 
 Blossoms of roses. Full of envy 
 
 Let Lycus list to the frenzied clatter, 
 
 And our fair neighbour, little suited 
 
 To the old Lycus. Thee, with hair 
 Thick cluster d, glossy, Telephus, thee 
 
 Like to the crystal evening star, 
 Blooming Rhode is wooing. Me, 
 Burns the slow flame of my Glycere. 
 
)de xx.] ODES OF HORACE. 107 
 
 ODE XX. 
 
 TO PYRRHUS. 
 
 JVon vides quanto. 
 
 Dost thou not see, my Pyrrhus, 
 With what a peril thou art now abstracting 
 The cubs of that Getulian lioness 1 
 A little while, and thou shalt fly 
 
 The battle fierce — 
 Thou a discouraged plunderer ; 
 When through opposing troops of youths 
 A passage she shall force, reseeking 
 Nearchus mark'd above them all. 
 Mighty the battle, whether unto thee 
 
 Or her the greater booty fall. 
 Meantime, while thou the winged shafts 
 Art drawing forth, she whets 
 Her dreaded teeth. 
 He, umpire of the fight, is said 
 'Neath his bare foot the prize-palm to have laid, 
 And with the gentle breeze to be refreshing 
 His shoulder mantled loose with perfumed locks. 
 
 E'en such as Nireus was, or he, the boy 
 Erom the fount-gushing Ida springs snatch'd to Heaven. 
 
108 ODES OF HORACE. [book m 
 
 ODE XXI. 
 
 TO HIS JAR. 
 
 nata mecum. 
 born with me, when Manlius ruled 
 As consul, whether thou dost bring 
 Quarrels, or jests, or brawl, and loves insane, 
 Or, pious cask, an easy sleep, 
 
 Under whatever name 
 Thy chosen Massic thou preservest, 
 Thou worthy to be broach'd 
 On some propitious day ! 
 Descend thou, when Corvinus bids 
 "Wines of a tone more mellow'd to produce. 
 Not he, although he is imbued 
 
 With grave Socratic lectures, 
 Will slight thee, as a Cynic rough. 
 Even old Cato's virtue oft 
 Is said to have wax'd warm with wine. 
 Thou dost a gentle violence apply 
 Unto a spirit commonly morose : 
 Thou dost the cares of sages 
 And counsel hidden deep unveil, 
 Beneath the frolic-fraught Lyseus : 
 Thou bring'st back hope 
 And vigour unto anxious souls ; 
 And addest horns unto the poor, 
 
 Who, after thee, doth shudder neither 
 At monarchs' angry crests, nor soldiers' arms. 
 Thee, Bacchus, and, if she will come 
 Propitious, Yenus, and the Graces, 
 Reluctant to unloose their close embraces, 
 And sparkling lustres shall eke out, 
 Until returning Phoebus puts the stars to rout. 
 
)de xxii. xxiii.] ODES OF HORACE. 1C9 
 
 ODE XXII. 
 TO DIANA. 
 
 Montium custos. 
 
 Yirgin, of Mils and groves the watch I 
 
 Who damsels travailing in pain 
 When thrice invoked dost list, and snatch 
 
 From death, thou three-form'd goddess qneen ! 
 Still may thy pine hang beetling o'er 
 
 My cot, and I, as years come round, 
 Present it glad with blood of boar 
 
 Intent to launch a sidelong wound. 
 
 ODE XXIII. 
 
 TO PHIDYLE. 
 
 Ccelo supinas si tuleris manus. 
 
 If thou hast lifted up to heaven 
 
 Thy hands supine, when Luna rises, 
 My village-maiden, Phidyle, 
 
 If with frankincense and wheat 
 Of this year's growth thy Lares you have soothed, 
 
 And with a greedy porkling ; 
 
 Neither thy fecund vine 
 
 Will feel the plague-rife Siroc, nor thy crop 
 The barren mildew ; 
 
 Or in the apple-teeming year 
 Thy nurslings sweet the noxious season. 
 
110 ODES OF HORACE. [book in 
 
 For slie. the heifer that is browsing 
 Upon the snowy Algidus, 
 Yow"d to the shrine, midst oaks and holms, 
 Or fattens on the Alban herbage. — 
 She as a victim deep shall stain 
 The priestly axes buried in her neck. 
 
 To thee it nought applies 
 With slaughter large of lambs to tempt the skies, 
 While thou dost crown thy lowly gods 
 With rosemary and myrtle frail. 
 If free from crime thy hand hath touch'd 
 The altar, not with more persuasive power, 
 Though with a costly victim, it has soothed 
 Thy household gods estranged, 
 "With duteous wheat and crackling grain of salt 
 
 ODE XXIV. 
 
 TO THE COVETOUS. 
 
 Intact is opidentior. 
 
 Though wealthier than the hoards 
 Intact of Arabs, and of India rich, 
 
 Thou with thy concrete piles 
 Seize the whole Tyrrhene and Apulian seas, 
 
 Yet if all-direful Fate 
 Its adamantine nails is fixing deep 
 
 In highest towering crests, 
 No* from alarm thy soul, not from the snares 
 
 Of death, shalt thou thy head 
 E'er extricate. Those dwellers of the plain, 
 
 The Tartars, better live, 
 
dexxiv.] ODES OF HORACE. Ill 
 
 Whose wains in course their homes nomadic draw, 
 
 And hardy Getic tribes, 
 For whom unmeted acres unenclosed 
 
 Fruitage and Ceres bear. 
 ISTor pleases them a tilth beyond the year ; 
 
 And him who hath discharged 
 His toilsome tasks, a successor relieves 
 
 With lottery impartial. 
 There for her step-sons, of a mother reft, 
 
 The wife doth mix their cups 
 Thoughtless of harm : nor doth the dower' d wife 
 
 Rule o'er her man, nor trust 
 In some sleek paramour. The wealthiest dower 
 
 Of parents virtue is, 
 And chastity, that bound by compact fix'd 
 
 Dreads any second man ; 
 And sin is an unutterable deed, 
 
 Or death instead a prize. 
 O whosoe'er shall wish to sweep away 
 
 Our godless massacres and rage 
 Intestine, if as Father of our cities 
 
 He yearn to see his name 
 Inscribed 'neath statues, let him dare to curb 
 
 Our wild licentiousness ; 
 He glorious unto ages after-born ; 
 
 Since (woe to us the crime !) 
 Virtue unscathed we loathe ; but once upborne 
 
 Out of our sight we seek it, 
 We souls of envy. What avail complaints 
 
 Of sorrow, if the fault 
 Is not. cut off by vengeance ? What our laws, 
 
 All futile without manners 1 
 If nor the quarter of the globe closed in 
 
 By glowing sultry heats, 
 
112 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 Nor the side nearest to the north, and snows 
 
 Hard frozen to the ground, 
 Repel the merchant ? If with cunning craft 
 
 Our mariners o'ercome 
 The boisterous seas ? If poverty esteem'd 
 
 Heinous disgrace, commands us 
 Aught that may be both to commit and brook, 
 
 And arduous virtue's path 
 Abandons 1 Let us, or to the Capitol 
 
 Whither the shouting calls us, 
 And throng of the applauding populace, 
 
 Or let us in the next sea, 
 Jewels, and stones, and useless gold, the fuel 
 
 Of our first primal guilt, 
 Cast from us, if we worthily repent 
 
 Our crimes. Uprooted whole 
 Must be the germins of our sinful lust, 
 
 And our too softened minds 
 Be form'd to rougher schooling. The young boy 
 
 Of noble blood wots little 
 His seat to keep upon his steed, and fears 
 
 To join the chase ; to play 
 More learned, whether with the Grecian troch 
 
 Thou bid him, or would fain 
 "With dice, forbidden by his country's laws. 
 
 While the sire's faith forsworn 
 Deceives his partner sharer in his gain, 
 
 And guest ; and hastens to amass 
 Wealth for a worthless heir. Sooth, beyond bounds 
 
 Swell high our riches, yet 
 I know not what, something there still is wanting 
 To the curtail'd estate. 
 
ode xxv.] ODES OF HORACE. 113 
 
 ODE XXV. 
 
 TO BACCHUS. 
 
 A DITHYRAMBIC. 
 
 Quo me, Bacche. 
 
 Where, Bacchus, where art thou tearing me 
 Full of thyself 1 0, into what bowers, 
 
 Or into what deep caves are they bearing me 
 Fleet, with a spirit of new-born powers ? 
 
 In what dark grots will they list my story, 
 
 While I muse to enrol above 
 Peerless Caesars undying glory, 
 
 Mid stars and the synod hall of Jove ? 
 
 A theme I'll chant me of glory, new, 
 
 Yet unutter'd by others' lips. 
 E'en thus Bacchus, with sleepless view, 
 
 Sits entranced on the mountain-steeps; 
 
 Gazing forth on Hebrus and Thrace 
 
 Snow-glazed over, and Rhodope, 
 Trodden with foot of a savage race. 
 
 How, as with wayward step I stray 
 
 At river banks and at lonely shades, 
 
 'Tis sweet to marvel ! O sov'reign thou 
 
 Of Naiad choirs, and Bacchic maids 
 
 Strong the tall ash with their hands to bow : 
 
 Nothing mean or in lowly strain, 
 
 Nought that can ever die will I sing ; 
 
 Sweet is the peril to join the train 
 
 Of the God (O thou the Lensean king), 
 
 Circling my brows with his vine-leaf green. 
 I 
 
114 ODES OF HORACE. [book ii 
 
 ODE XXYI. 
 
 TO VENUS. 
 
 Vixi puellis nuper idoneus. 
 
 Form'd for the service of the fair, 
 I lived of late, and served in war, 
 
 Not without glories ; now 
 My armour and my lyre, which right 
 Hath done its duty in the fight, 
 
 This temple wall shall owe — 
 This wall which the left side protects 
 Of ocean Venus. Here, here fix 
 
 Bright links, and bars, and bows 
 With menace big 'gainst every door 
 That barr'd our passage. Heavenly Power ! 
 
 thou that dost repose 
 At Cyprus, thine own blissful place, 
 And Memphis, by the snow of Thrace 
 
 Untouched ; as sov'reign reigning, 
 O with uplifted scourge, [as such,] 
 Give only once a little touch 
 
 To Chloe, the disdaining. 
 
 ODE XXVIL 
 
 TO GALATEA, UPON HEE GOING TO SEA. 
 
 Impios parrce. 
 
 Let guilty spirits on their way 
 
 The omen speed of chattering jay ; 
 
 Or pregnant brache, or with grey grim eye 
 
 Down from Lanuvium scouring by 
 
ope xxvii.] ODES OF HORACE. 115 
 
 She-wolf, and fox with young ; and snake 
 Their journey just commenced, may break : 
 If athwart the pathway darted, 
 Like arrow, it the nags has started. 
 Whom shall I fear for, — augur I 
 Far-seeing ? Ere the bird, with eye 
 Diviner of the showers impending, 
 Back to its stagnant pools is wending, 
 The wizard crow, with prayer and vows, 
 From Sol uprising I'll arouse. 
 You may be blessed wheresoe'er, 
 My Galatea, you prefer ; 
 And, mindful of me, may dwell there : 
 And thee nor ill-starr'd woodpecker, 
 Nor raven wild forbid to tread 
 Thy path. Yet seest thou with what dread 
 Disturbance, as he sinketh prone, 
 Orion blusters? I have known 
 What Adria's murky gulf is like, 
 And what a wicked blow can strike 
 Paly Iapyx ! O, may women 
 And children of our country's foemen 
 Feel rising Auster's dark commotion, 
 And uproar of the blackening ocean, 
 And shores beneath its scourge that quiver ! 
 So too Europa did deliver 
 In simple faith her snowy side 
 Unto the bull, her treacherous guide, 
 And at the sea with monsters fill'd, 
 And frauds half-wrought and half reveal'd, 
 Though bold as lion, pale she sate — 
 She, maiden who, in meads but late, 
 On blossoms passionately set, 
 And framer of a wreath, the debt 
 i2 
 
116 ODES OF HORACE. [book hi. 
 
 Due to the nymphs, did now catch sight 
 
 Beneath the dim and twilight night 
 
 Of nought the stars and waves beside. 
 
 And soon as Crete she touch' d, in pride 
 
 With all its hundred cities throned, 
 
 " O, father ! O the name ! " she groan'd, 
 
 " Of child betray' d ! and duteous sense 
 
 Of love with frenzy vanquish' d ! Whence, 
 
 And whither came I ? Once to die 
 
 For maiden's guilt is penalty 
 
 Too light. Is it with waking eye 
 
 That o'er my foul enormity 
 
 I wail ? Or from corruption free 
 
 Is a vain phantom mocking me — 
 
 Phantasm which from the iv'ry gate 
 
 'Scaped, o'er my soul a dreamy state 
 
 Is drawing ? Did it better tide 
 
 Over the surges long to ride, 
 
 Or cull fresh blossoms ? If some power 
 
 Would but deliver at this hour 
 
 Up to my wrath the caitiff steer, 
 
 I'd strain all strength the horns to tear 
 
 With steel, and into pieces pull 
 
 Of that once dear-loved monster bull. 
 
 Shameless I left my sire's hearth altar ; 
 
 Shameless at Orcus now I falter ! 
 
 thou, of gods if one there be 
 
 Who hears this, naked may I stray 
 
 Midst lions. Ere my cheek of bloom 
 
 Unsightly lank decay consume, 
 
 And slowly from the tender prey 
 
 Her pulpy moisture melt away, 
 
 Fain would I feed the tigers, while 
 
 Irj all my grace." " Europa vile ! " 
 
ode xxvii.] ODES OF HORACE. 117 
 
 Thine absent sire doth ceaseless cry, 
 
 "'Why dost thou hesitate to die ? 
 
 E'en from this ash thy neck suspended, 
 
 By zone which well thy flight attended, 
 
 Out of its socket thou mayst wrest ; 
 
 Or, if the rocks delight thee best, 
 
 And death-jagg' d quarries — quick, thy form 
 
 Trust to the mercy of the storm, 
 
 As swift it scuds. Unless thou fain 
 
 Wouldst rather, for a master's gain, 
 
 Thy task be plying ; and be pass'd 
 
 O'er to a barb'rous queen at last, 
 
 As a poor harlot ; — thou the blood 
 
 Of monarchs ! " As she wail'd, there stood 
 
 Beside her Yenus, smiling mild 
 
 A traitor smile ; and he, her child, 
 
 Bearing a slacken'd bow. Anon, 
 
 When long enough her frolic fan 
 
 The goddess play'd, she cried, " Abstain 
 
 From wrath and heated wrangling vain, 
 
 When the loathed bull shall thee present 
 
 His horns to be in pieces rent. 
 
 Thou little know'st that spouse thou art 
 
 Of Jove th' unconquer'd. Bid depart 
 
 Thy sobbings ; learn aright to bear 
 
 Thy glorious lot ; the section'd sphere 
 
 Titles derived from thee shall wear." 
 
118 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 ODE XXYIIL 
 
 TO LYDE. 
 
 Festo quid potiils die. 
 
 What should I rather put in use 
 
 On Neptune's festal day 1 Produce, 
 
 My Lyde, quick, thy Caecub hoard, 
 
 And to grave Wisdom, circummured, 
 
 A gentle violence apply. 
 
 Thou feelest that the noonday sky 
 
 Is sinking : and, as if the day, 
 
 So swift-wing' d, at thy voice would stay, 
 
 Thou gruclgest from the store to tear 
 
 The amphora still ling'ring there, 
 
 Of Consul Bibulus. In lays 
 
 Alternate we will Neptune praise, 
 
 And sea-green tresses of the choir 
 
 Of Nereids : Thou with curved lyre 
 
 Lato shalt chant from answering strings, 
 
 And the fleet Cynthian's arrow-stings; 
 
 Her in last carol, who is claiming 
 
 Cnidos, and those islets gleaming, 
 
 The Cyclades, and Paphos fair 
 
 Visits with her yoked pair 
 
 Of cygnets. Night shall named be, too, 
 
 In a grave ditty richly due. 
 
jDEXXix.l ODES OF HORACE. U ( J 
 
 ODE XXIX. 
 
 TO MJECEXAS. 
 
 Tyrrhena regum progenies. 
 
 Tyrrhene offspring of a line 
 
 Of kings, to greet thee, raellow'd wine 
 
 From hogshead never stoop'd before, 
 
 Maecenas, with a blooming store 
 
 Of roses, and the chesnut oil 
 
 Squeezed for thy locks, is now long while 
 
 With me at home. From all that stays 
 
 Thy coming rescue thee ; nor gaze 
 
 Still upon Tibnr dew'd with rills, 
 
 And iEsula's sloping arables, 
 
 And ridges of the parricide 
 
 Telegonus. throw aside, 
 
 Full of daintiness and pride, 
 
 Thy opulence, and massy dome 
 
 Up to the high clouds reaching home : 
 
 Cease for a while to marvel o'er 
 
 The smoke, and wealth, and bustling roar 
 
 Of happy Home. Change oft is sweet 
 
 E'en to the rich ; and suppers neat 
 
 Beneath the poor man's lowly cot, 
 
 Tapestries and crimson boasting not, 
 
 Unravell'd have a care-knit brow. 
 
 Andromeda's bright sire is now 
 
 His fire concealed laying bare : 
 
 Xow Procyon maddens, and the star 
 
 Of frenzied Leo, while the sun 
 
 Again the days of drought brings on. 
 
120 ODES OF HORACE. [book in. 
 
 "Now, weary with his drooping flock, 
 
 The herdsman seeks the shades, and brook, 
 
 And shaggy Sylvan s bosky brakes ; 
 
 And not a voiceless bank partakes 
 
 Of wand'ring breezes. Thon distress" d, 
 
 Musest what posture may the best 
 
 Become the state, and ill bestead 
 
 With cares dost for the city dread, 
 
 What Seres, and the land ruled o'er 
 
 By Cyras, Bactria, hath in store 
 
 And Tanais discord-rife. With sight 
 
 Bar-seeing, in a gloomy night, 
 
 Doth Heaven of each approaching morn 
 
 The issne whelm, and laughs to scorn, 
 
 If mortal man too anxious fret 
 
 O'er measure. What is present yet. 
 
 Bemember thou with tranquil breast 
 
 To rule and settle : all the rest 
 
 Onward is borne by some high power, 
 
 Like Tiber's stream, which at one hour 
 
 Down its central bed doth glide 
 
 Calmly into the Tyrrhene tide, 
 
 At another in one mass 
 
 Bocks corroded to their base, 
 
 And trunks swept off, and cattle throng, 
 
 And homesteads ttmibling rolls along, 
 
 Not without the clam'rous cry 
 
 Of mountain height and forest nigh, 
 
 When the wild deluge wakes to strife 
 
 The tranquil rivers. He his life, 
 
 Lord of him self, will pass away. 
 
 And bless' d, who from day to day 
 
 Hath license, " I have lived," to say ; 
 
ode xxix.J ODES OF HORACE. 121 
 
 To-morrow let the Sire surprise 
 Either with one black pall the skies, 
 Or with a cloudless sun. Nought still 
 E'er will he cancel or repeal, 
 Whate'er is once behind us : none 
 Will he reforge, or make undone 
 Of deeds which once the flying hour 
 Off-carried. Fortune, gloating o'er 
 Her cruel task, and stubborn bent 
 To play her frolic insolent, 
 Her fickle honours shifts at pleasure, 
 Now unto me profuse of treasure, 
 Now to another. While she makes 
 Her stay, I praise her ; if she shakes 
 Her rapid pinions, I resign 
 Her bounties ; and in worth still mine 
 I wrap me, and with longing eye 
 Seek honest, dowerless poverty. 
 'Tis not my int'rest, if the mast 
 Is groaning 'neath the Siroc blast, 
 To run and sink to prayers of woe, 
 And strive to bargain vow on vow, 
 Lest Cyprian wares and Tyrian heap 
 More riches on the greedy deep. 
 Then 'neath the guardianship secure, 
 Of my light skiff with double oar, 
 Through storms .ZEgean some light air 
 And the twin Pollux me shall bear. 
 
122 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 ODE XXX. 
 
 ON HIS OWN WORKS. 
 
 Exegi monumentum, 
 
 I have a monumental tower 
 Achieved, of more enduring power 
 Than bronze, and loftier than the site 
 Of pyramids by monarehs' pight ; 
 Which not corroding rain can wreck, 
 Not Boreas, masterless and weak, 
 Or the innumerable chain 
 Of years, and night of seasons [vain]. 
 I shall not all die \ and of me 
 Shall many a portion scatheless flee 
 From Libitina. Still shall I, 
 With laudings of posterity, 
 Wax great in freshness, all the time, 
 While up the Capitol shall climb 
 The priest, with virgin of maid tongue 
 All silent. I shall still be sung, 
 Where furious Aulidus doth roar 
 Against its banks, and Daunus, poor 
 In streams, the rural nations sway'd ; 
 I from a lowly one now made 
 Puissant ; — chief in having woo'd, 
 And married the ^Eolian ode 
 To Latian measures. Put thou on 
 The haughty port by merit won, 
 And grudgeless with the Delphic bay 
 Belt thou my locks, Melpomene. 
 
123 
 
 THE FOURTH BOOK 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 ODE I. 
 
 TO VENUS. 
 
 Intermissa, Venus. 
 
 Venus ! art thou again 
 
 Stirring thy battles, long given o'er ? 
 Spare me, I pray thee, I pray ! 
 
 I am not such as I was of yore, 
 'Neath the good Cynara's reign. 
 
 Cease, mother stern of Cupids sweet, 
 Cease at thy pleasure to wind 
 
 One who a decade of lustres fleet 
 Touches on, and by this time 
 
 Steel'd 'gainst thy silken imperial sway. 
 Hie thee to where the soft prayers 
 
 Of youthful spirits call thee away. 
 In better season'd hour 
 
 Unto Paulus Maximus' mansion thou 
 Wilt revel it, light upborne 
 
 On yoked cygnets of purple hue, 
 If a fit heart you seek to fire. 
 
 For both nobly born, and a form of grace, 
 And never mute in defence 
 
 Of poor accused in their deep distress, 
 
124 ODES OF HORACE. [book iv 
 
 A boy, too, of hundreds of arts, 
 
 Far and wide will lie bear around 
 The standards of thy campaign. 
 
 And whensoe'er having won his ground 
 O'er his competitors' bribes 
 
 Profuse, he hath laugh'd in joy, beside 
 The lake of Albanum he'll place 
 
 Thee enshrined in marble pride, 
 Under a citron beam. 
 
 Here at thy nostrils shalt thou respire 
 Frankincense rich, and be charm'd 
 
 With many a mingled strain of the lyre 
 And Berecynthian pipe, 
 
 Not without flute. There twice a day 
 Boys with the delicate maids, 
 
 Lauding thy mighty divinity, 
 Thrice with a footstep of snow, 
 
 In Salian fashion, shall shake the ground. 
 Me neither damsel now, 
 
 Nor the trustful hope of responsive love, 
 Nor to enter the lists in wine 
 
 Delights ; nor with chaplet fresh to twine 
 My temples. But why, alas ! 
 
 Why, Ligurine, o'er my cheeks is welling 
 The slow intermitting tear ? 
 
 Why fluent erst, in a silence, little 
 Graceful, while I am speaking, 
 
 Falters my tongue 1 In dreams of night 
 Now I a prisoner hold thee, 
 
 Now swift in flight I pursue thee over 
 The sward of the Martian plain. 
 
 Thee, hard of heart, through the midst of waters 
 Rolling away before thee. 
 
)de ii.] ODES OF HORACE. 125 
 
 ODE II. 
 
 TO ANTONIUS IULUS. 
 
 Pindarum quisquis studet. 
 
 Whosoe'er Pindar studieth to rival, 
 Leans upon pinions by the art of Daedal 
 "Waxed, lulus, ready to give titles 
 
 To the glass' d ocean. 
 E'en as a torrent from a mountain hurling, 
 Which rains have fed its wonted margin over, 
 Pindarus boils, and rushes on with mouth of 
 
 Deep-rolling thunder. 
 He to be gifted with Apollo's laurel, 
 Whether, along his dithyrambs audacious, 
 New-minted words he sweepeth, and in numbers 
 
 Lawless is hurried : 
 Or doth of gods or monarchs sing, the blood of 
 Gods, by whose prowess perish'd in a righteous 
 Murder the Centaurs — perish'd the flame of 
 
 Deadly Chimsera ; 
 Or those, whom palm of Elis home is leading, 
 Paised to the skies, or pugilist or courser, 
 Nameth, and gifts them with a boon more rich than 
 
 Hundreds of statues. 
 Or doth he wail a spirit in its manhood 
 Pefb from his weeping consort ; and his vigour, 
 Soul too, and golden manners raise to heav'n, and 
 
 Grudge to black Orcus. 
 Copious the breeze, which lifts the swan of Dirce, 
 Oft as he soars, Antonius, into lofty 
 Cloud-regions. I, in fashion and in guise of 
 
 Bee of Matinum, 
 
126 ODES OF HORACE. [book it. 
 
 Culling sweet thyme-stores with abundant labour, 
 As through the leafy grove I stray, and banks of 
 Rill-gushing Tiber, petty songster, mould my 
 
 Verses elab'rate. 
 Thou a true bard with louder quill shalt chant me 
 Caesar, whene'er, the holy steep along, he 
 Drag the Sicambric savages, with well-earn'd 
 
 Chaplet adorn'd ; 
 He, than whom nothing mightier or better 
 Fates and kind gods unto the earth have given, 
 Nor will, although to patriarchal gold the 
 
 Age be returning. 
 Sing shall you too of happy days, and public 
 Sports of the city, for the gain'd return of 
 Valiant Augustus, and the forum clear'd from 
 
 All litigation ; 
 Then of my voice (if anything I speak worth 
 Hearing) a portion large shall add its song, and 
 " Fair Sol ! O glorious Sol ! " I'll sing, rejoiced at 
 
 Caesar recover'd. 
 And as the way thou leadest " Io triumph ! " 
 Not once alone we'll utter " Io triumph ! " 
 "We the whole city, and will offer incense 
 
 To the kind heavens. 
 Thee shall acquit ten bullocks, and as many 
 Kine ; me a tender calf, his dam abandon'd, 
 Who in full pastures now is growing up, my 
 
 Vows to accomplish ; 
 One that in forehead copieth the crescent 
 Fires of the moon, its triple rise repeating, 
 Snow-white to view where mark it draws, beyond this 
 
 Brinded all over. 
 
5E ni.1 ODES OF HORACE. 127 
 
 ODE III. 
 
 TO MELPOMENE. 
 
 Quern tu. 
 
 Him whom thou once, Melpomene, 
 
 In hour of birth, with tranquil eye, 
 Hath gazed upon, no Isthmian toil 
 
 As pugilist shall glorify. 
 
 Him shall not stalwart courser draw 
 
 A victor in Achsean car, 
 Nor him, as chieftain deck'd with leaves 
 
 Of Delos, shall the pomp of war, 
 For that he crush'd in dust of kings 
 The lofty swelling threatenings 
 
 Show to the Capitol. But streams 
 
 Which fertile Tibur flow along, 
 And bowery tresses thick shall mould 
 
 To glory for ^Eolian song. 
 
 Among the dear-loved choirs of bards 
 Of Home, the cities' queen, the youth 
 
 Deigns to enrol me, and e'en now 
 Less am I gnaw'd with envy's tooth. 
 
 O maid Pierian, that dost temper 
 
 The sweet ring of the golden shell ! 
 O thou, who e'en to voiceless fishes 
 
 Couldst give the cygnet's song at will ! 
 
 This all is of thy gift, that I 
 
 Am shown by passers' finger sign. 
 As lyrist of the Roman harp 
 That I do breathe and please (if please I do), is thine. 
 
128 ODES OF HORACE. LbookJe 
 
 ODE IV. 
 
 THE PRAISES OF DRUSU& 
 
 Qualem ministrum. 
 
 E'en like the thunder-bearer bird, 
 (Upon whom Jove, of gods the king, 
 
 Supreme dominion hath eonferr'd 
 O'er every wandering winged thing, 
 
 Having him faithful proved and true 
 
 In Ganymede of golden hue). 
 
 When youth and vigour of his sires 
 Have on a day from eyrie high 
 
 Launch' d him untoil'd ; and vernal airs 
 (The clouds now vanish'd from the sky), 
 
 Have taught him cowering at the first 
 
 Into unwonted strains to burst ; 
 
 After a while with fervid glow, 
 
 The impetuous spirit down hath sped 
 
 Upon the folds their swooping foe ; 
 Now upon dragons struggling dread 
 
 "With folds recoil'd there pounced his night 
 
 Love of the banquet and the fight ; 
 
 Or as a lion-whelp, the which 
 
 Just of the gushing milk bereaved 
 
 Of brinded dam, on pastures rich 
 Intent a kidling hath perceived ; 
 
 Poor kidling, doom'd full soon, [forsooth,] 
 
 To perish by an unflesh'd tooth. 
 
it.] ODES OF HORACE. 129 
 
 E'en in such spirit Drusus [keen,] 
 
 As 'neath the Rhsetian Alps he wages 
 
 His wars, the Vindelics have seen : 
 
 (Whose fashion whence deduced through ages, 
 
 Still their right hands against attacks 
 
 Arms with the Amazonian axe, 
 
 I have deferr'd to question here ; 
 
 Nor may we ken of every truth), 
 But squadrons long, and far and near 
 
 Victors, by counsels of a youth 
 O'ercome, have learnt what mind could do — 
 What native worth, with training due 
 
 Nursed in heav 'n-blest bowers apart : 
 What towards youthful Neros show'd 
 
 Augustus's paternal heart. 
 
 Brave from the brave are born and good ; 
 
 There lives in steers, there lives in steeds, 
 
 The virtue of their parents' breeds. 
 
 Neither do eagles fierce beget 
 
 A tim'rous dove. But teachers' skill 
 
 Doth inborn powers advance and whet, 
 And right tilths hardy bosoms steel : 
 
 Where manners e'er hath proved a dearth, 
 
 Crimes deform things of noble birth. 
 
 What unto Neros thou dost owe, 
 
 Rome ! doth Metaurum's stream attest, 
 
 And Asdrubal in battle low 
 
 O'ervanquish'd ; and that day so blest 
 
 Which (clouds dispell'd from Latium's sky) 
 
 First smiled with balmy victory. 
 
130 ODES OF HORACE. [book tv. 
 
 Wlien through. Italia's towns the Moor, 
 Like flame through Torches, with alarm 
 
 Accursed, or, like to Eurus, o'er 
 Sicilia's waves bestrode the storm. 
 
 Thenceforth, with favouring labours new 
 
 Still did Rome's youth increase and grew ; 
 
 And sanctuaries spoil'd and wreck'd 
 
 By the ungodly wild uproar 
 Of Punic soldiery, erect 
 
 Upon their pedestals once more 
 Their gods possess'd ; and after all 
 Spake the false-hearted Hannibal : 
 
 " Hinds of yon ravening wolves the prey, 
 We're dogging, of our own free wish, 
 
 A foe from whom to hide away 
 And 'scape, it is a triumph rich. 
 
 That race which ever undismay'd 
 
 Even from Troy, in ashes laid, 
 
 " Safe to Ausonia's cities bore 
 
 The vessels of its mysteries, 
 And sons, and age-ripe fathers hoar, 
 
 Though storm-toss'd o'er the Tuscan seas. 
 Like ilex lopp'd by iron brand 
 In Algidus, the mother land 
 
 " Of foliage dark, through loss of limb 
 
 Through murd'rous stroke, e'en from the axe, 
 Succour and spirit doth it win. 
 
 Not stancher did the Hydra wax 
 With mangled crest each time to meet 
 Alcides, madd'ning at defeat. 
 
ode v.] ODES OF HORACE. 131 
 
 " Nor portent worse did Colchos e'er 
 
 Or Echionian Thebes beget. 
 Thou shalt in ocean plunge it — fair 
 
 Tenfold it issues. Wrestle, yet 
 Before its feet with glory bright 
 'Twill spurn the victor in his might ; 
 
 " And battles wage, to be allow'd 
 
 The tales of consorts. Now no more 
 
 Will I my tiding-bearers proud 
 
 Despatch to Carthage ; o'er — 'tis o'er ! 
 
 All hope and fortune of our name, 
 
 With Asdrubal in battle slain. 
 
 " Nought is there which the Claudian bands 
 Will not achieve ; whom both with arm 
 
 Of a kind providence defends 
 
 Great Jove, and extricate from harm 
 
 Through the sharp thorny paths of war, 
 
 Augustus's sagacious cares." 
 
 ODE V. 
 
 TO AUGUSTUS. 
 
 Divis orte bonis. 
 
 Child of bless'd gods, of Romulus's race 
 
 Best guardian, too long absent art thou now ; 
 To the sires' holy conclave thou didst vow 
 
 A timely coming back. O now return ! 
 
 k2 
 
132 ODES OF HORACE. [book iv. 
 
 Light to thy country, chieftain blest, restore ; 
 
 For, like the springtide, when thy face has shone 
 
 Upou thy people, happier passes on 
 The day, and suns with fairer beauty smile. 
 
 E'en as a youth, whom his return delaying 
 
 More than a year-long course, beyond the plains 
 Of the Carpathian sea Notus detains 
 
 With envious blast, far from his cherish'd home, 
 
 On him with vows, and omens, and with prayers 
 His mother calls, nor from the winding strand 
 Her gaze withdraweth : so our fatherland, 
 
 Smitten with loyal yearnings, seeks for Csesar. 
 
 For safe from harm the heifer roves the fields, 
 Ceres and fostering bounty feeds our leas ; 
 The mariners wing their flight across the seas, 
 
 Kestored to peace : Faith dreads to be rebuked : 
 
 With no foul deed is the chaste household sullied : 
 Manners and law have each dark spotted sin 
 Crush'd and expell'd : our infants' mothers win 
 
 Applause for offspring like unto their sires : 
 
 And retribution dogs the path of crime 
 
 Its sure companion. Who would crouch before 
 The Parthian foeman ? Who the Tartar frore ? 
 
 Who 'neath the brood grisly G-ermania bears, 
 
 With Csesar scatheless ? Who a thought would give 
 To wild Iberia's war 1 Each one doth close 
 The day upon his native hills, and wooes 
 
 The vine seductive to the unwedded trees : 
 
ode vi.] ODES OF HORACE. 133 
 
 Hence to his wine-cups joyous he returns. 
 And at his twice-served board as deity 
 Thee he invites ; with prayer repeated thee, 
 
 With wine from paterae shed, he duteous courts : 
 
 And with his Lares blends thy power divine, 
 As Greece of Castor and Alcides great 
 Right mindful. O bless'd chief, of lengthen'd date 
 
 Days of rejoicing, mayst thou guarantee 
 
 Unto Hesperia's region ! This at morn 
 
 With dry lips we repeat, and the whole day 
 Unbroken — this bedew'd with wine, we say 
 
 When Sol is sinking in his ocean bed. 
 
 ODE VI. 
 
 HYMN TO APOLLO. 
 
 Dive, quern proles. 
 
 ! O power divine, whom venger [to destroy] 
 Of the high boastful tongue, Niobe's brood 
 And Tityos felt, the ravisher, and one 
 
 The all but vanquisher of lofty tow'ring Troy — 
 
 I Phthian Achilles, than the world beside 
 
 Mightier, a warrior poorly match'd with thee ; 
 Though, ocean Thetis' son, with his dread spear 
 
 1 He shook the Dardan towers, stout battling [in his pride,] 
 
 I He like a pine-tree by the biting brand 
 Deep smitten, or as cypress from its seat 
 By Eurus push'd, fell prone in all his breadth, 
 And low his neck reposed in dust of Teucria's land. 
 
134 ODES OF HORACE. [book iv. 
 
 He, not enclosed in steed, -which did belie 
 
 Minerva's hallow' d gifts, fain would delude 
 
 Troy's children in their ill-starr'd holiday, 
 And Priam's hall in dances bursting forth to joy, 
 
 But face to face to his poor captives dread, 
 Woe, deed of horror ! woe ! the infant babes 
 That knew not yet to speak, in Grecian flames 
 
 Burn would he in their mother's womb yet lying hid : 
 
 But that the Father of the gods, o'ercome 
 By prayers of thine, and Venus, his beloved, 
 Vouchsafed to the fortunes of -ZEneas 
 
 Walls with an auspice traced of more propitious doom. 
 
 Lord of the lyre, Phoebus, thou instructor 
 Of silver-voiced Thalia, thou who lav'st 
 Thy locks in Xanthus' flood, maintain the glory 
 
 Of Grsecia's muse, thou smooth of cheek, the bard's conductor ! 
 
 Phoebus it was vouchsafed me inspiration, 
 
 Phoebus the art of minstrelsy, and name 
 
 Of poet. of maidens ye the flower, 
 And boys from parents sprung of glorious generation, 
 
 Ye, the fond charge of Delos' queen divine, 
 Who with her brow the lynxes swift of flight 
 And harts within the stakenets drives and prisons, 
 
 Guard ye the Lesbian foot, and beat of finger mine. 
 
 Duly Latona's stripling with our song, 
 Duly the lightener of night adoring, 
 Her the aye-waxing with her torch, of grain 
 
 Bounteous, and swift to roll the headlong months along. 
 
ode vii.] ODES OF HORACE. 135 
 
 Now, veiled bride, " a carol " shalt thou say, 
 
 " Of heaven beloved, when now the hundredth year 
 Brings back our festal morns, have I rehearsed, 
 
 I pupil apt of measures, Horace, the minstrel's lay.'' 
 
 ODE VII. 
 
 TO TORQUATUS. 
 
 Diffugere nives. 
 
 Fled have the snows. The herbage now — is returning to the 
 leas, 
 And their tresses to the trees ; 
 The earth its varied courses shifts, — and the rivers waxing low 
 
 Within their margins flow. 
 Link'd with the nymphs and her sisters twain, — the queen of 
 grace aspires 
 Unrobed to lead the choirs. 
 Lest thou should hope for joys that die not, — warns the year, 
 and Time away 
 Sweeping each bounteous day. 
 Frosts melt with zephyrs : summer slow — is springtide 
 wearing on, 
 Itself to perish, soon 
 As autumn apple-crown'd has shed — its fruits profuse, and then 
 
 Dull frost rolls round again. 
 Yet do the swiftly-fleeting moons — their wanes in heaven 
 repair ; 
 We, when we sunk have there 
 Where good ^Eneas, where Tullus rich, — and Ancus all are 
 laid, 
 Ashes become and shade. 
 
136 ODES OF HORACE. [book iv. 
 
 Who knoweth if 'to-morrow's hours — the gods above may lay 
 
 On the total of to-day 1 
 All will thy heir's rapacious hands — escape, which with a soul 
 
 Thou gav'st of bounty full. 
 When thou hast once met death, and pass'd — hath Minos 
 upon thee 
 
 His glorious decree, 
 Not birth, Torquate, not thee will now — of speech, not thee 
 will worth 
 
 Again replace on earth. 
 For neither chaste Hippolytus, — from the murky shades of 
 hell, 
 
 Doth Dian disenthral ; 
 Nor from his loved Perithous — hath Theseus power to break 
 
 The chains of Lethe's lake. 
 
 ODE YIII. 
 
 TO MARCIUS CENSORIOUS. 
 
 Donarem pateras. 
 
 Upon my friends would I bestow, 
 Paterae and bronzes fair to show, 
 My Censorine, with courteous spirit ; 
 Tripods, I'd give the prize for merit 
 Of valiant Grecians ; nor shouldst thou 
 Bear off the pettiest and most low 
 Of all my gifts, if I were rich, 
 Sooth so to say, in arts, the which 
 Either Parrhasius brought to light, 
 Or Scopas, one of craft and might 
 In stone, and one in liquid dyes, — 
 Now man, now God before our eyes 
 
cde vni.] ODES OF HORACE. 137 
 
 To shrine. But on me doth not wait 
 
 This talent. Nor is thine the estate, 
 
 Or soul that needeth gauds like these. 
 
 Thou dost delight in poesies ; 
 
 And poesies can we bestow, 
 
 And tell the present's value too. 
 
 Not marbles with a nation's seal 
 
 Deep graven (wherewithal doth steal 
 
 Back once again the life and breath 
 
 To glorious chieftains after death). 
 
 Not rapid routs, and threatenings [black] 
 
 Of Hannibal retorted back ; 
 
 Not flaming fires of Carthage, foe 
 
 To Heav'n, his lauds more brightly show, 
 
 Who home return'd, having won 
 
 A name from Africa undone, 
 
 Than Calabrie's Pierian quire ; 
 
 Nor, if what thou with noble fire 
 
 Hast wrought, their records fail to show, 
 
 Wilt thou have gain'd thy guerdon due. 
 
 What would the son of Ilia be 
 
 And Mars, if, rife with jealousy, 
 
 Silence the high deserts should bar 
 
 Of Romulus 1 So rescued far 
 
 Erom Stygian waves the soul high-strung 
 
 Of mighty bards, and love, and tongue, 
 
 Doth iEacus for holy rest 
 
 Consign to islands of the blest. 
 
 The hero worthy praise the muse 
 
 Forbids to die. The muse endues 
 
 With gift of heaven. Thus above 
 
 At the thrice-long'd-for feasts of Jove 
 
 Alcides, slothless hero, he 
 
 Assisteth. The Tyndaridae, 
 
138 ODES OF HORACE. [book iv. 
 
 As constellation glittering bright, 
 Bescue our barks in shatter'd plight 
 From ocean's depths. His temples dight 
 With emerald vine-leaf, Bacchus brings 
 Our vows to blessed issuing. 
 
 ODE IX. 
 
 TO MARCUS LOLLIUS. 
 
 Xe forte creclas. 
 
 Deem not perchance the words will die, 
 Which of that far-resounding river, 
 
 The Aufidus, a native I, 
 
 By magic arts before me never 
 
 Divulged, now am uttering, — words 
 
 Framed to be married unto chords. 
 
 Not though MaBonian Homer owes 
 The nobler post, are buried yet 
 
 The strains of Pindarus, and those 
 Of Ceos, or the full of threat — 
 
 Those of Alcseus, and the muse 
 
 Majestic of Stesichorus. 
 
 Xor if Anacreon trifled aught 
 
 In days of old, hath lengthen'd age 
 
 Outblotted all. The passion'd thought 
 Is breathing still, and in her page 
 
 Live glowing fires intrusted well 
 
 To the ^Eolian maiden's shell. 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 139 
 
 Not singly at the curled hair 
 
 Of an adulterer youth, and gold 
 About his raiment daubed fair, 
 
 And graceful trim of princely mould, 
 And train, admiring caught the flame, 
 Fair Helen, Lacedaemon's dame. 
 
 Nor was it Teucer first who levell'd 
 His shafts from bow in Cydon hewn ; 
 
 Not once alone was Ilion perill'd : 
 Not huge Idomeneus alone 
 
 Or Sthenelus did wage their fights, 
 
 A worthy theme for muses' flights. 
 
 Not fierce-soul'd Hector or the keen 
 
 Deiphobus was first to face 
 So many a grievous blow to screen 
 
 Their modest wives and infant race. 
 There lived, ere Agamemnon's time, 
 Full many a hero in his prime ; 
 
 But all beyond the reach of tear, 
 
 And, known to none, are whelm'd and barr'd 
 'Neath a long night, because they ne'er 
 
 Possess'd a consecrated bard. 
 Little doth dilier hidden worth 
 From sloth interred in the earth. 
 
 I will not, Loliius, pass thee by, 
 
 Unnamed, undeck'd in pages mine ; 
 Or let oblivion's livid eye 
 
 Carp at so many toils of thine, 
 With none to 'venge thee. Thine's a soul 
 Both in events of prescience full, 
 
110 ODES OF HORACE. [book iv 
 
 And in fair seasons, and in waning 
 
 Upright ; of fraud that thirsts for pelf 
 
 Chastiser, and from gold abstai nin g 
 That draggeth all things to itself ; 
 
 And consul not of one short year, 
 
 But often as the judge prefer 
 
 Right to the useful, — he of faith 
 And virtue proven, — and with brow 
 
 Sublime has cast into their teeth 
 The guilty's bribes, and victor now 
 
 Through squadrons facing bold his charge, 
 
 His legions hath deployed at large. 
 
 Not to the lord of much the name 
 
 Of blest wilt thou have rightly given ; 
 
 More rightly he that name doth claim 
 Of blest, who can the gifts of heaven 
 
 Use wisely, and hard penury bear, 
 
 And guilt e'en worse than death doth fear ; 
 
 He for the friends whom he doth cherish, 
 
 Or country, not afraid to perish. 
 
ode x. xi.] ODES OF HORACE. Ill 
 
 ODE X. 
 
 TO LIGURINUS. 
 
 crudelis adhuc. 
 
 O cruel still, and with the gifts — of Yenus ruling wide, 
 When plumage on thy cheeks shall spring, — unlook'd for by 
 
 thy pride, 
 And locks which o'er thy shoulders now — float light, have 
 
 fall'n away, 
 And hue, which now than red rose bloom — is brighter and 
 
 more gay, 
 All changed hath Ligurine transform' d — into a bearded face. 
 I O ! " thou wilt say, each time thou seest — thee alter'd in 
 
 the glass, 
 J Soul of to-day, why did it not — the same in boyhood dwell ? 
 Or with these thoughts why come not back — my cheeks un- 
 
 blemish'd still 1" 
 
 ODE XL 
 
 TO PHYLLIS. 
 
 Est mihi nonum. 
 
 There is a cask in store for me, 
 
 Brim full of Alban, its ninth year 
 O'er-passing now ; there is, within 
 
 My orchard, parsley, Phillis dear, 
 For twining coronals ; there is 
 
 Rich store of ivy, wherewithal 
 Thou shin'st in beauty, with thy locks 
 
 Bound back ; with silver smiles my hall : 
 
142 ODES OF HORACE. [book iv 
 
 Twined with its holy vervain wreaths 
 
 The altar longs to be besprent 
 "With victhn'd lamb ; and, thronging close, 
 
 The household is on hurry bent ; 
 Hither and thither, mix'd with striplings, 
 
 They course about, my maiden folk; 
 Flicker and wave the flames while whirling 
 
 In volumed spire the sooty smoke. 
 Yet, that thou know what joys thou'rt call'd to : 
 
 The Ides are to be kept by thee, 
 That day which April cleaves, the month 
 
 Of Venus, daughter of the sea ; 
 Justly observed, and holier nigh 
 
 To me than my own natal day, 
 Since from this dawn, Maecenas mine, 
 
 His years on flowing doth array : 
 Telephus, whom you woo — a youth 
 
 Not of thy lot — a maid hath gain'd 
 Wealthy and wild, and prisoner holds 
 
 With a delightsome fetter chain'd : 
 Scorch'd Phaeton doth grasping hopes 
 
 Alarm; and winged Pegasus 
 Aggrieved at rider born of earth, 
 
 Bellerophon, supplies to us 
 Precedent grave, that thou aye follow 
 
 Objects meet for thee, and by viewing 
 As crime the hoping aught beyond 
 
 WTiat is allow'd, may be eschewing 
 An ill-match'd passion. Come thou, now, 
 
 Last of my loves (since never more 
 Henceforth with other fair shall I 
 
 Be fired) learn notes with me to pour 
 With thy delicious voice again, 
 Our gloomy cares will melt away beneath the strain. 
 
ode xii.] ODES OF HORACE. 143 
 
 ODE XII 
 
 TO VIRGIL. 
 
 Jam veris comites. 
 
 Now the Spring's pursuivants, which soothe the seo ; 
 Thracia's light airs, the threaden sails are fanning : 
 Nor neither meads are stark, nor rivers growl, 
 
 Swoll'n with a winter's snow. 
 
 Her nest she fixes, Itys sadly wailing, 
 That hapless bird, and the undying shame 
 Of Cecrop's hall, because she ill avenged 
 
 The savage lusts of kings. 
 
 Stretch'd on the tender herbage, to the flute 
 The sleek-fed lambs' protectors hymns are singing ; 
 And charm the Deity, whom flocks delight, 
 And Arcadie's dark hills. 
 
 Thirst have the seasons brought to us, my Virgil ; 
 But if thou fain wouldst quaff of Bacchus press'd 
 At Cales, thou of noble youths the client, 
 
 Wine shalt thou win with nard. 
 
 One little nard-shell will a cask elicit, 
 Which in the stores Sulpician now reposes, 
 Bounteous to give new hopes, and efficacious 
 Cares' gall to wash away. 
 
 Unto which joys if thou art hasting, swiftly 
 Come with thy bargain : little am I musing 
 With cups of mine all giftless to imbue thee, 
 As rich in a full hall. 
 
144 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Sooth set delays aside, and thirst of lucre ; 
 And of the black fires mindful, while you may, 
 Mingle a short-lived folly with thy counsels : 
 'Tis sweet in fitting place to drop our wisdom, 
 
 ODE XIII. 
 
 TO LYCE. 
 
 Audivere, Lyce, 
 
 They have heard me, my Lyce, the gods, they have heard- 
 
 Yea, the gods, O my Lyce, the vows I preferr d ! 
 
 Thou art turning a beldam, and yet would be still 
 
 A beauty, and blushless doth frolic and swill ; 
 
 And, when tipsy, poor Cupid, all listless and slack, 
 
 With a crack'd shaky ditty you try to charm back : 
 
 Though he all the while, in the beautiful cheek 
 
 Of the Chian is keeping his bivouac awake — 
 
 Her, springlike, and skill'd on the psaltry to play; 
 
 For mischievous Cupid still wingeth his way \ 
 
 Past dry wither'd oaks ; and he shuns thee with dread, 
 
 Because black teeth, and wrinkles, and snows on thy head 
 
 Stamp thee ugly. ISTor now can the crimsons of Cos, 
 
 ISTor jewels that sparkle, restore thee the loss 
 
 Of hours, which once stored in its chronicles known 
 
 The swift-winged Time has lock'd up as its own. 
 
 "Where, alas ! has fled Yenus % Or where of thy face 
 
 The complexion 1 And whither thy movement of grace ? 
 
 What hast thou of her — yea, of her, who each day 
 
 Breathed loves, from myself who had stolen me away ? 
 
 A face next to Cynara's blest with success, 
 
 And notorious for arts of a charming address ? 
 
ode xiv.] ODES OF HORACE. 145 
 
 But the fates gave to Cynara brief years [to snatch,] 
 While Lyce, about to embalm as a match 
 Long kept for the years of the patriarch crow ; 
 That the youths might be able to see in their glow, 
 Not unmix'd with laughter in peals, all the flash 
 Of the torch gone, and melted away into ash. 
 
 ODE XXV. 
 
 TO AUGUSTUS. 
 
 Quce cura patrum. 
 
 What care of senators, or what 
 
 Of Quirite hands, by off 'rings fraught 
 
 With honours, may throughout all time^ 
 
 Augustus, thy deserts sublime, 
 
 Through titled scrolls, and archives during 
 
 Be to eternity securing 1 
 
 thou, wherever Phoebus pours 
 His light on habitable shores, 
 Mightiest of princes ; whom but now 
 The Yindelics, untaught to bow 
 To Latian law have learnt to know, 
 What in the battle thou couldst do. 
 
 For, with thy soldiers at his side, 
 Drusns, that race unpacified, 
 Genauns and Brenni swiffc to fly, 
 And fortalices perched high 
 On the dread Alps — to fury lash'd 
 More than one turn to earth hath dash'd. 
 L 
 
146 ODES OF HORACE. [book iv. 
 
 The elder of the Nero pair 
 
 Did next the heavy shock of war 
 
 In conflict plunge, and [from the field] 
 
 With favouring auspices repell'd 
 
 The Rhsetian savagery — he 
 
 In the dread lists of chivalry, 
 
 Fit mark for every gaze, to note 
 With what fierce shocks he wearied out 
 Breasts vow'd unto a freeman's grave ; 
 E'en as th' indomitable wave 
 Auster is scourging, when the train 
 Of Pleiads cleaves the clouds in twain. 
 
 No dull and listless warrior he 
 
 To scare the foemen's chivalry, 
 
 And plunge his snorting charger through 
 
 The midst of burnings. Even so 
 
 Bull-fronted Aufidus rolls on, 
 
 He who the kingdoms flow along 
 
 Of Daunus the Apulian, when 
 
 He raves, and on the labour'd plain 
 
 A deluge horrible designs : 
 
 E'en as the wild barbarians' lines 
 
 Of plaited mail did Claudius burst, 
 
 And shiver with wild shock ; and first, 
 
 And rearmost mowing down, the ground 
 Strew'd, victor without loss or wound : 
 Thee forces lending, thee alone 
 Counsel, and deities thine own. 
 Eor on that day, whereon [of yore] 
 Did Alexandria, bow'd before 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 147 
 
 Thy feet, her havens at thy call 
 Ope, and her desert regal hall ; 
 Did Fortune, favouring thee still, 
 After a lustre third fulfil 
 Bless'd issues of the war, and praise 
 Awarded, and the yearn' d-for grace 
 
 To thy behests imperial, done 
 All duly. Thee Cantabria's son 
 Ne'er tamable before, and Mede, 
 And Ind ; thee Tartar, on his steed 
 Off-scudding, marvelling doth regard — 
 O thou Italia's present guard, 
 
 And Rome's, the nations' mistress. Thee 
 He who doth veil in mystery 
 His fountains' wellsprings, Nile, as well 
 As Ister — thee with ravening swell 
 The Tigris — thee with monsters rife 
 Oceanus, that roars in strife 
 
 'Gainst Britons in the far west couch'd ; 
 
 Thee Gallia's land, that never crouch'd 
 
 At death's disasters, and the shore 
 
 Of stern Iberia lists e'ermore ; 
 
 Thee the Sicambri revelling in the charms 
 
 Of carnage, worship now with peaceful piled arms. 
 
 l2 
 
148 ODES OF HORACE. [book iv. 
 
 ODE XV. 
 
 TO AUGUSTUS, ON THE RESTORATION OF PEACE. 
 
 Phoebus volentem. 
 
 Phcebus, when I myself was fain 
 
 To tell of wars and cities ta'en, 
 
 With harsh-strnck lyre my madness chid, 
 
 Lest I my puny sails should spread 
 
 Across the Tyrrhene main. Thy days. 
 
 O Csesar, both unto our leas 
 
 Their teeming harvests have restored, 
 
 And unto Jove our favouring Lord 
 
 Planted once more the standards torn 
 
 Down from the Parthian's gates of scorn. 
 
 And Quirin's Janus they have closed, 
 
 Now cleansed from battles, and imposed 
 
 Curbs on licentious wild abuse 
 
 Prom righteous rule late wandering loose. 
 
 And banish' d far each guilty stain, 
 
 And calTd back pristine arts again : 
 
 Arts wherewithal the Latian name, 
 
 And powers Italian wax'd in fame, 
 
 And far the empire's glory spread, 
 
 And grandeur, from the western bed 
 
 Of Sol unto his place of birth. 
 
 With Csesar guardian of the earth, 
 
 Not civil frenzy, or brute force, 
 
 Shall rob us of our peaceful course. 
 
 Not wrath, which forges brands for blows, 
 
 And piteous cities turns to foes. 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 149 
 
 Not they in Danube deep who slake 
 Their thirst, the Julian laws shall break; 
 Not Getse, not the Seric hordes, 
 Or Persians faithless to their words, 
 Not they by Tanais' flood-stream born. 
 And we alike on every morn, 
 Common and hallow'd, while we share 
 The boons of frolic Bacchus, there 
 "With our young race and matrons true, 
 First having prayed in order due 
 To heaven, in rite from sires descended, 
 The hymn with pipes of Lydia blended, 
 Chiefs who all virtue did fulfil, 
 And Ilion and Anchises still, 
 And boon Dione's race in minstrelsy will trilL 
 
150 
 
 THE BOOK 
 
 EP0DE8 0E HORACE. 
 
 ODE I. 
 
 TO M^CENAS. 
 
 Ibis Liburnis. 
 
 Pass wilt thou, friend, in shallops frail 
 
 Midst yon armado's sea-forts towering, 
 At thy own risk, Maecenas, prompt 
 
 To share each ill on Caesar lowering. 
 And what of us, to whom our life 
 
 Is gladsome, if surviving thou; 
 If not, a weary load 1 Shall we, 
 
 At thy behest, pursue as now 
 Our peaceful ease, but little sweet 
 
 Unless with thee conjoin'd we share it 1 
 Or brave this toil with soul, wherewith 
 
 It suits no silken men to bear it ? 
 Bear it we will, and either o'er 
 
 Alp-cliffs and Caucasus shelterless, 
 Or to the West's remotest gulf 
 
 With valorous heart will on thee press. 
 Ask you, how aid I toil of thine 
 
 By my exertion ? — I, not made 
 
ode n.] ODES OF HORACE. 151 
 
 For war, and strengthless 1 By thy side 
 
 I shall be seized with lesser dread, 
 Which haunts the absent still in form 
 
 Dilated. E'en as, perched o'er 
 Her callow nestlings, dreads the bird 
 
 The serpent's stealthy glidings more, 
 When they are quitted, not as like, 
 
 Though she were close at hand, to bear 
 More succour to them at her side. 
 
 Fought shall be this and every war 
 Cheerly, in hope to please thee ; not 
 
 That coulters harness'd to more steers 
 Of mine may struggle, or my flock 
 
 Before the sultry star appears, 
 May their Lucanian pastures change 
 
 For Calabrie's ; or glittering bright 
 On towering Tusculum, my villa 
 
 Stretch to the walls from Circe height. 
 Enough and more thy bounty me 
 
 Hath 'rich'd. I ne'er will have amass' d, 
 
 What either, grasping Chremes like, in earth 
 
 I may inter, or as some dissolute spendthrift waste. 
 
 ODE II. 
 
 THE PRAISES OF A COUNTRY LIFE. 
 
 Beatus ille. 
 
 Happy the man, from worldly cares retired, 
 Who, like the pristine race of mortals, farms 
 
 Hereditary lands with steers unhired ; 
 
 Loosed from each care usurious. Nor in arms 
 
152 ODES OF HORACE. [ode n. 
 
 Roused is he by the murd'rous trumpet [loud,] 
 
 Nor thrills with terror at the wrathful seas ; 
 The public forum, too, aud portals proud 
 
 Of subjects mightier than himself he flees. 
 Then either with the vine-plants' sucker, now, 
 
 Adult, the towering poplars he doth wed, 
 And lopping with his knife each useless bough, 
 
 Ingrafts the more luxuriant in their stead ; 
 Or, in some glen sequester' d, forth he gazes 
 
 On herds loose straying of his lowing beeves ; 
 Or honeys squeezed in taintless casks amasses, 
 
 Or his weak flocks he of their fleece relieves ; 
 Or when his head decored with mellow fruits 
 
 Autumn has lifted from the cultured plain, 
 How joys he culling pears on grafted shoots, 
 
 And grapes competing with the purple grain, 
 Wherewith, Priapus, thee to gift, and thee, 
 
 father Sylvan, of his bourns the guard. 
 It likes him, now beneath some old holm-tree 
 
 To lie, and now on the retentive sward. 
 Whilom the waters glide deep banks between ; 
 
 Birds in the woodlands pour their plaintive voice ; 
 And springs 'gainst pebbles brawl with welling streams — 
 
 A murmuring, downy slumbers to entice. 
 But soon as Jove the Thunderer's wintry round 
 
 His magazines of rains and snowdrifts stores, 
 Either on barrier' d toils with many a hound 
 
 From side to side he drives the savage boars ; 
 Or with smooth stretch his filmy nets he strains, 
 
 Treacheries the glutton thrushes to surprise ; 
 And crouching hare, and emigrated crane 
 
 With springes captures, a delicious prize. 
 Who feels not, mid these tasks, razed from his heart 
 
 Each noxious anxious thought, which love employs ? 
 
ode ii.] ODES OF HORACE. 153 
 
 But if a yokemate chaste to bear her part, 
 
 Assist his household and his darling boys 
 (Such as a Sabine dame, or one, tann'd thoroughly 
 
 With suns, a stouthearted Apulian's mate), 
 And pile with aged logs the hearth-fire holy, 
 
 The coming of her wearied spouse to greet ; 
 And, folding in their wattled pens the kine 
 
 Sleek fed, may drain their wide-stretch' d udders dry ; 
 And from sweet barrel broaching this year's wine, 
 
 Serve up repasts which gold did never buy ; 
 Let not the shell tribe of the Lucrine lake, 
 
 Or turbot, or the scar delight me more, 
 If winter any, when it thundering breaks 
 
 On eastern waves, to this sea chases o'er, 
 Let not the bird of Afric's region, not 
 
 Ionia's woodcock, with more gust to please, 
 Descend into my maw than olive got 
 
 Choice from the richest branches of my trees, 
 Or blade of lapathus that loves the mead, 
 
 And mallows healthful to the frame diseased ; 
 Or on the festive Terminals doom'd to bleed, 
 
 A lamb, or kidling from the wolf just seized. 
 Midst these repasts how charming 'tis to view 
 
 The sheep from pasture homeward quick repair ! 
 To view the steers with collar drooping low 
 
 Outwearied dragging the inverted share ! 
 And my domestics, busy swarm, the token 
 
 Of a rich household, laid to their repose, 
 The fire-bright Lares round ! Thus having spoken 
 
 The usurer Alfius, on the spot preparing 
 At once to be 
 A farmer he, 
 Upon the Ides drew all his money in ; 
 And on the Calends seeks to place it out again. 
 
154 ODES OF HORACE. [ode hi 
 
 ODE III. 
 
 TO M^CENAS. 
 
 Parentis olim si quis. 
 
 If a wight, upon a time, 
 
 Ever has, with hand of crime, 
 
 Wrench'd his sire's aged neck, [I ween,] 
 
 'Tis that he hath eating been 
 
 Garlic, deadlier, [without question,] 
 
 E'en than hemlock. digestion 
 
 Hard as iron, of the reaper ! 
 
 Wliat's this poison, which so [deep here] 
 
 Is turmoiling in my chest ? 
 
 Has the blood of viper, dress'd 
 
 In these vegetables, pass'd me 
 
 Undetected 1 Or, [to blast me,] 
 
 Has Canidia meddling been 
 
 With your pestilent cuisine 1 
 
 When Medea fell in love, 
 
 All the Argonauts above, 
 
 With their brilliant captain, Jason, 
 
 Meditating how to place on 
 
 Bulls a yoke untried before, 
 
 'Twas with this she smear'd him o'er. 
 
 'Twas with presents, dyed with this, 
 
 Having 'venged his harlot miss, 
 
 Off on snake's wing she did caper. 
 
 Nor did ever such a vapour 
 
 Erom the stars besiege about 
 
 E'en Apulia's land of drought ; 
 
 Nor did gift upon the shoulder 
 
 Of that wonder-working soldier 
 
ode iv.] ODES OF HORACE. 155 
 
 Hercules, take to inflammation 
 With a fiercer conflagration. 
 But if e'er, jocose Maecenas, 
 Aught thou fancying hast been as 
 This, I hope and pray your fan- 
 May present her hand to bar 
 Your kiss, and on the side recline 
 Of sofa farthest off from thine. 
 
 ODE IY. 
 
 TO MENAS. 
 
 Lupis et agnis. 
 
 As bitter a hate as did ever betide 
 
 Wolves and lambs by their lot, is there 'twixt you and me, 
 Thou with Spain's cat-of-nine-tails deep scored on thy side, 
 
 And with hard fetters gall'd up thy shanks [to the knee J. 
 
 You may strut as you like it, purse-proud with your treasure, 
 Fortune does not effect any change in the blood ; 
 
 Do you never perceive, Holy Way as you measure, 
 With a toga of double three ells long and broad, 
 
 How on thee, both of comers and goers the faces 
 There turns a most free unreserved indignation ? 
 
 This fellow, with magistrates' floggings to pieces 
 Cut up, to the beadle's disgust and vexation, 
 
 Farms a thousand broad acres of Falern estate, 
 And the Appian road with his coach-horses frets ; 
 
 And on the first benches a knight in great state, 
 To Otho's despite, he presumingly sits. 
 
156 ODES OF HORACE. [ode v 
 
 What boots it so many grim faces of vessels 
 
 Beak'd with pond'rous weight, are despatch'd [from afar,] 
 'Gainst piratical crews and a handful of vassals, 
 
 With this fellow — this — for a tribune of war ? 
 
 ODE Y. 
 
 THE WITCHES MANGLING A BOY. 
 
 At, 6 Deorivm. 
 
 " But what e'er of powers on high 
 
 Ruleth the earth and progeny 
 
 Of man ! what means your tumult there 1 — 
 
 Or what those eyes with savage stare, 
 
 Fix'd on me singly ? — eyes of all. 
 
 O, by your boys ! if, at your call, 
 
 On pangs of labour unpretended 
 
 And true, Lucina e'er attended, 
 
 And by this purple's empty glory, 
 
 And by great Jove, I now implore ye, 
 
 Who deeds like these will sure mislike — 
 
 Why dost thou stare upon me like 
 
 A stepdame, or a savage beast 
 
 Attack'd with steel ?" When, having ceased 
 
 Wailing with quivering tongue, the boy 
 
 (Each proud aristocratic toy 
 
 Torn from him) stood in fix'd amaze — 
 
 Smooth tender body — which might raise 
 
 Compassion in the godless mind 
 
 Of Thracians ; Canidie, entwined 
 
 With vipers short in hair, and head 
 
 Unconscious of a comb, doth bid 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 157 
 
 Wild fig-trees out of tombs uprooted, 
 Bids cypresses for burials suited, 
 And greased with blood of tadpole foul 
 The spawn, and down of night screech-owl, 
 And drugs Iolchos' soil produces, 
 And she, the rife with poison juices, 
 Iberia ; — bones, too, with a snatch 
 Torn from the jaws of starvling brache, 
 All be to ashes burnt with fire 
 Of Colchos. While in light attire 
 For action, the whole mansion through, 
 Sagana, sprinkling hellish dew, 
 Is bristling up with elfin wig, 
 Like a sea hedgehog or boar pig 
 Charging the hunter. Yeia, not 
 Scared by one conscientious thought, 
 Out of a grave was scrabbling soil 
 With hard hoes, grunting o'er the toil ; 
 That there interr'd the livelong day 
 The boy might pine and die away 
 Before the spectacle of flesh 
 Twice and three times replaced afresh, 
 And whilom with his mouth might strain 
 Forward as far, as by the chin 
 Suspended bodies peer above 
 The water's flow ; that so might prove 
 His marrow scorch'd and spleen adust, 
 A philtre potion charged with lust, 
 When on the interdicted fare 
 His eye-balls once, with fixed stare 
 Had wither'd in their sockets. Nor 
 That one was absent — she of more 
 Than women's common lustful flame, 
 Folia, Ariminum's dame, 
 
158 ODES OF HORACE. [ode v 
 
 Both Naples, that ease-loving shore, 
 
 A_nd every neighbouring town was sure — 
 
 She who with charm Thessalian tears 
 
 Down from the welkin spell-bound stars, 
 
 And moon. Upon this, gnawing hard 
 
 With livid tooth her thumb unpared, 
 
 Canidia raging mad — O what 
 
 Utter'd she, and what utter d not ! 
 
 O ye that ne'er betray, to sight 
 
 Admitted of my workings — Night 
 
 And Dian — thou who art enacting 
 
 Silence, while rituals are transacting 
 
 Mysterious : now, now aid me — now 
 
 Against the mansions of my foe 
 
 Your rancour turn, and, heavenly power. 
 
 While wild beasts timorous lurk and cower 
 
 In woods, with honied slumber drooping : 
 
 Let all Suburra's dogs be whooping 
 
 At the old leman (sight for all 
 
 To laugh at), smear'd in nard withal, 
 
 Such as more perfect never yet 
 
 My fingers did elaborate. 
 
 What has occurr'd 1 Why less than erst 
 
 Prevail the venom drugs accursed 
 
 Of barbarous Medea, aided ■ 
 
 With which her foemen she evaded, 
 
 When she had wrought revenge and slaughter 
 
 On that proud miss, great Creon's daughter ; 
 
 What time the mantle, gift deep dyed 
 
 With gore, did the new-wedded bride 
 
 In a combustion sweep away '] 
 
 Yet not a weed or root that lay 
 
 Conceal'd in rugged haunts hath pass'd 
 
 Me undetected. He sleeps fast 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 159 
 
 In Lethe, bathed though he be 
 
 In unguents, on the couches he 
 
 Of every wanton harlotry. 
 
 Ah ! ah ! he walks, discharged from harm, 
 
 By some more cunning weird wife's charm. 
 
 Oh, not by wonted draughts, thou head 
 
 Doom'd many a shower of tears to shed ! 
 
 Varus, shalt thou to me again 
 
 Bush back ; nor, though by Marsian strain 
 
 Call'd, shall thy mind recover e'er. 
 
 A mightier draught will I prepare, 
 
 A mightier brew than this for thee, 
 
 Who scorn'd the first. And 'neath the sea 
 
 First shall the welkin find its bed, 
 
 While earth above our heads is spread ; 
 
 Ere thou not burn with strong desire 
 
 Of me, as with its sooty fire 
 
 Asphalt. On this, not now as erst 
 
 The boy 'gan soothe those hags accursed 
 
 With gentle words ; but, in a doubt, 
 
 Whence to break silence, thus launch'd out 
 
 Prayers Thyestean. Yes — they can, — 
 
 Your hell-broths, change the mighty plan 
 
 Of right and wrong. They cannot turn 
 
 Men's cycle doom'd. With curses stern 
 
 Will I pursue you. Curse-fraught hate 
 
 Is with no victim expiate. 
 
 Yea, too, when bidden now to die, 
 
 I shall have heaved my latest sigh, 
 
 At midnight, as a power of wrath, 
 
 Will I confront you in your path ; 
 
 And with crook'd claws as spectre pale 
 
 I will your visages assail. 
 
 That which the privilege is of powers 
 
160 ODES OF HORACE. [odeii. 
 
 Divine, that rule o'er Pluto's shores ; 
 And perch'd upon your restless breast, 
 With panic I will scare your rest. 
 You shall the mob from lane to lane, 
 
 Pelting with stones, to pieces batter 
 From side to side — you hags obscene ; 
 
 And after that the wolves shall scatter 
 Abroad your members uninterr'd, 
 And every Esquilinian bird. 
 Nor to my parents shall this scene — 
 Alas ! myself surviving, lost have been, 
 
 ODE YI. 
 
 AGAINST CASSIUS SEVERUS. 
 
 Quid imm&rentes. 
 
 Why worry harmless guests, thou cur, 
 Dastard to front a wolvish pack 1 
 
 Why not turn hither, if you dare, 
 Your empty threats, and me attack. 
 Prepared your bite to render back 1 
 
 For, mastiff-like, or that dun-hound 
 Of Sparta, the auxiliar race 
 
 Of herdsmen, through the snows profound, 
 With ear up-prick'd, in scent, I'll chase 
 Whatever brute shall lead the race. 
 
 You, when the grove with bark of fear 
 You've fill'd, can at the meat, toss'd light 
 
 Before thee, snuff. Beware, beware, 
 For against knaves with fiercest might 
 I lift my horns, prepared for fight ; 
 
ode vn.] ODES OF HORACE. 161 
 
 Like him, by false Lycambes spurn'd, 
 As son, or that keen enemy 
 
 To Bupalus. What, if one hath turn'd 
 'Gainst me with venom'd tooth, shall I, 
 Like helpless boy, sit down and cry? 
 
 ODE YIL 
 
 TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 
 
 Quo, quo scelestis ruitis. 
 
 Whitheb, whither, guilty crew. 
 
 Rush ye on 1 or what to do, 
 
 Are your scabbarded iron brands 
 
 Grasp'd, and fitted to your hands 1 
 
 Has but little Latian gore 
 
 Spilled been, plains and oceans o'er ? 
 
 "Not that Roman arm might fire 
 
 Ramparts, like imperial tire, 
 
 Of the jealous Carthage, or 
 
 That the Briton, ne'er before 
 
 Touch'd by foe, might take his way, 
 
 Fetter'd, down the Sacred Way ; 
 
 But that Parthian's vows to cherish, 
 
 By her own right hand might perish 
 
 This our glorious city. Neither 
 
 Dwelt in wolves, or lions either 
 
 Soul like this — ne'er mad for blood 
 
 Save against an alien brood. 
 
 Is it frenzy blind, or force 
 
 Sharper that sweeps on your course ? 
 
 Or can it be guilt ? Reply — 
 
 Dumb they stand ; and there doth dye 
 
 M 
 
162 ODES OF HORACE. [ode ix. 
 
 Every face a ghastly pale, 
 
 And their strick'n spirits quail 
 
 All bewilder'd : So it is ; 
 
 'Tis our bitter destinies 
 
 Roman souls that haunt and goad, 
 
 And the guilt of brothers' blood : 
 
 Since the gore of Remus, ill 
 
 Meriting his fate, did well 
 
 To the ground with execrations 
 
 Fraught to coming generations. 
 
 ODE IX. 
 
 TO M^CENAS. 
 
 Quando repostum. 
 
 O when Caecubian juice, stored by 
 For festival regales, shall I, 
 Triumphant in our victor lord, 
 Caesar, beneath thy dome, high tower'd 
 (Thus pleased it Jove that it should be) 
 Thou bless'd Maecenas, quaff with thee ; 
 The while the lyre rings forth a lay 
 Mingled with flutes — in Dorian key 
 The lyre, a strain barbaric they '? 
 As late, when chased across the main, 
 The chief Neptunian fled amain, 
 His navy giv'n to flames, in threat 
 When he had shaken o'er the state 
 Gyves, which from slaves a traitor band 
 Stripp'd had he ; their accomplice hand. 
 Rome-born (alas ! posterity 
 Ye to the tale will give the lie !) 
 
ode ix.] ODES OF HORACE. 163 
 
 Thrall'd to a woman his fascine, 
 And arms our soldier bears, and e'en 
 Unto a wrinkled eunuch crew 
 Brooks to be slave : While Sol doth view 
 Raised amid standards of the fight 
 The foul gnat-curtain. At this sight 
 Gauls twice a thousand wheel'd about 
 Their snorting chargers, pealing out, 
 " Csesar ; " and in the haven hid 
 Sculk poops of foemen's vessels sped 
 To leftward. Io triumph ! [say,] 
 Dost thou the cars of gold delay, 
 And heifers, unprofaned by touch 1 
 Io triumphe ! neither such 
 A chieftain from Jugurtha's fight 
 Home didst thou convoy, nor the hight 
 Great Africanus — him for whom 
 Valour o'er Carthage piled a tomb. 
 Vanquish'd on land and sea, the foe 
 Has ta'en the sagum, garb of woe 
 'Stead of his purple. Either he 
 
 To Crete, that isle of proud renown, 
 With its twice fifty towns, doth fiee, 
 
 To sail with breezes not his own ; 
 Or to the Syrtes, 'neath the scourge 
 Of Notus vex'd, his course doth urge ; 
 Or swept is o'er an aimless surge. 
 Bigger cups here, boy, and produce 
 The Chian or the Lesbian juice ! 
 Or what may floating qualms restrain, 
 Measure us forth the Csecuban. 
 All care and fear for Caesar's state, 
 With sweet Lysean draughts 'tis joy to dissipate. 
 
 m 2 
 
164 ODES OF HORACE. [ode x. 
 
 ODE X. 
 
 AGAINST MJEVIUS. 
 
 Maid soluta, 
 
 Unmoor'd with omen ill 
 
 The ship is under sail, 
 That bears the fetid Msevius on his way. 
 
 Remember, I entreat, 
 
 O Auster, that you beat 
 Each side with your billows of dismay. 
 
 Let Eurus black as night, 
 
 O'er the sea upturn'd outright, 
 Sweep away in wreck his ropes and broken oars ! 
 
 Let the north wind rise, as dread, 
 
 As on the mountains' head 
 He breaks the holms that tremble [at the roar ;] 
 
 Nor let a friendly star 
 
 In that murky night appear 
 Wherein Orion sad is sinking low ; 
 
 Nor let him wafted be 
 
 Upon a calmer sea 
 Than Grsecia's band of victors o'er the foe ; 
 
 When from Troy in conflagration 
 
 Pallas turn'd her indignation 
 On Ajax's abominated sail. 
 
 O what a sweating sore 
 
 Thy crew is hanging o'er, 
 And on thyself a jaundiced aspect pale. 
 
ode xi.] ODES OF HORACE. 165 
 
 And that howling and that hooting 
 
 A man but little suiting, 
 And prayers to Jove, the tum'd away in scorn ; 
 
 When to Notus charged with vain 
 
 Rebellowing back again 
 Ionia's gulf thy shatter'd keel has torn ! 
 
 But if a booty rich, 
 
 Stretch'd on the winding beach, 
 The corm'rants you've indulged with your form, 
 
 A goat of wanton play 
 
 Shall be victimized that day, 
 And a lamb to the Powers of the storm. 
 
 ODE XI. 
 
 TO PETTIUS. 
 
 Petti, nihil Trie. 
 
 Petttus, it charms me nought, as heretofore, 
 
 My petty rhymes t' indite, struck to the heart 
 
 With deep oppressive love — love which of me 
 
 Past all doth make his mark. This third December, 
 
 Since I desisted my delirious passion 
 
 To cherish for Inachia, from the woods 
 
 Is shattering down their glory. Woe is me, 
 
 Throughout the town (for shame it is to think 
 
 Of such a grief) how sad a tale was I ! 
 
 And of the feasts convivial I repent, 
 
 In which as love-sick both my lassitude, 
 
 And silence did convict me, and the sigh, 
 
 Fetch'd from my bosom's depth. That nought avail'd 
 
 'Gainst lucre a poor minstrel's genius fail 
 
 I to lament was wont, into thy breast 
 
166 ODES OF HORACE. [odexiii. 
 
 Pouring my plaint, soon as the unblushing god, 
 
 With wine more fiery, from their place had stirr'd 
 
 The secrets of a heart with passion glowing. 
 
 u But if within my bosom there doth boil 
 
 My ire uncheck'd, to scatter to the winds 
 
 These charmless thoughts, mere fuel to the flame, 
 
 And soothing not a whit the venom' d wound — 
 
 My bashfulness (I said), now thrust away, 
 
 Will cease the lists to enter more with rivals 
 
 No fitting match." When with a brow austere 
 
 These maxims I had eulogized to thy face, 
 
 Order'd to hie me home, with faltering foot 
 
 I would be carried on, alas ! to doors 
 
 No friends to me, and O ! alas ! to thresholds 
 
 Hard-hearted, against which my loins and side 
 
 I bruised. Now of one who vaunts to vanquish 
 
 In softness any girl, Lycisca's love 
 
 Possesses me, from which there have no power 
 
 To extricate me, not the advice of friends 
 
 All unreserved, nor their reproaches grave ; 
 
 But a new passion for some maiden fair 
 
 Braiding in knot behind her flowing hair. 
 
 ODE XIII. 
 
 TO A FRIEND. 
 
 Horrida tempestas. 
 
 A grisly storm has ravell'd up the brow 
 
 Of heaven, and rains and snow-storms are apace 
 
 Dragging down aether. Now the ocean, now 
 The forests, 'neath the northern blast of Thrace 
 
 Are groaning. From the day, companions dear, 
 Snatch we occasion ; and while hale each knee, 
 
ode xiv.] ODES OF HORACE. 167 
 
 And graceful 'tis, upon our brow, with care 
 
 Albeit clouded o'er, unravell'd be 
 Our wrinkled eld. Broach thou the vintage press d 
 
 When my Torquatus consul sat. The rest 
 Forbear to speak of. Heaven perchance will bring 
 
 These ills once more into their rightful sphere, 
 With change benignant. Now, our pleasure is 
 
 Both to be bathed with nard of Persia's king, 
 And from their cursed and dread anxieties 
 
 Our hearts to lighten with Cyllene's string. 
 As to his glorious foster-child, there sung 
 
 The far-famed Centaur : " Mortal ! to defeat 
 Unknown — thou boy from heavenly Thetis sprung ! 
 
 Thee doth the land of Assarac await 
 Which cleave the cold streams of Scamander, rill 
 
 Minute, and Simois eddying oily smooth ; 
 Whence have the Fates, with web inflexible, 
 
 Cut off from thee the passage home [in sooth,] 
 Nor shall thy blue-haired mother e'er again 
 Bring thee back home. There lighten every pain 
 With wine and song, midst converse sweet of gladness, 
 The antidotes to all grim-visaged sadness." 
 
 ODE XIV. 
 
 TO M^CENAS. 
 
 Mollis inertia. 
 Why a soft listlessness has spread 
 
 Such deep oblivion o'er my inmost senses, 
 As if I drain'd with parched lips 
 
 Goblets Lethsean slumbers slow inducing, 
 fair Maecenas, you destroy me 
 
 By asking oft. For 'tis a god — a god 
 
168 ODES OF HORACE. [ode xv. 
 
 Who is forbidding me to bring 
 
 My once commenced Iambics, poesy 
 Promised of old, to their completion : 
 
 So say they for the Samian fair Bathyllus 
 
 Anacreon, the bard of Teos, 
 Was fired, who offc and oft on hollow shell 
 
 Unto no high-wrought measure wail'd 
 His love. Inflamed art thou thyself, poor wretch ! 
 
 But if no fairer flame did wrap 
 In conflagration the beleaguer'd Troy. 
 
 Rejoice thou in thy lot. For me 
 Phryne, a freedman's daughter, nor content 
 
 With one adorer, makes me pine away 
 
 ODE XV. 
 
 TO XTLERA. 
 
 Nox erat. 
 
 It was the night, and, in the sky 
 Serene, the moon was shining high 
 Among the lesser stars, when thou 
 Prepared to trespass with thy tow 
 Upon the power of heaven's high lords. 
 Thy oath wert taking on my words : 
 More tightly than the tapering holm 
 Is bound with ivy, clinging home 
 Unto my side with flexile arms ; 
 While fraught to sheepfold with alarms 
 The wolf, and he, the sailor's foe, 
 Orion, should toss to and fro 
 The winter ocean, and the air 
 Should wave unshorn Apollo's hair , 
 
)DE xvi.] ODES OF HORACE. 169 
 
 That this our love should mutual live ! 
 
 O thou, Nesera, doom'd to grieve 
 
 Full sore at my unyielding will : 
 
 For if in Flaccus there be still 
 
 Ought of the man, he will not bear 
 
 "With one more favour'd thou shouldst share 
 
 Night after night ; and wroth at wrong 
 
 Will seek his match. Nor will his strong 
 
 Resolve to beauty yield again, 
 
 WTien once it has been found to sin ; 
 
 If fix'd resentment to his heart 
 
 Has pierced. But thou, whoe'er thou art, 
 
 Happier than me, and who elate 
 
 Now walk'st in triumph at my fate, 
 
 Thou shalt have leave enrich'd to stand 
 
 With cattle, and with breadth of land, 
 
 And for thee may Pactolus now, 
 
 Nor e'en escape thy power to know 
 
 Each secret and mysterious page 
 
 Of that resuscitated sage, 
 
 Pythagoras. And surpass you may 
 
 Nireus in grace ; yet, woe the day ! 
 
 Her loves transferr'd elsewhere thou'lt mourn, 
 
 But I shall have my laugh in turn. 
 
 ODE XVI. 
 
 TO THE KOMAN PEOPLE. 
 
 AUerajam teritur. 
 
 Now is another age wearing away 
 
 'Neath civil frays, and Pome to ruin stoops 
 
 By her own forces. Her, whom nought could lay 
 In ashes — neither Marsia's border troops, 
 
170 ODES OF HORACE. [ode xvi 
 
 Or menacing Porsena's Tuscan band, 
 
 Nor Capna's rival valour, could subdue, 
 Nor Spartacus of sharp impatient hand, 
 
 And Allobrogian, ever he untrue 
 Unto his new-condition' d state, nor all 
 
 Germania fierce, with blue-eyed bearded brood, 
 And he the cursed of parents, Annibal, 
 
 Her shall we, godless age, destroy, of blood 
 Doom'd to destruction ; and the ground once more 
 
 By monsters of the wood possess'd shall be. 
 Woe ! on our ashes shall a conqueror, 
 
 A savage, trample ; and his chivalry 
 Shall bruise the city with a thundering hoof ; 
 
 And e'en Quirinus' bones (crime to behold), 
 Which now from winds and suns are screen'd aloof, 
 
 Wide will he scatter, insolently bold. 
 It may be what can extricate us now, 
 
 Free from our deadly ills henceforth to live, 
 Ye all, or the best portion, fain would know ; 
 
 Be no advice preferr'd to this I give. 
 E'en as Phocsea's nation fled away 
 
 Curse-bound, and lands and Lares did forsake 
 Their own, and fanes, to boars and wolves of prey 
 
 Thenceforth to be a dwelling ; that we take 
 Our course, wherever feet will carry us ; 
 
 Where'er the south shall call us o'er the surge, 
 Or rampant Siroc. Doth it like you thus ? 
 
 Or aught more wise hath any now to urge ? 
 Why do we dally still with omen fair 
 
 To climb and seize the bark ? But let us fain 
 Take oath to these conditions : whensoe'er 
 
 Bocks from profoundest shoals upbuoy'd again 
 Have swum the surface, be it not a crime 
 
 Steps to retrace ; nor irk it us to spread 
 
ode xvi.] ODES OF HORACE. 171 
 
 Our shifted canvass homeward, at what time 
 
 Po shall have bathed Matinum's mountain-head ; 
 Or far into the main its headland thrust 
 
 Tall Apennine ; and love, of wondrous power, 
 Have coupled monsters in unheard-of lust • 
 
 That it charms tigers 'neath th' embrace to cower 
 Of harts, and to the hawk the ringdove play 
 
 The paramour ; nor trustful cattle fear 
 Grey grim-eyed lions, and the briny sea 
 
 Loves the he-goat now smooth. This and whate'er 
 Shall 'vail all sweet return to cut away, 
 
 When we have pledged with curses, let us part, 
 The city all entire, — or moiety 
 
 More righteous than the herd of stubborn heart ; 
 Minion and desp'rate, let him cumber still 
 
 His evil-boding couches. Ye, the band 
 In whom dwells valour, hence with woman's wail ! 
 
 And waft your flight on past the Tuscan strand. 
 Us there awaits an ocean wand'ring round, 
 
 A land of culture. Let us seek it straight, 
 Bless'd land, and islands which with wealth abound ; 
 
 Where earth unplough'd doth year on year repeat 
 The boons of Ceres, and unpruned for aye 
 
 The vineyard blossoms ; and the olive's shoot, 
 The never-failing olive doth display, 
 
 Its germins, and the black fig decks with fruit 
 Its own, its native tree ; honeys distil 
 
 From hollow ilex, — down the mountain crest 
 Light leaps with tinkling foot the crystal rill. 
 
 There to the milkpails come without behest 
 The ewe-goats, and the flock in amity 
 
 Bring home their full swoln udders. Nor at eve 
 Doth the bear howling prowl the sheepcotes nigh, 
 
 Nor the deep soil with vipers festering heave. 
 
172 ODES OF HORACE. [ode xvii. 
 
 Tlie flock contagions harm not. Of no star 
 
 Does the swart tyranny the herd scorch aught. 
 And at more wonders shall we marvel there, 
 
 We blessed ; how nor Eurus deluge-fraught 
 With big effused showers the leas doth scar ; 
 
 Nor are the succulent germins parch'd with drought 
 In glebes unmoisten'd ; while each temper due 
 
 He gives who rules the gods. Ne'er to this spot 
 Did pine-tree stretch with Argo's oaring crew ; 
 
 ISTor did the shameless Colchian set her foot ; 
 Not to this port did Sidon's sailors brace 
 
 Their yard-arms, nor Ulysses' troop of toil. 
 Jove for a holy race these strands kept back, 
 
 When that with brass he did alloy and soil 
 An age of gold \ with brass, with iron then, 
 He harden'd age on age. Whereof to men 
 Of holiness, [and favourites of heaven,] 
 A happy flight with me its prophet bard is given. 
 
 ODE XVII. 
 
 DIALOGUE BETWEEN HORACE AND CANIDIA. 
 
 Jam jam efficaci. 
 
 Now, now at length, on bended knee, 
 
 My hands to potent sorcery 
 
 I yield ; and by the realms implore 
 
 Of Proserpine, and by Dian's power 
 
 Inflexible, and by each tome 
 
 Of charms prevailing to call down 
 
 Unsphered planets from the sky, 
 
 At length thy words of mystery, 
 
ode xvii.] ODES OF HORACE. 173 
 
 Canidia, spare ! and slack, O slack 
 
 Thy magic wheel swift whirled back. 
 
 He, Telephus, did move to grace 
 
 The son of Nereus, in whose face 
 
 The Mysians' squadrons he in pride 
 
 Had marshall'd, and against whose side 
 
 Barb'd shafts had hurtling been. The dames 
 
 Of Ilion Hector wrapp'd in balms — 
 
 The slaughterer Hector — when he lay 
 
 Sentenced to savage birds a prey, 
 
 And dogs ; when once his citadel 
 
 Abandon' d, the monarch fell 
 
 Before the feet, alas ! of one 
 
 In wrath unbending, Peleus' son. 
 
 Ulysses' oarsmen sorely toil'd, 
 
 Their bristle-mantled limbs despoil'd 
 
 Of their tough hides, when Circe fain 
 
 So will'd it. Then did thought again, 
 
 And voice glide back, and to each face 
 
 Its wonted dignity and grace. 
 
 Paid have I full sufficiency, 
 
 And more, of penalties to thee, 
 
 thou the thrice-loved, and again, 
 
 By bargemen and by market-men. 
 
 Fled has my youth, and bashful sheen 
 
 Has left my bones, with sallow skin 
 
 Hung loosely o'er. My locks are hoar 
 
 With thy perfumes. No peaceful hour 
 
 Back on my pillow doth me lay 
 
 From travail sore. Mght treads on day, 
 
 And day on night — nor there is might 
 
 My breast with gasping strained tight 
 
 To lighten of its burden. So 
 
 O'ervanquish'd am I in my woe, 
 
174 ODES OF HORACE. [ode xvii. 
 
 That I must own the truth, in times 
 
 Before denied, that Sabine rhymes 
 
 Knell on the bosom frenzy-fits, 
 
 And that the head asunder splits 
 
 'Neath Marsic ditty. What beside 
 
 Fain wouldst thou have 1 ocean tide 
 
 And earth ! I burn to such degree 
 
 As nor Alcides — smeared he 
 
 With the black blood of "NTessus — nor 
 
 The flame Sicanian raging sore 
 
 In burning ^Etna. Thou till I, 
 
 By rough rude winds, a cinder dry, 
 
 Am swept away, art all on fire, 
 
 Thyself a laboratory entire, 
 
 With Colchian drugs. What closing fate 1 
 
 Or what the ransom that doth wait 
 
 For me 1 Speak out ; with faith I'll pay 
 
 Each stipulated penalty ; 
 
 Prepared to expiate my fault, 
 
 Whether a hundred steers thou shalt 
 
 Have claim'd, or shalt on lying lyre 
 
 To have thy praises sung desire ; 
 
 Thou as the chaste, thou honest-soul' d, 
 
 Throughout the zodiac shalt hold 
 
 Thy progress as a star of gold. 
 
 Enwrath'd at slander'd Helen's fate, 
 
 Castor, and he of Castor great 
 
 The brother, by his suppliant cries 
 
 O'ermaster'd, did his forfeit eyes 
 
 Unto the bard restore. And thou, 
 
 (For thou hast power,) release me now 
 
 From madness. O thou neither foul'd 
 
 With parents' filth, nor beldam, school'd 
 
ode xvii.] ODES OF HORACE. 175 
 
 In the poor's charnels to disperse 
 The ashes nine days from the hearse. 
 Thine is a breast for welcome mild, 
 And spotless hands ; and thy womb's child 
 Is Pactumeius ; and with red gore 
 Of thine the midwife batheth o'er 
 Her rags, whenever as a stont 
 Parturient thou are sallying out. 
 
 CANIDIAS ANSWER. 
 
 Why pour to close-seal'd ears thy prayers ? 
 
 Not to the naked mariners 
 
 More deaf its rocks with the deep surge 
 
 Does the wild wintry Neptune scourge. 
 
 That thou unpunish'd should have mock'd 
 
 Cotytto's mysteries, unlock'd 
 
 To eyes profane — that rite divine 
 
 Of Cupid, the young libertine ! 
 
 And claiming the archpriest to be 
 
 Of Esquilinian sorcery, 
 
 Should, without penalty or shame, 
 
 Have nll'd the city with my name ! 
 
 What was the use that I with riches 
 
 Heap'd those Pelignian old witches ; 
 
 Or brew'd a poisonous potation, 
 
 Quicker than all in operation ? 
 
 But as for thee, a doom too slow 
 
 For thy petitions bides thee now ; 
 
 And joyless must a life by thee 
 
 Be drained out in misery ; 
 
 For this, that you may still supply 
 
 Food for new pangs of agony. 
 
176 ODES OF HORACE. [odextii 
 
 He craves repose in strong desire 
 Tantalus, Pelop's faithless sire, 
 Lacking for aye the boon repast : 
 Craves it Prometheus, chained fast 
 Unto the vulture : craves in want. 
 He, Sisyphus, the stone to plant 
 Upon the mountain's crest \ but still 
 Jove's laws forbid it. Thou shalt feel 
 The wish one hour from some high pile 
 To plunge thee down ; another while 
 With Noric steel that breast of thine 
 To broach. And vainly shalt thou twine 
 Cords for thy neck — thou sad and dull 
 In loathing sickliness of soul. 
 Then on the shoulders mounted high 
 I'll ride of thee, my enemy ; 
 And earth itself shall yield before 
 My haughtiness. Must I, who power- 
 Possess e'en images of wax 
 To move, as thou hast learnt, of facts 
 Too curious, and the moon to tear 
 Down by my charm ings from the sphere ; 
 Can raise the dead though biunt with foe, 
 And brew the cup of strong desire : 
 Must I lament for witchery 
 That hath no issue upon thee I 
 
177 
 
 THE SECULAR POEM 
 
 HOBACE. 
 
 TO APOLLO AND DIANA. 
 
 Phoebe, silvarumque potens Diana. 
 
 Phcebus, and thou the forest queen, 
 Dian, bright glory of the sphere, 
 
 Pow'rs aye adorable and adored, 
 
 O grant the prayers which we prefer 
 On hallow'd days, — 
 
 Days, when the Sibyl's songs did monish 
 That virgin maids, a chosen train, 
 
 And sinless boys, to Powers of Heaven, 
 Whose joy the seven hills have been, 
 A hymn should raise. 
 
 Boon Sol, who op'st and shroud'st the day 
 In radiant car, and spring'st from gloom 
 
 Still different and the same, mayst thou 
 Nought nobler than our city Pome 
 Behold on earth ! 
 
 Ilithyia, kind to bring 
 
 Duly our timely births to light, 
 O do thou guard our mothers, whether 
 
 Lucina thou wouldst fain be hight, 
 Or Queen of Birth ! 
 
 N 
 
178 THE SECULAR POEM OF HORACE. 
 
 Goddess, rear up our nursling young, 
 And bless the sires' awards, proclaiming 
 
 Of maidens to be yoked, and law 
 Marital with an offspring teeming 
 JSTew sprung to light. 
 
 That the fix'd cycle, ten times roll'd 
 Through years elev'n, again our songs 
 
 And sports may bring, 'neath daylight bright 
 Thrice, and as often fill'd with throngs 
 'Neath gracious night. 
 
 And you, ye Fates, all true to chant 
 
 What once hath doomed been, and what, 
 
 may the world's firm law maintain ! 
 Add ye blest fortunes to the lot 
 Fulfill'd thus far ! 
 
 Teeming with grain and flock may Earth 
 With wheaten coronal her meed 
 
 To Ceres bring. May streams alike 
 Of health, and Jove's soft zephyrs feed 
 Our nursling care. 
 
 With sheathed arrow, mild and calm, 
 Hear thou our striplings as they bow, 
 
 Apollo 1 Thou the Planets' Queen, 
 Luna, with double-crested brow, 
 Our maidens hear ! 
 
 If Rome be work of yours, and squadrons 
 Of Ilion reach'd the Tuscan strand, 
 
 That portion doom'd their homes and city 
 To change anew, by your command 
 In safe career ; 
 
THE SECULAR POEM OF HORACE. 179 
 
 For whom, unscathed, through burning Troy, 
 
 ^Eneas pure, his country's fall 
 Surviving, paved a passage free, 
 
 Designing than their quitted all 
 More to replace. 
 
 Gods ! to our loyal manhood souls 
 
 Of virtue, — Gods ! to tranquil eld 
 Repose, — to the Romulean race 
 
 Both substance and an offspring grant, 
 And ev'ry grace ! 
 
 And he who with white steers adores you, — 
 
 He, of Anchises' glorious blood, 
 And Yenus, — rule he, lord above 
 
 The warring foe, to foe subdued 
 In mercy kind ! 
 
 O'er ocean now and land the Mede 
 
 His mighty bands and fasces dreads 
 Of Alba ; Tartars his awards 
 
 Now seek, they once with haughty heads, 
 And sons of Ind. 
 
 Now Faith, and Peace, and noble Truth, 
 And pristine Shame, and she in scorn 
 
 Long slighted, Virtue, dares return, 
 
 And Plenty, bless'd with brimming horn, 
 Her face reveals ■ 
 
 And Augur Phoebus, he the graced 
 
 With glittering bow, and welcome well 
 
 To the nine Muses ; who the body's 
 Exhausted limbs with healthful spell 
 Relieves and heals. 
 
180 THE SECULAR POEM OF HORACE. 
 
 If the Palatian towers, and State 
 Of Rome, and Latium blest he view 
 
 With fav'ring eye, may he prolong 
 The age into a lustre new, 
 
 And happier aye ! 
 
 And she who Aventine doth sway, 
 And Algidum, may she to prayers 
 
 Pour'd by the great Fifteen take heed, 
 And to our striplings' vows her ears 
 Benign close lay ! 
 
 Hope good and sure I home report, 
 That Jove and the assembled gods 
 
 Cherish these thoughts ; the chorus I 
 Both Phoebus and Diana's lauds 
 Taught to display. 
 
 §3X 
 
 i 
 
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