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FIRST EDITION
For private distribution only
500 copies
THE ODES OF HORACE
THE
ODES AND SECULAR HYMN
OF HORACE
Englished into Rimed Verse
Corresponding to the Original Meters
BY
WARREN H. CUDWORTH
PRIVATELY PRINTED
MCMXVII
COPYRIGHT, 1917
BY WARREN H. CUDWORTH
DESIGNED • COMPOSED . PRINTED . AND • BOUND
AT -THE. PLIMPTON. PRESS -NORWOOD- MASS- U.S. A
en
TO THE MEMORY OF
MY MOTHER
3GG910
TO HORACE
DEAR was the nook where pines and poplars blend
Their branches, dear the nard and blossoms gay
And Cinara's kindly presence, dear the play,
The mellow cups, and care-free hours they lend;
Dearer to thee the uplifts that attend
The moral reign of law, and dearest they,
Men who were half thy soul, thy prop and stay,
Who, greatest of their time, could call thee Friend.
So while spring flowerets clothe the unfettered plain,
While summer's shaded brooks cool plow- worn steers,
And fruitful autumn's harvests broadcast lie,
While winter locks the streams and whips the main,
Thro' the long lapse of immemorial years
Thy fame shall spread: thou shalt not wholly die.
PREFACE
IN working over this translation of the Odes of Horace
I have been increasingly impressed by the conviction that
any version of the poet, in order to convey, even in a
shadowy manner, the general effect of the original, must
maintain in its verse-structure an approximate equivalence
to the Latin. Each translated ode must conform in general
appearance, division into strophes, and length and number
of verses to its prototype, and each instance of any given
Horatian meter must invariably be rendered into its English
analogue as selected by the translator. Types of odes
should be rigidly adhered to, and the fact that Horace uses
a given measure to sing such varying themes as the duties
of patriotism and the lure of wine, the companionship of
friends and the praises of the gods, should excuse no devia-
tion from the principle. Then, too, some degree of the
compactness of thought and brevity of expression that
characterize the original must be attempted — some of
Horace's own terseness must be brought into play if he is
at all adequately to be reproduced. That I should employ
rime is inevitable, for it has been well said that while one
or two rare souls during the course of a generation may write
readable blank verse, most men, if they hope to be endured,
must resort to the aid of rime. It will thus be seen that I
have striven to follow, though necessarily at a distance, the
rules laid down by John Conington, a man whose aptitude
for Horatian translation fell but little short of genius, and
of whom it may truthfully be said,
Nee viget quicquam simile aut secundum.
Most of the meters I have used have been much em-
ployed by my predecessors, several have been utilized more
XU PREFACE
rarely, while a few others are, so far as I know, now pre-
sented for the first time. The selection of suitable stanzas
is a puzzling matter and difficulties are sure to attend any
decision. A strophe-for-strophe version, like the present, is
a. veritable bed of Procrustes, and in such it is perhaps hu-
manly impossible to attain the ideal of translation, which
has been said to be "the original, the whole original, and
nothing but the original, and, withal, good readable Eng-
lish." The man of ordinary attainments will be compelled
sometimes to curtail and sometimes to expand the original,
and fortunate indeed will he be if he does not occasionally
find himself confronted by insuperable difficulties in the
handling of his mother-tongue.
The thirty-seven Alcaics (the odes agreeing in structure
with i, 9) have been put into alternately riming iambic
tetrameter, a meter which has come to be looked upon as
the English measure best suited to this stanza. It offers a
rapid and mobile, yet dignified, vehicle of expression, and it
has generally been possible to compress the forty-one syllables
of Latin into thirty-two syllables of English without doing
great injustice to either tongue.
The twenty-six Sapphic poems (odes metrically like i, 2)
I have put into stanzas consisting of three iambic pen-
tameters and one iambic trimeter, disposing the rimes
alternately. This selection cannot but be considered as
unfortunate, for the superior brevity of our tongue here
becomes readily manifest when the compass of thirty-six
syllables of English is used to translate thirty-eight syl-
lables of Latin. In not a few odes I have been painfully
conscious of having to use more "padding" than I could
desire, yet, on the other hand, when I tried to use a stanza
each verse of which was a foot shorter, I found that it neces-
sitated a curtailment still more to be condemned.
The twelve odes known as the Second Asclepiads (the
type of which i, 3 is an instance) have been put into con-
secutively riming iambic tetrameters and pentameters,
following the metrical scheme used in one of these odes three
centuries ago by Ben Jonson.
The nine Third Asclepiads (odes after the pattern of i, 6)
PREFACE xiii
have been cast Into stanzas like those used in the Sapphic
odes, save that the first and third verses have been given
feminine endings. The measure adopted in translating the
Sapphics was probably best fitted for the Third Asclepiads,
but I found a shorter verse unworkable for the Sapphic
poems; so, therefore, in englishing the Asclepiads I have
added an extra syllable to two verses for purposes of differ-
entiation.
The seven Fourth Asclepiads (odes written in the measure
of i, 5) have been arranged in iambic stanzas consisting of
two pentameters followed by two tetrameters, disposing the
rimes alternately.
The three First Asclepiads (odes like i, 1) have been put
into rimed heroic couplets, the three Fifth Asclepiads (odes
written in the measure of i, 11) have been cast into con-
secutively riming iambic heptameters, and the two Alcmanic
Odes (i, 7 and i, 28) have been englished into iambic stan-
zas made up of two heptameter and two pentameter verses,
alternately disposed and alternately riming.
Most of the odes, then, as was but natural, employ
iambic measures, but in a few instances I have made use
of other forms. The two spring-songs (i, 4 and iv, 7)
seemed from their very content to call for the lightness of
treatment that anapests alone can impart and the Ode to
a Miser (ii, 18), with the few solemn chords suggestive of
Longfellow's "Psalm of Life," appeared ready to fall natu-
rally into trochees. In allotting trochees to the Ode to
Lydia (i, 8) and dactyls to the Neobule Ode (iii, 12) perhaps
I have been led quite as much through a desire for variety
as through any feeling of individual fitness.
In making this translation, I have availed myself of the
comment of a number of the best-known editors and I have
not hesitated freely to use wealth drawn from the great
stores collected by many generations of Horatian scholars.
There is, however, one matter that I wish to mention
with a note of extenuation. Since this version has reached
what is practically its present form I have carefully ex-
amined the works of a half dozen of the most celebrated
metrical translators, and I find that not infrequently I have
XIV PREFACE
used rimes that are not new, and in at least three cases I
have used lines that are precise duplicates of those of prede-
cessors. These last I have allowed to stand unchanged, for
they are, in each instance, literal renderings of the Latin,
and similar modes of expression naturally suggest them-
selves occasionally to different workers in the same field.
In the matter of identity of rime now and then, I can only
say that Horace has been translated into English a great
many times, and, as a given thought or strophe can be ex-
pressed in but a limited number of ways, it follows that the
supply of original rimes must ultimately give out and that
each new translator must find himself in increasingly dif-
ficult straits to avoid the phraseology of his predecessors.
If, as a whole, my work shows originality, I shall hope to
be acquitted of the charge of indolently and unfairly profit-
ing by the labors of others.
For this addition to the many attempts "to translate the
untranslatable'* I shall find, perhaps, in the minds of many,
but scant excuse, yet it has been with me a labor of love,
and I have been supported by the hope that it may bring
some knowledge of the poet to a few who before were un-
acquainted with him and that it may be not without inter-
est to some who are familiar with the original. Perhaps the
following sentence may prove my best justification: "No
words can express the impossibility of any adequate trans-
lation of the poet, yet the lure will always prove irresistible" "
The text followed is, with but two exceptions, that of
Professor Charles E. Bennett of Cornell University,2 and I
am indebted to his notes for useful hints regarding the
interpretation of certain moot points.
In closing, I wish thankfully to express my hearty ac-
knowledgments to Professor Bennett for the kindliness that
prompted him to examine my work and for the shrewd
scholarship that furnished many helpful criticisms.
1 From a letter from Professor Bennett of November 25,
1913. Italics mine.
2 " Horace: Odes and Epodes, " by Charles E. Bennett.
Allyn and Bacon, Boston, Massachusetts, 1901.
PREFACE XV
Finally, I desire gratefully to record my debt to my father,
to Miss Marion E. Gray of Boston, Massachusetts, to Mr.
Calvin L. Ashley of Saint Johnsville, New York, and to
Mr. Robert E. Briggs of Fairhaven, Massachusetts. To
the sympathy, encouragement, and invaluable suggestions of
my father and these three friends is due no small portion
of whatever of merit the work may possess.
For any inaccuracies of rendering or infelicities of phrase
I alone am responsible.
WARREN H. CUDWORTH
Norwood, Massachusetts,
March 30, 1917.
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE
I. To Maecenas 3
II. To Augustus Caesar 5
III. To the Ship in which Virgil Embarked . 7
IV. To Sestius 9
V. To Pyrrha 10
VI. To Agrippa 11
VII. To Plancus 12
VIII. To Lydia 14
IX. To Thaliarchus 15
X. To Mercury 16
XL To Leuconoe 17
XII. In Praise of Augustus 18
XIII. To Lydia 20
XIV. To the Ship of State 21
XV. The Prophecy of Nereus 22
XVI. A Palinode 24
XVII. To Tyndaris 25
XVIII. To Varus 26
XIX. The Beauty of Glycera 27
XX. To Maecenas 28
XXI. The Praises of Latona and her Children . 29
XXII. To Fuscus 30
XXIII. To Chloe 31
XXIV. To Virgil 32
XXV. To Lydia 33
XXVI. In Praise of Lamia . . 34
XXVII. To my Companions 35
XXVIII. Archytas 36
XV111 CONTENTS
XXIX. To Iccius 38
XXX. To Venus 39
XXXI. My Prayer to Apollo 40
XXXII. To my Lyre 41
XXXIII. To Albius Tibullus 42
XXXIV. My Renunciation of False Philosophy . . 43
XXXV. To Fortune 44
XXXVI. The Return of Numida 46
XXXVII. The Death of Cleopatra 47
XXXVIII. To my Cupbearer 49
BOOK TWO
I. To Pollio 53
II. To Sallustius Crispus 55
III. To Dellius 56
IV. To Xanthias 57
V. To a Friend 58
VI. To Septimius 59^/
VII. To Pompey 60
VIII. To Barine 61
IX. To Valgius 62
X. To Licinius 63
XI. To Quinctius Hirpinus 64
XII. To Maecenas 65
XIII. To a Fallen Tree 66
XIV. To Postumus 68
XV. Against Luxury 69
XVI. To Grosphus 70
XVII. To Maecenas 72
XVIII. To a Miser 74
XIX. A Dithyramb 76
XX. To Maecenas 78
BOOK THREE
I. On Contentment 81
II. On Patriotism 83
III. On Integrity 85
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXIX.
XXX.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
CONTENTS XIX
On Wisdom 88
On Valor 91
On Home Purity 93
To Asterie 95
To Maecenas 97
The Reconciliation 98
To Lyce 99
To Mercury and the Lute 100
Neobule's Soliloquy 102
To the Fountain Bandusia 103
The Return of Augustus 104
To Chloris . . . 105
To Maecenas 106
To Aelius Lamia 108
To Faunus 109
In Honor of Muraena 110
To Pyrrhus Ill
In Praise of Wine 112
To Diana 113
To Phidyle 114
The Bane of Wealth 115
A Dithyramb 118
To Venus 119
To Galatea 120
To Lyde 123
To Maecenas 124
To Melpomene 127
BOOK FOUR
To Venus 131
To lulus Antonius 133
To Melpomene 135
In Praise of Drusus 136
To Augustus 139
To Apollo 141
To Torquatus 143
To Censorinus . 144
To Lollius 145
iX
XX CONTENTS
X. To Ligurinus 147
XI. To Phyllis 148
XII. To Virgil 150
XIII. To Lyce 151
XIV. In Praise of the Neros 152
XV. In Praise of Augustus 154
The Secular Hymn 159
• • • •••••■••»•••
BOOK ONE
I
To Maecenas
MAECENAS, sprung from forbears who were kings,
Both pride and prop to which my fortune clings,
Some like to see Olympic dust uproll
When smoking axles deftly graze the goal,
While victor car and palm of noble worth
Exalt among the gods the lords of earth.
This joys if the Quirites' fickle crowd
Promote his rule to triple honors proud,
That takes delight if in his barn he store
The product of the Lybian threshing floor.
Who loves to hoe his small ancestral field,
Not all the wealth an Attalus could yield
Can tempt the sailor's fearful life to brave,
And shear with Cyprian prow the Myrtoan wave.
The trader, dreading rough Icarian seas
Lashed by the West, extols his rural ease
And village calm, but soon, as ill he bears
His straitened means, his shattered ships repairs.
Some crave old Massic's rare convivial powers
And blocks of leisure cut from business hours,
Stretched now where arbutes green their shadows fling,
Now near some hallowed river's bubbling spring.
Some love the mingled horns' and trumpets' bray,
The duties of the camp, and battled fray
Abhorred by mothers. 'Neath Jove's nipping skies,
Heedless of gentle wife, the huntsman hies
Where'er his trusty hounds the deer beset,
Or Marsian boar bursts thro' the twisted net.
Me ivy, the reward of cultured brows,
4 \/tHE ODES OF HORACE
,♦ Makes peer of gods above; me cool, thick boughs
'Arid lissom Nymphs wifh, Satyrs dancing free
Distinguish from the vulgar, if for me
Euterpe deign to breathe upon her flute,
And Polyhymnia thrill her Lesbian lute.
If ranked by thee mid lyric bards I tread,
Then will I strike the stars wfth lofty head.
BOOK ONE 5
II
To Augustus Caesar
AT length enough of direful hail and snow
The Sire has sent and, hurling lightnings down
With red right hand 'gainst Sacred Heights below,
Has terrified the Town,
Yea, terrified the nations, filled with dread
Lest Pyrrha's time return with portents strange,
When Proteus all his herd of seals upled
On mountain peaks to range,
And fish were caught in elm limbs' topmost height,
Where erst the doves were wont to build their home,
While here and there hinds swam in sore affright
Across the swelling foam.
We saw the yellow Tiber, strongly rolled
Back from the Etruscan shore in turbid sheets,
Upsurge to flood the King's Memorial old
And Vesta's templed seats,
Bragging too stoutly that he would redress
Lorn Ilia and, tho' Jove withheld his nod,
Presuming past his leftward bank to press,
Uxorious river god.
Our youth, their number thinned by parent stain,
Shall hear of Romans whetting well the knife
By which dread Persians better had been slain,
Shall hear of civil strife.
What god to buttress our declining realm
Shall we implore? With what fond prayer shall throngs
Of holy virgins Vesta's ear o'erwhelm,
Regardless of their songs?
THE ODES OF HORACE
To whom shall Jupiter assign the task
Of freeing us from guilt? With shoulders clear
Mantled in cloud, O come at length, we ask,
Apollo, prescient seer;
Or, laughing Erycina, if thou will,
Around whom always hover Mirth and Love;
Or, if thy slighted sons thou pity still,
Our Founder, from above,
Cloyed with thy game, too long, alas! pursued,
Pleased with the polished helms, the battle shout,
And scowl of Marsian foot, their charge renewed
The bloody foe to rout;
Or if in altered semblance, flitting free
To earth, benignant Maia's winged child,
Thou bear the guise of youth and deign to be
Caesar's avenger styled:
Late to the skies be thy return deferred,
Long with Quirinus' folk be pleased to dwell,
Nor, by our heinous sins to anger stirred,
By any whirlwind fell
Be banished. Here be mighty triumphs paid,
Here be both Sire and Prince for our relief,
Nor let the foraying Medes unpunished raid
While, Caesar, thou art chief.
BOOK ONE
III
To the Ship in which Virgil Embarked
SO may the Cyprian queen of might,
So Helen's brethren, stars of lucid light,
And, too, the father of the gales —
All save Iapyx pent within their pales —
Guide thee, O ship, who owest me
Virgil, to thee intrusted; hear my plea
And safely to the Attic shore
Consign the idol of my bosom's core.
With triple bronze and rugged oak
His breast was fortified, who dared provoke
Wild ocean with the first frail bark,
Nor feared mad Africus with Boreas dark
At strife, nor tristful Hyades,
Nor Notus raging o'er the darkling seas,
The mightiest lord of Hadria's tide,
Whether he bid it roughen or subside.
What form of death could chill his blood
Who viewed the wallowing monsters of the flood,
Who kenned, dry-eyed, the rocking deep,
And (hated cliffs!) the Acroceraunian steep?
In vain has God so wisely planned
By ocean's waste to sever land from land,
If, mauger this, men yet will brave,
In ships profane, the inviolable wave.
Rashly desirous all to win,
The human race ramps thro' forbidden sin;
Rashly Iapetus' bold son
By guilty craft heaven's fire for mortals won.
THE ODES OF HORACE
When from the ethereal pole the flame
Was filched, Decay and hosts of Fevers came
And brooded on earth's sickening face,
Till fateful Death his former laggard pace
Gave o'er, and strode with foot more fleet
Next Daedalus the empty air durst beat
With wings denied to man: the toil
Of Hercules gave Acheron the foil.
Before no task mankind will quail;
High heaven itself in folly we assail,
Nor will our sacrileges dire
Let Jove lay down the thunders of his ire.
BOOK ONE 9
IV
To Sestius
STERN winter gives way to blithe springtide and zephyr,
Dry keels are rolled down to the shore,
The hind leaves the hearth, from the stall comes the heifer,
Meads glisten with hoarfrost no more.
Lo, now, Cytherea by moonshine trips lightly
With Graces and Nymphs on the green,
Their merry feet wink, heavy forges glow brightly
When Vulcan with Cyclops is seen.
Our sleek brows now bind we with green myrtle fillet,
Or flowerets that burst from the plain;
To Faun now a lamb, or a kid, if he will it,
His own bosky grove shall see slain.
Pale Death knocks alike at the cot of the peasant
And halls of the wealthy. My friend,
The brief span of life bids us trust but the present;
Rich Sestius, in night must thou wend,
Mid shadowy Manes, to Pluto's drear dwelling,
No more to preside at the board,
No more to see Lycidas, fair beyond telling,
By youths and by maidens adored.
10 THE ODES OF HORACE
V
To Pyrrha
w
HAT stripling boy, with fragrant dews besprent,
Clasps thee mid many a rose in pleasant grot?
For whom, O Pyrrha, art thou bent
Thy yellow tresses now to knot
In studied artlessness? How oft, alack 1
Will he deplore changed faith and gods untrue,
And, while downswoop the tempests black,
The roughened seas appalled will view,
Who now, bewitched beneath thy golden spell,
Hopes thee for aye his own, lovely for aye,
Unweeting of the stormwind fell
So soon to blow I Most wretched they
Who trust, unproved, thy dazzling loveliness!
/ know; yon sacred wall my picture keeps
In witness that my brine-soaked dress
Is vowed to Him who rules the deeps.
BOOK ONE 11
VI
To Agrippa
LET Varius, songster of Maeonian feather,
-/ Proclaim thy prowess and the foes' eclipse
Achieved by warriors 'neath thy guidance, whether
With cavalry or ships.
I cannot sing, Agrippa, of thy daring,
Of pitiless Pelides' quenchless wrath,
Pelops' grim house, or shrewd Ulysses faring
O'er ocean's devious path.
Too slight for massive themes, my modest phrases
And Muse that thrills the peaceful lyre decree
That my dull wit dim not the lofty praises
Of Caesar and of thee.
For who of Mars in adamant hauberk striding,
Or Merion grimed with dust of Trojan plain,
Or Diomed, match for gods thro* Pallas' guiding,
Can sing in worthy strain?
I, whether fancy-free or passion-laden,
In lightsome mood, as is my wont, must sing
The harmless quarrel of the youth and maiden,
The banquet's mirthful ring.
12 THE ODES OF HORACE
VII
To Plancus
LET others sing of Ephesus or Mytilene's lure,
-/ Famed Rhodes, or walls of Corinth 'twixt two seas,
Or Bacchic Thebes, or Delphi where Apollo's word is sure,
Or Tempe shady with Thessalian trees.
There are whose only task it is to rhapsodize the town
Of virgin Pallas with an epic song,
And thus with olive garnered far and wide their brows they
crown;
In Juno's honor many yet will long
To sing horse-pasturing Argos and Mycenae rich in gold.
Me sturdy Sparta not so much imprest,
Nor yet Larissa's fruitful glebe my fancy so could hold,
As deep Albunea's cave where never rest
The echoes, tumbling Anio's stream, and old Tiburnus'
wood
And orchards watered by meandering rills.
As Notus often clears the sky, when clouds the welkin hood,
Nor sluicy rains incessantly distills,
So, Plancus, soothed with mellow wine, strive wisely to
forget
The sorrows and the weary toils of life,
And this, too, whether Tibur's umbrose woodlands hold thee
yet,
Or, bright with ensigns gay, the camp of strife.
Thus Teucer, when from Salamis and from his sire he fled,
Despite his grief, his temples bathed with wine,
Then, as a wreath of poplar leaves he wove about his head,
His downcast friends bespoke in words benign:
BOOK ONE 13
"Wherever Fortune, kinder than my father, bids us fare,
O comrades and allies, we now shall go;
Despair not under Teucer's guidance, under Teucer's care,
For Phoebus gives his promise there shall grow
"In other lands a Salamis to bear the name anew.
Brave men, who oft with me have dared sustain
Severer ills than this, quaff wine and cease your toils to rue;
Tomorrow we resail the boundless main."
14 THE ODES OF HORACE
VIII
To Lydia
LYDIA, tell me, I implore thee
j By all gods, why wilt thou so young Sybaris unman?
Why, since low in love before thee,
Hates he sunny Field, tho' well inured to dust and tan?
Why no more with martial bearing,
Mounted on his Gallic charger, rides he with his friends,
Rein and galling bit not sparing?
Why in yellow Tiber swims no longer? For what ends
Shuns he now the oil as duly
As 'twere blood of vipers? Why no more does he appear —
Arms with contests glowing bluely —
Often victor with the discus, often with the spear?
Wherefore skulks he as, says story,
Skulked the son of sea-born Thetis ere Troy's tearful doom,
Lest his manly garb mid gory
Slaughter and mid Lycian squadrons speed him to his tomb?
BOOK ONE 15
IX
To Thaliarchus
SEE how Soracte's jutting crown
Looms white and deep with drifted snow;
Ice sags the laboring forests down;
Keen frost arrests the rivers' flow.
Heap high the hearth with logs to bar
The coldness out and, Thaliarch, pour
From out the twy-eared Sabine jar
The mellower wine of seasons four.
Leave all with God: tho' first he lash
The yeasty seas with battling shock,
He lays his winds, and aged ash
And cypress tree no longer rock.
Seek not to-morrow's hap to learn,
Each shift of fortune count for gain,
And, while a youngster, neither spurn
Nor sweets of love nor choral train
While hoary Age with testy air
Shuns thy green youth: in park and bower
With whispered words accost the fair
By twilight at the trysting hour;
Espy, concealed in secret nook,
The laughing maiden, nearly missed,
Who yields, while feigning angry look,
The forfeit snatched from hand or wrist.
16 THE ODES OF HORACE
X
To Mercury
MERCURY, Atlas' grandchild suave of tongue,
Whose forewit could primeval men reclaim
From savagery by speech, by graces wrung
From gymnasts' wrestling game;
Herald of mighty Jove and his compeers,
Thee, father of the curving lyre, I hymn,
Clever to hide thy thefts, with pranksome leers,
Whenever comes the whim.
Thee, yet a boy, while chiding for the sleight
By which his lifted beeves he needs must rue,
Apollo laughed at in his own despite —
His quiver pilfered, tool
So, led by thee, and 'neath a ransom bowed,
Priam his stealthy steps from I lion bent,
And passed Thessalian fires, the Atridae proud,
And every hostile tent.
Thy duty 'tis with pious souls to ply
To blissful seats and guide with golden wand
Light phantoms, thou of whom both gods on high
And gods below are fond.
BOOK ONE 17
XI
To Leuconoe
INQUIRE thou not — 'twere sin to ask — what days to
thee and me
The gods will give, nor search Chaldaic lore, Leuconoe,
Tis better, whatsoe'er may come, with patience to abide
If Jove ordain more winters yet, or this our last betide
That shivers now the Tyrrhene sea against the wave-
carved ledge.
Learn wisdom, strain thy liquors, and, since life holds naught
in pledge,
Repress far-reaching hopes: e'en while we speak, time
flits apace
On envious wings; clutch fast to-day nor give the future
grace.
18 THE ODES OF HORACE
XII
In Praise of Augustus
WHAT man, what hero, on thy vocal lute
Or shrilling pipe, O Clio, wilt thou praise?
What god? Whose name shall sportive echo bruit
Amid the wooded ways
That skirt umbrageous Helicon, or where
Soars Pindus' peak or Haemus' frigid crest,
Whence groves were urged confusedly to fare
At tuneful Orpheus' hest,
Who, tutored by his mother, learned to stay
The streams' swift currents and the breezes strong,
And, conquering by his strings' melodious sway,
Drew listening oaks along?
Who but the Parent first demands my strain,
Who governs gods above and men below,
Who rules the skies, the earth, and heaving main,
As seasons ebb and flow?
Naught greater than himself from him has birth,
Nor like him, nor that holds a second place;
Yet dignities possessing neighbor worth
The brows of Pallas grace,
Dauntless in battle; nor may I withhold
From Liber praise, nor, Virgin, thee, whose craft
Slays savage beasts, nor thee, O Phoebus, bold
With thine unerring shaft.
Alcides, next, and Leda's twins 'tis mine
To sing; this reins the steed, that featly spars:
But when on seamen thro' the vapors shine
Their lambent-twinkling stars,
BOOK ONE 19
Down from the rocks the storm-tost water flows,
The clouds disperse, and whist is every breeze,
While, such Their will, the threatening waves repose
Upon the untroubled seas.
Shall Romulus or Numa's peaceful time,
Of mortal subjects, first command my breath?
Shall Tarquin's glorious fasces ask my rime,
Or Cato's noble death?
Fain in emblazoning verse would I make known
Fabricius, Regulus, the Scauri's fame,
And Paulus, he whose high-souled conduct shone
When Carthage overcame.
Stern poverty, a small ancestral field,
And humble cottage hardened to the shocks
Of war Camillus, yea, and Curius steeled,
Stanch with his shaggy locks.
Marcellus' glory, tree-like, thro' the years
Grows imperceptibly; mid all shines bright
The star of Julius, as the moon appears
Mid lesser fires of night.
Guardian and Sire to whom mankind must bow,
O Saturn's son, the Destinies decree
Great Caesar to thy care; supreme reign thou
With Caesar next to thee.
Whether 'gainst Medes that menace Rome he pour
His armies till the foe for mercy sue,
Whether the Seres of the Eastern shore
And Indians he subdue,
Thy regent, he shall justly rule the world:
Thine 'tis to shake high heaven with ponderous car,
Thine to blast guilty groves with lightnings hurled
In anger from afar.
20 THE ODES OF HORACE
XIII
To Lydia
WHEN thou, O Lydia, sing'st the charms
Of Telephus' pink neck, the waxen arms
Of Telephus, oh fie! my soul
With jealous spleen is goaded past control.
Strong flaws of passion rack my mind,
My fleeting color leaves no trace behind,
My cheeks, distained with furtive tears,
Prove how the secret fire my vitals sears.
I blaze with wrath when made to know
His drunken brawling mars thy shoulders' snow,
Or that, to frenzy as he slips,
His teeth leave telltale marks upon thy lips.
Nay, hearken, thou wilt surely lose
His faithless love who roughly dares to bruise
Those dulcet lips, by Venus stained
With quintessential nectar she has strained.
O trebly happy they and more
Whom ties unbroken hold, who ne'er deplore
Domestic strife and jarring fray,
But love till parted by the final day I
o
BOOK ONE 21
XIV
To the Ship of State
SHIP, new waves upon the open main
Again will sweep thee! Whither drivest thou?
The harbor stoutly strive to gain;
Thy bulwarks, seel are naked now
Of oars, swift Africus thy mast has sprung,
Thy rigging hangs in shreds, thy yard-arms creak,
Thy hull, the imperious seas among,
To bide the stress is all too weak;
Thine every sail is rent, no gods are thine
To call upon when storms are ill withstood.
Tho' builded well of Pontic pine —
The daughter of a noble wood —
The magic of thy name and race to court
Were vain, for cautious sailors never dare
To trust their gaudy sterns: the sport
Of winds lest thou wouldst be, beware!
Thou art my fond desire, my foremost pride,
Tho* once distrust usurped the place of these.
Forbear to navigate the tide
That laves the gleaming Cyclades.
22 THE ODES OF HORACE
XV
The Prophecy of Nereus
WHEN the false swain was bearing o'er the ocean
His hostess Helen in the Idean fleet,
An hateful calm lulled rapid winds from motion
That Nereus might repeat
His dreadful prophecies. "With luckless omen
Thou lead'st her home. Mark serried Greece elate!
See thy wrecked nuptials when the leaguing foemen
Rend Priams ancient state 1
"Alas I what sweating steeds! what warriors' clangor 1
What balefires threat the Dardan race from far!
Lo! Pallas takes her aegis and her anger,
Her helmet and her car.
" Twere vain, tho' brave while Venus* help is present,
To comb thy curls and wake the unwarlike shell
With madrigals that women find so pleasant;
Twere vain in bower to dwell
"And hide from heavy spears, light Cnossian lances,
Swift-footed Ajax, and war's clamor wild.
Thy guilty locks — alas, the day advances! —
Shall soon be dust-defiled.
"See Laertiades, who hates thy nation,
And Pylian Nestor see; to urge thy flight
Bold Salaminian Teucer takes his station,
And Sthenelus, skilled in fight,
"Adept at need with car and coursers, hurries;
Thou shalt know Merion; greater than his sire,
Cruel Tydides, searching for thee, scurries
With battle lust on fire,
BOOK ONE 23
"Whom, as the hart, his pasturage forsaking,
Flees when a wolf within the glade has stept,
Thou, coward-like, shalt flee, all breathless, quaking —
Boasts to thy love unkept.
" Achilles' wrathful fleet may stay disaster
A space from Phrygia's dames and I lion's domes;
Few winters yet and Danaan fires shall master
The Pergamean homes."
24 THE ODES OF HORACE
XVI
A Palinode
O FAIRER than thy mother fair,
Let naught my scurril epodes save;
Either to burn them be thy care,
Or cast them in the Hadrian wave.
Not he whose Pythian priestess pants,
Or Dindymene mazes so,
Not Liber thus, or Corybants,
Who clash shrill cymbals blow on blow,
As gusts of anger: Noric brand,
Nor cruel fire, nor wrecking seas,
Nor Jove himself with thundering hand
Descending, e'er suppresses these.
Prometheus for our primal clay
Some trait from every creature drew,
And hence, 'tis said, the madding sway
Of lions in our bosoms grew.
Twas anger struck Thyestes down
With frightful doom; such, too, the source
Of wrack to many a lofty town
Whose haughty enemy could force
The hostile plowshare thro* their walls.
Calm, then, thy mind; my frenzied fire
Of restive youth both frequent brawls
And swift iambics could inspire.
More cordially I now would act;
Wrath shall supplant good will no more;
My biting insults I retract —
So be my friend, thy love restore.
BOOK ONE 25
XVII
To Tyndaris
SWIFT from Lycaeus Faun retreats
On fair Lucretilis to stray,
And from my goats the summer heats
And rainy winds he drives away.
These partners of a fetid spouse
Thro' arbute grove and thymy brake
May roam at large and safely browse;
My kidlets fear nor virid snake
Nor wolves of Mars, my Tyndaris,
When Faun his tuneful syrinx sounds
Until from vale and precipice
Ustica's echoed strain rebounds.
God loves my muse and blameless life,
God shields me well; here Plenty pours
From brimming horn, with bounties rife,
For thee her most abundant stores.
Shun Sirian heats in questered dale
And carol to the Teian chord
Penelope and Circe frail,
Both lovelorn for the selfsame lord.
Here 'neath my arbor's shade with me
Mild cups of Lesbian shalt thou drink;
Thyoneus, son of Semele,
And Mars shall harm us not; ne'er shrink
Lest Cyrus, under jealous stress,
With hands profane should rudely dare
Maltreat thy weakness, rend thy dress,
And strip the crownal from thy hair.
26 THE ODES OF HORACE
XVIII
To Varus
NO tree before the sacred vine to thee for planting calls,
Either in Tibur's mellow loam or near Catillus' walls,
O Varus; sad the life of them whom God denies its use,
Whose biting sorrows never fled before the genial juice.
Who harps on poverty or hard campaigns when warm with
wine?
Who sings not thee, then, Venus fair, thee, Bacchus, sire
benign?
Yet, lest abuses come when temperate Liber's gifts are rife,
The Centaurs warn us in their cups with Lapithae at strife,
And warn us, too, the Sithoni, whom Evius oft embroils
When, muddling right and wrong, they lie enmeshed in
lustful toils.
O youthful Bassareus, I rouse thee not against thy will,
Nor drag to light thy mysteries with pied leaves hidden still;
Hush thou the savage kettledrum and Berecyntian horn,
Behind which, holding far too high her empty head, trails
Scorn,
And Selfishness, with blinded eyes, and, ever prompt to
fleer
At keeping secrets, Faithlessness, her wiles than glass more
clear.
BOOK ONE 27
XIX
The Beauty of Glycera
THE son of Theban Semele,
The ruthless mother of the Loves, and she
Called frolic Wantonness, implore
My heart to seek forgotten flames once more.
I burn for Glycera, beauteous lass,
Whose dazzling charms the Parian stone surpass,
I burn to see each saucy grace,
The gramarye of that too-seductive face.
Venus o'erwhelms me with her might,
Quits Cyprus, and forbids me sing the fight
By Parthians waged from flying steeds,
The Scythian troops, or aught but lovers* deeds.
Here bring live turf, fresh greenery here,
Burn incense, boys, and wine of yesteryear,
Spilled from the basin, earth shall stain:
In kindlier mood she comes, a victim slain.
28 THE ODES OF HORACE
XX
To Maecenas
CHEAP Sabine, served in common mugs, my board
Dispenses, wine that by myself was sealed
In Grecian jar, what time the theater roared
And with such shouting pealed,
Dear knight Maecenas, that thy plaudits rung
From thy paternal river's banks, and then
Mount Vatican's vivacious echo flung
Thy praises back again.
Caecubum's vat for thee its must distills,
For thee the lush Calenian grape is prest,
But nor Falernian vines nor Formian hills
Add to my cups their zest.
BOOK ONE 29
XXI
The Praises of Latona and her Children
Y
E tender virgins, sing Diana chaste,
Ye boys, sing Cynthius with his unshorn hair,
And dark Latona, highly graced
In mighty Jove's most loving care.
Extol her, maids, who loves the groves that loom,
The brooks that purl, where Algidus stands chill,
Where Erymanthian forests gloom,
And Cragus lifts its greener hill.
Ye males, laud Tempe with an equal lay,
And Delos, as Apollo's birthplace known,
And shoulder, decked with quiver gay
And lute his brother used to own.
He tearful war, he plague and famine gaunt
Shall drive from Caesar and the Commonweal,
The Britons and the Medes to haunt,
Moved by your suppliant appeal.
30 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXII
To Fuscus
THE man of upright life and conduct clean
Needs neither Moorish javelin nor bow,
Nor quiver, Fuscus, stuffed with arrows keen
Whose tips with poison flow,
Across the sultry Syrtes tho' he fare,
Or thro' those distant lands where slowly wends
Hydaspes' stream, in story famed, or where
Bleak Caucasus ascends.
For, singing Lalage, as late I led
My truant footsteps thro' the Sabine wood,
Devoid of care, I met a wolf that fled,
Unarmed altho' I stood;
A monster such as never yet appeared
Where warlike Daunia's oak woods wide expand,
Nor such the nurse of lions yet has reared —
King Juba's arid land.
Tho' I be placed among those barren plains
Where summer airs awake no tree to life,
That quarter of the world where winter reigns,
And fog and sleet are rife;
Tho' I be placed in houseless climes that burn,
Where day's bright chariot glows with tropic heat,
Yet ever I for Lalage will yearn,
Sweet smiling, prattling sweet.
BOOK ONE 31
XXIII
To Chloe
THOU shun'st me, Chloe, like a tender fawn
That seeks o'er pathless hills the timid doe,
To visionary terrors drawn
If thickets gloom or zephyrs blow.
Whether the advent of the spring awake
The leaves' susurrus, or green lizards start
A rustling in the brambly brake,
She trembles in her knees and heart.
Yet am I no Gaetulian lion wild,
No tiger fierce that seeks to crush thy charms;
Thy mother leave, no more a child,
And bless a husband's longing arms.
32 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXIV
To Virgil
WHY feel ashamed because of boundless sorrow
For loss of one so dear? Melpomene,
Blest by the Sire with song and lute, I borrow
A mournful strain from thee.
Quintilius rests in everlasting slumber!
Can Modesty and Truth unfettered, then,
And stainless Honor, Justice* sister, number
His peer on earth again?
He died and many worthy men lament him;
Than thou, O Virgil, none laments him more.
Ah, vain the thought that Heaven, who merely lent him,
Quintilius will restore!
Tho' sweeter tones thy lyre give forth, when stricken,
Than Thracian Orpheus' listening forests knew,
Fresh life the hollow shade will never quicken
Mid the dim spectral crew
Once Mercury extends, to prayers unheedful,
His awesome rod and all return denies.
Hard this; but in endurance of the needful
Our surest comfort lies.
BOOK ONE 33
XXV
To Lydia
LESS oft with frequent blows loud youngsters shake
d Thy casement shutters than in days of yore;
Few from thy slumbers call thee to awake;
Thy threshold binds the door
That freely once upon its hinges swung;
Now less and less thou hearest lover weep:
"While thro' the livelong night my heart is wrung,
Ah, Lydia, wilt thou sleep?"
In turn shalt thou, a slighted hag, bewail
That roistering rakes avoid thine alley lone,
While thro' the moonless night the Thracian gale
Makes bacchanalian moan,
While raging lust and passion's stinging smart,
Like those that make the dams of stallions burn,
Shall glow like fire about thy cankered heart,
And sadly shalt thou learn
That gamesome youth with ecstasy perceives
Green ivy and the dusky myrtle blend,
But dedicates the sear and withered leaves
To Eurus, winter's friend.
34 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXVI
In Praise of Lamia
THE Muse befriends me: gloom and care,
Be buried by the tempests' roar
In Cretic seas; beneath the Bear
What monarch rules the frozen shore,
Or wherefore Tiridates cowers,
I little reck. Pimplea sweet,
Nymph of pure springs, weave sunny flowers
For Lamia, weave him garlands neat.
I cannot waft his praise abroad
Without thee. Him with new-learned strain,
Him with the Lesbian quill to laud,
Befits thee and thy sister train.
BOOK ONE 35
XXVII
To my Companions
TO fight with tankards wrought for glee
Is Thracian coarseness; be restrained
Brute mirth, lest blushing Bacchus see
His rites by bloody brawls profaned.
The Median dirk with lamps and wine
Is dissonantly out of place;
On cushioned elbows, friends, recline,
And banish riot low and base.
Shall I with you Falernian drain
In heady drafts? Then let us know,
Megylla's brother, art thou slain?
Whose dart drove home the happy blow?
What, silent? Speak; I drink not else.
Whatever mistress rules thy heart,
No vulgar fire thy bosom melts;
Some gentle love inflicts the smart.
Whate'er thy lot, come, name the girl
In trusty ears. — Alas, for shame!
What, trapped in that Charybdis' swirl,
Youth, worthy of a better flame?
What wizard with Thessalian drench,
That witch, what god can blast her charms?
Thee scarcely Pegasus could wrench
From this three-formed Chimera's harms.
36 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXVIII
Archytas
THE earth, the ocean, and the countless sands that strew
its shore,
Archytas, thou couldst measure in thy skill;
Matinum's beach with scanty dust now sees thee covered
o'er,
And nothing steads it thee that 'twas thy will,
Doomed as thou wert to die, the blest abodes to scale in
thought,
Or thro' the curving vault of heaven to fly,
For Pelops' father, though the guest of gods, to death was
brought,
Tithonus, too, was wafted to the sky,
Minos, Jove's confidant, is gone, while Tartarus enthralls
The son of Panthus, back to Hades sent,
Who proved, by taking down his target from the temple
walls,
That back to Trojan times his memory went,
And that to gloomy death he yielded up but thews and skin ;
He, thinkest thou, a student deeply versed
In nature's lore. One common night each several soul will
win,
And all must tread the road of death accurst.
The Furies some devote to Mars, a sight to glut his rage,
Devouring seas the mariner entomb,
The funeral trains congested stand and youth crowds hard
on age,
Grim Proserpine exempts no soul from doom.
Me, too, oblique Orion's mate, swift-whirling Notus, low
Beneath Illyrian waves in death has sped:
BOOK ONE 37
But, sailor, grudge thou not a fleck of shifting sand to throw
Upon my naked bones and weltering head.
So shall it hap when Eurus churns the rough Hesperian
wave,
Venusian woods before the blast shall reel
While thou shalt snugly lie; for thee a rich reward I crave,
Come from what port it may, and may thy keel
Be loved of Jove and Neptune, lord of blest Tarentum's
height.
Wilt thou, then, venture to commit a wrong
Which may hereafter to thy guiltless children bring its
blight?
Perhaps due justice and requital strong
Await thyself. Abandoned now, for vengeance I shall pray;
Naught from my curses shall avert their force;
Give heed, whate'er thine urgence, for I ask no long delay;
Thrice scatter sand, then lask along thy course.
38 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXIX
To Iccius
SINCE, Iccius, Arab wealth has held
Thy fancy, wouldst thou fight indeed
Sabaean kings, as yet unquelled,
And bind with chains the frightful Mede?
Who of the fair barbarian girls,
Her lover slain, will be thy thrall?
What page from court with scented curls
Wilt thou to bear thy cup install —
A youth who from his fathers bow
Shoots Seric shafts? Who now denies
That Tiber's flood may backward flow,
Back to their hills that streams may rise,
Since thou Panaetius* tomes wilt trade,
Ay, and the whole Socratic school,
For steely corselets Spanish-made?
I thought thy brain knew wiser rule!
BOOK ONE 39
XXX
To Venus
O VENUS, queen of Paphos and of Cnide,
Quit Cyprus dear and seek the temple fair
Of Glycera, who calls thee to her side
With clouds of incense rare.
May Nymphs and glowing Cupid with thee wend,
Let loosely-girdled Graces hither throng,
Bring Youth, who lacking thee no joy can lend,
And Mercury along.
40 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXXI
My Prayer to Apollo
WHAT from enshrined Apollo may
His poet ask? For what, while drops
Wine from his chalice, shall he pray?
Not blest Sardinia's teeming crops,
Nor parched Calabria's goodly kine,
Not Indian ivory and gold,
Nor meads where Liris' still streams twine
And silently wear down the mold.
Let Cales' favored sons produce
The grape, that some rich lord of trade
May drain from golden cups the juice
For which his Syrian wares have paid —
The gods' own charge, since more than thrice
He yearly sails the Atlantic seas
Unscathed: me olives will suffice,
Me endive and light mallows please.
Grant me, I pray, Latona's son,
A mind undimmed, a healthy frame,
Contentment with possessions won,
A tuneful age, and spotless name.
BOOK ONE 41
XXXII
To my Lyre
THEY call me. If I idly 'neath the shade
With thee trolled strains to live the whole year long,
Yea, all the years, come, be my touch obeyed,
And yield a Latian song,
Thou lyre whom erst the Lesbian patriot knew,
Who, bold in war, yet when the fight waxed sore,
Or when his storm-tost ship he safely drew
Upon the spray-drenched shore,
Still sang of Liber and the Muses fair,
Of Venus with her fondly-clinging child,
And Lycus handsome with his jetty hair
And jetty glances mild.
O ornament of Phoebus, pleasing shell,
Whene'er I duly hail thee, be thou near,
For, loved at Jove's high feast, thy soothing swell
Bids sorrow disappear.
42 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXXIII
To Albius Tibullus
ALBIUS, grieve not too much tho' thou discover
That Glycera is false, nor breathe thy sighs
In elegies because some younger lover
Outshines thee in her eyes.
For fair low-browed Lycoris glows with passion
For Cyrus: Cyrus fondly seeks in turn
Harsh Pholoe; but roes in monstrous fashion
For Daunian wolves shall yearn
Ere Pholoe shall yield to rakish suitor:
So Venus wills, who sets her brazen yoke
On forms and minds ill-matched, and loves to tutor
Her thralls with some grim joke.
And I? The love a worthier mistress urges
Gives way to Myrtale's dear fettering band;
A freedgirl she more wild than Hadrian surges
That gnaw Calabria's strand.
BOOK ONE 43
XXXIV
My Renunciation of False Philosophy
SCANT homage to the gods I gave
While senseless sapience was my creed;
Now back I sail across the wave
And of my former course take heed.
For tho' full often Father Jove
Rives clouds with flashing bolts from far,
Just now athwart the blue he drove
His thundering steeds and rapid car.
The stable land, the gliding streams,
Styx, Atlas, earth's extremest bound,
And hated Taenarus' grisly seams,
Still shudder at the fearsome sound.
God lifts the low, casts down the high,
Abases pride, makes rich the poor;
Oft Fate on whirring vans will fly,
Depose the king, and crown the boor.
44 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXXV
To Fortune
O GODDESS, queen of Antium fair,
Strong to exalt from low estate
Our mortal clay, and prompt to bear
Funereal gloom mid triumphs great;
The needy hind his anxious vow
Prefers to thee, to thee they kneel
As ocean's mistress, they who plow
Carpathian waves with Thynian keel.
Thee Dacians rude, fleet Scythian bands,
Towns, tribes, and martial Rome obey,
Mothers of kings of Eastern lands
And purple despots own thy sway,
Lest with thy foot in wanton might
The standing pillar thou o'erwhelm,
Lest mobs urge on each laggard wight
To arms, to arms, and sink the realm.
Before thee walks with sullen tread
Necessity, whose brazen grasp
Holds wedge and spikes, while molten lead
Is wanting not, nor rigid hasp.
Rare Faith, in shining raiment clothed,
And Hope love thee, and fondly cleave
Tho' thou enraged, in vestments loathed,
Of stately dwellings take thy leave.
But veering herd and perjured trull
Sneak back; when with its lees each jar
Is emptied, friendship's oaths are null
As false companions scatter far.
BOOK ONE 45
Guard Caesar, who will soon have steered
For Britain, at the globe's far rim,
And guard our youthful levies, feared
In Red sea lands and Orient dim.
Alas, the shame of civil strife,
Its scars, its crimes! Our hardened age
What vice avoids? Our impious life
Leaves what unsullied? Does our rage
Fear gods themselves no more? What fane
Is spared? On anvil forge anew
Our blunted sword whose lethal bane
Arab and Massagete may rue.
46 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXXVI
The Return of Numida
WHILE votive bullocks bleed 'tis ours
To appease with spice and lutes the guardian powers
Of Numida, who, now at hand
In safety from Hesperia's distant strand,
Brings store of kisses to his host
Of cherished friends but gives loved Lamia most,
Because with him in schoolboy days
He worked beneath the selfsame master's gaze,
And with him donned the manly gown.
With Cretan mark the festal day jot down,
Let generous pitchers freely flow,
No rest the foot from Salian dances know,
In Thracian bout with frequent draft
By Damalis be Battus not outquaft,
And on the board, by roses graced,
Be parsley green and short-lived lilies placed.
The swimming eyes of all will turn
To Damalis, but Damalis will yearn
For her new love, and to him cling
Closelier than wanton ivies oaks enring.
BOOK ONE 47
XXXVII
The Death of Cleopatra
NOW drain the genial bowl, my mates,
Now strike the earth with gyveless feet,
Now heap the couch with Salian cates
That gods may have their honors meet.
Ere this it were a crime to tap
The Caecuban our grandsires stored,
While yet the Queen intrigued to sap
The Capitol and with her horde
Subvert the empire. She among
Her base, vile pack hopes rashly held
By Fortune's sweets to madness stung:
But soon her ardor was dispelled
When scarce one ship the flames escaped,
And Caesar banished from her mind
Fears Mareotic wine had shaped,
But truer terrors left behind
When from our land each bending oar
He strained in hot pursuit — as hawk
Seeks doves or hunter skims the frore
Haemonian fields the hare to stalk —
To lead in chains that fatal pest.
Nobly to die she rather planned,
Cringed not at daggers, no, nor prest
In her swift prores to some far strand.
Her prostrate palaces she viewed
With gaze serene; the deadly asp,
Until her body was imbued
With venom black, she dared to grasp
48 THE ODES OF HORACE
More boldly, now on death intent.
Unqueened, she scorned, a dame uncowed,
To be in grim Libumians sent
To deck a Roman triumph proud.
BOOK ONE 49
XXXVIII
To my Cupbearer
THIS Persian luxury, my boy, I hate,
Nor care for chaplets bound with linden bast;
Inquire not in what covert, blooming late,
The roses linger last.
To beautify plain myrtle never think,
I pray thee; meet are myrtles that we twine
For thee who servest and for me who drink
Beneath my close-pleached vine.
BOOK TWO
I
To Pollio
THE civil strife whose rising force
Dates from Metellus' consulship,
The war's mistakes, its plans, its source,
The sleights of Fortune, arms that drip
With blood unexpiated yet,
And chiefs colleagued — behold thy theme!
A parlous tasM Thy step is set
On slag that crusts the lava's gleam.
Thy Tragic Muse in solemn stole
May quit the stage awhile; first pen
Thine annals and then play thy role
In Cecrops' buskin once again,
Pollio, famed prop when senates weigh
Their counsels, when defendants sigh,
Thou leader whom Dalmatia's bay
Has dowered with fame that cannot die.
E'en now my ears are stunned by blast
Of strident horns, now clarions blare,
Now steeds with riders gallop past,
Both wildered by the weapons' glare.
Now of great chiefs I seem to learn,
With no inglorious dust imbrued,
The mighty earth and all in turn,
Save Cato's stDbborn soul, subdued.
54 THE ODES OF HORACE
Juno and Afric's friendly train,
Who weakly left unvenged its coast,
Have now the victors' grandsons slain
And pacified Jugurtha's ghost.
What plain, enriched with Latin gore,
But by its barrows well recalls
Curst frays that to Hesperia bore
A downfall heard in Medic halls?
Our wretched wars are rumored wide.
What river knows them not? what flood?
What sea has Daunian rage not dyed?
What shore is guiltless of our blood?
Pert Muse, sweet themes abandon not;
For thee no dirge of Ceos moans;
With me, beneath Dione's grot,
Attune thy lyre to lighter tones.
BOOK TWO 55
II
To Sallustius Crispus
SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS, foe to bullion dross
Unless thro' moderate use it win its sheen,
Silver, while buried in earth's sordid foss,
Is valueless and mean.
A lengthy span shall Proculeius live
For love paternal to his brethren shown;
To him shall Fame, stronged- winged and deathless, give
An honor his alone.
More wide thy sway, if avarice be supprest,
Than if each Carthage bowed beneath thy yoke,
And thine were Gades in the distant west
Added to Lybia's folk.
From self-indulgence direful dropsy spreads;
Thirst rages while the cause whence illness came
Flows thro' the veins, and watery languor sheds
A pallor o'er the frame.
Discernment differs from the rabble horde,
Bids mobs from fine misleading terms refrain,
Rules from the blest Phraates, tho' restored
To Cyrus' throne he reign;
Freely bestows the diadem, the bay,
And sovereignty on him and only him
Whose eye can look on treasure's vast display
And ne'er with greed grow dim.
56 THE ODES OF HORACE
III
To Dellius
IN trials bear a mind serene,
And when prosperity is nigh
Let no exultant pride be seen,
Since, Dellius, thou art doomed to die,
Tho' thou the time in sadness pass,
Tho' thou thro' happy days recline
In nook retired upon the grass
With jars of choice Falemian wine.
Why do tall pines and poplars white
Weave with their limbs a pleasing shade?
Why do pellucid streams take flight
In sinuous windings down the glade?
Send perfumes here, the vintage red,
And rose whose blossoms fade too soon,
While the Three Sisters' sable thread,
Fortune, and Youth permit the boon.
Thou soon must quit thy home, thy lands,
Thy villa yellow Tiber laves,
Quit these, and leave thine heir whose hands
Itch for the hoarded wealth he craves.
From ancient Inachus tho' born
And rich, tho' of the baser host,
Poor, shelterless, thou live forlorn —
Still ruthless Dis will claim thy ghost.
We all are mustered; soon or late
Our lots leap forth the shaken urn,
And Charon's boat conveys us straight
To exile whence is no return.
BOOK TWO 57
IV
To Xanthias
THAT passion for thy handmaid sways thee now
Blush not, O Phocian Xanthias. Long ago
The thrall Briseis with her snowy brow
Made proud Achilles glow.
Glowed Telamonian Ajax, forced to crave
Tecmessa's charms — the captive ruled her lord! —
Burned, too, Atrides for a maiden slave,
In triumph as he warred,
What time the thinned barbarian hosts were slain
By Phthia's victor chief, and Hector died,
Till Pergama, now easier to gain,
Fell to the Greeks well tried.
Mayhap thine auburn Phyllis' sire designs
For thee, his son, both riches and renown:
Her race is doubtless royal and she pines
Because her home-gods frown.
Thy mistress springs from no plebeian breed:
Such stock would ne'er beget — make no demurs I —
A maid so loyal and averse to greed;
No vulgar mother hers!
Her arms, her features, and her ankles trim,
I praise them heartwhole; have no jealous fears
Of one whose hurrying life has brought to him
Full tale of forty years.
58 THE ODES OF HORACE
V
To a Friend
NOT yet her subject neck may wear
The yoke, not yet may she fulfill
The duties of a mate, or bear
The amorous bull's impetuous will.
In verdant meads at will to graze
Absorbs thy heifer's tranquil mind,
The heat of summer she allays
In streams, and seeks her yearling kind
In willow copses wet. Ne'er yearn
For unripe grapes: with garish reign
Comes crimson autumn, soon to turn
Each darkening bunch to purpler stain.
Soon she will come; time's mad career
Draws years from thee to give to her;
Soon boldly, when she needs a fere,
For thee will Lalage bestir.
For her shalt thou more deeply pine
Than erst for bashful Pholoe,
Or Chloris, she whose shoulders shine
Like moonbeams on the nightly sea,
Or Cnidian Gyges — scarce is read
His sex when mid the bevied girls,
And strangers well may be misled
By blooming cheeks and flowing curls.
BOOK TWO 59
VI
To Septimius
SEPTIMIUS, who for love wouldst go with me
To Gades and where Cantabri rebel,
And cruel Syrtes where the Moorish sea
Seethes with its ceaseless swell;
May Tibur, by the Argive settler reared,
Become my home when near the close of life,
Become my refuge from the hardships feared TIT'
By sea, by land, by strife!
Whence, if the dour Fates bar me out betimes,
Meads by Galesus' stream will I invade,
Most sweet to skin-clad ewes, and those fair climes
Spartan Philanthus swayed.
That spot charms more than all the rest of earth;
No clearer honey can Hymettus yield,
No olive ever grew of goodlier worth
In green Venaf rum's field.
There Jove vouchsafes mild winters, lingering springs,
There, dear to fruitful Bacchus, Aulon shapes
The clusters fair, and feels no jealous stings
For sweet Falernian grapes.
That sunny nook, those heights that know no storm,
Call thee and me; there shalt thou, at the end,
Bedew with votive tears the ashes warm
Of me, thy poet-friend.
60 THE ODES OF HORACE
VII
To Pompey
OOFT with me in gravest plights
When Brutus led his hosts of yore,
Who now, restored to civic rights,
Recalls thee to thy native shore
And home-gods, Pompey, friend the best,
With whom with wine I used to fleet
The lagging days, my wreathed locks drest
With far Assyria's ointments sweet?
With thee in panic I forsook
Philippi, where, as recreant must,
I left my targe, while Valor shook
And warriors basely bit the dust.
Me in my terror Mercury swift
Wrapt in thick cloud and saved from foes;
Thee refluent tides again bade drift
Amid war's billows' boisterous blows.
Come, spread for Jove the banquet due;
Stretch out beneath my laurel tree
Those limbs with warfare wearied thro',
Nor spare the casks reserved for thee.
Since Massic every care dispels,
Fill burnished beakers to the brim,
Pour unguents from the generous shells;
From supple parsley, myrtle limb,
Quick, who will plait the wreaths? Whom, pray,
As lord of cups will Venus send?
Sweet is Edonian mirth: 'tis gay,
This tippling with a long-lost friend.
BOOK TWO 61
VIII
To Barine
BARINE, were thy charms one whit the less
In retribution for thy perjured truth,
Hadst thou one blemish to thy loveliness,
A blackened nail or tooth,
I might believe thee: but thy radiance rare
Draws glamour from thy violated word;
For thee alone, when tripping thro' the Square,
Our giddy youth are stirred.
It boots thee to invoke with lying breath
Thy mother's dust, the silent signs of night,
Yes, heaven's expanse, and gods whom gelid Death
Has never power to smite.
Laughs Venus' self, methinks, when this is known,
Laugh the good-natured Nymphs and, filled with ire,
Cupid who whets upon a gory stone
His arrows barbed with fire.
Then, last and worst 1 our growing manhood falls
Beneath thy lure; new slaves are growing, yet
The old quit not their impious mistress' halls,
Tho' oft they vainly threat.
Thee mothers for their hulking youngsters fear,
Thee thrifty sires, thee damsels wed but now,
In downright misery lest their husbands dear
Forsake for thee their vow.
62 THE ODES OF HORACE
IX
To Valgius
NOT always from the storm cloud falls
The shower upon the sodden plain,
Not ever rise the gusty squalls
To grapple with the Caspian main,
Friend Valgius, nor Armenia's shore
The twelvemonth thro' is stiff with frost,
Garganian oaks dread Boreas' roar
Not aye, nor ash weeps foliage lost.
But still the burden of thy teen
Is Mystes dead; thou art not done
When Vesper's rising ray is seen,
Or when he flees the circling sun.
He who saw three descents expire
Lived not thro' all his years forlorn
For loved Antilochus; his sire
And Phrygian sisters ceased to mourn
Young Troilus at last. Beshrew
Thy weak complainings I Sing we now
Augustus Caesar's trophies new,
Niphates stark, the folk that bow
Where old Euphrates' tides advance
Their humbled currents thro* the mead,
Gelonian tribes that tamely prance,
Nor dare their narrowed bounds exceed.
BOOK TWO 63
X
To Licinius
LICINIUS, that thy life be safelier led,
d Steer not too boldly for the open main,
Nor hug too closely treacherous shores, thro' dread
Of stormwinds' blatant reign.
What man soever loves the golden mean
Safely avoids a squalid, tottering cell,
Sanely avoids the proud palatial scene
Where Envy's minions dwell.
More oft it is the hugest pine that creaks
When winds are wild, with weightier ruin crash
The topless towers, and on the mountain peaks
Descends the levin flash.
The mind well schooled when days are bright will fear,
When days are dark will hope for, fortune's shift,
For Jove, who brings the wintry tempests drear,
Will likewise make them lift
And vanish. Tho' our lot be ill to-day,
It dures not ever: oft with harpings low
Apollo wakes the Muse, and not for aye
He bends his angry bow.
In times of stress approve thyself a man
Both brave and patient; but when spanking gales
Too freely blow around thee, wisely plan
To reef thy bellying sails.
64 THE ODES OF HORACE
XI
To Quindius Hirpinus
WHAT warlike Cantabri may plan,
And Scyths whom barrier seas repel,
Quinctius Hirpinus, prithee, ban
As vain alarms; no further dwell
On fleeting life whose needs are few.
Fresh youth and beauty backward creep
As sapless eld bids long adieu
To frolic loves and restful sleep.
The vernal flower that mildly beams
Must fade, the ruddy moon must wane;
Why then, unfit for endless schemes,
Wilt thou for naught fatigue thy brain?
Why drink we not, while time allows,
Stretched 'neath this pine or sycamore,
In careless guise, our grizzled brows
With Syrian nard besprinkled o'er
And wreathed with roses? Evius stills
Our carking cares. What slave of mine
Will temper from the wimpling rills
Our cups of brisk Falernian wine?
Come, who will coax from home that jade,
The tricksy Lyde? Bid her haste
With ivory lute, like Spartan maid,
Her hair with simple knot engraced.
BOOK TWO 65
XII
To Maecenas
NUMANTIA'S tedious wars, where hosts were pitted,
Stern Hannibal, and wide Sicilia's main
With Punic gore empurpled, are unfitted
For gentle lyric strain.
Fell Lapiths and Hylaeus drunk and bestial
Suit not my song, nor, by Alcides quelled,
The sons of Earth who shook the domes celestial
Of Saturn hoar with eld
From cope to base. Do thou, Maecenas, rather
Narrate our Caesar's wars in ordered prose,
And tell of streets where shackled monarchs gather,
Our late intrepid foes.
To me the Muse commends Licymnia's singing,
Thy lady's dulcet voice, and bids me praise
Her sparkling eyes and, from her heart upspringing,
Her faithful, loving ways.
None sprightlier show, no lighter foot advances
Mid choral bands, nor whiter arms entwine
With fair-garbed virgins in the festal dances
On Dian's day divine.
Wouldst take for one of dear Licymnia's tresses
The wealth of Mygdon, fertile Phrygia's king,
What coffered store Achaemenes possesses,
Or Araby can bring,
When yields the loved one to thy burning kisses,
Or when withholds her sweets, unkindly coy,
Yet hopes them rapt by force, or when the blisses
Snatches herself in joy?
66 THE ODES OF HORACE
XIII
To a Fallen Tree
ON luckless day he set thee out,
Whoe'er he was, O tree, and reared
With impious hand, to towns about
A shame to be in future feared.
That man, I think, by strangling sped
His father, and his hearth would stain
With midnight blood of guest abed:
All evil deeds, each Colchian bane,
Wherever known, were known to him
Who planted thee, disastrous bole,
Thee, in my croft, with toppling limb
To threat thy blameless master's poll.
What fate to flee from hour to hour
We know not: Punic seamen mark
The Bosporus where tempests lower,
But heed no other perils dark.
We dread the Mede that fights and flies,
The Mede fears chains and Latian oak;
Yet death in unexpected guise
Has harried and will harry folk.
How nearly 'twas my lot to know
Swart Proserpine's domain in hell,
Judge Aeacus, blest seats below,
With Sappho keening o'er her shell
For loveless Lesbian girls, and thee
Whose golden quill woke louder lays,
Alcaeus, of the grievous sea,
Most grievous exile, grievous frays!
BOOK TWO 67
The marveling shades in silence hear
Rapt strains from both, but more they yearn,
With shoulder prest and listening ear,
Of wars and banished chiefs to learn.
What wonder! Cerberus, crouching there,
Droops his dun ears, by warbling blest
Subdued, and in the Furies' hair
The writhing snakes are lulled to rest.
Prometheus, yes, and Pelops' sire
List the sweet sound till anguish sinks,
Nor does Orion care to tire
The lion and the wary lynx.
68 THE ODES OF HORACE
XIV
To Postumus
AH, Postumus, my Postumus,
Fast glide the years, nor pious breath
Wards wrinkles and old age from us,
Nor yet indomitable death:
No, friend, tho' thrice a hundred kine
To tearless Pluto daily bled,
Whose ambient, gruesome waves confine,
Vast Geryon, the triple dread,
And Tityos — the waves that all
Whom bounteous earth provides with food
Must voyage o'er nor hope recall,
Tho' men of wealth, tho* delvers rude.
In vain from gory Mars we shrink,
And booming Hadria's choppy surge,
In vain thro' autumn days we think
To shield our frames from Auster's scourge;
For we must see Cocytus coil
His sluggish current dark and dun,
Curst Danaids, and the endless toil
Of Sisyphus, rough Aeolus' son.
Thou soon must leave earth, winsome wife,
And home, while cypresses abhorred,
Of trees that know thy pruning knife,
Alone will mourn their short-lived lord.
Thy worthier heir the wine will pour,
Now guarded with a hundred keys,
And prouder juice shall tinge thy floor
Than that the pontiff's supper sees.
BOOK TWO 69
XV
Against Luxury
FEW acres for the plow to break
Our regal piles will leave; dispread
Around, more broad than Lucrine lake,
Are seen the fishponds; planes unwed
Will oust the elms; soon pansied sward,
And myrtle brake, and all sweet scents,
Where olives for their former lord
Once teemed, will fragrant airs dispense.
Thick laurels soon a screen will form
To bar the fervid rays. Not thus
Of old was bearded Cato's norm,
Nor that prescribed by Romulus.
Each common's wealth was small, but vast
The State's: then stretched no porticoes
In far-flung pomp, where murmured past
Cool north winds thro' their columned rows.
For private use no man could slight
The ready sod; but proudly shone
Halls and the fanes of gods, bedight
At public cost, in new-style stone.
70 THE ODES OF HORACE
XVI
To Grosphus
FOR peace the sailor begs the gods on high,
Benighted on the broad Aegean wave,
When dark clouds hide the moon and from the sky
No stars shine forth to save;
For peace frenetic Thrace the battle stems,
For peace the Mede his painted quiver bears,
But, Grosphus, neither purple, gold, nor gems
Can buy relief from cares.
Nor treasure nor the consul's lictor band
Can from the mind hold wretched ills aloof,
Nor banish griefs that flit on every hand
About the fretted roof.
He lives on little happily who sees
The heirloom salt-dish glisten at his board;
His gentle sleep thro* fear of theft ne'er flees,
Nor thro' desire to hoard.
Since short our span why are rash aims inbred?
For climes 'neath other suns our course why shape?
What exile, from his native country fled,
Can from himself escape?
Dull Care outstrips trooped horsemen flying fast
And climbs the sides of galleys brazen-prowed,
More fleet than stags, more fleet than Eurus' blast
That drives the scudding cloud.
In present joy the happy heart abides,
Nor dreads the future; with calm smile it still
Endures life's bitter things. No good betides
Without its chastening ill.
BOOK TWO 71
An early death laid famed Achilles low,
Tithonus withered thro' protracted eld;
On me, perhaps, will hurrying time bestow
The goods from thee withheld.
Round thee a hundred flocks bleat wide and far
And Sikel kine are lowing; for thy use
The whinnying mare is harnessed to the car;
For thee the Afric juice
Deep dyes thy garments: me unswerving Doom
Has blest with Grecian songs, tho' slight and few,
A rural cot, and temper to assume
Scorn for the carping crew.
72 THE ODES OF HORACE
XVII
To Maecenas
WHY must these tiresome bodings be?
Earlier for thee in death to wend
Suits not, Maecenas, gods nor me,
My fortune's prop, my worthiest friend.
Of thee, my soul's best part, bereft,
Shall I, the other half, delay,
With all ties gone and nothing left
Save cheerless life? That fatal day
Shall wreck us both. No idle vow
I utter; we shall go, shall go,
Whene'er thou journey, I and thou,
Companions on the road below.
Tho' rose Chimera belching fires,
Or Gyas with his hundred hands,
Twould part us not; so Fate requires,
And powerful Justice so commands.
Tho' Libra ruled when I was born,
Tho' baleful Scorpio held his reign
With aspect fell, or Capricorn,
The tyrant of the western main,
Our horoscopes in wondrous style
Agree. Thee Jove, thy guardian blest,
Rescued from Saturn's wicked wile,
And brought death's rapid wings to rest
When from the theater densely filled
Thy glad ovation thrice outbroke;
I, badly stunned, was all but killed
When fell the tree, but Faun the stroke
BOOK TWO 73
With right hand brushed aside; the god
Of poets he. A fane must tell
Thy thanks while victims dye the sod;
Blood from my humble lamb must well.
74 THE ODES OF HORACE
XVIII
To a Miser
O'ER my modest rooms no blended
Gold and ivory gleam confest,
No Hymettian marbles splendid
Cap tall shafts in Afric drest,
Attalus has never laden
Me with realms, his unknown heir,
In my halls no high-born maiden
Trails Laconian purples rare.
Truth is mine and inspiration,
Me, tho' poor, the rich attend,
Never, to exalt my station,
Shall I tease my powerful friend
Or the gods for further gaining,
Pleased with Sabine farm most dear.
Moons that lately waxed are waning,
Day speeds day in swift career.
Marble slabs thou still art sawing,
Flouting death tho* near the grave;
Thou art building mansions, drawing
Out the shoreline where the wave
Beats at Baiae, still unsated,
Since the beach thy wealth confines..
Shame! thy neighbor, desolated,
For his farmstead's bound-stones pines.
Greed thy tenants' fields has harried,
Man and wife are reft of home,
Hearth-gods in their bosoms carried
Forth with ragged babes must roam.
BOOK TWO 75
Destined bourn more sure and speedy
Ne'er awaits thee, wealthy lord,
Than the halls of Orcus greedy.
Why strive further? 'Neath the sward
Opes the realm of prince and pauper,
Nor could sly Prometheus' gold
Bribe the unrelenting torpor
Of Dis' boatman. He can hold
Both Tantalides and vainful
Tantalus; he frees from woe
Hinds dismissed from labors painful,
Whether he be called or no.
76 THE ODES OF HORACE
XIX
A Dithyramb
BACCHUS mid crags remote I found,
Whose hymns — give credence, future years! -
He taught to listening Nymphs around
While goat-hooved Fauns pricked up their ears.
Evoe! new fears my bosom tear;
My pulses, filled with Bacchus, quake;
Evoe! O spare me, Liber, spare;
No more thy potent thyrsus shake.
Sing we the Thyiads, tireless still,
Rich brooks of milk that thread the leas,
The founts of wine, the honeyed rill
That oozes from the hollow trees;
Sing, too, thy consort's blissful state
And starry crown, the wrack abhorred
Of Pentheus' palace, and the fate
Of mad Lycurgus, Thracia's lord.
Thou swervest streams, thou ocean wide,
Thou, flushed with wine, in lonely spots
Bistonian Maenads' hair hast tied
With vipers wreathed in harmless knots.
By thee, when impious Giant throng
Thy father's lofty kingdom scaled,
Was Rhoetus backward dashed along,
By lion's claws and fangs assailed.
Best known in dance and quip and game,
Tho' thought unequal to the might
Of battle, still thou wert the same,
Whether mid scenes of peace or fight.
BOOK TWO 77
Thee Cerberus, when he saw thee tricked
With golden horn, was pleased to greet
By wag of tail, at parting licked
With triple tongue thy legs and feet.
78 THE ODES OF HORACE
XX
To Maecenas
ON neither weak nor vulgar wing
Shall I be borne thro* liquid air
A two-formed bard, nor shall I cling
To earth, but, proof 'gainst envy, fare
From towns. Not I, the lowly-born,
Not I, thine intimate, shall die,
Maecenas dear, and dwell forlorn
Where melancholy Styx flows by.
E'en now rough scales invest each shin,
My frame a bird's white form assumes
Above, and back and arms begin
To be arrayed in fluffy plumes.
A tuneful swan, on safer vanes
Than Icarus', I soon shall soar
O'er Lybian deserts, Arctic plains,
And Bosporus' tumultuous shore.
Colchian and Goth that masks his dread
Of Marsian troops my spell shall own;
Far Scyths shall know me, scholars bred
In Spain, and he that drinks the Rhone.
Around my empty bier suppress
Unseemly grief, the moan, the dirge;
Give o'er the final call; no less
A tomb's vain honors cease to urge.
BOOK THREE
I
On Contentment
1HATE you! hence, unhallowed throngs!
Be hushed! the Muses' priest, I bring,
Till now unheard, a sheaf of songs;
To maidens and to youths I sing.
Kings o'er their flocks exert their sway,
Yet kings themselves hold Jove in awe;
A conqueror in the Giant fray,
His nod is nature's steadfast law.
This man plants vines in ampler rows;
That, seeking office, trusts to birth
When down upon the Field he goes;
A third takes pride in manly worth;
In client throngs a fourth finds fame;
Yet equitable Fate in turn
Dooms great and small, and every name
Is shaken in the spacious urn.
Sicilian cates give no sweet zest
To jaded taste, while notes of harp
And birds will ne'er to him bring rest
Above whose impious neck a sharp
Drawn saber hangs; but gentle sleep
Shuns not the cabin of the hind,
Nor marge embowered in boskage deep,
Nor Tempe fanned by zephyrs kind.
82 THE ODES OF HORACE
The man who seeks but just enough
Recks not tumultuous storms amid
The ocean, nor Arcturus rough
At setting, nor the rising Kid,
Nor vines by hailstones beaten down,
Nor farm grown faithless, tho' the trees
Chide now the rains, now winter's frown,
Now planets dire that parch the leas.
In straitened seas the fishes glide
Since rubble chokes the deep; there toil
Contractors with their workmen tried,
And, too, their lord, who scorns the soil,
To lay foundations. Threats and Fears
To dog the rich man urge their pace,
Black Care the bronze-beaked trireme steers,
And hounds the horseman in the chase.
Since grief yields not to Phrygian stone,
Nor purples than a star more fair,
Nor vintage, tho' Falemum's own,
Nor Achaemenian spikenard rare,
Why, envied, should I seek regale
In new halls reared at much expense?
Why should I truck my Sabine dale
For scenes of onerous opulence?
BOOK THREE 83
II
On Patriotism
THE youth inured in war's stern trade
Should study patiently to bear
Privations dire, with horseman's blade
Should vex the cruel Mede, and dare
To bivouac 'neath the open skies
Mid hard campaigns. From hostile tower
When such by ripening daughter's eyes
And consort of the warring power
Is seen, they sigh: "Ah, ne'er engage,
Our trothplight prince, to war unbred,
That lion fierce whom bloody rage
Incites to deeds of carnage dread."
Sweet, glorious 'tis for native land
To die. Death follows him that flees,
Nor spares the youths that trembling stand,
But bruises coward loins and knees.
True Virtue wards all base attacks
While her untarnished honors glow,
Nor drops nor reassumes the ax
As favor's fickle breezes blow.
True Virtue dowers Desert with gift
Of heaven, she treads paths not allowed
To others, and with pinion swift
She spurns dank earth and vulgar crowd.
Leal silence, too, has sure reward.
Tattlers of Ceres' mysteries dark
Shall house not 'neath my roof tree broad,
Nor shall they e'er with me embark
84 THE ODES OF HORACE
In fragile skiff. The outraged Sire
With bad men oft makes just ones bleed;
Lame Vengeance seldom fails to tire
The fleeing wretch, tho' long his lead.
BOOK THREE 85
III
On Integrity
THE righteous man of steadfast mind
From firm resolve is never thrust
By civil tumult rash and blind,
Nor tyrant's frown, nor Auster's gust,
Rough lord of Hadria's restless swell,
Nor Jove's great hand whence lightning flies:
Undaunted such would stand tho' fell
With awful crash the very skies.
This virtue dowered with thrones divine
Pollux and roving Hercules,
Mid whom Augustus shall recline
In roseate youth at nectared ease.
This, father Bacchus, brought reward
When harnessed tigers safely sped
Thee skyward; so from death abhorred
With steeds of Mars Quirinus fled,
When conclaved gods heard Juno speak
Right gladly: "Ilion, Ilion sank
In ashes thro' a woman weak
And lecherous judge of princely rank;
"Was doomed by me and Pallas chaste
With populace and fraudful chief,
What time Laomedon outfaced
The gods with guile beyond belief.
"The shameless guest no longer charms
His Spartan leman; Hector's spear
No more repels the Greeks in arms
Whom Priam's faithless people fear.
86 THE ODES OF HORACE
"The war our factious strife prolonged
Has died away: I nurse no more
Fierce anger, and my grandson wronged,
Whom erst a Trojan priestess bore,
"For Mars I pardon; let him hold
A seat among our sheeny bowers,
Sip nectar sweet, and be enrolled
Mid beatific heavenly powers.
"While vasty oceans rage between
llion and Rome, as exiles brave
His sons may rule some blest demesne;
O'er Priam's and o'er Paris' grave
"While cattle frisk and beasts conceal
Their young, resplendent let it stand,
The Capitol, and Roman steel
Give laws to each quelled Median band.
"To far shores Rome's feared name may post,
From where the midland strait divides
Our Europe from the Afric coast
To where the Nile with swollen tides
"O'erflows the wheat-fields: may she shun
The gold unfound, best locked in earth,
Nor squander wealth, by rapine won,
On arts and crafts of paltry worth.
"Where stands earth's limitary bound
May Rome bear arms and gladly gaze
Where mists and drizzly rains are found,
Where glows the sweltering solar blaze.
"These fates to martial Rome I swear
With this reserve: tho' courage buoy
Or reverence urge, she must not dare
Again to rear ancestral Troy.
BOOK THREE 87
"Troy, born to ill if brought to life,
Would see dire wrack renew its course,
For I myself, Jove's sister-wife,
Would marshal on the conquering force.
"Tho* thrice should rise a wall of brass
By Phoebus built, it thrice would fail
Before my Argives; thrice, alasl
Thralled wives would mates and babes bewail."
Such songs fit not my playful lute.
Bold Muse, where wilt thou? Cease to prate
The speech of gods, nor strive to bruit
From strings so slight a theme so great.
88 THE ODES OF HORACE
IV
On Wisdom
O QUEEN Calliope, descend
From heaven, come, play upon thy flute
Full strains or, if it please thee, blend
Thy trilling voice with Phoebus* lute.
List! hear ye her? or does it rove,
My idle fancy? Now meseems
I hear and stroll thro' hallowed grove
Where zephyrs stray and pleasant streams.
Play-worn and sunk in slumber sound,
On me a child, in Vultur's waste
Beyond my nurse Apulia's bound,
The storied doves a covering placed
Of fresh green leaves: much marveled all
That hold high Acherontia's nest,
The Bantine woodlands fair and tall,
And low Farentum's tillage blest,
That I from bears and deadly snakes
Slept safe, that, strewn with holy bay
And branches culled from myrtle brakes,
Protected by the gods I lay.
Yours, dear Camenae, yours am I,
Tho' Sabine peaks exert their spell,
Tho' pleased by Baiae's liquid sky,
Praeneste cool, or Tibur's dell.
Your founts' and dances' friendly lure
Preserved me from the fatal tree,
Philippi's rout, and Palinure
That overlooks Sicilia's sea.
BOOK THREE 89
With you at hand I fain shall spread
My sail and steer amid the roar
Of Bosporus, and safely tread
Hot sands on far Assyria's shore.
Concani quaffing horses' blood,
The Britons harsh to stranger folk,
The quivered Goth, the Scythian flood,
Shall I behold nor fear death's stroke.
You cheer within Pierian grots
Great Caesar, respiting from toil,
When settled on their landed plots
His cohorts cease from civil broil.
You, Muses sweet, give counsel fair
And love to give it, too. We know
How He with hurtling lightning's glare
The impious Titan brood laid low —
He who o'er earth inert presides,
Towns, realms of death, and gusty main;
Both gods and mortal throngs he guides
Alike with sole impartial reign.
To Jove himself came deadly fear
From crew accurst with arms of mjght,
From brothers twain who strove to rear
On dark Olympus Pelion's height.
But what could Rhoetus, Mimas do,
Or what Porphyrion's mien of ire,
Enceladus who boldly threw
Uprooted trunks, Typhoeus dire,
Tho' all 'gainst Pallas' clanging shield
Together rushed? Here Vulcan burns,
There matron Juno takes the field,
From Patara and Delos turns
90 THE ODES OF HORACE
Phoebus, his bow upon his back,
Who laves in pure Castalia's fount
His locks unshorn, and loves to track
His Lycian groves and native mount.
Force lacking rede by its own weight
Collapses; force earns due reward,
When ruled by mind, from gods who hate
Those forces bent on things abhorred.
Gyas with hundred-handed strength
Attests me, and Orion known
As Dian's tempter who at length
Was by her virgin shaft o'erthrown.
Earth, piled above them, weeps and wails
Her monstrous brood by lightning whirled
To pallid Orcus; swift fire fails
To burn thro* Aetna o'er them hurled.
A guard to Tityos assigned,
The vulture tears his liver lewd,
And thrice a hundred fetters bind
Pirithous who basely wooed.
BOOK THREE 91
V
On Valor
JOVE'S thunder proves high heaven his home;
Caesar a present god indeed
We hold, since he annexed to Rome
The Briton and the furious Mede.
Has Crassus' soldier, basely wed
To foreign dame, in arms grown gray
(O Senate's shame! O times long dead!)
For hostile kin 'neath Medic sway,
Tho' Marsian or Apulian born,
Eternal Vesta, name, and gown,
And Mavors' bucklers held in scorn,
While Jove yet stands and Rome's fair town?
This prudent Regulus foreknew;
He waived each ignominious term,
Lest thence ill precedent accrue
To future time, stood they not firm
That captive youth die unredeemed.
"In Punic fanes our standards bright,
With pride displayed, and arms that gleamed,
Torn from our troops in bloodless fight,"
Said he, "I saw; yes, I have seen
Free Romans, hands behind them bound,
The open gates, and harvests green
Where late our war laid waste the ground.
"Troops ransomed are, forsooth, more full
Of zeal for fight! To honor's stain
You add but loss; the tinct-dipped wool
Will ne'er its pristine hue regain,
92 THE ODES OF HORACE
"And valor, once rejected, cares
No more to dwell with coward scum.
If does, released from tangled snares,
Will fight, to him may courage come
"Who to the faithless foeman lists;
Carthage again he may invade
Who felt the lash with corded wrists
And basely drooped, of death afraid.
"Scarce knowing how to save his life,
War he mistook for peace. O shame!
Shall mighty Carthage in this strife
Soar high o'er Latium's ruined name?"
As if all civil rights from him
Were reft, men said, his virtuous spouse
And babes he spurned, then, sternly grim,
Bent on the ground his manly brows
The wavering Fathers while he steeled
With counsel never elsewhere known.
Past friends whose tears their grief revealed
The glorious exile strode alone,
Tho' well he knew the torturing wrath
His foes would mete. He, calmly stern,
Brushed friends and kindred from his path
Who fain would stay his pledged return,
As if some client's tedious suit,
Just settled, left him free to fare
To green Venafrum, or recruit
His health in Greek Tarentum's air.
BOOK THREE 93
VI
On Home Purity
ON thee will rest thy fathers' stain
Tho' guiltless, Roman, till thou put
In order shrine and moldering fane
And statue grimed with dingy soot.
When feared, the gods permit thy rule,
Launch ventures, and decree success;
When scorned, they rigorously school
Hesperia's land with sore distress.
Twice Pacorus and Monaeses checked
The unhallowed onslaughts of our powers,
And, faces all aglow, have decked
Their tawdry torques with spoil of ours.
Dacian and Aethiop nearly razed
Our town by faction torn apart:
This for his dreaded fleet is praised,
That better shoots the flying dart.
These iron times have tainted first
Our children, homes, and nuptial band,
Till ruin every bound has burst
And deluged folk and fatherland.
Precociously the maiden trips
Ionian measures and, tho* young,
Thrills to her very finger tips,
By wanton arts and fancies stung;
Anon she seeks for youthful rakes,
The while her spouse is swilling wine,
Nor cares which blade his pleasure takes
The first, when candles cease to shine;
94 THE ODES OF HORACE
Before her conscious husband's eyes
She rises if a peddler come,
Or Spanish skipper, one who buys
Her favors for a good round sum.
No sons of parents such as these
Dire Hannibal and Pyrrhus foiled,
Distained with Punic gore the seas,
And great Antiochus despoiled.
Of hardy stock were those who fought,
Yeomen who with Sabellian spade
Turned up the stubborn clod, then brought
Trimmed fagots home, and thus obeyed
Stern mothers, when from distant rocks
The sinking sun threw shadows wide,
Removed the yoke from wearied ox,
And ushered in calm eventide.
What age but brings a weightier ill?
Our fathers, than our grandsires worse,
Begat us, offspring baser still,
Whose sons shall prove a viler curse.
w
BOOK THREE 95
VII
To Asterie
HY weep for Gyges, fair Asterie,
Who, when Favonius clears the springtime skies,
Will, leal and fond, return to thee
Enriched with Thynian merchandise?
At Oricum he lies, by winds embayed
That freshened when the blustering Goat Star rose,
And by tempestuous grief is swayed
While each chill night brings no repose.
Yet from his lovelorn hostess, Chloe, speeds
Her envoy, telling how to sighs the blaze
Of passion, strong as thine, succeeds,
And tempts him in a thousand ways:
Tells how with charges false the wicked wife
Of Proetus swayed her credulous husband's mind
Hastily to deprive of life
Bellerophon, more chaste than kind;
Cites Peleus nearly sent to Dis because
Magnessian-bred Hippolyte felt scorn;
Baits him to scoff at virtue's laws
And would with specious tales suborn.
But vainly: deafer than Icarian clifts,
Unscathed as yet, her flattering words he hears.
But thou, beware Enipeus' shifts,
Nor let a neighbor win thine ears.
Tho' ne'er so deft a horseman rein his stud
O'er Mars' own turf before the assembled folk,
And tho' there breast the Tuscan flood
No swimmer with so swift a stroke,
96 THE ODES OF HORACE
Yet close thy house at dusk and gaze not down
Upon the street when wails the plaintive flute,
And, tho' he call thee cruel, frown
Unyieldingly upon his suit.
BOOK THREE 97
VIII
To Maecenas
A BACHELOR, March Kalends see me fill
My thurible with incense, pluck bouquets,
And heap the living turf with coals, but still
Thou standest in amaze,
Tho' in the lore of both our tongues well read.
A toothsome feast and snowy goat in fee
To Liber erst I vowed, when nearly sped
By blow of falling tree.
Each rolling year this day with mirth and joke
Shall draw the pitch-smeared cork from out the lip
Of flagon set to mellow mid the smoke
In Tullus' consulship.
Drink, dear Maecenas, to thy friend's escape
A hundred toasts; till morning's sunbeams fall
Let watchful cressets flare; far hence the shape
Of strife and angry brawl I
No longer worry over weal of state.
The force of Dacian Cotiso is quelled;
The noxious Medes, embroiled at home of late,
In mortal feuds are held;
The Cantabri upon the Spanish coast,
Our ancient foes, late fettered, humbly bow;
Within their steppes the Scyths withdraw their host
And slack their bowstrings now.
Reck not tho' danger o'er the city lower;
Lay public care aside with all its stings;
Enjoy the blessings of the present hour
And drop all weightier things.
98 THE ODES OF HORACE
IX
The Reconciliation
He \I 7HILE I in thee affection stirred,
VV And round thy snowy neck no youth preferred
Was ever wont his arms to fling,
I flourished wealthier than the Persians* king.
She While for none else thou more hast burned,
And Lydia was not yet for Chloe spurned,
I, Lydia, of illustrious name,
Flourished more fair than Roman Ilia's fame.
He Me now the Thracian Chloe sways,
A mistress of the lute, soft strains she plays,
E'en death for her I fain would meet
If kindly Fate will only spare my sweet.
She Me Calais burns with mutual fire —
From Thurii he and Ornytus his sire —
For him I twice would die, in sooth,
If kindly Fate will only spare my youth.
He What if old love again shall reign,
And bind with brazen bonds us parted twain,
If flaxen Chloe be denied,
And jilted Lydia see the door ope wide?
She Tho' fairer he than any star,
Tho' lighter thou than cork and wilder far
Than is the stormy Hadrian wave,
With thee I fain would live, would seek the grave.
BOOK THREE 99
X
To Lyce
THO\ Lyce, wont to quaff far Tanais' river,
Some brute thy spouse, before thy cruel door
Stretched out at length, thou wouldst not bid me shiver
While native northers roar.
Hearest thou not the creaking of the gateway,
The howl of blasts that bend thy courtyard trees?
Jove's clear, crisp air grows sharper now and straightway
The drifted snow will freeze.
Since Venus frowns on pride, be not disdainful,
Lest back slip wheel and rope together geared;
Thee no Penelope, to suitors baneful,
Thy Tyrrhene father reared.
Tho* sallow hues on cheeks of lovers written
Unbend thee not at all, nor gift, nor prayer,
Nor yet thy man by frail Pierian smitten — .
Prithee, thy votaries spare,
Thou, not more pliant than the oak tree knurly,
Less mild of mood than Mauretanian snake;
Low on thy doorsill mid the tempests surly
My side not aye will ache.
100 THE ODES OF HORACE
XI
To Mercury and the Lute
MERCURY — for by thine instruction taught
Amphion moved thro' song huge blocks of stone —
And thou, O shell, to whom the seven strings brought
Sweet strains till then unknown;
Not loquent once nor pleasing, now a source
Of joy at wealthy banquet or in fane,
Breathe music forth for Lyde that perforce
Her stubborn ear may gain.
Wide o'er the field, like filly three years old,
She skips and bounds, unwilling to be curbed,
Too young to wed and by no longings bold
For ardent mate disturbed.
The tigers and their native sylvan lairs
Thou leadest, rushing streams by thee are stayed,
Sometimes thy blandishment the gateman snares
In Pluto's halls of shade,
Huge Cerberus, altho' a hundred snakes
Protect the Fury-likeness of his head,
While from his three-tongued mouth black venom breaks
And noisome fumes dispreaS.
Ixion, too, and Tityos despite
Their anguish smiled; each empty ewer stood still
A space, while to the Danaids came delight,
Lulled by thy welcome thrill.
Let Lyde know the crime, the well-known woes
Those virgins feel; how from each leaking urn
The stream of water thro' the bottom flows;
How Fate, tho' slow, will turn
BOOK THREE ' - 101
And chase to Dis itself each guilty deed. |\j ' /,*
Most foul! (what crime more impious could they brave?)
Most foul! who dared to bid their bridegrooms bleed
Beneath the ruthless glaive.
One only, of the nuptial torch's flame
Deserving, brooked her perjured father's rage,
And, gloriously false, her honored name
Survives to every age.
"Arise," she whispered to her husband young,
"Arise, lest thou in endless slumber dwell,
Sent from a source unf eared; death lurks among
My sire and sisters fell,
"Who seize and rend, like lionesses fierce,
Each one her steer, alas! More kind than they,
I will not mew thee close nor yet transpierce
An unsuspecting prey.
"Me let my father load with cruel chains
Because my hapless spouse I chose to spare,
Me in his navy to Numidia's plains
Far distant let him bear.
"Haste, whither feet and winds may take thee, haste
In happy hour, while Venus and night's gloom
Lend aid, and be my mournful story traced
By thee upon my tomb."
102 THE ODES OF HORACE
XII
Neobule's Soliloquy
HAPLESS the maidens to whom are forbidden
Love and the winecup, but ever are chidden
By uncles whose tongues sting like lashes!
See, Neobule, how Cypris* boy, Cupid,
Steals web and wool basket; weaving is stupid
Since fair to thy sight Hebrus flashes 1
Swims he in Tiber and far gleams his shoulder,
Rides like Bellerophon, no one is bolder
At boxing, none fleeter in running;
Deft to spear stags mid the startled herd flying,
And to rouse boars in the dense thicket lying
None can approach him in cunning.
BOOK THREE 103
XIII
To the Fountain Bandusia
BANDUSIA'S fountain, more than crystal bright,
Worthy of mellow wine and wreaths of flowers,
For thee to-morrow I shall smite
A kid whose swelling forehead lowers
With budding horns, portending, tho' in vain,
Sweet love and battles; he thy runnels cold
With crimson blood shall deeply stain,
The offspring of the wanton fold.
Thee the hot season of the Sirian star
Can never touch; thou to the plow- worn steer,
And to the cattle ranging far,
Dost proffer cool, refreshing cheer.
Thou shalt be reckoned mid the storied wells
When I have sung the ilex tree that grows
Beside the hollow, rocky cells
Whence swift thy babbling water flows.
104 THE ODES OF HORACE
XIV
The Return of Augustus
O COMMONS, just as Hercules of yore,
Tho' death should be the price, sought crowns of bay,
So conquering Caesar from the Spanish shore
Comes home again to-day.
Since thou to righteous heaven hast proffered thanks,
Come forth, O matron, faithful to thy spouse,
Our famous leader's sister, too, and ranks
Of dames whose suppliant brows
Are circleted in gratitude to learn
Of sons' and daughters' safety. I beseech
Ye, youths and maidens yet unwed, to spurn
All unpropitious speech.
This truly festal day shall banish all
My somber cares; while Caesar's mandates bend
The empire, I shall fear nor civil brawl
Nor death by violent end.
Haste, boy, both balms and wreaths this day demands,
Wine, too, whose date harks back to Marsian strife,
If aught, perchance, escaped when roving bands
Of Spartacus were rife.
Then bid clear-voiced Neaera haste to tie
In comely knot her wealth of chestnut hair,
But if her porter churl thy knock deny,
Begone, nor tarry there.
A whitening head subdues the soul that long
Inclined to spleen and quarrels' headstrong grip;
My fiery youth would not have brooked such wrong
In Plancus' consulship.
BOOK THREE 105
XV
To Chloris
WIFE of poor Ibycus, 'tis time
To fix a limit to thy course of crime,
Thine infamy, and wantonness.
Since thou art ripe for death, amid the press
Of graceful virgins cease to play
And cloud the starry luster of their day.
What Pholoe may fitly dare,
Chloris, becomes thee not; thy daughter fair
Rapping gallants' closed doors may come,
Like Thyiad crazed when rolls the kettledrum,
For Nothus' love has made her dote
And caper madly as a wanton goat.
Wool shorn near famed Luceria's seat
Beseems thee now, not citterns' crooning sweet,
Nor scarlet roses' bloom, nor kegs,
Thou wizened beldam, emptied to the dregs.
106 THE ODES OF HORACE
XVI
To Maecenas
THE brazen turret and the portals oaken
And sentry mastiffs, guards that grimly growled,
Had mured fair Danae in thrall unbroken,
Tho' midnight lovers prowled,
Had not the prisoned virgin's anxious warder,
Acrisius, been by Jove and Venus mocked,
For when a god with gifts became marauder,
No door could long be locked.
Gold wins its way where courtier bands assemble,
And, stronger than the levin bolt, thro' stone
It rives a pathway; lucre caused to tremble
And sink in ruin prone
The Argive augur's house; towns' gates were crumbled
Before the man of Macedon, who beat
His rival kings thro' bribes; bribes' snares have humbled
Bluff admirals of the fleet.
Sorrow and thirst for greater gains are faring
Behind increasing riches; high to tower
With haughty head is past my prudent daring,
Maecenas, knighthood's flower.
So far as man shuns affluence' attraction,
So far shall heaven enrich him; I, unclad,
Camp with the frugal and desert the faction
Of pelf, at heart right glad,
More famed a lord of wealth men value lightly
Than if — while crops the stout Apulian reaps
My granaries are said to garner tightly —
Poor amid treasured heaps.
BOOK THREE 107
My happier portion — limpid waters welling,
My grove's scant acreage, a harvest sure —
No praetor knows in fertile Afric dwelling
Mid empire's golden lure.
For me Calabrian bees distill no honey,
Nor crocks with mellowing Laestrygonian flow,
Altho' for me where Gallic meads are sunny
No heavy fleeces grow,
Yet distant still is poverty's dull fetter;
Thou sure wilt give if more my needs require;
I shall increase my slender assets better
By curbing each desire
Than if Alyattes' kingdom I united
To Mygdon's plains. Those seeking much lack much.
Blest he whom God with little has requited,
Yet lives content with such.
108 THE ODES OF HORACE
XVII
To Aelius Lamia
A ELI US, from ancient Lamus sprung
Most nobly — for from him arose
Lamiae of days both old and young,
As written record clearly shows —
He who was founder of thy stem
Held Formiae's walls and ruled, they say,
Where Liris' brimming waters hem
Marica's shores, lord of wide sway.
To-morrow eastern winds will roar,
Shake down thick leaves in eddying flight,
And strew with useless kelp the shore,
If rain's old seer foretold aright,
The crow. While skies are warm, heap up
Dry logs. Thy soul to-morrow please
With suckling pig and cheering cup,
And with thy slaves enjoy thine ease.
BOOK THREE 109
XVIII
To Faunus
O LOVER of the Nymphs that flee thee, Faun,
Bless, walking thro* my farm, each sunny dell,
And ere thy kindly presence be withdrawn
Bless yeanling flocks as well.
For thee each year shall bleed a tender kid;
From Venus' mate, the bowl, shall deeply flow
Libations; and my ancient altar mid
Thick odorous fumes shall glow.
When come again December's Nones to thee,
The cattle gambol o'er the grassy soil;
The festive hamlet sports upon the lea
With oxen freed from toil;
The wolves mid fearless lambkins saunter round;
For thee the trees their woodland foliage shed;
In triple time upon the hated ground
The ditcher's dance is led.
110 THE ODES OF HORACE
XIX
In Honor of Muraena
FROM Inachus how long the tide
To Codrus, who for country bravely died,
What sons had Aeacus, how great
The wars 'neath sacred Troy, thou canst relate;
But when from this Paelignian cold
I shall be free, where best our revel hold,
The cost of Chian by the cask,
Or who will heat our lymph, 'twere vain to ask!
Quick, boy, a toast, "New Moon" the word,
Next, "Midnight," and "Muraena, augur," third,
And let our brimming cups of wine
Be mixed, as suits us best, three parts or nine.
The Muses, odd in number, see
Their frenzied poet call for three times three,
But more than three the sister train
Of naked Graces grant not, lest the stain
Of tipsy brawling mar our feast.
Nay, madly will I rollick. Why are ceased
The notes of Berecyntian flute?
Why hangs the pipe beside the silent lute?
I hate skimped hands 1 Heaped roses strowl
Our antic mirth let envious Lycus know,
And let her hear, our neighbor sweet,
A match for oldster Lycus all unmeet.
To thee with clustering ringlets gay
And, Telephus, more bright than Vesper's ray,
Mature for wedlock, Rhode turns:
For Glycera my bosom slowly burns.
BOOK THREE 111
XX
To Pyrrhus
PYRRHUS, how great the risk canst thou not see,
Who from Gaetulian lioness hast sought
Her cubs? Soon, timorous robber, shalt thou flee
The doughty battle fought,
When thro' the youths that jostle o'er the field
Nearchus fair she seeks to steal away:
A mighty conflict, whose result must yield
To thee or her the prey!
When 'gainst the string thy whizzing shafts are put,
And while she whets her teeth to do thee harm,
The arbiter of fight his naked foot
Has set upon the palm,
Tis rumored, while, by gentle breezes lapt,
His scented tresses wanton o'er his breast,
As Nireus fair, or he who erst was rapt
From Ida's fountained crest.
112 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXI
In Praise of Wine
OBORN with me in Manlius' day,
Whether, good jar, for us thou keep
Love plaints, or jests, or drunken fray,
Or madding loves, or easeful sleep —
Whiche'er of these, with sovereign power,
Thy generous Massic conjure up,
Come down, be broached in happy hour,
Corvinus asks a mellower cup.
From thee none sourly stands aloof,
Tho* saturate with Socratic lore,
Nor was old Cato's virtue proof
'Gainst heartening wine, they say, of yore.
Where'er thy gentle spur is brought,
E'en dullard brains some wit must yield;
The sage's cares and secret thought
To arch Lyaeus stand revealed.
Thou placest hope in minds distrest,
Thy power and horns become the churl's,
Who then at monarchs' ireful crest
And soldiers' mail defiance hurls.
Thee Venus, if she join our throng,
Liber, the Graces bonded tight,
And wakeful tapers shall prolong
Till Phoebus put the stars to flight.
BOOK THREE 113
XXII
To Diana
O MAI DEN, guardian of the grove and hill,
Thrice called, thou hearest in her travail pain
The youthful wife and wardest death at will,
Goddess of threefold reign.
Thine be the pine that shades my country seat,
And on it every year will I bestow,
With gladsome heart, the blood of tusker fleet
That deals the sidelong blow.
114 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXIII
To Phidyle
AT new moon, rustic Phidyle,
Thine upturned palms to heaven prefer,
And to the Lars thine offering be
Fresh grain, a greedy sow, and myrrh.
So shall thy fertile vineyard fear
No hot sirocco, nor thy crop
The blighting smut, nor lambkins dear
Foul airs when ripening apples drop.
Mid oaks and holms sleek porkers feed
On Algidus where snows are rife,
Kine batten in the Alban mead,
But these must dye the pontiff's knife.
No need to weary heaven with vows
And hecatombs of full-grown beeves
If thou but wreathe thy godlings' brows
With mint and brittle myrtle leaves.
When altars know thy pure intent,
Tho' ne'er a costly victim reel,
Estranged Penates shall be bent
By crackling salt and holy meal.
BOOK THREE 115
XXIV
The Bane of Wealth
THO' richer than Arabia's hoard
Unrifled yet and wealth in India stored,
With lordly structures tho' thou fill
The Tyrrhene and Apulian seas at will,
If dire Necessity but strike
In thy tall roof her adamantine spike,
Naught shall thy soul from terror save,
Or snatch thy corse from fetters of the grave.
Better the Scyths live on the plains,
Who haul their vagrant homes about on wains,
Better the hardy Getae live,
Whose meteless roods to all in common give
Rich fruitery and harvests: here
Men cultivate their gardens but a year,
And then, their labors done, allot,
To other hands the tillage of their plot.
Here orphaned innocents are used
With kindness by their stepdames, not abused;
The matron by her lord is swayed,
Despite her dower, nor trusts the dashing blade;
The bride a priceless dowry brings —
Her parents' worth and chastity that clings
Until her husband's latest breath.
To sin is shame and frailty's wage is death.
Whoe'er would banish from our soil
Fraternal slaughter and intestine broil,
And on his statue fain would see
"Father of Cities" graven, by him be
116 THE ODES OF HORACE
Restrained our license loose and slack,
So men unborn shall hail him, for, alack!
Live virtues meet our envious hate;
Borne from our gaze, we seek them when too late.
Of what avail is sad complaint
If punishment prune not our vicious taint?
Of what avail is futile law
If morals flee? if love of lucre draw
Our merchants to the stifling clime
That girds one part of earth, or where the rime
Congeals the ground, the world's far verge
Where Boreas reigns? if daring sailors urge
Their vessels o'er the gulfy deep?
Lo, straitened means, a great reproach, will keep
Men nerved to do and suffer all,
While arduous virtue's pathways vainly call.
Now in the Capitol bestow,
While clamorous crowds applaud us as we go,
Now in the nearest ocean toss
Our jewels, gems, and gold, all baneful dross,
If conscience truly be not numb,
For from this source our chief est evils come.
The roots of our insatiate greed
Must be plucked up, our aim must be to breed
In weakling hearts desire for worth
By means of rougher schooling. Lads of birth
Cannot on horseback keep their seat
And dare not hunt; at naught will they compete
But trundling Grecian hoops along
And throwing dice, which statute rules as wrong.
Meantime their cheating fathers steal
Alike from trusting friends and partners leal,
BOOK THREE 117
In order that a treasure vast
May for their worthless heirs be soon amassed.
In fine, tho' ill-got gains increase,
Desires to swell our fortunes never cease.
118 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXV
A Dithyramb
WHERE, Bacchus, wilt thou rush me, then,
Replete with thee? What groves or caverned glen
Will shelter me, to frenzy stirred?
From what wild grotto shall my songs be heard,
Whence Caesar's deathless name shall rise,
Glorious mid stars and senate of the skies?
Themes worthy, new, are those I seek,
By other lips unsung. As from some peak
The sleepless Eviad in amaze
O'er Thracia, white with snow, extends her gaze,
O'er Rhodope, where stranger feet
Have trodden, and o'er Hebrus, so 'tis sweet
To me to view, while wandering awed,
The streamlet's marge and empty grove. O lord
Of Naiads and of Bacchic bands,
Strong to uproot tall ash trees with their hands,
No mortal strain is mine, nor slight,
Nor humbly trilled. Tho* danger, 'tis delight,
Lenaeus, in thy steps to tread,
The vine's green tendrils wreathed about my head.
BOOK THREE 119
XXVI
To Venus
1 LATELY lived in fighting trim,
Not without glory my campaigns;
Now lute is war-worn, arms are dim,
And these, where sea-born Venus reigns,
Must hang upon her leftward wall.
Here, here be flaming flambeaus placed,
With bows and levers, too, for all
Have barricaded doorways faced.
O queen of Cyprus' blissful seat,
And Memphis, free from Thracian snow,
Goddess, with lash uplifted beat
Proud Chloe with one single blow.
120 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXVII
To Galatea
LET pregnant bitch, the owl with omened cry,
-/ The vixen lately whelped, or she-wolf dun
That lopes from fields that fringe Lanuvium high,
Pursue the godless one;
Let snakes that scare his ponies quickly end
His journey at its outset, when athwart
His road they dart like arrows; for my friend
I, like a seer well-taught,
Before the prophet of impending rain
Reseeks his stagnant marshes, will invoke
From out the dawning east, good luck to gain,
The raven's raucous croak.
God speed thee, and where'er thy steps incline
Still keep my image, Galatea, at heart;
No flitting crow or woodpecker malign
Forbids thee to depart.
But see, Orion hastes with prone career
Mid gathering storms: for me, I know too well
Dark Hadria's bight and how, tho' skies be clear,
Iapyx churns the swell.
Let none but wives and children of our foes
Know the blind rage of Auster's rising blast,
And roar of glowering surge whose buffet blows
'Gainst quivering reefs are massed.
So, too, Europa to the wily bull
Consigned her snowy form, but as she sailed
Thro' monstrous tide and ocean dangerful,
Brave tho* she was, she paled.
BOOK THREE 121
Lately on weaving coronals intent,
Vowed to the Nymphs, she roamed the flowery leas;
At glimmering night her troubled gaze was bent
On naught but stars and seas.
But when at last on mighty Crete she stept,
The hundred-citied, "Sire, O filial fame
Now gone! O sense of duty, too," she wept,
"Quite lost thro' frenzy's flame!
"Whence, whither came I? Maiden fault like this
Deserves more deaths than one. Am I awake,
Weeping my sin, or, free from aught amiss,
Does some false phantom make
"A mock of me and bring thro* ivory port
A guileful dream? Across long waves that lower,
Say, was it best to go, the billows' sport,
Or pluck the new-blown flower?
"Were this vile bull delivered to my hate,
How would I hack him with the griding steel,
And lop the horns from off that brute, so late
The object of my zeal!
"Shameless I left my father's hearth-fire glow,
Shameless my debt to Orcus still I waive;
O if some god but hear me, let me go,
Naked, where lions rave!
"Ere from my dainty form my bloom has fled,
And comely cheeks are marred by foul decay,
While still alluring, let the tigers shred
My body for their prey.
"I seem to hear my absent sire's command,
'Ah, base Europa, compass now thy death;
This ash invites and — luckily at hand —
Thy zone will check thy breath.
122 THE ODES OF HORACE
"'Or, if rocks sharp with doom and crags of flint
Entice, come, cast thee mid the tempest's shock,
Else, as a bondmaid, thou must card thy stint
And, tho' of royal stock,
'"Must serve some foreign dame and live defiled
As concubine. ' H To her, with sorrow stung,
Came archly-smiling Venus and her child
Bearing his bow unstrung.
The goddess first indulged in laughter: " Leave,"
Quoth she, "all bootless wrath and withering scorn;
This bull again shall come to bid thee cleave
And tear each hated horn.
"As puissant Jove's dear consort know thy worth.
Give o'er thy sobs, thy great good fortune own,
And proudly wear it; half the spacious earth
Shall by thy name be known."
BOOK THREE 123
XXVIII
To Lyde
HOW better Neptune's festal day
Can I observe? Quick, Lyde, broach, I pray,
The Caecuban that mellowed long,
And leaguer wisdom hemmed with bastions strong.
The westering sun descends his hill,
And yet, as if the hurrying day stood still,
Thou bear'st not down the loitering cheer
That dates from Bibulus the consul's year.
To raise the chant shall be my care
To Neptune and the Nereids' sea-green hair,
While thou with curving shell shalt greet
Latona and the shafts of Cynthia fleet.
Next sing we her who governs Cnide
And shining Cyclades, and loves to ride
To Paphos, by linked swans conveyed:
Meet lullabies to Night shall last be paid.
124 THE ODES OF HORACE
XXIX
To Maecenas
SCION of kingliest Tyrrhene stocks,
A virgin jar of mellow juice,
Roses, and balsam for thy locks,
I long have treasured for thy use,
Maecenas. Haste thee; seek a change
From Aefula's sloped uplands wide,
Moist Tibur, and the hilly range
Of Telegon the parricide.
Forsake the elegance that cloys
Within thy cloud-aspiring dome,
Admire no more the smoke, the noise,
And opulence of wealthy Rome.
Change to the rich man oft brings rest;
The poor man's roof and frugal fare,
Tho' purple hangings lend no zest,
Have smoothed the furrowed front of care.
Andromeda's bright sire now shows
His hidden fire, now Procyon burns,
The star of furious Leo glows
As summer's scorching heat returns.
Tired shepherds with their drooping sheep
Now seek rough Si Ivan's copse, the pool,
And shade, while, hushed in silence deep,
The banks are reft of breezes cool.
Yet State and Town still tax thy brain;
Thine anxious thoughts are bent to scan
What Bactra, Cyrus' old domain,
Seres, and factious Scythians plan.
BOOK THREE 125
God wisely shrouds in murkiest night
Events to come, and smiles to learn
How mortal man, in heaven's despite,
His proper bounds will often spurn.
Face tasks at hand without a dread.
All else flows like a river free,
Now smoothly down its midmost bed
Ongliding toward the Etruscan sea,
Now whirling onward trees uptorn,
Cots, herds, and bowlders, while from hills
And neighboring woods hoarse sounds are borne
When freshets chafe the peaceful rills.
Lord of himself, true joys inspire
The man who, as each day is done,
Says, "I have lived: now let the Sire
Veil with black clouds to-morrow's sun
"Or bid it shine; but what is past
He may not lessen or augment,
Nor will he alter and recast
What once the flying hour has sent.
"Fortune, to cruel work inclined,
And bent upon caprices grim,
Transfers her fickle favors, kind
Awhile to me, awhile to him.
"I praise her while she stays, but when
She flits, I yield her every gift,
Enwrap me in my worth, and then
Woo honest tho* undowried Thrift.
"Tis not my wont, when Afric storms
Have sprung the mast, to bargain aught,
By abject prayers and votive forms,
That wares from Tyre and Cyprus brought
126 THE ODES OF HORACE
"Shall not enrich the hungry surge.
Me then twin Pollux and the breeze
Shall in my two-oared shallop urge
Safe thro' the vexed Aegean seas."
BOOK THREE 127
XXX
To Melpomene
OUTLASTING bronze, a monument I rear
That o'er the regal pyramids towers sheer,
Which gnawing rains, nor blustering Aquilo,
Nor ceaseless lapse of years, nor ages' flow
Shall ever from its sure foundation start.
I shall not wholly die. My better part
Shall 'scape from Libitina, and my fame
Shall grow more bright thro' aftertime's acclaim.
While priest with silent Vestal climbs the Hill,
So long shall Aufidus' resounding rill
And those parched lands where Daunus ruled his hinds
Relate how I, enrolled mid greatest minds,
Tho* humbly reared, first tuned Aeolian lays
To Latin verse. Accept thy meed of praise
By merit won, Melpomene, and now
With Delphic laurel gladly wreathe my brow.
BOOK FOUR
I
To Venus
THO', Venus, long is hushed the fray,
Wilt thou revive it? Spare me, spare, I pray!
Not now, as once, my youthful glow,
When thralled by kindly Cinara. Forego,
The sweet Loves* mother, stern of brow,
Urging a man nigh fifty, callous now
Toward lures, to list thy mandates: flee
Where suasive prayers of striplings call for thee.
With revel haste, 'twere better far,
Borne by thy purple swans on rapid car,
Where Paulus Maximus abides,
If questing heart more meet for passion's tides.
Handsome is he, of birth the best,
Prompt pleader when defendants stand distrest,
A youth accomplished past compare,
Who far the banners of thy war shall bear.
He, with a smile, shall soon behold
His worth outweigh some lavish rival's gold,
And, grateful, by the Alban mere,
'Neath cedarn roof thy marble bust shall rear.
There fragrant scents shalt thou inhale,
Thy ravished ear shall hearken to the wail
Of syrinx wedded to the lute,
Nor shall the Berecyntian pipe be mute.
132 THE ODES OF HORACE
There twice each day shall youths combine
With tender maids to laud thy power divine,
While their white feet shall lightly bound
In Salian mode and triply beat the ground.
Me woman charms not, no, nor lad,
Nor idle dream of mutual hearts made glad,
Nor jar that bodes the deep carouse,
Nor wreath of opening buds to bind my brows.
But why, ah, Ligurinus, why
Flows now and then the teardrop from mine eye?
Why halt the accents on my tongue,
Once free but now to awkward silence stung?
In airy visions of the night
I clasp thee now, now track thee in thy flight
Across the Campus Marti us* turf,
Now, cruel that thou art! thro' boiling surf.
BOOK FOUR 133
II
To lulus Antonius
WHOEVER seeks with Pindar to contend,
On wax-knit pinions of Daedalian frame
He soars, lulus, surely doomed to lend
Some hyaline sea his name.
As, from the hills, a stream in headlong flight,
Surcharged with rains, o'erflows its wonted shores,
So, with deep utterance and sonorous might,
Great Pindar seethes and roars,
Worthy that Phoebus' bay by him be worn,
Whether thro* daring dithyrambs he weave
His new-coined words and, by his numbers borne,
All rule discard and leave;
Whether he sing of gods or monarchs bred
From gods, thro' whom succumbed the Centaurs dire
To death deserved, thro' whom succumbed the dread
Chimera, spewing fire;
Whether he hymn the boxer and the steed
Whom palms of Elis to the skies uplift,
Who hold a hundred statues poorer meed
Than is the poet's gift;
Or mourn the stripling torn from tearful bride,
And raise amid the stars his golden worth,
His strength, his mettle, grudging lest they bide
Beneath the gloomy earth.
The swan of Dirce by the breezes free
Was borne, Antonius, when sublime he rode
Amid the clouds: I, like the Matine bee,
In manner and in mode,
134 THE ODES OF HORACE
That culls with patient toil the savory thyme
Thro' humid Tibur's dells and woodlands fair,
A humble poet, mold my lowly rime
By dint of utmost care.
Thyself shalt sing, a bard of loftier song,
Augustus crowned with bay, his well-earned due,
When up the Sacred Slope he hales along
The fierce Sygambrian crew:
Caesar, than whom no greater, better thing
The Fates and kindly gods have given to men,
Nor shall they give, tho* fleeting centuries bring
The Golden Age again.
Thyself shalt sing the city's festal joys
And gala days, the public contests stern,
And Forum, freed awhile from lawsuits' noise
At Caesar's wished return.
If worthy to be heard my songs appear,
My tongue's best powers with thine will join: 4'0 day
Most fair, be honored long," with Caesar here
Enraptured I shall say.
Then as thy car, O triumph, passes by,
We citizens, not once alone, shall skirl
"Ho Triumph," while to gracious gods on high
Shall spicy fumes upcurl.
Ten goodly bullocks and as many cows
Shall quite absolve thee while a tender calf,
That, lately weaned, on lush grass loves to browse,
Shall die in my behalf.
As shines the crescent moon when three days old,
So gleam the horns arising from its head;
A spot it carries snowy to behold,
Tho' elsewhere dusky red.
BOOK FOUR 135
III
To Melpomene
HIM, O Melpomene, whom thou
Hast looked upon at birth with placid brow,
In Isthmian strife the boxer's meed
Shall ne'er ennoble, him no fiery steed
Shall in Achaean chariot bear
A victor, strenuous toils of battle ne'er
Shall lead him up the Sacred Way,
A captain crowned with sprigs of Delian bay,
For quashing swelling threats of kings;
But fertile Tibur's murmurous-flowing springs
And groves, with leafage thick and long,
Shall make him famous for Aeolian song.
Rome, queenliest city of the earth,
Enrolls me now, acknowledging my worth,
Among her poets' honored choirs,
And Envy 'gainst me seldom now conspires.
Pierian Maid, who rulest well
The dulcet warbling of the golden shell,
Who, if it please thee, cygnet's strain
Canst give to voiceless fishes of the main,
Such are my gifts, derived from thee,
That, pointed out for passers-by to see,
I stand Rome's bard of verse divine:
Both voice and charm, if charm I have, are thine.
136 THE ODES OF HORACE
IV
In Praise of Drusus
AS lightning's winged servant whom
Jove, king of gods, o'er birds of air
Made sovereign, since his faithful plume
Blond Ganymede to heaven upbare, —
First, urged by youth and native strength,
Leaves venturously his aerie's height,
And, wintry clouds dispelled at length,
On spring gales tries ambitious flight,
Fearful at first; next, on the fold
Swoops swiftly down, with power endued;
Last, writhing serpents strives to hold,
Impelled by love of fight and food:
Or like a lion, weaned of late
From tawny mother's milky breast,
Whose tooth, as yet unfleshed, brings fate
To roes that in rich pastures rest:
Drusus, 'neath Rhaetian Alps at war,
Such to Vindelic clansmen seemed.
(Why, ages long, by tribal law,
The Amazonian ax has gleamed
In their right hands, I never tried
To know; not all things are revealed.)
These hordes that conquered far and wide,
To our wise prince now forced to yield,
Have learned the power of heart and soul
Reared round a hearth whose base is truth,
How Caesar's fatherly control
Nurtured the Neros from their youth.
BOOK FOUR 137
From brave and good are born the brave;
Both steers and steeds their sires' physique
Inherit; eagles fierce ne'er gave
Their being to the stockdoves meek.
But training innate worth improves,
And righteousness makes hearts more strong;
When high morality removes,
E'en men of birth are dimmed ere long.
What, Rome, thou ow'st the Neros, erst
Was proved by Hasdrubal's cold clay,
Metaurus' stream, and gloom dispersed
From Latium on that glorious day,
The first triumphantly to shine
Since thro' Italia's citied plain
Swept Afric's fiend, like fire thro' pine
Or Eurus o'er Sicilia's main.
The Roman youth thereafter toiled
'Neath Fortune's smile, and temples then,
By impious Punic foes despoiled,
Beheld their gods set up again,
Till faithless Hannibal begun:
"Mere hinds, doomed ravening wolves to feed,
We harass whom to dupe and shun
Were in itself illustrious deed.
"A race that, brave from I lion's flame,
Brought home-gods, sons, and fathers hoar,
Till, tost by Tuscan seas, they came
To cities on Ausonia's shore,
"Like oak trees, lopped by heavy ax
When Algidus' dark forests reel,
Despite their loss and wounds, they wax
In vigor from the very steel.
138 THE ODES OF HORACE
"Tho' gashed, not stronger Hydra grew
When Hercules disdained defeat,
No greater marvel Colchis knew,
Or Thebes, Echion's sceptered seat.
"Plunged in the deep, more fair it glows;
When wrestled with, its pride prevails,
Altho' till then unquelled its foes,
And wages wars for old wives' tales.
"No more to Carthage may I send
Proud couriers: hope has fled, has fled;
Successes on our name attend
No more, since Hasdrubal is dead."
From naught the Claudian hands will shrink,
For Jove assists with favoring power;
Wise counsels snatch them from the brink
When war's acutest crises lower.
BOOK FOUR 139
V
To Augustus
BORN from kind gods, too long art thou delaying;
For thee, Rome's guardian best/ her children yearn;
Haste, see augustly conclaved Fathers praying
For thy pledged quick return!
Again, good chief, light to thy country render:
When on the people beams thy^ gracious gaze
Like springtide's warmth, suns glow with greater splendor
And blithelier pass the days.
As for her son, whom Notus' gusty rancor
Beyond Carpathian ocean's level brine
For longer than a year has held at anchor,
Doomed for sweet home to pine,
A mother calls with omen, prayer, oblation,
And ceases not to scan th$ winding shores,
So, smitten with a longing love, our nation
Thine absence still deplores.
Thro* meadows safely roams the ox, our tillage
Ceres and bland Fecundity have blest,
The sailors skim o'er seas now freed from pillage,
Leal Honor meets each test,
The virtuous home is ne'er by lust defrauded,
Custom and law have stamped out taint and stain,
For children like her spouse the wife is lauded,
Vengeance dogs guilt amain.
Who fears the Medes, who Scyths from icy regions,
Or who the swarms that rough Germania breeds,
While Caesar prospers? Who the warrior legions
Of fierce Iberia heeds?
140 THE ODES OF HORACE
Each swain his vines to widowed elm trees marries,
And moils till sunset on his hillside tilth,
Then cheerly seeks his cups and, mid-meal, tarries
To pledge thee o'er the spilth.
Thee with pure wine from goblets poured as master
He worships, thee with prayer he hails, and sees
Thy godhead 'midst his Lars, as Greece graced Castor
And stalwart Hercules.
"Long be Hesperia's feasts, of thy bestowing,
Good chief 1" we shout to greet the day begun
In sober mood, we shout with bumpers glowing
When ocean hides the sun.
BOOK FOUR 141
VI
To Apollo
GOD, scourge of boastful tongues, who dared destroy
Lewd Tityos, the race of Niobe,
And, almost victor over lofty Troy,
Phthian Achilles, he
More great than others, not thy peer in might,
Altho' as son of sea-born Thetis fair
He shook the Dardan spires when, bold in fight,
His dreadful lance he bare.
He, like a pine by trenchant steel hewn down
Or cypress overthrown by Eurus* blast,
Fell huge in length and bowed his haughty crown
In Teucrian dust at last.
From out Minerva's horse, so subtly reared,
He would have scorned on Trojan foes to fall
While they, in luckless hour, with dance were cheered
In Priam's joyous hall,
But openly (woe, woe, how crime-defiled!)
Severe to captives, would have thrust to doom
In Danaan flames the lisping babe, yea, child
Within its mother's womb,
Had not the Sire of gods, by thy request
And that of darling Venus urged, decreed
That to Aeneas, under fates more blest,
New rampires should succeed.
Minstrel, whom sweet Thalia's art pursues,
Phoebus, whose locks are slaked in Xanthus' wave,
The pride and honor of the Daunian Muse,
Beardless Agyieus, savel
142 THE ODES OF HORACE
From Phoebus came my pure poetic fires,
From Phoebus genius and my lyric power;
So, therefore, youths, born of illustrious sires,
And virgins, girlhood's flower,
Wards of the Delian Maid who loves to wend
With bow in chase of bucks and lynxes fleet,
Keep time in Lesbian measure and attend
My finger's rhythmic beat,
While duly singing dark Latona's son,
And duly Noctiluca's crescent glow,
Who speeds the headlong seasons as they run
And bids the harvests grow.
Thou, soon a bride, shalt say, "It was my part,
When dawned the Secular Festal, to rehearse
The song to gods most dear, knowing by heart
Horace the poet's verse."
BOOK FOUR 143
VII
To Torquatus
NOW fled are the snows and the grass clothes the mead,
The trees are renewing their frondage,
Earth's seasons are changed, and the shrunken streams speed
Past banks that now keep them in bondage.
The Grace with twain sisters and Nymphs from their bower
Dares, nude, to tread featly a measure.
u Hope not deathless life," warn the year and the hour
That fleets on the day fraught with pleasure.
The frosts yield to zephyr, then routed is spring
By summer, whose death will be early,
For fruit-laden fall soon its harvests will fling;
Last, winter comes, sluggish and surly.
Swift moons repair quickly their loss in the skies,
But we, when we once have descended
To Ancus, rich Tullus, Aeneas the wise,
With shadow and ashes are blended.
Who knows if the gods to the sum of to-day
Have planned to apportion to-morrow?
Thy wealth from thine heir's greedy hand wouldst thou stay?
From self, for thy much-loved soul, borrow.
When once thou art dead and a glorious doom
By Minos has been pronounced o'er thee,
Birth, goodness, nor eloquence out from the tomb,
Torquatus, will ever restore thee.
For Dian herself could not free from hell's reign
Hippolytus chaste when he perished,
And Theseus could sunder not Lethe's strict chain
From limbs of Pirithous cherished.
144 THE ODES OF HORACE
VIII
To Censorinus
1FAIN would give rare plate and bronzes bright,
O Censorinus, for my friends' delight,
Yes, I would give fair tripods, meeds that fall
To striving Greeks, nor should thy gift be small
If I were rich, that is, in works of art
Where Scopas or Parrhasius could impart,
In marble that and this in colors gay,
A form to man or god in skillful way.
Such wealth I have not, and thy fortune sees
Thy taste ne'er want for baubles such as these.
Thou lovest* songs, and songs I can bestow,
A gift whose priceless value well I know.
Not eulogies by State on marbles traced,
Whence, after death, the breath of life is placed
In valiant chiefs; not threats recoiling dread
On Hannibal, when hastily he fled;
Not impious Carthage, wrapt in sheets of flame,
More clearly tells his praise, who took his name
And won renown from Africa subdued,
Than do the Muses of Calabria's brood.
If poet's scroll were hushed, then high emprise
Would know no guerdon. What of fame would rise
To Romulus, of Mars and Ilia born,
If envious silence held his worth in scorn?
The gifted bard's voice, grace, and merit save
Good Aeacus from oozy Stygian wave
And shrine him mid the Islands of the Blest.
The Muse from death the worthy man will wrest;
She grants him heaven. So Hercules untired
Partakes the feast of Jove, so long desired;
E'en so those stars, the bright Tyndaridae,
Snatch battered vessels from the unplumbed sea;
So Liber, with green vine-shoots round his brow,
To happy issue guides the suppliant's vow.
BOOK FOUR 145
IX
To Lollius
THINK not my songs will e'er be mute,
Which, born where Aufidus around
Reechoes, to the according lute
I sing with arts but lately found.
Maeonian Homer sits most high,
But grave Stesichorus stands near,
While Pindar and the Cean vie
With fierce Alcaeus' utterance clear.
Time has not blotted out as yet
The blithesome strains Anacreon played;
Still breathe the love and warm regret
Awakened by the Lesbian Maid.
Not only Spartan Helen glowed
To see a leman's glossy hair,
His robe with golden spangles sewed,
His retinue and princely air.
Not Teucer from Cydonian bow
Shot arrows first; nor Troy was stormed
But once; not only 'gainst the foe
Idomeneus and Sthenelus swarmed
In battles worth the Muses' meed;
His arm not first bold Hector braced,
Nor stern Deiphobus dared bleed
For love of child and consort chaste.
Ere Agamemnon men of might
Were born, a host; but all, unknown,
Unwept, lie plunged in endless night,
Since no blest bard their worth has shown.
146 THE ODES OF HORACE
Small odds betwixt desert unhymned
And baseness in the tombl My page
Shall, Lollius, never leave thee dimmed,
. Nor let oblivion's envious rage
Unpunished gnaw each glorious feat.
A soul is thine in action wise,
Upright when prosperous seasons fleet
And when more doubtful times arise,
Avenger on purloining thief,
And proof 'gainst all-absorbing gold,
And consul, not a one-year-chief,
But oft as judgment true and bold
Expedience to the right subdues,
Waives bad men's bribes with haughty glance,
And thro' reform's obstructing crews
Beholds its conquering arms advance.
Not truly blest we call the man
Of vast possessions; blest is he,
And truly so, whose wiser plan
Enjoys what goods the gods decree,
To pinching want who cheerly bends,
And fears disgrace as worse than death:
Such man for home and cherished friends
Stands ready to resign his breath.
BOOK FOUR 147
X
To Ligurinus
O STILL in cruelty arrayed, while Venus' gifts abide,
When unexpectedly the down shall come to veil thy
pride,
When hair is shorn that mantling now about thy shoulders
flows,
And hues more fair than tints that now bedeck the damask
rose
Fade, Ligurinus, and a shaggy visage takes their place,
Then, oft as in the mirror thou shalt view thine altered face,
"Ah," shalt thou say, "why, when a boy, was not my mood
as now,
Or why, since passion glows, will not fresh bloom my cheeks
endow?"
148 THE ODES OF HORACE
XI
To Phyllis
HERE, Phyllis, is a cask of Alban juice
O'er nine years mellowed; here my garth supplies.
For twining chaplets, parsley leaves profuse;
Here ivies lushly rise
Which, twisted in thy locks, become thee so;
My house with silver gleams; the altar, hung
With holy vervain, longs for blood to flow
From votive lambkin young.
The household all is busy; here and there
Maids grouped with pages haste their help to lend;
And, swirling from the bickering hearth-fire's glare,
The sooty fumes ascend.
Yet wouldst thou know what joys invite thee here?
We celebrate the Ides, whose day in twain
Cuts April, month to Venus ever dear,
The daughter of the main.
'Tis rightly festal and I scarcely deem
My own birthday more blest, since from this day
My friend Maecenas counts his years that stream
In lapsing flight away.
For Telephus, whose rank o'ertops thine own,
Thou pinest; but a girl, a rich coquette,
Allured him, and her pleasing fetters, thrown
About him, hold him yet.
Scorched Phaethon from vaunting aims should fright,
And Pegasus taught lesson grave anew,
When, irked by earth-born rider in his flight,
Bellerophon he threw,
BOOK FOUR 149
Ever to seek what fits thee and allow,
Since hopes beyond thy sphere conduce to shame,
No thought of ill-matched nuptials. Therefore, now,
Come, last and dearest flame
(For ne'er another woman shall consume
My heart), and learn my cadences; erelong
Thy lovely voice shall lilt them: cares and gloom
Flee the approach of song.
150 THE ODES OF HORACE
XII
To Virgil
NOW spring's attendants, Thracian gales, assuaging
The ruffled seas, on bulging canvas blow,
No meads are frost-bound nor are torrents raging,
Turgid with winter's snow.
She who, foul stain of Cecrops' house, dared follow
The barbarous monarch's lust with doom unblest,
Bemoaning Itys' loss, the ill-starred swallow,
Is building now her nest.
Stretched on soft turf the shepherd pipes a measure,
Watching his fatling fold his fife he thrills,
And charms that god to whom the herds give pleasure
And Arcady's dark hills.
Thirst comes, O Virgil, with this warmer weather,
But if Calenian vintage thou wouldst try,
Tho' oft the guest where nobles dine together,
Now nard thy drinks must buy.
Nard in a tiny box of alabaster
Will coax a flagon from Sulpician vaults
Replete with freshest hopes and strong to master
Care's bitterest assaults.
Bestir thee, come, if for such joyance eager,
And bring the price: scot-free I do not mean
To steep thee in my cups, for wealth but meager
Within my home is seen.
Make thy delays and greed submit to reason,
Heed death's black pyres, and mingle, while 'tis meet,
Flashes of fun with wisdom, for in season
To play the fool is sweet.
BOOK FOUR 151
XIII
To Lyce
THE gods have hearkened, Lyce, to my prayer,
The gods have hearkened, Lyce: tho' a crone
And sot, thou still wouldst pass for fair,
And shameless wiles are all thine own,
When, in thy cups, thy maudlin song bespeaks
Ungracious Cupid's favor. Guard he stands
In lovely Chia's pretty cheeks
And hears the lute obey her hands.
Past knarry oaks he flits with scornful pace
And, startled at thy foulness, he has fled
The wrinkles grooved upon thy face,
Thy blackened teeth, and snowy head,
Nor precious stones nor Coan purple's weft
Will e'er to thee those happier hours recall
Which fleeting time from thee has reft
And locked in archives scanned by all.
Where fled thy lure? ah! where thy bloom? thy gait
So graceful, where? What lives of her, of her
Who once breathed love, whose every trait
Me from my very self could stir,
Loved after Cinara, thy fame once rife
For charm and winsome ways? But Fate could give
To Cinara few years of life,
While planning Lyce long should live
To be the ancient raven's peer in age,
That youthful sparks, whom now their passions scorch,
May see, while smiles their mirth presage,
The smoldering ashes of thy torch.
152 THE ODES OF HORACE
XIV
In Praise of the News
CAN Fathers' or Qui rites' zeal
Meet tribute to thy fame engage,
Thy deeds to aftertime reveal
Thro' tablet and memorial page,
Augustus, mightiest chieftain named
Where'er the sun lights peopled shores?
Tho' long by Latian law untamed,
The stout Vindelic kern deplores
Thy prowess. For brave Drusus beat
With troops of thine a ruthless horde,
Genauni and the Brueni fleet,
When from their Alpine keeps they poured,
And amply paid them back their due:
The elder Nero next waged fight
Most fierce and Rhaetia's savage crew
With happy omens put to flight.
Twas wondrous, on the sanguine field,
To see what havoc there befell
Those hearts that died but would not yield.
As tameless Auster whips the swell
When dancing Pleiads rive the dark,
So keen was he to smite the foe,
Urge on his snorting steed, and mark
Where hottest blazed the battle glow.
As bull-shaped Aufidus amain
Flows thro' Apulian Daunus' realms
And, raging, all the well-tilled plain
With desolating deluge whelms,
BOOK FOUR 153
So Claudius, with resistless brunt,
Whelmed mailed barbarian battle line,
And, scatheless victor, rear and front
Mowed down and stretched on earth supine,
Since 'twas thy troops, thy plans that coped
With them, thy gods. It so befalls
That suppliant Alexandria oped
To thee her port and empty halls
This very day fifteen years past.
Kind Fortune now gives prosperous end
To war, campaigns are closed at last,
And glories on thy name attend.
Thee Cantabri, unquelled till now,
Indian, nomadic Scyth, and Mede
Admire, for potent lord art thou
Of queenly Rome and Latium's breed.
Thee Nile, that hides his fountains' source,
Thee Tigris swift and Ister's wave,
Thee monstrous seas whose breakers hoarse
Around the distant Britons rave,
Thee Gaul, unawed tho' death should pierce,
And harsh Iberia's land, obey;
And, slaughter-crazed, Sygambri fierce
Lay down their arms and own thy sway.
154 THE ODES OF HORACE
XV
In Praise of Augustus
SIEGES and wars I wished to sing,
But Phoebus smote his lyre amain
To warn lest scanty sails I fling
O'er Tyrrhene seas. Caesar, thy reign
Back to our fields rich crops has borne,
Back to Jove's shrine our flags has brought,
From Parthians' gorgeous temples torn,
Has closed, since warfare shrunk to naught,
Quirinian Janus' gate, has urged
Bold license to regain the track
Of law and order, guilt has scourged,
And brought the ancient virtues back
Thro' which Italian fame and strength
And Latian power have widely grown,
Until our sway extends at length
To dayspring e'en from Hesper's throne.
While Caesar rules, no civil strife
Or violence shall mar our peace,
And passion, wont to forge the knife
And broil our hapless towns, shall cease.
Not they that drink deep Danube's tide
Shall break the Julian edicts' rede,
Not they by Tanais' stream that bide,
Nor Serian, Gete, nor faithless Mede.
And we on feast and working day,
While jocund Liber's gifts are ours,
First with our babes and wives shall pray
With reverence to the heavenly powers,
BOOK FOUR 155
Then sing, as was our fathers' joy,
While Lydian fifes support the stave,
Our manly dead, Anchises, Troy,
And kindly Venus' scion brave.
THE SECULAR HYMN
The Secular Hymn
PHOEBUS and chaste Diana, forest-queen,
Heaven's lucent orbs, always adored and aye
To be revered, look down with gracious mien
Upon this sacred day,
On which the Sibyl's versicles have willed
That, by pure youths and virgins nobly sprung,
To those high gods that love our town seven-hilled
A lofty hymn be sung.
O fostering sun, thro' whom, in car of gold,
Days come and go, another yet the same
At every dawning, naught mayst thou behold
Greater than Rome's proud name.
O Ilythia, laboring mothers spare;
Without a throe let ripened births appear;
Lucina, Genitalis, howsoe'er
Thou wouldst be known, be near.
Goddess, train up our children, so shalt thou
Prosper the Fathers' laws, by whose behest
The wedded wife shall see her marriage vow
With numerous offspring blest,
That, rolling on thro* years eleven times ten,
The cycle may with songs and games delight
The crowds thrice thro' the cloudless day, and then
As oft at pleasant night.
160 THE ODES OF HORACE
And you, ye Parcae, faithful to narrate
Decrees once uttered — O forever last
The stablished course of things! — a future great
Weld to our glorious past.
Let golden Ceres wear a corn-spray crown
Bestowed by earth that teems with herds and fruits,
Let gales of Jove and healthful showers sent down
Nourish our tender shoots.
Gentle and mild Apollo, lay aside
Thy darts and to the suppliant youth give aid,
And, crescent Moon, the constellations' pride
And queen, assist the maid.
If truly of your handiwork be Rome
And Ilian exiles made the Etruscan shore,
A remnant they that, leaving town and home,
On prosperous courses bore,
Remnant for whom, unscathed thro* blazing Troy,
Surviving home, Aeneas, pure in mind,
Paved ample passage, that they might enjoy
More fame than that behind:
Gods, give our earnest children moral health,
Gods, give calm age to wear a tranquil face,
And to the sons of Romulus give wealth,
Offspring, and every grace.
What Venus' and Anchises' glorious child
Entreats of you, while snowy bullocks reel,
Grant ye, for first in fight is he, but mild
When vanquished foemen kneel.
The Alban ax and Rome's unconquered troops
The Mede now fears on land and on the wave,
The Indian, yea, the haughty Scyth now stoops
A friendly pact to crave.
THE SECULAR HYMN 161
Now ancient Reverence comes and Honor true,
With Peace and Virtue lately held in scorn,
And Faithfulness: see, blithesome Plenty, too,
Comes with her brimming horn.
Phoebus the seer, who bears upon his back
His fulgent bow, beloved by Muses nine,
Who frees the body's aching limbs from rack
By healing art divine;
If altars on the Palatine engage
His sanction high, Rome's weal and Latium's power
May he prolong until another age
And ever better hour.
May huntress Dian, too, who often fares
On Aventine and Algidus, still bend
To Quindecemvirs' vows, and to youths' prayers
With partial ear attend.
That Jove accedes and all his synod train,
Sure hope is mine as homeward I retire,
Much pleased with Phoebus' and Diana's strain
Sung by my well-drilled choir.
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW
AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS
WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.
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