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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5432.txt b/5432.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..88a0b19 --- /dev/null +++ b/5432.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5488 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace, by Horace + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace + +Author: Horace + +Release Date: April, 2004 [EBook #5432] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 18, 2002] +[Date last updated: April 1, 2016] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ODES AND CARMEN SAECULARE OF HORACE *** + + + + +David Moynihan, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + +THE ODES AND CARMEN SAECULARE OF HORACE + +TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE +BY JOHN CONINGTON, M.A. +CORPUS PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE +UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. + +THIRD EDITION. + + + + + + +PREFACE. + + +I scarcely know what excuse I can offer for making public this attempt +to "translate the untranslatable." No one can be more convinced than I +am that a really successful translator must be himself an original +poet; and where the author translated happens to be one whose special +characteristic is incommunicable grace of expression, the demand on the +translator's powers would seem to be indefinitely increased. Yet the +time appears to be gone by when men of great original gifts could find +satisfaction in reproducing the thoughts and words of others; and the +work, if done at all, must now be done by writers of inferior +pretension. Among these, however, there are still degrees; and the +experience which I have gained since I first adventured as a poetical +translator has made me doubt whether I may not be ill-advised in +resuming the experiment under any circumstances. Still, an experiment +of this kind may have an advantage of its own, even when it is +unsuccessful; it may serve as a piece of embodied criticism, showing +what the experimenter conceived to be the conditions of success, and +may thus, to borrow Horace's own metaphor of the whetstone, impart to +others a quality which it is itself without. Perhaps I may be allowed, +for a few moments, to combine precept with example, and imitate my +distinguished friend and colleague, Professor Arnold, in offering some +counsels to the future translator of Horace's Odes, referring, at the +same time, by way of illustration, to my own attempt. + +The first thing at which, as it seems to me, a Horatian translator +ought to aim, is some kind of metrical conformity to his original. +Without this we are in danger of losing not only the metrical, but the +general effect of the Latin; we express ourselves in a different +compass, and the character of the expression is altered accordingly. +For instance, one of Horace's leading features is his occasional +sententiousness. It is this, perhaps more than anything else, that has +made him a storehouse of quotations. He condenses a general truth in a +few words, and thus makes his wisdom portable. "Non, si male nunc, et +olim sic erit;" "Nihil est ab omni parte beatum;" "Omnes eodem +cogimur,"--these and similar expressions remain in the memory when +other features of Horace's style, equally characteristic, but less +obvious, are forgotten. It is almost impossible for a translator to do +justice to this sententious brevity unless the stanza in which he +writes is in some sort analogous to the metre of Horace. If he chooses +a longer and more diffuse measure, he will be apt to spoil the proverb +by expansion; not to mention that much will often depend on the very +position of the sentence in the stanza. Perhaps, in order to preserve +these external peculiarities, it may be necessary to recast the +expression, to substitute, in fact, one form of proverb for another; +but this is far preferable to retaining the words in a diluted form, +and so losing what gives them their character, I cannot doubt, then, +that it is necessary in translating an Ode of Horace to choose some +analogous metre; as little can I doubt that a translator of the Odes +should appropriate to each Ode some particular metre as its own. It may +be true that Horace himself does not invariably suit his metre to his +subject; the solemn Alcaic is used for a poem in dispraise of serious +thought and praise of wine; the Asclepiad stanza in which Quintilius is +lamented is employed to describe the loves of Maecenas and Licymnia. +But though this consideration may influence us in our choice of an +English metre, it is no reason for not adhering to the one which we may +have chosen. If we translate an Alcaic and a Sapphic Ode into the same +English measure, because the feeling in both appears to be the same, we +are sure to sacrifice some important characteristic of the original in +the case of one or the other, perhaps of both. It is better to try to +make an English metre more flexible than to use two different English +metres to represent two different aspects of one measure in Latin. I am +sorry to say that I have myself deviated from this rule occasionally, +under circumstances which I shall soon have to explain; but though I +may perhaps succeed in showing that my offences have not been serious, +I believe the rule itself to be one of universal application, always +honoured in the observance, if not always equally dishonoured in the +breach. + +The question, what metres should be selected, is of course one of very +great difficulty. I can only explain what my own practice has been, +with some of the reasons which have influenced me in particular cases. +Perhaps we may take Milton's celebrated translation of the Ode to +Pyrrha as a starting point. There can be no doubt that to an English +reader the metre chosen does give much of the effect of the original; +yet the resemblance depends rather on the length of the respective +lines than on any similarity in the cadences. But it is evident that he +chose the iambic movement as the ordinary movement of English poetry; +and it is evident, I think, that in translating Horace we shall be +right in doing the same, as a general rule. Anapaestic and other +rhythms may be beautiful and appropriate in themselves, but they cannot +be manipulated so easily; the stanzas with which they are associated +bear no resemblance, as stanzas, to the stanzas of Horace's Odes. I +have then followed Milton in appropriating the measure in question to +the Latin metre, technically called the fourth Asclepiad, at the same +time that I have substituted rhyme for blank verse, believing rhyme to +be an inferior artist's only chance of giving pleasure. There still +remains a question about the distribution of the rhymes, which here, as +in most other cases, I have chosen to make alternate. Successive rhymes +have their advantages, but they do not give the effect of interlinking, +which is so natural in a stanza; the quatrain is reduced to two +couplets, and its unity is gone. From the fourth to the third Asclepiad +the step is easy. Taking an English iambic line of ten syllables to +represent the longer lines of the Latin, an English iambic line of six +syllables to represent the shorter, we see that the metre of Horace's +"Scriberis Vario" finds its representative in the metre of Mr. +Tennyson's "Dream of Fair Women." My experience would lead me to +believe the English metre to be quite capable, in really skilful hands, +of preserving the effect of the Latin, though, as I have said above, +the Latin measure is employed by Horace both for a threnody and for a +love-song. + +The Sapphic and the Alcaic involve more difficult questions. Here, +however, as in the Asclepiad, I believe we must be guided, to some +extent, by external similarity. We must choose the iambic movement as +being most congenial to English; we must avoid the ten-syllable iambic +as already appropriated to the longer Asclepiad line. This leads me to +conclude that the staple of each stanza should be the eight-syllable +iambic, a measure more familiar to English lyric poetry than any other, +and as such well adapted to represent the most familiar lyric measures +of Horace. With regard to the Sapphic, it seems desirable that it +should be represented by a measure of which the three first lines are +eight-syllable iambics, the fourth some shorter variety. Of this +stanza there are at least two kinds for which something might be said. +It might be constructed so that the three first lines should rhyme with +each other, the fourth being otherwise dealt with; or it might be +framed on the plan of alternate rhymes, the fourth line still being +shorter than the rest. Of the former kind two or three specimens are to +be found in Francis' translation of Horace. In these the fourth line +consists of but three syllables, the two last of which rhyme with the +two last syllables of the fourth line of the next succeeding stanza, as +for instance:-- + + + You shoot; she whets her tusks to bite; + While he who sits to judge the fight + Treads on the palm with foot so white, + Disdainful, + And sweetly floating in the air + Wanton he spreads his fragrant hair, + Like Ganymede or Nireus fair, + And vainful. + +It would be possible, no doubt, to produce verses better adapted to +recommend the measure than these stanzas, which are, however, the best +that can be quoted from Francis; it might be possible, too, to suggest +some improvement in the structure of the fourth line. But, however +managed, this stanza would, I think, be open to two serious objections; +the difficulty of finding three suitable rhymes for each stanza, and +the difficulty of disposing of the fourth line, which, if made to rhyme +with the fourth line of the next stanza, produces an awkwardness in the +case of those Odes which consist of an odd number of stanzas (a large +proportion of the whole amount), if left unrhymed, creates an obviously +disagreeable effect. We come then to the other alternative, the stanza +with alternate rhymes. Here the question is about the fourth line, +which may either consist of six syllables, like Coleridge's Fragment, +"O leave the lily on its stem," or of four, as in Pope's youthful "Ode +on Solitude," these types being further varied by the addition of an +extra syllable to form a double rhyme. Of these the four-syllable type +seems to me the one to be preferred, as giving the effect of the Adonic +better than if it had been two syllables longer. The double rhyme has, +I think, an advantage over the single, were it not for its greater +difficulty. Much as English lyric poetry owes to double rhymes, a +regular supply of them is not easy to procure; some of them are apt to +be cumbrous, such as words in-ATION; others, such as the participial-ING +(DYING, FLYING, &c.), spoil the language of poetry, leading to the +employment of participles where participles are not wanted, and of +verbal substantives that exist nowhere else. My first intention was to +adopt the double rhyme in this measure, and I accordingly executed +three Odes on that plan (Book I. Odes 22, 38; Book II. Ode 16); +afterwards I abandoned it, and contented myself with the single rhyme. +On the whole, I certainly think this measure answers sufficiently well +to the Latin Sapphic; but I have felt its brevity painfully in almost +every Ode that I have attempted, being constantly obliged to omit some +part of the Latin which I would gladly have preserved. The great number +of monosyllables in English is of course a reason for acquiescing in +lines shorter than the corresponding lines in Latin; but even in +English polysyllables are often necessary, and still oftener desirable +on grounds of harmony; and an allowance of twenty-eight syllables of +English for thirty-eight of Latin is, after all, rather short. + +For the place of the Alcaic there are various candidates. Mr. Tennyson +has recently invented a measure which, if not intended to reproduce the +Alcaic, was doubtless suggested by it, that which appears in his poem +of "The Daisy," and, in a slightly different form, in the "Lines to Mr. +Maurice." The two last lines of the latter form of the stanza are +indeed evidently copied from the Alcaic, with the simple omission of +the last syllable of the last line of the original. Still, as a whole, +I doubt whether this form would be as suitable, at least for a +dignified Ode, as the other, where the initial iambic in the last line, +substituted for a trochec, makes the movement different. I was +deterred, however, from attempting either, partly by a doubt whether +either had been sufficiently naturalized in English to be safely +practised by an unskilful hand, partly by the obvious difficulty of +having to provide three rhymes per stanza, against which the occurrence +of one line in each without a rhyme at all was but a poor set-off. A +second metre which occurred to me is that of Andrew Marvel's Horatian +Ode, a variety of which is found twice in Mr. Keble's Christian Year. +Here two lines of eight syllables are followed by two of six, the +difference between the types being that in Marvel's Ode the rhymes are +successive, in Mr. Keble's alternate. The external correspondence +between this and the Alcaic is considerable; but the brevity of the +English measure struck me at once as a fatal obstacle, and I did not +try to encounter it. A third possibility is the stanza of "In +Memoriam," which has been adopted by the clever author of "Poems and +Translations, by C. S. C.," in his version of "Justum et tenacem." I +think it very probable that this will be found eventually to be the +best representation of the Alcaic in English, especially as it appears +to afford facilities for that linking of stanza to stanza which one who +wishes to adhere closely to the logical and rhythmical structure of the +Latin soon learns to desire. But I have not adopted it; and I believe +there is good reason for not doing so. With all its advantages, it has +the patent disadvantage of having been brought into notice by a poet +who is influencing the present generation as only a great living poet +can. A great writer now, an inferior writer hereafter, may be able to +handle it with some degree of independence; but the majority of those +who use it at present are sure in adopting Mr. Tennyson's metre to +adopt his manner. It is no reproach to "C. S. C." that his Ode reminds +us of Mr. Tennyson; it is a praise to him that the recollection is a +pleasant one. But Mr. Tennyson's manner is not the manner of Horace, +and it is the manner of a contemporary; the expression--a most powerful +and beautiful expression--of influences to which a translator of an +ancient classic feels himself to be too much subjected already. What is +wanted is a metre which shall have other associations than those of the +nineteenth century, which shall be the growth of various periods of +English poetry, and so be independent of any. Such a metre is that +which I have been led to choose, the eight-syllable iambic with +alternate rhymes. It is one of the commonest metres in the language, +and for that reason it is adapted to more than one class of subjects, +to the gay as well as to the grave. But I am mistaken if it is not +peculiarly suited to express that concentrated grandeur, that majestic +combination of high eloquence with high poetry, which make the early +Alcaic Odes of Horace's Third Book what they are to us. The main +difficulty is in accommodating its structure to that of the Latin, of +varying the pauses, and of linking stanza to stanza. It is a difficulty +before which I have felt myself almost powerless, and I have in +consequence been driven to the natural expedient of weakness, +compromise, sometimes evading it, sometimes coping with it +unsuccessfully. In other respects I may be allowed to say that I have +found the metre pleasanter to handle than any of the others that I have +attempted, except, perhaps, that of "The Dream of Fair Women." The +proportion of syllables in each stanza of English to each stanza of +Latin is not much greater than in the case of the Sapphic, thirty-two +against forty-one; yet, except in a few passages, chiefly those +containing proper names, I have had no disagreeable sense of +confinement. I believe the reason of this to be that the Latin Alcaic +generally contains fewer words in proportion than the Latin Sapphic, +the former being favourable to long words, the latter to short ones, as +may be seen by contrasting such lines as "Dissentientis conditionibus" +with such as "Dona praesentis rape laetus horae ac." This, no doubt, +shows that there is an inconvenience in applying the same English +iambic measure to two metres which differ so greatly in their practical +result; but so far as I can see at present, the evil appears to be one +of those which it is wiser to submit to than to attempt to cure. + +The problem of finding English representatives for the other Horatian +metres, if a more difficult, is a less important one. The most pressing +case is that of the metre known as the second Asclepiad, the "Sic te +diva potens Cypri." With this, I fear, I shall be thought to have dealt +rather capriciously, having rendered it by four different measures, +three of them, however, varieties of the same general type. It so +happens that the first Ode which I translated was the celebrated +Amoebean Poem, the dialogue between Horace and Lydia. I had had at that +time not the most distant notion of translating the whole of the Odes, +or even any considerable number of them, so that in choosing a metre I +thought simply of the requirements of the Ode in question, not of those +of the rest of its class. Indeed, I may say that it was the thought of +the metre which led me to try if I could translate the Ode. Having +accomplished my attempt, I turned to another Ode of the same class, the +scarcely less celebrated "Quem tu, Melpomene." For this I took a +different metre, which happens to be identical with that of a solitary +Ode in the Second Book, "Non ebur neque aureum," being guided still by +my feeling about the individual Ode, not by any more general +considerations. I did not attempt a third until I had proceeded +sufficiently far in my undertaking to see that I should probably +continue to the end. Then I had to consider the question of a uniform +metre to answer to the Latin. Both of those which I had already tried +were rendered impracticable by a double rhyme, which, however +manageable in one or two Odes, is unmanageable, as I have before +intimated, in the case of a large number. The former of the two +measures, divested of the double rhyme, would, I think, lose most of +its attractiveness; the latter suffers much less from the privation: +the latter accordingly I chose. The trochaic character of the first +line seems to me to give it an advantage over any metre composed of +pure iambics, if it were only that it discriminates it from those +alternate ten-syllable and eight-syllable iambics into which it would +be natural to render many of the Epodes. At the same time, it did not +appear worth while to rewrite the two Odes already translated, merely +for the sake of uniformity, as the principle of correspondence to the +Latin, the alternation of longer and shorter lines, is really the same +in all three cases. Nay, so tentative has been my treatment of the +whole matter, that I have even translated one Ode, the third of Book I, +into successive rather than into alternate rhymes, so that readers may +judge of the comparative effect of the two varieties. After this +confession of irregularity, I need scarcely mention that on coming to +the Ode which had suggested the metre in its unmutilated state, I +translated it into the mutilated form, not caring either to encounter +the inconvenience of the double rhymes, or to make confusion worse +confounded by giving it, what it has in the Latin, a separate form of +its own. + +The remaining metres may be dismissed in a very few words. As a general +rule, I have avoided couplets of any sort, and chosen some kind of +stanza. As a German critic has pointed out, all the Odes of Horace, +with one doubtful exception, may be reduced to quatrains; and though +this peculiarity does not, so far as we can see, affect the character +of any of the Horatian metres (except, of course, those that are +written in stanzas), or influence the structure of the Latin, it must +be considered as a happy circumstance for those who wish to render +Horace into English. In respect of restraint, indeed, the English +couplet may sometimes be less inconvenient than the quatrain, as it is, +on the whole, easier to run couplet into couplet than to run quatrain +into quatrain; but the couplet seems hardly suitable for an English +lyrical poem of any length, the very notion of lyrical poetry +apparently involving a complexity which can only be represented by +rhymes recurring at intervals. In the case of one of the three poems +written by Horace in the measure called the greater Asclepiad, ("Tu ne +quoesieris,") I have adopted the couplet; in another ("Nullam, Vare,") +the quatrain, the determining reason in the two cases being the length +of the two Odes, the former of which consists but of eight lines, the +latter of sixteen. The metre which I selected for each is the thirteen- +syllable trochaic of "Locksley Hall;" and it is curious to observe the +different effect of the metre according as it is written in two lines +or in four. In the "Locksley Hall" couplet its movement is undoubtedly +trochaic; but when it is expanded into a quatrain, as in Mrs. +Browning's poem of "Lady Geraldine's Courtship," the movement changes, +and instead of a more or less equal stress on the alternate syllables, +the full ictus is only felt in one syllable out of every four; in +ancient metrical language the metre becomes Ionic a minore. This very +Ionic a minore is itself, I need not say, the metre of a single Ode in +the Third Book, the "Miserarum est," and I have devised a stanza for +it, taking much more pains with the apportionment of the ictus than in +the case of the trochaic quatrain, which is better able to modulate +itself. I have also ventured to invent a metre for that technically +known as the Fourth Archilochian, the "Solvitur acris hiems," by +combining the fourteen-syllable with the ten-syllable iambic in an +alternately rhyming stanza. [Footnote: I may be permitted to mention +that Lord Derby, in a volume of Translations printed privately before +the appearance of this work, has employed the same measure in rendering +the same Ode, the only difference being that his rhymes are not +alternate, but successive.] The First Archilochian, "Diffugere nives," +I have represented by a combination of the ten-syllable with the four- +syllable iambic. For the so-called greater Sapphic, the "Lydia, die per +omnes" I have made another iambic combination, the six-syllable with +the fourteen-syllable, arranged as a couplet. The choriambic I thought +might be exchanged for a heroic stanza, in which the first line should +rhyme with the fourth, the second with the third, a kind of "In +Memoriam" elongated. Lastly, I have chosen the heroic quatrain proper, +the metre of Gray's "Elegy," for the two Odes in the First Book written +in what is called the Metrum Alcmanium, "Laudabunt alii," and "Te maris +et terrae," rather from a vague notion of the dignity of the measure +than from any distinct sense of special appropriateness. + +From this enumeration, which I fear has been somewhat tedious, it will +be seen that I have been guided throughout not by any systematic +principles, but by a multitude of minor considerations, some operating +more strongly in one case, and some in another. I trust, however, that +in all this diversity I shall be found to have kept in view the object +on which I have been insisting, a metrical correspondence with the +original. Even where I have been most inconsistent, I have still +adhered to the rule of comprising the English within the same number of +lines as the Latin. I believe tills to be almost essential to the +preservation of the character of the Horatian lyric, which always +retains a certain severity, and never loses itself in modern +exuberance; and though I am well aware that the result in my case has +frequently, perhaps generally, been a most un-Horatian stiffness, I am +convinced from my own experience that a really accomplished artist +would find the task of composing under these conditions far more +hopeful than he had previously imagined it to be. Yet it is a restraint +to which scarcely any of the previous translators of the Odes have been +willing to submit. Perhaps Professor Newman is the only one who has +carried it through the whole of the Four Books; most of my predecessors +have ignored it altogether. It is this which, in my judgment, is the +chief drawback to the success of the most distinguished of them, Mr. +Theodore Martin. He has brought to his work a grace and delicacy of +expression and a happy flow of musical verse which are beyond my +praise, and which render many of his Odes most pleasing to read as +poems. I wish he had combined with these qualities that terseness and +condensation which remind us that a Roman, even when writing "songs of +love and wine," was a Roman still. + +Some may consider it extraordinary that in discussing the different +ways of representing Horatian metres I have said nothing of +transplanting those metres themselves into English. I think, however, +that an apology for my silence may he found in the present state of the +controversy about the English hexameter. Whatever may be the ultimate +fate of that struggling alien--and I confess myself to be one of those +who doubt whether he can ever be naturalized--most judges will, I +believe, agree that for the present at any rate his case is sufficient +to occupy the literary tribunals, and that to raise any discussion on +the rights of others of his class would be premature. Practice, after +all, is more powerful in such matters than theory; and hardly at any +time in the three hundred years during which we have had a formed +literature has the introduction of classical lyric measures into +English been a practical question. Stanihurst has had many successors +in the hexameter; probably he has not had more than one or two in the +Asclepiad. The Sapphic, indeed, has been tried repeatedly; but it is an +exception which is no exception, the metre thus intruded into our +language not being really the Latin Sapphic, but a metre of a different +kind, founded on a mistake in the manner of reading the Latin, into +which Englishmen naturally fall, and in which, for convenience' +sake, they as naturally persist. The late Mr. Clough, whose efforts in +literature were essentially tentative, in form as well as in spirit, +and whose loss for that very reason is perhaps of more serious import +to English poetry than if, with equal genius, he had possessed a more +conservative habit of mind, once attempted reproductions of nearly all +the different varieties of Horatian metres. They may he found in a +paper which he contributed to the fourth volume of the "Classical +Museum;" and a perusal of them will, I think, be likely to convince the +reader that the task is one in which even great rhythmical power and +mastery of language would be far from certain of succeeding. Even the +Alcaic fragment which he has inserted in his "Amours de Voyage"-- + + "Eager for battle here + Stood Vulcan, here matronal Juno, + And with the bow to his shoulder faithful + He who with pure dew laveth of Castaly + His flowing locks, who holdeth of Lycia + The oak forest and the wood that bore him, + Delos' and Patara's own Apollo,"-- + +admirably finished as it is, and highly pleasing as a fragment, +scarcely persuades us that twenty stanzas of the same workmanship would +be read with adequate pleasure, still less that the same satisfaction +would be felt through six-and-thirty Odes. After all, however, a sober +critic will be disposed rather to pass judgment on the past than to +predict the future, knowing, as he must, how easily the "solvitur +ambulando" of an artist like Mr. Tennyson may disturb a whole chain +of ingenious reasoning on the possibilities of things. + +The question of the language into which Horace should be translated is +not less important than that of the metre; but it involves far less +discussion of points of detail, and may, in fact, be very soon +dismissed. I believe that the chief danger which a translator has to +avoid is that of subjection to the influences of his own period. +Whether or no Mr. Merivale is right in supposing that an analogy exists +between the literature of the present day and that of post-Augustan +Rome, it will not, I think, be disputed that between our period and the +Augustan period the resemblances are very few, perhaps not more than +must necessarily exist between two periods of high cultivation. It is +the fashion to say that the characteristic of the literature of the +last century was shallow clearness, the expression of obvious thoughts +in obvious, though highly finished language; it is the fashion to +retort upon our own generation that its tendency is to over-thinking +and over-expression, a constant search for thoughts which shall not he +obvious and words which shall be above the level of received +conventionality. Accepting these as descriptions, however imperfect, of +two different types of literature, we can have no doubt to which +division to refer the literary remains of Augustan Rome. The Odes of +Horace, in particular, will, I think, strike a reader who comes back to +them after reading other books, as distinguished by a simplicity, +monotony, and almost poverty of sentiment, and as depending for the +charm of their external form not so much on novel and ingenious images +as on musical words aptly chosen and aptly combined. We are always +hearing of wine-jars and Thracian convivialities, of parsley wreaths +and Syrian nard; the graver topics, which it is the poet's wisdom to +forget, are constantly typified by the terrors of quivered Medes and +painted Gelonians; there is the perpetual antithesis between youth and +age, there is the ever-recurring image of green and withered trees, and +it is only the attractiveness of the Latin, half real, half perhaps +arising from association and the romance of a language not one's own, +that makes us feel this "lyrical commonplace" more supportable than +common-place is usually found to be. It is this, indeed, which +constitutes the grand difficulty of the translator, who may well despair +when he undertakes to reproduce beauties depending on expression by a +process in which expression is sure to be sacrificed. But it would, I +think, be a mistake to attempt to get rid of this monotony by calling +in the aid of that variety of images and forms of language which modern +poetry presents. Here, as in the case of metres, it seems to me that to +exceed the bounds of what may be called classical parsimony would be to +abandon the one chance, faint as it may be, of producing on the +reader's mind something like the impression produced by Horace. I do +not say that I have always been as abstinent as I think a translator +ought to be; here, as in all matters connected with this most difficult +work, weakness may claim a licence of which strength would disdain to +avail itself; I only say that I have not surrendered myself to the +temptation habitually and without a struggle. As a general rule, while +not unfrequently compelled to vary the precise image Horace has chosen, +I have substituted one which he has used elsewhere; where he has talked +of triumphs, meaning no more than victories, I have talked of bays; +where he gives the picture of the luxuriant harvests of Sardinia, I +have spoken of the wheat on the threshing-floors. On the whole I have +tried, so far as my powers would allow me, to give my translation +something of the colour of our eighteenth-century poetry, believing the +poetry of that time to be the nearest analogue of the poetry of +Augustus' court that England has produced, and feeling quite sure that +a writer will bear traces enough of the language and manner of his own +time to redeem him from the charge of having forgotten what is after +all his native tongue. As one instance out of many, I may mention the +use of compound epithets as a temptation to which the translator of +Horace is sure to be exposed, and which, in my judgment, he ought in +general to resist. Their power of condensation naturally recommends +them to a writer who has to deal with inconvenient clauses, threatening +to swallow up the greater part of a line; but there is no doubt that in +the Augustan poets, as compared with the poets of the republic, they +are chiefly conspicuous for their absence, and it is equally certain, I +think, that a translator of an Augustan poet ought not to suffer them +to be a prominent feature of his style. I have, perhaps, indulged in +them too often myself to note them as a defect in others; but it seems +to me that they contribute, along with the Tennysonian metre, to +diminish the pleasure with which we read such a version as that of +which I have already spoken by "C. S. C." of "Justum et tenacem." I may +add, too, that I have occasionally allowed the desire of brevity to +lead me into an omission of the definite article, which, though perhaps +in keeping with the style of Milton, is certainly out of keeping with +that of the eighteenth century. It is one of a translator's many +refuges, and has been conceded so long that it can hardly he denied him +with justice, however it may remind the reader of a bald verbal +rendering. + +A very few words will serve to conclude this somewhat protracted +Preface. I have not sought to interpret Horace with the minute accuracy +which I should think necessary in writing a commentary; and in general +I have been satisfied to consult two of the latest editions, those by +Orelli and Ritter. In a few instances I have preferred the views of the +latter; but his edition will not supersede that of the former, whose +commentary is one of the most judicious ever produced, within a +moderate compass, upon a classical author. In the few notes which I +have added at the end of this volume, I have noticed chiefly the +instances in which I have differed from him, in favour either of +Hitter's interpretation, or of some view of my own. At the same time it +must be said that my translation is not to be understood as always +indicating the interpretation I prefer. Sometimes, where the general +effect of two views of the construction of a passage has been the same, +I have followed that which I believed to be less correct, for reasons +of convenience. I have of course held myself free to deviate in a +thousand instances from the exact form of the Latin sentence; and it +did not seem reasonable to debar myself from a mode of expression which +appeared generally consistent with the original, because it happened to +be verbally consistent with a mistaken view of the Latin words. To take +an example mentioned in my notes, it may be better in Book III. Ode 3, +line 25, to make "adulterae" the genitive case after "hospes" than the +dative after "splendet;" but for practical purposes the two come to the +same thing, both being included in the full development of the thought; +and a translation which represents either is substantially a true +translation. I have omitted four Odes altogether, one in each Book, and +some stanzas of a fifth; and in some other instances I have been +studiously paraphrastic. Nor have I thought it worth while to extend my +translation from the Odes to the Epodes. The Epodes were the production +of Horace's youth, and probably would not have been much cared for +by posterity if they had constituted his only title to fame. A few of +them are beautiful, but some are revolting, and the rest, as pictures +of a roving and sensual passion, remind us of the least attractive +portion of the Odes. In the case of a writer like Horace it is not easy +to draw an exact line; but though in the Odes our admiration of much +that is graceful and tender and even true may balance our moral +repugnance to many parts of the poet's philosophy of life, it does not +seem equally desirable to dwell minutely on a class of compositions +where the beauties are fewer and the deformities more numerous and more +undisguised. + +I should add that any coincidences that may be noticed between my +version and those of my predecessors are, for the most part, merely +coincidences. In some cases I may have knowingly borrowed a rhyme, but +only where the rhyme was too common to have created a right of +property. + + + + +PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. + + +I am very sensible of the favour which has carried this translation +from a first edition into a second. The interval between the two has +been too short to admit of my altering my judgment in any large number +of instances; but I have been glad to employ the present opportunity in +amending, as I hope, an occasional word or expression, and, in one or +two cases, recasting a stanza. The notices which my book has received, +and the opinions communicated by the kindness of friends, have been +gratifying to me, both in themselves, and as showing the interest which +is being felt in the subject of Horatian translation. It is not +surprising that there should be considerable differences of opinion +about the manner in which Horace is to be rendered, and also about the +metre appropriate to particular Odes; but I need not say that it is +through such discussion that questions like these advance towards +settlement. It would indeed be a satisfaction to me to think that the +question of translating Horace had been brought a step nearer to its +solution by the experiment which I again venture to submit to the +public. + + + + +PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. + + +The changes which I have made in this impression of my translation are +somewhat more numerous than those which I was able to introduce into +the last, as might be expected from the longer interval between the +times of publication; but the work may still be spoken of as +substantially unaltered. + + + + + + +THE ODES OF HORACE. + + +BOOK I. + +I. + +MAECENAS ATAVIS. + + + Maecenas, born of monarch ancestors, + The shield at once and glory of my life! + There are who joy them in the Olympic strife + And love the dust they gather in the course; + The goal by hot wheels shunn'd, the famous prize, + Exalt them to the gods that rule mankind; + This joys, if rabbles fickle as the wind + Through triple grade of honours bid him rise, + That, if his granary has stored away + Of Libya's thousand floors the yield entire; + The man who digs his field as did his sire, + With honest pride, no Attalus may sway + By proffer'd wealth to tempt Myrtoan seas, + The timorous captain of a Cyprian bark. + The winds that make Icarian billows dark + The merchant fears, and hugs the rural ease + Of his own village home; but soon, ashamed + Of penury, he refits his batter'd craft. + There is, who thinks no scorn of Massic draught, + Who robs the daylight of an hour unblamed, + Now stretch'd beneath the arbute on the sward, + Now by some gentle river's sacred spring; + Some love the camp, the clarion's joyous ring, + And battle, by the mother's soul abhorr'd. + See, patient waiting in the clear keen air, + The hunter, thoughtless of his delicate bride, + Whether the trusty hounds a stag have eyed, + Or the fierce Marsian boar has burst the snare. + To me the artist's meed, the ivy wreath + Is very heaven: me the sweet cool of woods, + Where Satyrs frolic with the Nymphs, secludes + From rabble rout, so but Euterpe's breath + Fail not the flute, nor Polyhymnia fly + Averse from stringing new the Lesbian lyre. + O, write my name among that minstrel choir, + And my proud head shall strike upon the sky! + + + + +II. + +JAM SATIS TERRIS. + + + Enough of snow and hail at last + The Sire has sent in vengeance down: + His bolts, at His own temple cast, + Appall'd the town, + Appall'd the lands, lest Pyrrha's time + Return, with all its monstrous sights, + When Proteus led his flocks to climb + The flatten'd heights, + When fish were in the elm-tops caught, + Where once the stock-dove wont to bide, + And does were floating, all distraught, + Adown the tide. + Old Tiber, hurl'd in tumult back + From mingling with the Etruscan main, + Has threaten'd Numa's court with wrack + And Vesta's fane. + Roused by his Ilia's plaintive woes, + He vows revenge for guiltless blood, + And, spite of Jove, his banks o'erflows, + Uxorious flood. + Yes, Fame shall tell of civic steel + That better Persian lives had spilt, + To youths, whose minish'd numbers feel + Their parents' guilt. + What god shall Rome invoke to stay + Her fall? Can suppliance overbear + The ear of Vesta, turn'd away + From chant and prayer? + Who comes, commission'd to atone + For crime like ours? at length appear, + A cloud round thy bright shoulders thrown, + Apollo seer! + Or Venus, laughter-loving dame, + Round whom gay Loves and Pleasures fly; + Or thou, if slighted sons may claim + A parent's eye, + O weary--with thy long, long game, + Who lov'st fierce shouts and helmets bright, + And Moorish warrior's glance of flame + Or e'er he smite! + Or Maia's son, if now awhile + In youthful guise we see thee here, + Caesar's avenger--such the style + Thou deign'st to bear; + Late be thy journey home, and long + Thy sojourn with Rome's family; + Nor let thy wrath at our great wrong + Lend wings to fly. + Here take our homage, Chief and Sire; + Here wreathe with bay thy conquering brow, + And bid the prancing Mede retire, + Our Caesar thou! + + + + +III. + +SIC TE DIVA. + + + Thus may Cyprus' heavenly queen, + Thus Helen's brethren, stars of brightest sheen, + Guide thee! May the Sire of wind + Each truant gale, save only Zephyr, bind! + So do thou, fair ship, that ow'st + Virgil, thy precious freight, to Attic coast, + Safe restore thy loan and whole, + And save from death the partner of my soul! + Oak and brass of triple fold + Encompass'd sure that heart, which first made bold + To the raging sea to trust + A fragile bark, nor fear'd the Afric gust + With its Northern mates at strife, + Nor Hyads' frown, nor South-wind fury-rife, + Mightiest power that Hadria knows, + Wills he the waves to madden or compose. + What had Death in store to awe + Those eyes, that huge sea-beasts unmelting saw, + Saw the swelling of the surge, + And high Ceraunian cliffs, the seaman's scourge? + Heaven's high providence in vain + Has sever'd countries with the estranging main, + If our vessels ne'ertheless + With reckless plunge that sacred bar transgress. + Daring all, their goal to win, + Men tread forbidden ground, and rush on sin: + Daring all, Prometheus play'd + His wily game, and fire to man convey'd; + Soon as fire was stolen away, + Pale Fever's stranger host and wan Decay + Swept o'er earth's polluted face, + And slow Fate quicken'd Death's once halting pace. + Daedalus the void air tried + On wings, to humankind by Heaven denied; + Acheron's bar gave way with ease + Before the arm of labouring Hercules. + Nought is there for man too high; + Our impious folly e'en would climb the sky, + Braves the dweller on the steep, + Nor lets the bolts of heavenly vengeance sleep. + + + + +IV. + +SOLVITUR ACRIS HIEMS. + + + The touch of Zephyr and of Spring has loosen'd Winter's thrall; + The well-dried keels are wheel'd again to sea: + The ploughman cares not for his fire, nor cattle for their stall, + And frost no more is whitening all the lea. + Now Cytherea leads the dance, the bright moon overhead; + The Graces and the Nymphs, together knit, + With rhythmic feet the meadow beat, while Vulcan, fiery red, + Heats the Cyclopian forge in Aetna's pit. + 'Tis now the time to wreathe the brow with branch of myrtle green, + Or flowers, just opening to the vernal breeze; + Now Faunus claims his sacrifice among the shady treen, + Lambkin or kidling, which soe'er he please. + Pale Death, impartial, walks his round; he knocks at cottage-gate + And palace-portal. Sestius, child of bliss! + How should a mortal's hopes be long, when short his being's date? + Lo here! the fabulous ghosts, the dark abyss, + The void of the Plutonian hall, where soon as e'er you go, + No more for you shall leap the auspicious die + To seat you on the throne of wine; no more your breast shall glow + For Lycidas, the star of every eye. + + + + +V. + +QUIS MULTA GRACILIS. + + + What slender youth, besprinkled with perfume, + Courts you on roses in some grotto's shade? + Fair Pyrrha, say, for whom + Your yellow hair you braid, + So trim, so simple! Ah! how oft shall he + Lament that faith can fail, that gods can change, + Viewing the rough black sea + With eyes to tempests strange, + Who now is basking in your golden smile, + And dreams of you still fancy-free, still kind, + Poor fool, nor knows the guile + Of the deceitful wind! + Woe to the eyes you dazzle without cloud + Untried! For me, they show in yonder fane + My dripping garments, vow'd + To Him who curbs the main. + + + + +VI. + +SCRIBERIS VARIO. + + + Not I, but Varius:--he, of Homer's brood + A tuneful swan, shall bear you on his wing, + Your tale of trophies, won by field or flood, + Mighty alike to sing. + Not mine such themes, Agrippa; no, nor mine + To chant the wrath that fill'd Pelides' breast, + Nor dark Ulysses' wanderings o'er the brine, + Nor Pelops' house unblest. + Vast were the task, I feeble; inborn shame, + And she, who makes the peaceful lyre submit, + Forbid me to impair great Caesar's fame + And yours by my weak wit. + But who may fitly sing of Mars array'd + In adamant mail, or Merion, black with dust + Of Troy, or Tydeus' son by Pallas' aid + Strong against gods to thrust? + Feasts are my theme, my warriors maidens fair, + Who with pared nails encounter youths in fight; + Be Fancy free or caught in Cupid's snare, + Her temper still is light. + + + + +VII. + +LAUDABUNT ALII. + + + Let others Rhodes or Mytilene sing, + Or Ephesus, or Corinth, set between + Two seas, or Thebes, or Delphi, for its king + Each famous, or Thessalian Tempe green; + There are who make chaste Pallas' virgin tower + The daily burden of unending song, + And search for wreaths the olive's rifled bower; + The praise of Juno sounds from many a tongue, + Telling of Argos' steeds, Mycenaes's gold. + For me stern Sparta forges no such spell, + No, nor Larissa's plain of richest mould, + As bright Albunea echoing from her cell. + O headlong Anio! O Tiburnian groves, + And orchards saturate with shifting streams! + Look how the clear fresh south from heaven removes + The tempest, nor with rain perpetual teems! + You too be wise, my Plancus: life's worst cloud + Will melt in air, by mellow wine allay'd, + Dwell you in camps, with glittering banners proud, + Or 'neath your Tibur's canopy of shade. + When Teucer fled before his father's frown + From Salamis, they say his temples deep + He dipp'd in wine, then wreath'd with poplar crown, + And bade his comrades lay their grief to sleep: + "Where Fortune bears us, than my sire more kind, + There let us go, my own, my gallant crew. + 'Tis Teucer leads, 'tis Teucer breathes the wind; + No more despair; Apollo's word is true. + Another Salamis in kindlier air + Shall yet arise. Hearts, that have borne with me + Worse buffets! drown to-day in wine your care; + To-morrow we recross the wide, wide sea!" + + + + +VIII. + +LYDIA, DIC PER OMNES. + + + Lydia, by all above, + Why bear so hard on Sybaris, to ruin him with love? + What change has made him shun + The playing-ground, who once so well could bear the dust and sun? + Why does he never sit + On horseback in his company, nor with uneven bit + His Gallic courser tame? + Why dreads he yellow Tiber, as 'twould sully that fair frame? + Like poison loathes the oil, + His arms no longer black and blue with honourable toil, + He who erewhile was known + For quoit or javelin oft and oft beyond the limit thrown? + Why skulks he, as they say + Did Thetis' son before the dawn of Ilion's fatal day, + For fear the manly dress + Should fling him into danger's arms, amid the Lycian press? + + + + +IX. + +VIDES UT ALTA. + + + See, how it stands, one pile of snow, + Soracte! 'neath the pressure yield + Its groaning woods; the torrents' flow + With clear sharp ice is all congeal'd. + Heap high the logs, and melt the cold, + Good Thaliarch; draw the wine we ask, + That mellower vintage, four-year-old, + From out the cellar'd Sabine cask. + The future trust with Jove; when He + Has still'd the warring tempests' roar + On the vex'd deep, the cypress-tree + And aged ash are rock'd no more. + O, ask not what the morn will bring, + But count as gain each day that chance + May give you; sport in life's young spring, + Nor scorn sweet love, nor merry dance, + While years are green, while sullen eld + Is distant. Now the walk, the game, + The whisper'd talk at sunset held, + Each in its hour, prefer their claim. + Sweet too the laugh, whose feign'd alarm + The hiding-place of beauty tells, + The token, ravish'd from the arm + Or finger, that but ill rebels. + + + + +X. + +MERCURI FACUNDE. + + + Grandson of Atlas, wise of tongue, + O Mercury, whose wit could tame + Man's savage youth by power of song + And plastic game! + Thee sing I, herald of the sky, + Who gav'st the lyre its music sweet, + Hiding whate'er might please thine eye + In frolic cheat. + See, threatening thee, poor guileless child, + Apollo claims, in angry tone, + His cattle;--all at once he smiled, + His quiver gone. + Strong in thy guidance, Hector's sire + Escaped the Atridae, pass'd between + Thessalian tents and warders' fire, + Of all unseen. + Thou lay'st unspotted souls to rest; + Thy golden rod pale spectres know; + Blest power! by all thy brethren blest, + Above, below! + + + +XI + +TU NE QUAESIERIS. + + + Ask not ('tis forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years, + Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers. + Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past, + Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our last; + THIS, that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend their strength against + the shore. + Strain your wine and prove your wisdom; life is short; should hope + be more? + In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb'd away. + Seize the present; trust to-morrow e'en as little as you may. + + + + +XII. + +QUEMN VIRUM AUT HEROA. + + + What man, what hero, Clio sweet, + On harp or flute wilt thou proclaim? + What god shall echo's voice repeat + In mocking game + To Helicon's sequester'd shade, + Or Pindus, or on Haemus chill, + Where once the hurrying woods obey'd + The minstrel's will, + Who, by his mother's gift of song, + Held the fleet stream, the rapid breeze, + And led with blandishment along + The listening trees? + Whom praise we first? the Sire on high, + Who gods and men unerring guides, + Who rules the sea, the earth, the sky, + Their times and tides. + No mightier birth may He beget; + No like, no second has He known; + Yet nearest to her sire's is set + Minerva's throne. + Nor yet shall Bacchus pass unsaid, + Bold warrior, nor the virgin foe + Of savage beasts, nor Phoebus, dread + With deadly bow. + Alcides too shall be my theme, + And Leda's twins, for horses be, + He famed for boxing; soon as gleam + Their stars at sea, + The lash'd spray trickles from the steep, + The wind sinks down, the storm-cloud flies, + The threatening billow on the deep + Obedient lies. + Shall now Quirinus take his turn, + Or quiet Numa, or the state + Proud Tarquin held, or Cato stern, + By death made great? + Ay, Regulus and the Scaurian name, + And Paullus, who at Cannae gave + His glorious soul, fair record claim, + For all were brave. + Thee, Furius, and Fabricius, thee, + Rough Curius too, with untrimm'd beard, + Your sires' transmitted poverty + To conquest rear'd. + Marcellus' fame, its up-growth hid, + Springs like a tree; great Julius' light + Shines, like the radiant moon amid + The lamps of night. + Dread Sire and Guardian of man's race, + To Thee, O Jove, the Fates assign + Our Caesar's charge; his power and place + Be next to Thine. + Whether the Parthian, threatening Rome, + His eagles scatter to the wind, + Or follow to their eastern home + Cathay and Ind, + Thy second let him rule below: + Thy car shall shake the realms above; + Thy vengeful bolts shall overthrow + Each guilty grove. + + + + +XIII. + +CUM TU, LYDIA. + + + Telephus--you praise him still, + His waxen arms, his rosy-tinted neck; + Ah! and all the while I thrill + With jealous pangs I cannot, cannot check. + See, my colour comes and goes, + My poor heart flutters, Lydia, and the dew, + Down my cheek soft stealing, shows + What lingering torments rack me through and through. + Oh, 'tis agony to see + Those snowwhite shoulders scarr'd in drunken fray, + Or those ruby lips, where he + Has left strange marks, that show how rough his play! + Never, never look to find + A faithful heart in him whose rage can harm + Sweetest lips, which Venus kind + Has tinctured with her quintessential charm. + Happy, happy, happy they + Whose living love, untroubled by all strife, + Binds them till the last sad day, + Nor parts asunder but with parting life! + + + + +XIV + +O NAVIS, REFERENT. + + + O LUCKLESS bark! new waves will force you back + To sea. O, haste to make the haven yours! + E'en now, a helpless wrack, + You drift, despoil'd of oars; + The Afric gale has dealt your mast a wound; + Your sailyards groan, nor can your keel sustain, + Till lash'd with cables round, + A more imperious main. + Your canvass hangs in ribbons, rent and torn; + No gods are left to pray to in fresh need. + A pine of Pontus born + Of noble forest breed, + You boast your name and lineage--madly blind! + Can painted timbers quell a seaman's fear? + Beware! or else the wind + Makes you its mock and jeer. + Your trouble late made sick this heart of mine, + And still I love you, still am ill at ease. + O, shun the sea, where shine + The thick-sown Cyclades! + + + + +XV. + +PASTOR CUM TRAHERET. + + + When the false swain was hurrying o'er the deep + His Spartan hostess in the Idaean bark, + Old Nereus laid the unwilling winds asleep, + That all to Fate might hark, + Speaking through him:--"Home in ill hour you take + A prize whom Greece shall claim with troops untold, + Leagued by an oath your marriage tie to break + And Priam's kingdom old. + Alas! what deaths you launch on Dardan realm! + What toils are waiting, man and horse to tire! + See! Pallas trims her aegis and her helm, + Her chariot and her ire. + Vainly shall you, in Venus' favour strong, + Your tresses comb, and for your dames divide + On peaceful lyre the several parts of song; + Vainly in chamber hide + From spears and Gnossian arrows, barb'd with fate, + And battle's din, and Ajax in the chase + Unconquer'd; those adulterous locks, though late, + Shall gory dust deface. + Hark! 'tis the death-cry of your race! look back! + Ulysses comes, and Pylian Nestor grey; + See! Salaminian Teucer on your track, + And Sthenelus, in the fray + Versed, or with whip and rein, should need require, + No laggard. Merion too your eyes shall know + From far. Tydides, fiercer than his sire, + Pursues you, all aglow; + Him, as the stag forgets to graze for fright, + Seeing the wolf at distance in the glade, + And flies, high panting, you shall fly, despite + Boasts to your leman made. + What though Achilles' wrathful fleet postpone + The day of doom to Troy and Troy's proud dames, + Her towers shall fall, the number'd winters flown, + Wrapp'd in Achaean flames." + + + + +XVI. + +O MATRE PULCHRA. + + + O lovelier than the lovely dame + That bore you, sentence as you please + Those scurril verses, be it flame + Your vengeance craves, or Hadrian seas. + Not Cybele, nor he that haunts + Rich Pytho, worse the brain confounds, + Not Bacchus, nor the Corybants + Clash their loud gongs with fiercer sounds + Than savage wrath; nor sword nor spear + Appals it, no, nor ocean's frown, + Nor ravening fire, nor Jupiter + In hideous ruin crashing down. + Prometheus, forced, they say, to add + To his prime clay some favourite part + From every kind, took lion mad, + And lodged its gall in man's poor heart. + 'Twas wrath that laid Thyestes low; + 'Tis wrath that oft destruction calls + On cities, and invites the foe + To drive his plough o'er ruin'd walls. + Then calm your spirit; I can tell + How once, when youth in all my veins + Was glowing, blind with rage, I fell + On friend and foe in ribald strains. + Come, let me change my sour for sweet, + And smile complacent as before: + Hear me my palinode repeat, + And give me back your heart once more. + + +XVII. VELOX AMOENUM. + + The pleasures of Lucretilis + Tempt Faunus from his Grecian seat; + He keeps my little goats in bliss + Apart from wind, and rain, and heat. + In safety rambling o'er the sward + For arbutes and for thyme they peer, + The ladies of the unfragrant lord, + Nor vipers, green with venom, fear, + Nor savage wolves, of Mars' own breed, + My Tyndaris, while Ustica's dell + Is vocal with the silvan reed, + And music thrills the limestone fell. + Heaven is my guardian; Heaven approves + A blameless life, by song made sweet; + Come hither, and the fields and groves + Their horn shall empty at your feet. + Here, shelter'd by a friendly tree, + In Teian measures you shall sing + Bright Circe and Penelope, + Love-smitten both by one sharp sting. + Here shall you quaff beneath the shade + Sweet Lesbian draughts that injure none, + Nor fear lest Mars the realm invade + Of Semele's Thyonian son, + Lest Cyrus on a foe too weak + Lay the rude hand of wild excess, + His passion on your chaplet wreak, + Or spoil your undeserving dress. + + + + +XVIII. + +NULLAM, VARE. + + + Varus, are your trees in planting? put in none before the vine, + In the rich domain of Tibur, by the walls of Catilus; + There's a power above that hampers all that sober brains design, + And the troubles man is heir to thus are quell'd, and only thus. + Who can talk of want or warfare when the wine is in his head, + Not of thee, good father Bacchus, and of Venus fair and bright? + But should any dream of licence, there's a lesson may be read, + How 'twas wine that drove the Centaurs with the Lapithae to fight. + And the Thracians too may warn us; truth and falsehood, good and + ill, + How they mix them, when the wine-god's hand is heavy on them laid! + Never, never, gracious Bacchus, may I move thee 'gainst thy will, + Or uncover what is hidden in the verdure of thy shade! + Silence thou thy savage cymbals, and the Berecyntine horn; + In their train Self-love still follows, dully, desperately + blind, + And Vain-glory, towering upwards in its empty-headed scorn, + And the Faith that keeps no secrets, with a window in its mind. + + + + +XIX. + +MATER SAEVA CUPIDINUM + + + Cupid's mother, cruel dame, + And Semele's Theban boy, and Licence bold, + Bid me kindle into flame + This heart, by waning passion now left cold. + O, the charms of Glycera, + That hue, more dazzling than the Parian stone! + O, that sweet tormenting play, + That too fair face, that blinds when look'd upon! + Venus comes in all her might, + Quits Cyprus for my heart, nor lets me tell + Of the Parthian, hold in flight, + Nor Scythian hordes, nor aught that breaks her spell. + Heap the grassy altar up, + Bring vervain, boys, and sacred frankincense; + Fill the sacrificial cup; + A victim's blood will soothe her vehemence. + + + +XX. + +VILE POTABIS. + + + Not large my cups, nor rich my cheer, + This Sabine wine, which erst I seal'd, + That day the applauding theatre + Your welcome peal'd, + Dear knight Maecenas! as 'twere fain + That your paternal river's banks, + And Vatican, in sportive strain, + Should echo thanks. + For you Calenian grapes are press'd, + And Caecuban; these cups of mine + Falernum's bounty ne'er has bless'd, + Nor Formian vine. + + + + +XXI. + +DIANAM TENERAE. + + + Of Dian's praises, tender maidens, tell; + Of Cynthus' unshorn god, young striplings, sing; + And bright Latona, well + Beloved of Heaven's high King. + Sing her that streams and silvan foliage loves, + Whate'er on Algidus' chill brow is seen, + In Erymanthian groves + Dark-leaved, or Cragus green. + Sing Tempe too, glad youths, in strain as loud, + And Phoebus' birthplace, and that shoulder fair, + His golden quiver proud + And brother's lyre to bear. + His arm shall banish Hunger, Plague, and War + To Persia and to Britain's coast, away + From Rome and Caesar far, + If you have zeal to pray. + + + + +XXII. + +INTEGER VITAE. + + + No need of Moorish archer's craft + To guard the pure and stainless liver; + He wants not, Fuscus, poison'd shaft + To store his quiver, + Whether he traverse Libyan shoals, + Or Caucasus, forlorn and horrent, + Or lands where far Hydaspes rolls + His fabled torrent. + A wolf, while roaming trouble-free + In Sabine wood, as fancy led me, + Unarm'd I sang my Lalage, + Beheld, and fled me. + Dire monster! in her broad oak woods + Fierce Daunia fosters none such other, + Nor Juba's land, of lion broods + The thirsty mother. + Place me where on the ice-bound plain + No tree is cheer'd by summer breezes, + Where Jove descends in sleety rain + Or sullen freezes; + Place me where none can live for heat, + 'Neath Phoebus' very chariot plant me, + That smile so sweet, that voice so sweet, + Shall still enchant me. + + + + +XXIII. + +VITAS HINNULEO. + + + You fly me, Chloe, as o'er trackless hills + A young fawn runs her timorous dam to find, + Whom empty terror thrills + Of woods and whispering wind. + Whether 'tis Spring's first shiver, faintly heard + Through the light leaves, or lizards in the brake + The rustling thorns have stirr'd, + Her heart, her knees, they quake. + Yet I, who chase you, no grim lion am, + No tiger fell, to crush you in my gripe: + Come, learn to leave your dam, + For lover's kisses ripe. + + + + +XXIV. + +QUIS DESIDERIO. + + + Why blush to let our tears unmeasured fall + For one so dear? Begin the mournful stave, + Melpomene, to whom the Sire of all + Sweet voice with music gave. + And sleeps he then the heavy sleep of death, + Quintilius? Piety, twin sister dear + Of Justice! naked Truth! unsullied Faith! + When will ye find his peer? + By many a good man wept. Quintilius dies; + By none than you, my Virgil, trulier wept: + Devout in vain, you chide the faithless skies, + Asking your loan ill-kept. + No, though more suasive than the bard of Thrace + You swept the lyre that trees were fain to hear, + Ne'er should the blood revisit his pale face + Whom once with wand severe + Mercury has folded with the sons of night, + Untaught to prayer Fate's prison to unseal. + Ah, heavy grief! but patience makes more light + What sorrow may not heal. + + + + +XXVI. + +MUSIS AMICUS. + + + The Muses love me: fear and grief, + The winds may blow them to the sea; + Who quail before the wintry chief + Of Scythia's realm, is nought to me. + What cloud o'er Tiridates lowers, + I care not, I. O, nymph divine + Of virgin springs, with sunniest flowers + A chaplet for my Lamia twine, + Pimplea sweet! my praise were vain + Without thee. String this maiden lyre, + Attune for him the Lesbian strain, + O goddess, with thy sister quire! + + + + +XXVII. + +NATIS IN USUM. + + + What, fight with cups that should give joy? + 'Tis barbarous; leave such savage ways + To Thracians. Bacchus, shamefaced boy, + Is blushing at your bloody frays. + The Median sabre! lights and wine! + Was stranger contrast ever seen? + Cease, cease this brawling, comrades mine, + And still upon your elbows lean. + Well, shall I take a toper's part + Of fierce Falernian? let our guest, + Megilla's brother, say what dart + Gave the death-wound that makes him blest. + He hesitates? no other hire + Shall tempt my sober brains. Whate'er + The goddess tames you, no base fire + She kindles; 'tis some gentle fair + Allures you still. Come, tell me truth, + And trust my honour.--That the name? + That wild Charybdis yours? Poor youth! + O, you deserved a better flame! + What wizard, what Thessalian spell, + What god can save you, hamper'd thus? + To cope with this Chimaera fell + Would task another Pegasus. + + + + +XXVIII. + +TE MARIS ET TERRA. + + + The sea, the earth, the innumerable sand, + Archytas, thou couldst measure; now, alas! + A little dust on Matine shore has spann'd + That soaring spirit; vain it was to pass + The gates of heaven, and send thy soul in quest + O'er air's wide realms; for thou hadst yet to die. + Ay, dead is Pelops' father, heaven's own guest, + And old Tithonus, rapt from earth to sky, + And Minos, made the council-friend of Jove; + And Panthus' son has yielded up his breath + Once more, though down he pluck'd the shield, to prove + His prowess under Troy, and bade grim death + O'er skin and nerves alone exert its power, + Not he, you grant, in nature meanly read. + Yes, all "await the inevitable hour;" + The downward journey all one day must tread. + Some bleed, to glut the war-god's savage eyes; + Fate meets the sailor from the hungry brine; + Youth jostles age in funeral obsequies; + Each brow in turn is touch'd by Proserpine. + Me, too, Orion's mate, the Southern blast, + Whelm'd in deep death beneath the Illyrian wave. + But grudge not, sailor, of driven sand to cast + A handful on my head, that owns no grave. + So, though the eastern tempests loudly threat + Hesperia's main, may green Venusia's crown + Be stripp'd, while you lie warm; may blessings yet + Stream from Tarentum's guard, great Neptune, down, + And gracious Jove, into your open lap! + What! shrink you not from crime whose punishment + Falls on your innocent children? it may hap + Imperious Fate will make yourself repent. + My prayers shall reach the avengers of all wrong; + No expiations shall the curse unbind. + Great though your haste, I would not task you long; + Thrice sprinkle dust, then scud before the wind. + + + + +XXIX. + +ICCI, BEATIS. + + + Your heart on Arab wealth is set, + Good Iccius: you would try your steel + On Saba's kings, unconquer'd yet, + And make the Mede your fetters feel. + Come, tell me what barbarian fair + Will serve you now, her bridegroom slain? + What page from court with essenced hair + Will tender you the bowl you drain, + Well skill'd to bend the Serian bow + His father carried? Who shall say + That rivers may not uphill flow, + And Tiber's self return one day, + If you would change Panaetius' works, + That costly purchase, and the clan + Of Socrates, for shields and dirks, + Whom once we thought a saner man? + + + + +XXX. + +O VENUS. + + + Come, Cnidian, Paphian Venus, come, + Thy well-beloved Cyprus spurn, + Haste, where for thee in Glycera's home + Sweet odours burn. + Bring too thy Cupid, glowing warm, + Graces and Nymphs, unzoned and free, + And Youth, that lacking thee lacks charm, + And Mercury. + + + + +XXXI. + +QUID DEDICATUM. + + + What blessing shall the bard entreat + The god he hallows, as he pours + The winecup? Not the mounds of wheat + That load Sardinian threshing floors; + Not Indian gold or ivory--no, + Nor flocks that o'er Calabria stray, + Nor fields that Liris, still and slow, + Is eating, unperceived, away. + Let those whose fate allows them train + Calenum's vine; let trader bold + From golden cups rich liquor drain + For wares of Syria bought and sold, + Heaven's favourite, sooth, for thrice a-year + He comes and goes across the brine + Undamaged. I in plenty here + On endives, mallows, succory dine. + O grant me, Phoebus, calm content, + Strength unimpair'd, a mind entire, + Old age without dishonour spent, + Nor unbefriended by the lyre! + + + + +XXXII. + +POSCIMUR. + + + They call;--if aught in shady dell + We twain have warbled, to remain + Long months or years, now breathe, my shell, + A Roman strain, + Thou, strung by Lesbos' minstrel hand, + The bard, who 'mid the clash of steel, + Or haply mooring to the strand + His batter'd keel, + Of Bacchus and the Muses sung, + And Cupid, still at Venus' side, + And Lycus, beautiful and young, + Dark-hair'd, dark-eyed. + O sweetest lyre, to Phoebus dear, + Delight of Jove's high festival, + Blest balm in trouble, hail and hear + Whene'er I call! + + + + +XXXIII. + +ALBI, NE DOLEAS. + + + What, Albius! why this passionate despair + For cruel Glycera? why melt your voice + In dolorous strains, because the perjured fair + Has made a younger choice? + See, narrow-brow'd Lycoris, how she glows + For Cyrus! Cyrus turns away his head + To Pholoe's frown; but sooner gentle roes + Apulian wolves shall wed, + Than Pholoe to so mean a conqueror strike: + So Venus wills it; 'neath her brazen yoke + She loves to couple forms and minds unlike, + All for a heartless joke. + For me sweet Love had forged a milder spell; + But Myrtale still kept me her fond slave, + More stormy she than the tempestuous swell + That crests Calabria's wave. + + + + +XXXIV. + +PARCUS DEORUM. + + + My prayers were scant, my offerings few, + While witless wisdom fool'd my mind; + But now I trim my sails anew, + And trace the course I left behind. + For lo! the Sire of heaven on high, + By whose fierce bolts the clouds are riven, + To-day through an unclouded sky + His thundering steeds and car has driven. + E'en now dull earth and wandering floods, + And Atlas' limitary range, + And Styx, and Taenarus' dark abodes + Are reeling. He can lowliest change + And loftiest; bring the mighty down + And lift the weak; with whirring flight + Comes Fortune, plucks the monarch's crown, + And decks therewith some meaner wight. + + + + +XXXV. + +O DIVA, GRATUM. + + + Lady of Antium, grave and stern! + O Goddess, who canst lift the low + To high estate, and sudden turn + A triumph to a funeral show! + Thee the poor hind that tills the soil + Implores; their queen they own in thee, + Who in Bithynian vessel toil + Amid the vex'd Carpathian sea. + Thee Dacians fierce, and Scythian hordes, + Peoples and towns, and Koine, their head, + And mothers of barbarian lords, + And tyrants in their purple dread, + Lest, spurn'd by thee in scorn, should fall + The state's tall prop, lest crowds on fire + To arms, to arms! the loiterers call, + And thrones be tumbled in the mire. + Necessity precedes thee still + With hard fierce eyes and heavy tramp: + Her hand the nails and wedges fill, + The molten lead and stubborn clamp. + Hope, precious Truth in garb of white, + Attend thee still, nor quit thy side + When with changed robes thou tak'st thy flight + In anger from the homes of pride. + Then the false herd, the faithless fair, + Start backward; when the wine runs dry, + The jocund guests, too light to bear + An equal yoke, asunder fly. + O shield our Caesar as he goes + To furthest Britain, and his band, + Rome's harvest! Send on Eastern foes + Their fear, and on the Red Sea strand! + O wounds that scarce have ceased to run! + O brother's blood! O iron time! + What horror have we left undone? + Has conscience shrunk from aught of crime? + What shrine has rapine held in awe? + What altar spared? O haste and beat + The blunted steel we yet may draw + On Arab and on Massagete! + + +XXXVI. + +ET THURE, ET FIDIBUS. + + + Bid the lyre and cittern play; + Enkindle incense, shed the victim's gore; + Heaven has watch'd o'er Numida, + And brings him safe from far Hispania's shore. + Now, returning, he bestows + On each, dear comrade all the love he can; + But to Lamia most he owes, + By whose sweet side he grew from boy to man. + Note we in our calendar + This festal day with whitest mark from Crete: + Let it flow, the old wine-jar, + And ply to Salian time your restless feet. + Damalis tosses off her wine, + But Bassus sure must prove her match to-night. + Give us roses all to twine, + And parsley green, and lilies deathly white. + Every melting eye will rest + On Damalis' lovely face; but none may part + Damalis from our new-found guest; + She clings, and clings, like ivy, round his heart. + + + + +XXXVII. + +NUNC EST BIBENDUM. + + + Now drink we deep, now featly tread + A measure; now before each shrine + With Salian feasts the table spread; + The time invites us, comrades mine. + 'Twas shame to broach, before to-day, + The Caecuban, while Egypt's dame + Threaten'd our power in dust to lay + And wrap the Capitol in flame, + Girt with her foul emasculate throng, + By Fortune's sweet new wine befool'd, + In hope's ungovern'd weakness strong + To hope for all; but soon she cool'd, + To see one ship from burning 'scape; + Great Caesar taught her dizzy brain, + Made mad by Mareotic grape, + To feel the sobering truth of pain, + And gave her chase from Italy, + As after doves fierce falcons speed, + As hunters 'neath Haemonia's sky + Chase the tired hare, so might he lead + The fiend enchain'd; SHE sought to die + More nobly, nor with woman's dread + Quail'd at the steel, nor timorously + In her fleet ships to covert fled. + Amid her ruin'd halls she stood + Unblench'd, and fearless to the end + Grasp'd the fell snakes, that all her blood + Might with the cold black venom blend, + Death's purpose flushing in her face; + Nor to our ships the glory gave, + That she, no vulgar dame, should grace + A triumph, crownless, and a slave. + + + + +XXXVIII. + +PERSICOS ODI. + + + No Persian cumber, boy, for me; + I hate your garlands linden-plaited; + Leave winter's rose where on the tree + It hangs belated. + Wreath me plain myrtle; never think + Plain myrtle either's wear unfitting, + Yours as you wait, mine as I drink + In vine-bower sitting. + + + + +BOOK II. + + +I. + +MOTUM EX METELLO. + + + The broils that from Metellus date, + The secret springs, the dark intrigues, + The freaks of Fortune, and the great + Confederate in disastrous leagues, + And arms with uncleansed slaughter red, + A work of danger and distrust, + You treat, as one on fire should tread, + Scarce hid by treacherous ashen crust. + Let Tragedy's stern muse be mute + Awhile; and when your order'd page + Has told Rome's tale, that buskin'd foot + Again shall mount the Attic stage, + Pollio, the pale defendant's shield, + In deep debate the senate's stay, + The hero of Dalmatic field + By Triumph crown'd with deathless bay. + E'en now with trumpet's threatening blare + You thrill our ears; the clarion brays; + The lightnings of the armour scare + The steed, and daunt the rider's gaze. + Methinks I hear of leaders proud + With no uncomely dust distain'd, + And all the world by conquest bow'd, + And only Cato's soul unchain'd. + Yes, Juno and the powers on high + That left their Afric to its doom, + Have led the victors' progeny + As victims to Jugurtha's tomb. + What field, by Latian blood-drops fed, + Proclaims not the unnatural deeds + It buries, and the earthquake dread + Whose distant thunder shook the Medes? + What gulf, what river has not seen + Those sights of sorrow? nay, what sea + Has Daunian carnage yet left green? + What coast from Roman blood is free? + But pause, gay Muse, nor leave your play + Another Cean dirge to sing; + With me to Venus' bower away, + And there attune a lighter string. + + + + +II. + +NULLUS ARGENTO. + + + The silver, Sallust, shows not fair + While buried in the greedy mine: + You love it not till moderate wear + Have given it shine. + Honour to Proculeius! he + To brethren play'd a father's part; + Fame shall embalm through years to be + That noble heart. + Who curbs a greedy soul may boast + More power than if his broad-based throne + Bridged Libya's sea, and either coast + Were all his own. + Indulgence bids the dropsy grow; + Who fain would quench the palate's flame + Must rescue from the watery foe + The pale weak frame. + Phraates, throned where Cyrus sate, + May count for blest with vulgar herds, + But not with Virtue; soon or late + From lying words + She weans men's lips; for him she keeps + The crown, the purple, and the bays, + Who dares to look on treasure-heaps + With unblench'd gaze. + + + + +III. + +AEQUAM, MEMENTO. + + + An equal mind, when storms o'ercloud, + Maintain, nor 'neath a brighter sky + Let pleasure make your heart too proud, + O Dellius, Dellius! sure to die, + Whether in gloom you spend each year, + Or through long holydays at ease + In grassy nook your spirit cheer + With old Falernian vintages, + Where poplar pale, and pine-tree high + Their hospitable shadows spread + Entwined, and panting waters try + To hurry down their zigzag bed. + Bring wine and scents, and roses' bloom, + Too brief, alas! to that sweet place, + While life, and fortune, and the loom + Of the Three Sisters yield you grace. + Soon must you leave the woods you buy, + Your villa, wash'd by Tiber's flow, + Leave,--and your treasures, heap'd so high, + Your reckless heir will level low. + Whether from Argos' founder born + In wealth you lived beneath the sun, + Or nursed in beggary and scorn, + You fall to Death, who pities none. + One way all travel; the dark urn + Shakes each man's lot, that soon or late + Will force him, hopeless of return, + On board the exile-ship of Fate. + + + + +IV. + +NE SIT ANCILLAE + + + Why, Xanthias, blush to own you love + Your slave? Briseis, long ago, + A captive, could Achilles move + With breast of snow. + Tecmessa's charms enslaved her lord, + Stout Ajax, heir of Telamon; + Atrides, in his pride, adored + The maid he won, + When Troy to Thessaly gave way, + And Hector's all too quick decease + Made Pergamus an easier prey + To wearied Greece. + What if, as auburn Phyllis' mate, + You graft yourself on regal stem? + Oh yes! be sure her sires were great; + She weeps for THEM. + Believe me, from no rascal scum + Your charmer sprang; so true a flame, + Such hate of greed, could never come + From vulgar dame. + With honest fervour I commend + Those lips, those eyes; you need not fear + A rival, hurrying on to end + His fortieth year. + + + + +VI. + +SEPTIMI, GADES. + + + Septimius, who with me would brave + Far Gades, and Cantabrian land + Untamed by Home, and Moorish wave + That whirls the sand; + Fair Tibur, town of Argive kings, + There would I end my days serene, + At rest from seas and travellings, + And service seen. + Should angry Fate those wishes foil, + Then let me seek Galesus, sweet + To skin-clad sheep, and that rich soil, + The Spartan's seat. + O, what can match the green recess, + Whose honey not to Hybla yields, + Whose olives vie with those that bless + Venafrum's fields? + Long springs, mild winters glad that spot + By Jove's good grace, and Aulon, dear + To fruitful Bacchus, envies not + Falernian cheer. + That spot, those happy heights desire + Our sojourn; there, when life shall end, + Your tear shall dew my yet warm pyre, + Your bard and friend. + + + + +VII. + +O SAEPE MECUM. + + + O, Oft with me in troublous time + Involved, when Brutus warr'd in Greece, + Who gives you back to your own clime + And your own gods, a man of peace, + Pompey, the earliest friend I knew, + With whom I oft cut short the hours + With wine, my hair bright bathed in dew + Of Syrian oils, and wreathed with flowers? + With you I shared Philippi's rout, + Unseemly parted from my shield, + When Valour fell, and warriors stout + Were tumbled on the inglorious field: + But I was saved by Mercury, + Wrapp'd in thick mist, yet trembling sore, + While you to that tempestuous sea + Were swept by battle's tide once more. + Come, pay to Jove the feast you owe; + Lay down those limbs, with warfare spent, + Beneath my laurel; nor be slow + To drain my cask; for you 'twas meant. + Lethe's true draught is Massic wine; + Fill high the goblet; pour out free + Rich streams of unguent. Who will twine + The hasty wreath from myrtle-tree + Or parsley? Whom will Venus seat + Chairman of cups? Are Bacchants sane? + Then I'll be sober. O, 'tis sweet + To fool, when friends come home again! + + + + +VIII. + +ULLA SI JURIS. + + + Had chastisement for perjured truth, + Barine, mark'd you with a curse-- + Did one wry nail, or one black tooth, + But make you worse-- + I'd trust you; but, when plighted lies + Have pledged you deepest, lovelier far + You sparkle forth, of all young eyes + The ruling star. + 'Tis gain to mock your mother's bones, + And night's still signs, and all the sky, + And gods, that on their glorious thrones + Chill Death defy. + Ay, Venus smiles; the pure nymphs smile, + And Cupid, tyrant-lord of hearts, + Sharpening on bloody stone the while + His fiery darts. + New captives fill the nets you weave; + New slaves are bred; and those before, + Though oft they threaten, never leave + Your godless door. + The mother dreads you for her son, + The thrifty sire, the new-wed bride, + Lest, lured by you, her precious one + Should leave her side. + + + + +IX. + +NON SEMPER IMBRES. + + + The rain, it rains not every day + On the soak'd meads; the Caspian main + Not always feels the unequal sway + Of storms, nor on Armenia's plain, + Dear Valgius, lies the cold dull snow + Through all the year; nor northwinds keen + Upon Garganian oakwoods blow, + And strip the ashes of their green. + You still with tearful tones pursue + Your lost, lost Mystes; Hesper sees + Your passion when he brings the dew, + And when before the sun he flees. + Yet not for loved Antilochus + Grey Nestor wasted all his years + In grief; nor o'er young Troilus + His parents' and his sisters' tears + For ever flow'd. At length have done + With these soft sorrows; rather tell + Of Caesar's trophies newly won, + And hoar Niphates' icy fell, + And Medus' flood, 'mid conquer'd tribes + Rolling a less presumptuous tide, + And Scythians taught, as Rome prescribes, + Henceforth o'er narrower steppes to ride. + + + + +X. + +RECTIUS VIVES. + + + Licinius, trust a seaman's lore: + Steer not too boldly to the deep, + Nor, fearing storms, by treacherous shore + Too closely creep. + Who makes the golden mean his guide, + Shuns miser's cabin, foul and dark, + Shuns gilded roofs, where pomp and pride + Are envy's mark. + With fiercer blasts the pine's dim height + Is rock'd; proud towers with heavier fall + Crash to the ground; and thunders smite + The mountains tall. + In sadness hope, in gladness fear + 'Gainst coming change will fortify + Your breast. The storms that Jupiter + Sweeps o'er the sky + He chases. Why should rain to-day + Bring rain to-morrow? Python's foe + Is pleased sometimes his lyre to play, + Nor bends his bow. + Be brave in trouble; meet distress + With dauntless front; but when the gale + Too prosperous blows, be wise no less, + And shorten sail. + + + + +XI. + +QUID BELLICOSUS. + + + O, Ask not what those sons of war, + Cantabrian, Scythian, each intend, + Disjoin'd from us by Hadria's bar, + Nor puzzle, Quintius, how to spend + A life so simple. Youth removes, + And Beauty too; and hoar Decay + Drives out the wanton tribe of Loves + And Sleep, that came or night or day. + The sweet spring-flowers not always keep + Their bloom, nor moonlight shines the same + Each evening. Why with thoughts too deep + O'ertask a mind of mortal frame? + Why not, just thrown at careless ease + 'Neath plane or pine, our locks of grey + Perfumed with Syrian essences + And wreathed with roses, while we may, + Lie drinking? Bacchus puts to shame + The cares that waste us. Where's the slave + To quench the fierce Falernian's flame + With water from the passing wave? + Who'll coax coy Lyde from her home? + Go, bid her take her ivory lyre, + The runaway, and haste to come, + Her wild hair bound with Spartan tire. + + + + +XII. + +NOLIS LONGA FERAE. + + + The weary war where fierce Numantia bled, + Fell Hannibal, the swoln Sicilian main + Purpled with Punic blood--not mine to wed + These to the lyre's soft strain, + Nor cruel Lapithae, nor, mad with wine, + Centaurs, nor, by Herculean arm o'ercome, + The earth-born youth, whose terrors dimm'd the shine + Of the resplendent dome + Of ancient Saturn. You, Maecenas, best + In pictured prose of Caesar's warrior feats + Will tell, and captive kings with haughty crest + Led through the Roman streets. + On me the Muse has laid her charge to tell + Of your Licymnia's voice, the lustrous hue + Of her bright eye, her heart that beats so well + To mutual passion true: + How nought she does but lends her added grace, + Whether she dance, or join in bantering play, + Or with soft arms the maiden choir embrace + On great Diana's day. + Say, would you change for all the wealth possest + By rich Achaemenes or Phrygia's heir, + Or the full stores of Araby the blest, + One lock of her dear hair, + While to your burning lips she bends her neck, + Or with kind cruelty denies the due + She means you not to beg for, but to take, + Or snatches it from you? + + + + +XIII. + +ILLE ET NEFASTO. + + + Black day he chose for planting thee, + Accurst he rear'd thee from the ground, + The bane of children yet to be, + The scandal of the village round. + His father's throat the monster press'd + Beside, and on his hearthstone spilt, + I ween, the blood of midnight guest; + Black Colchian drugs, whate'er of guilt + Is hatch'd on earth, he dealt in all-- + Who planted in my rural stead + Thee, fatal wood, thee, sure to fall + Upon thy blameless master's head. + The dangers of the hour! no thought + We give them; Punic seaman's fear + Is all of Bosporus, nor aught + Recks he of pitfalls otherwhere; + The soldier fears the mask'd retreat + Of Parthia; Parthia dreads the thrall + Of Rome; but Death with noiseless feet + Has stolen and will steal on all. + How near dark Pluto's court I stood, + And AEacus' judicial throne, + The blest seclusion of the good, + And Sappho, with sweet lyric moan + Bewailing her ungentle sex, + And thee, Alcaeus, louder far + Chanting thy tale of woful wrecks, + Of woful exile, woful war! + In sacred awe the silent dead + Attend on each: but when the song + Of combat tells and tyrants fled, + Keen ears, press'd shoulders, closer throng. + What marvel, when at those sweet airs + The hundred-headed beast spell-bound + Each black ear droops, and Furies' hairs + Uncoil their serpents at the sound? + Prometheus too and Pelops' sire + In listening lose the sense of woe; + Orion hearkens to the lyre, + And lets the lynx and lion go. + + + + +XIV. + +EHEU, FUGACES. + + + Ah, Postumus! they fleet away, + Our years, nor piety one hour + Can win from wrinkles and decay, + And Death's indomitable power; + Not though three hundred bullocks flame + Each year, to soothe the tearless king + Who holds huge Geryon's triple frame + And Tityos in his watery ring, + That circling flood, which all must stem, + Who eat the fruits that Nature yields, + Wearers of haughtiest diadem, + Or humblest tillers of the fields. + In vain we shun war's contact red + Or storm-tost spray of Hadrian main: + In vain, the season through, we dread + For our frail lives Scirocco's bane. + Cocytus' black and stagnant ooze + Must welcome you, and Danaus' seed + Ill-famed, and ancient Sisyphus + To never-ending toil decreed. + Your land, your house, your lovely bride + Must lose you; of your cherish'd trees + None to its fleeting master's side + Will cleave, but those sad cypresses. + Your heir, a larger soul, will drain + The hundred-padlock'd Caecuban, + And richer spilth the pavement stain + Than e'er at pontiff's supper ran. + + + + +XV. + +JAM PAUCA ARATRO. + + + Few roods of ground the piles we raise + Will leave to plough; ponds wider spread + Than Lucrine lake will meet the gaze + On every side; the plane unwed + Will top the elm; the violet-bed, + The myrtle, each delicious sweet, + On olive-grounds their scent will shed, + Where once were fruit-trees yielding meat; + Thick bays will screen the midday range + Of fiercest suns. Not such the rule + Of Romulus, and Cato sage, + And all the bearded, good old school. + Each Roman's wealth was little worth, + His country's much; no colonnade + For private pleasance wooed the North + With cool "prolixity of shade." + None might the casual sod disdain + To roof his home; a town alone, + At public charge, a sacred fane + Were honour'd with the pomp of stone. + + + + +XVI. + +OTIUM DIVOS. + + + For ease, in wide Aegean caught, + The sailor prays, when clouds are hiding + The moon, nor shines of starlight aught + For seaman's guiding: + For ease the Mede, with quiver gay: + For ease rude Thrace, in battle cruel: + Can purple buy it, Grosphus? Nay, + Nor gold, nor jewel. + No pomp, no lictor clears the way + 'Mid rabble-routs of troublous feelings, + Nor quells the cares that sport and play + Round gilded ceilings. + More happy he whose modest board + His father's well-worn silver brightens; + No fear, nor lust for sordid hoard, + His light sleep frightens. + Why bend our bows of little span? + Why change our homes for regions under + Another sun? What exiled man + From self can sunder? + Care climbs the bark, and trims the sail, + Curst fiend! nor troops of horse can 'scape her, + More swift than stag, more swift than gale + That drives the vapour. + Blest in the present, look not forth + On ills beyond, but soothe each bitter + With slow, calm smile. No suns on earth + Unclouded glitter. + Achilles' light was quench'd at noon; + A long decay Tithonus minish'd; + My hours, it may be, yet will run + When yours are finish'd. + For you Sicilian heifers low, + Bleat countless flocks; for you are neighing + Proud coursers; Afric purples glow + For your arraying + With double dyes; a small domain, + The soul that breathed in Grecian harping, + My portion these; and high disdain + Of ribald carping. + + + + +XVII. + +CUR ME QUERELIS. + + + Why rend my heart with that sad sigh? + It cannot please the gods or me + That you, Maecenas, first should die, + My pillar of prosperity. + Ah! should I lose one half my soul + Untimely, can the other stay + Behind it? Life that is not whole, + Is THAT as sweet? The self-same day + Shall crush us twain; no idle oath + Has Horace sworn; whene'er you go, + We both will travel, travel both + The last dark journey down below. + No, not Chimaera's fiery breath, + Nor Gyas, could he rise again, + Shall part us; Justice, strong as death, + So wills it; so the Fates ordain. + Whether 'twas Libra saw me born + Or angry Scorpio, lord malign + Of natal hour, or Capricorn, + The tyrant of the western brine, + Our planets sure with concord strange + Are blended. You by Jove's blest power + Were snatch'd from out the baleful range + Of Saturn, and the evil hour + Was stay'd, when rapturous benches full + Three times the auspicious thunder peal'd; + Me the curst trunk, that smote my skull, + Had slain; but Faunus, strong to shield + The friends of Mercury, check'd the blow + In mid descent. Be sure to pay + The victims and the fane you owe; + Your bard a humbler lamb will slay. + + + + +XVIII. + +NON EBUR. + + + Carven ivory have I none; + No golden cornice in my dwelling shines; + Pillars choice of Libyan stone + Upbear no architrave from Attic mines; + 'Twas not mine to enter in + To Attalus' broad realms, an unknown heir, + Nor for me fair clients spin + Laconian purples for their patron's wear. + Truth is mine, and Genius mine; + The rich man comes, and knocks at my low door: + Favour'd thus, I ne'er repine, + Nor weary out indulgent Heaven for more: + In my Sabine homestead blest, + Why should I further tax a generous friend? + Suns are hurrying suns a-west, + And newborn moons make speed to meet their end. + You have hands to square and hew + Vast marble-blocks, hard on your day of doom, + Ever building mansions new, + Nor thinking of the mansion of the tomb. + Now you press on ocean's bound, + Where waves on Baiae beat, as earth were scant; + Now absorb your neighbour's ground, + And tear his landmarks up, your own to plant. + Hedges set round clients' farms + Your avarice tramples; see, the outcasts fly, + Wife and husband, in their arms + Their fathers' gods, their squalid family. + Yet no hall that wealth e'er plann'd + Waits you more surely than the wider room + Traced by Death's yet greedier hand. + Why strain so far? you cannot leap the tomb. + Earth removes the impartial sod + Alike for beggar and for monarch's child: + Nor the slave of Hell's dark god + Convey'd Prometheus back, with bribe beguiled. + Pelops he and Pelops' sire + Holds, spite of pride, in close captivity; + Beggars, who of labour tire, + Call'd or uncall'd, he hears and sets them free. + + + + +XIX. + +BACCHUM IN REMOTIS. + + + Bacchus I saw in mountain glades + Retired (believe it, after years!) + Teaching his strains to Dryad maids, + While goat-hoof'd satyrs prick'd their ears. + Evoe! my eyes with terror glare; + My heart is revelling with the god; + 'Tis madness! Evoe! spare, O spare, + Dread wielder of the ivied rod! + Yes, I may sing the Thyiad crew, + The stream of wine, the sparkling rills + That run with milk, and honey-dew + That from the hollow trunk distils; + And I may sing thy consort's crown, + New set in heaven, and Pentheus' hall + With ruthless ruin thundering down, + And proud Lycurgus' funeral. + Thou turn'st the rivers, thou the sea; + Thou, on far summits, moist with wine, + Thy Bacchants' tresses harmlessly + Dost knot with living serpent-twine. + Thou, when the giants, threatening wrack, + Were clambering up Jove's citadel, + Didst hurl o'erweening Rhoetus back, + In tooth and claw a lion fell. + Who knew thy feats in dance and play + Deem'd thee belike for war's rough game + Unmeet: but peace and battle-fray + Found thee, their centre, still the same. + Grim Cerberus wagg'd his tail to see + Thy golden horn, nor dream'd of wrong, + But gently fawning, follow'd thee, + And lick'd thy feet with triple tongue. + + + + +XX. + +NON USITATA. + + + No vulgar wing, nor weakly plied, + Shall bear me through the liquid sky; + A two-form'd bard, no more to bide + Within the range of envy's eye + 'Mid haunts of men. I, all ungraced + By gentle blood, I, whom you call + Your friend, Maecenas, shall not taste + Of death, nor chafe in Lethe's thrall. + E'en now a rougher skin expands + Along my legs: above I change + To a white bird; and o'er my hands + And shoulders grows a plumage strange: + Fleeter than Icarus, see me float + O'er Bosporus, singing as I go, + And o'er Gastulian sands remote, + And Hyperborean fields of snow; + By Dacian horde, that masks its fear + Of Marsic steel, shall I be known, + And furthest Scythian: Spain shall hear + My warbling, and the banks of Rhone. + No dirges for my fancied death; + No weak lament, no mournful stave; + All clamorous grief were waste of breath, + And vain the tribute of o grave. + + + + +BOOK III. + + +I. + +ODI PROFANUM. + + + I bid the unhallow'd crowd avaunt! + Keep holy silence; strains unknown + Till now, the Muses' hierophant, + I sing to youths and maids alone. + Kings o'er their flocks the sceptre wield; + E'en kings beneath Jove's sceptre bow: + Victor in giant battle-field, + He moves all nature with his brow. + This man his planted walks extends + Beyond his peers; an older name + One to the people's choice commends; + One boasts a more unsullied fame; + One plumes him on a larger crowd + Of clients. What are great or small? + Death takes the mean man with the proud; + The fatal urn has room for all. + When guilty Pomp the drawn sword sees + Hung o'er her, richest feasts in vain + Strain their sweet juice her taste to please; + No lutes, no singing birds again + Will bring her sleep. Sleep knows no pride; + It scorns not cots of village hinds, + Nor shadow-trembling river-side, + Nor Tempe, stirr'd by western winds. + Who, having competence, has all, + The tumult of the sea defies, + Nor fears Arcturus' angry fall, + Nor fears the Kid-star's sullen rise, + Though hail-storms on the vineyard beat, + Though crops deceive, though trees complain, + One while of showers, one while of heat, + One while of winter's barbarous reign. + Fish feel the narrowing of the main + From sunken piles, while on the strand + Contractors with their busy train + Let down huge stones, and lords of land + Affect the sea: but fierce Alarm + Can clamber to the master's side: + Black Cares can up the galley swarm, + And close behind the horseman ride. + If Phrygian marbles soothe not pain, + Nor star-bright purple's costliest wear, + Nor vines of true Falernian strain, + Nor Achaemenian spices rare, + Why with rich gate and pillar'd range + Upbuild new mansions, twice as high, + Or why my Sabine vale exchange + For more laborious luxury? + + + + +II. + +ANGUSTAM AMICE. + + + To suffer hardness with good cheer, + In sternest school of warfare bred, + Our youth should learn; let steed and spear + Make him one day the Parthian's dread; + Cold skies, keen perils, brace his life. + Methinks I see from rampired town + Some battling tyrant's matron wife, + Some maiden, look in terror down,-- + "Ah, my dear lord, untrain'd in war! + O tempt not the infuriate mood + Of that fell lion! see! from far + He plunges through a tide of blood!" + What joy, for fatherland to die! + Death's darts e'en flying feet o'ertake, + Nor spare a recreant chivalry, + A back that cowers, or loins that quake. + True Virtue never knows defeat: + HER robes she keeps unsullied still, + Nor takes, nor quits, HER curule seat + To please a people's veering will. + True Virtue opens heaven to worth: + She makes the way she does not find: + The vulgar crowd, the humid earth, + Her soaring pinion leaves behind. + Seal'd lips have blessings sure to come: + Who drags Eleusis' rite to day, + That man shall never share my home, + Or join my voyage: roofs give way + And boats are wreck'd: true men and thieves + Neglected Justice oft confounds: + Though Vengeance halt, she seldom leaves + The wretch whose flying steps she hounds. + + + + +III. + +JUSTUM ET TENACEM. + + + The man of firm and righteous will, + No rabble, clamorous for the wrong, + No tyrant's brow, whose frown may kill, + Can shake the strength that makes him strong: + Not winds, that chafe the sea they sway, + Nor Jove's right hand, with lightning red: + Should Nature's pillar'd frame give way, + That wreck would strike one fearless head. + Pollux and roving Hercules + Thus won their way to Heaven's proud steep, + 'Mid whom Augustus, couch'd at ease, + Dyes his red lips with nectar deep. + For this, great Bacchus, tigers drew + Thy glorious car, untaught to slave + In harness: thus Quirinus flew + On Mars' wing'd steeds from Acheron's wave, + When Juno spoke with Heaven's assent: + "O Ilium, Ilium, wretched town! + The judge accurst, incontinent, + And stranger dame have dragg'd thee down. + Pallas and I, since Priam's sire + Denied the gods his pledged reward, + Had doom'd them all to sword and fire, + The people and their perjured lord. + No more the adulterous guest can charm + The Spartan queen: the house forsworn + No more repels by Hector's arm + My warriors, baffled and outworn: + Hush'd is the war our strife made long: + I welcome now, my hatred o'er, + A grandson in the child of wrong, + Him whom the Trojan priestess bore. + Receive him, Mars! the gates of flame + May open: let him taste forgiven + The nectar, and enrol his name + Among the peaceful ranks of Heaven. + Let the wide waters sever still + Ilium and Rome, the exiled race + May reign and prosper where they will: + So but in Paris' burial-place + The cattle sport, the wild beasts hide + Their cubs, the Capitol may stand + All bright, and Rome in warlike pride + O'er Media stretch a conqueror's hand. + Aye, let her scatter far and wide + Her terror, where the land-lock'd waves + Europe from Afric's shore divide, + Where swelling Nile the corn-field laves-- + Of strength more potent to disdain + Hid gold, best buried in the mine, + Than gather it with hand profane, + That for man's greed would rob a shrine. + Whate'er the bound to earth ordain'd, + There let her reach the arm of power, + Travelling, where raves the fire unrein'd, + And where the storm-cloud and the shower. + Yet, warlike Roman, know thy doom, + Nor, drunken with a conqueror's joy, + Or blind with duteous zeal, presume + To build again ancestral Troy. + Should Troy revive to hateful life, + Her star again should set in gore, + While I, Jove's sister and his wife, + To victory led my host once more. + Though Phoebus thrice in brazen mail + Should case her towers, they thrice should fall, + Storm'd by my Greeks: thrice wives should wail + Husband and son, themselves in thrall." + --Such thunders from the lyre of love! + Back, wayward Muse! refrain, refrain + To tell the talk of gods above, + And dwarf high themes in puny strain. + + + + +IV. + +DESCENDE CAELO. + + + Come down, Calliope, from above: + Breathe on the pipe a strain of fire; + Or if a graver note thou love, + With Phoebus' cittern and his lyre. + You hear her? or is this the play + Of fond illusion? Hark! meseems + Through gardens of the good I stray, + 'Mid murmuring gales and purling streams. + Me, as I lay on Vultur's steep, + A truant past Apulia's bound, + O'ertired, poor child, with play and sleep, + With living green the stock-doves crown'd-- + A legend, nay, a miracle, + By Acherontia's nestlings told, + By all in Bantine glade that dwell, + Or till the rich Forentan mould. + "Bears, vipers, spared him as he lay, + The sacred garland deck'd his hair, + The myrtle blended with the bay: + The child's inspired: the gods were there." + Your grace, sweet Muses, shields me still + On Sabine heights, or lets me range + Where cool Praeneste, Tibur's hill, + Or liquid Baiae proffers change. + Me to your springs, your dances true, + Philippi bore not to the ground, + Nor the doom'd tree in falling slew, + Nor billowy Palinurus drown'd. + Grant me your presence, blithe and fain + Mad Bosporus shall my bark explore; + My foot shall tread the sandy plain + That glows beside Assyria's shore; + 'Mid Briton tribes, the stranger's foe, + And Spaniards, drunk with horses' blood, + And quiver'd Scythians, will I go + Unharm'd, and look on Tanais' flood. + When Caesar's self in peaceful town + The weary veteran's home has made, + You bid him lay his helmet down + And rest in your Pierian shade. + Mild thoughts you plant, and joy to see + Mild thoughts take root. The nations know + How with descending thunder He + The impious Titans hurl'd below, + Who rules dull earth and stormy seas, + And towns of men, and realms of pain, + And gods, and mortal companies, + Alone, impartial in his reign. + Yet Jove had fear'd the giant rush, + Their upraised arms, their port of pride, + And the twin brethren bent to push + Huge Pelion up Olympus' side. + But Typhon, Mimas, what could these, + Or what Porphyrion's stalwart scorn, + Rhoetus, or he whose spears were trees, + Enceladus, from earth uptorn, + As on they rush'd in mad career + 'Gainst Pallas' shield? Here met the foe + Fierce Vulcan, queenly Juno here, + And he who ne'er shall quit his bow, + Who laves in clear Castalian flood + His locks, and loves the leafy growth + Of Lycia next his native wood, + The Delian and the Pataran both. + Strength, mindless, falls by its own weight; + Strength, mix'd with mind, is made more strong + By the just gods, who surely hate + The strength whose thoughts are set on wrong. + Let hundred-handed Gyas bear + His witness, and Orion known + Tempter of Dian, chaste and fair, + By Dian's maiden dart o'erthrown. + Hurl'd on the monstrous shapes she bred, + Earth groans, and mourns her children thrust + To Orcus; Aetna's weight of lead + Keeps down the fire that breaks its crust; + Still sits the bird on Tityos' breast, + The warder of unlawful love; + Still suffers lewd Pirithous, prest + By massive chains no hand may move. + + + + +V. + +CAELO TONANTEM. + + + Jove rules in heaven, his thunder shows; + Henceforth Augustus earth shall own + Her present god, now Briton foes + And Persians bow before his throne. + Has Crassus' soldier ta'en to wife + A base barbarian, and grown grey + (Woe, for a nation's tainted life!) + Earning his foemen-kinsmen's pay, + His king, forsooth, a Mede, his sire + A Marsian? can he name forget, + Gown, sacred shield, undying fire, + And Jove and Rome are standing yet? + 'Twas this that Regulus foresaw, + What time he spurn'd the foul disgrace + Of peace, whose precedent would draw + Destruction on an unborn race, + Should aught but death the prisoner's chain + Unrivet. "I have seen," he said, + "Rome's eagle in a Punic fane, + And armour, ne'er a blood-drop shed, + Stripp'd from the soldier; I have seen + Free sons of Rome with arms fast tied; + The fields we spoil'd with corn are green, + And Carthage opes her portals wide. + The warrior, sure, redeem'd by gold, + Will fight the bolder! Aye, you heap + On baseness loss. The hues of old + Revisit not the wool we steep; + And genuine worth, expell'd by fear, + Returns not to the worthless slave. + Break but her meshes, will the deer + Assail you? then will he be brave + Who once to faithless foes has knelt; + Yes, Carthage yet his spear will fly, + Who with bound arms the cord has felt, + The coward, and has fear'd to die. + He knows not, he, how life is won; + Thinks war, like peace, a thing of trade! + Great art thou, Carthage! mate the sun, + While Italy in dust is laid!" + His wife's pure kiss he waved aside, + And prattling boys, as one disgraced, + They tell us, and with manly pride + Stern on the ground his visage placed. + With counsel thus ne'er else aread + He nerved the fathers' weak intent, + And, girt by friends that mourn'd him, sped + Into illustrious banishment. + Well witting what the torturer's art + Design'd him, with like unconcern + The press of kin he push'd apart + And crowds encumbering his return, + As though, some tedious business o'er + Of clients' court, his journey lay + Towards Venafrum's grassy floor, + Or Sparta-built Tarentum's bay. + + + + +VI. + +DELICTA MAJORUM. + + + Your fathers' guilt you still must pay, + Till, Roman, you restore each shrine, + Each temple, mouldering in decay, + And smoke-grimed statue, scarce divine. + Revering Heaven, you rule below; + Be that your base, your coping still; + 'Tis Heaven neglected bids o'erflow + The measure of Italian ill. + Now Pacorus and Monaeses twice + Have given our unblest arms the foil; + Their necklaces, of mean device, + Smiling they deck with Roman spoil. + Our city, torn by faction's throes, + Dacian and Ethiop well-nigh razed, + These with their dreadful navy, those + For archer-prowess rather praised. + An evil age erewhile debased + The marriage-bed, the race, the home; + Thence rose the flood whose waters waste + The nation and the name of Rome. + Not such their birth, who stain'd for us + The sea with Punic carnage red, + Smote Pyrrhus, smote Antiochus, + And Hannibal, the Roman's dread. + Theirs was a hardy soldier-brood, + Inured all day the land to till + With Sabine spade, then shoulder wood + Hewn at a stern old mother's will, + When sunset lengthen'd from each height + The shadows, and unyoked the steer, + Restoring in its westward flight + The hour to toilworn travail dear. + What has not cankering Time made worse? + Viler than grandsires, sires beget + Ourselves, yet baser, soon to curse + The world with offspring baser yet. + + + + +VII. + +QUID FLES, ASTERIE. + + + Why weep for him whom sweet Favonian airs + Will waft next spring, Asteria, back to you, + Rich with Bithynia's wares, + A lover fond and true, + Your Gyges? He, detain'd by stormy stress + At Oricum, about the Goat-star's rise, + Cold, wakeful, comfortless, + The long night weeping lies. + Meantime his lovesick hostess' messenger + Talks of the flames that waste poor Chloe's heart + (Flames lit for you, not her!) + With a besieger's art; + Shows how a treacherous woman's lying breath + Once on a time on trustful Proetus won + To doom to early death + Too chaste Bellerophon; + Warns him of Peleus' peril, all but slain + For virtuous scorn of fair Hippolyta, + And tells again each tale + That e'er led heart astray. + In vain; for deafer than Icarian seas + He hears, untainted yet. But, lady fair, + What if Enipeus please + Your listless eye? beware! + Though true it be that none with surer seat + O'er Mars's grassy turf is seen to ride, + Nor any swims so fleet + Adown the Tuscan tide, + Yet keep each evening door and window barr'd; + Look not abroad when music strikes up shrill, + And though he call you hard, + Remain obdurate still. + + + + +VIII. + +MARTIIS COELEBS. + + + The first of March! a man unwed! + What can these flowers, this censer mean + Or what these embers, glowing red + On sods of green? + You ask, in either language skill'd! + A feast I vow'd to Bacchus free, + A white he-goat, when all but kill'd + By falling tree. + So, when that holyday comes round, + It sees me still the rosin clear + From this my wine-jar, first embrown'd + In Tullus' year. + Come, crush one hundred cups for life + Preserved, Maecenas; keep till day + The candles lit; let noise and strife + Be far away. + Lay down that load of state-concern; + The Dacian hosts are all o'erthrown; + The Mede, that sought our overturn, + Now seeks his own; + A servant now, our ancient foe, + The Spaniard, wears at last our chain; + The Scythian half unbends his bow + And quits the plain. + Then fret not lest the state should ail; + A private man such thoughts may spare; + Enjoy the present hour's regale, + And banish care. + + + + +IX. + +DONEC GRATUS ERAM. + + + HORACE. + While I had power to bless you, + Nor any round that neck his arms did fling + More privileged to caress you, + Happier was Horace than the Persian king. + + LYDIA. While you for none were pining + Sorer, nor Lydia after Chloe came, + Lydia, her peers outshining, + Might match her own with Ilia's Roman fame. + + H. Now Chloe is my treasure, + Whose voice, whose touch, can make sweet music flow: + For her I'd die with pleasure, + Would Fate but spare the dear survivor so. + + L. I love my own fond lover, + Young Calais, son of Thurian Ornytus: + For him I'd die twice over, + Would Fate but spare the sweet survivor thus. + + H. What now, if Love returning + Should pair us 'neath his brazen yoke once more, + And, bright-hair'd Chloe spurning, + Horace to off-cast Lydia ope his door? + + L. Though he is fairer, milder, + Than starlight, you lighter than bark of tree, + Than stormy Hadria wilder, + With you to live, to die, were bliss for me. + + + + +X. + +EXTREMUM TANAIN. + + + Ah Lyce! though your drink were Tanais, + Your husband some rude savage, you would weep + To leave me shivering, on a night like this, + Where storms their watches keep. + Hark! how your door is creaking! how the grove + In your fair court-yard, while the wild winds blow, + Wails in accord! with what transparence Jove + Is glazing the driven snow! + Cease that proud temper: Venus loves it not: + The rope may break, the wheel may backward turn: + Begetting you, no Tuscan sire begot + Penelope the stern. + O, though no gift, no "prevalence of prayer," + Nor lovers' paleness deep as violet, + Nor husband, smit with a Pierian fair, + Move you, have pity yet! + O harder e'en than toughest heart of oak, + Deafer than uncharm'd snake to suppliant moans! + This side, I warn you, will not always brook + Rain-water and cold stones. + + + + +XI. + +MERCURI, NAM TE. + + + Come, Mercury, by whose minstrel spell + Amphion raised the Theban stones, + Come, with thy seven sweet strings, my shell, + Thy "diverse tones," + Nor vocal once nor pleasant, now + To rich man's board and temple dear: + Put forth thy power, till Lyde bow + Her stubborn ear. + She, like a three year colt unbroke, + Is frisking o'er the spacious plain, + Too shy to bear a lover's yoke, + A husband's rein. + The wood, the tiger, at thy call + Have follow'd: thou canst rivers stay: + The monstrous guard of Pluto's hall + To thee gave way, + Grim Cerberus, round whose Gorgon head + A hundred snakes are hissing death, + Whose triple jaws black venom shed, + And sickening breath. + Ixion too and Tityos smooth'd + Their rugged brows: the urn stood dry + One hour, while Danaus' maids were sooth'd + With minstrelsy. + Let Lyde hear those maidens' guilt, + Their famous doom, the ceaseless drain + Of outpour'd water, ever spilt, + And all the pain + Reserved for sinners, e'en when dead: + Those impious hands, (could crime do more?) + Those impious hands had hearts to shed + Their bridegrooms' gore! + One only, true to Hymen's flame, + Was traitress to her sire forsworn: + That splendid falsehood lights her name + Through times unborn. + "Wake!" to her youthful spouse she cried, + "Wake! or you yet may sleep too well: + Fly--from the father of your bride, + Her sisters fell: + They, as she-lions bullocks rend, + Tear each her victim: I, less hard + Than these, will slay you not, poor friend, + Nor hold in ward: + Me let my sire in fetters lay + For mercy to my husband shown: + Me let him ship far hence away, + To climes unknown. + Go; speed your flight o'er land and wave, + While Night and Venus shield you; go + Be blest: and on my tomb engrave + This tale of woe." + + + + +XII. + +MISERARUM EST. + + + How unhappy are the maidens who with Cupid may not play, + Who may never touch the wine-cup, but must tremble all the day + At an uncle, and the scourging of his tongue! + Neobule, there's a robber takes your needle and your thread, + Lets the lessons of Minerva run no longer in your head; + It is Hebrus, the athletic and the young! + O, to see him when anointed he is plunging in the flood! + What a seat he has on horseback! was Bellerophon's as good? + As a boxer, as a runner, past compare! + When the deer are flying blindly all the open country o'er, + He can aim and he can hit them; he can steal upon the boar, + As it couches in the thicket unaware. + + + + +XIII. + +O FONS BANDUSIAE. + + + Bandusia's fount, in clearness crystalline, + O worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow! + To-morrow shall be thine + A kid, whose crescent brow + Is sprouting all for love and victory. + In vain: his warm red blood, so early stirr'd, + Thy gelid stream shall dye, + Child of the wanton herd. + Thee the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired, + Forbears to touch: sweet cool thy waters yield + To ox with ploughing tired, + And lazy sheep afield. + Thou too one day shalt win proud eminence + 'Mid honour'd founts, while I the ilex sing + Crowning the cavern, whence + Thy babbling wavelets spring. + + + + +XIV. + +HERCULIS RITU. + + + Our Hercules, they told us, Rome, + Had sought the laurel Death bestows: + Now Glory brings him conqueror home + From Spaniard foes. + Proud of her spouse, the imperial fair + Must thank the gods that shield from death; + His sister too:--let matrons wear + The suppliant wreath + For daughters and for sons restored: + Ye youths and damsels newly wed, + Let decent awe restrain each word + Best left unsaid. + This day, true holyday to me, + Shall banish care: I will not fear + Rude broils or bloody death to see, + While Caesar's here. + Quick, boy, the chaplets and the nard, + And wine, that knew the Marsian war, + If roving Spartacus have spared + A single jar. + And bid Neaera come and trill, + Her bright locks bound with careless art: + If her rough porter cross your will, + Why then depart. + Soon palls the taste for noise and fray, + When hair is white and leaves are sere: + How had I fired in life's warm May, + In Plancus' year! + + + + +XV. + +UXOR PAUPERIS IBYCI. + + + Wife of Ibycus the poor, + Let aged scandals have at length their bound: + Give your graceless doings o'er, + Ripe as you are for going underground. + YOU the maidens' dance to lead, + And cast your gloom upon those beaming stars! + Daughter Pholoe may succeed, + But mother Chloris what she touches mars. + Young men's homes your daughter storms, + Like Thyiad, madden'd by the cymbals' beat: + Nothus' love her bosom warms: + She gambols like a fawn with silver feet. + Yours should be the wool that grows + By fair Luceria, not the merry lute: + Flowers beseem not wither'd brows, + Nor wither'd lips with emptied wine-jars suit. + + + + +XVI. + +INCLUSAM DANAEN. + + + Full well had Danae been secured, in truth, + By oaken portals, and a brazen tower, + And savage watch-dogs, from the roving youth + That prowl at midnight's hour: + But Jove and Venus mock'd with gay disdain + The jealous warder of that close stronghold: + The way, they knew, must soon be smooth and plain + When gods could change to gold. + Gold, gold can pass the tyrant's sentinel, + Can shiver rocks with more resistless blow + Than is the thunder's. Argos' prophet fell, + He and his house laid low, + And all for gain. The man of Macedon + Cleft gates of cities, rival kings o'erthrew + By force of gifts: their cunning snares have won + Rude captains and their crew. + As riches grow, care follows: men repine + And thirst for more. No lofty crest I raise: + Wisdom that thought forbids, Maecenas mine, + The knightly order's praise. + He that denies himself shall gain the more + From bounteous Heaven. I strip me of my pride, + Desert the rich man's standard, and pass o'er + To bare Contentment's side, + More proud as lord of what the great despise + Than if the wheat thresh'd on Apulia's floor + I hoarded all in my huge granaries, + 'Mid vast possessions poor. + A clear fresh stream, a little field o'ergrown + With shady trees, a crop that ne'er deceives, + Pass, though men know it not, their wealth, that own + All Afric's golden sheaves. + Though no Calabrian bees their honey yield + For me, nor mellowing sleeps the god of wine + In Formian jar, nor in Gaul's pasture-field + The wool grows long and fine, + Yet Poverty ne'er comes to break my peace; + If more I craved, you would not more refuse. + Desiring less, I better shall increase + My tiny revenues, + Than if to Alyattes' wide domains + I join'd the realms of Mygdon. Great desires + Sort with great wants. 'Tis best, when prayer obtains + No more than life requires. + + + + +XVII. + +AELI VETUSTO. + + + Aelius, of Lamus' ancient name + (For since from that high parentage + The prehistoric Lamias came + And all who fill the storied page, + No doubt you trace your line from him, + Who stretch'd his sway o'er Formiae, + And Liris, whose still waters swim + Where green Marica skirts the sea, + Lord of broad realms), an eastern gale + Will blow to-morrow, and bestrew + The shore with weeds, with leaves the vale, + If rain's old prophet tell me true, + The raven. Gather, while 'tis fine, + Your wood; to-morrow shall be gay + With smoking pig and streaming wine, + And lord and slave keep holyday. + + + + +XVIII. + +FAUNE, NYMPHARUM. + + + O wont the flying Nymphs to woo, + Good Faunus, through my sunny farm + Pass gently, gently pass, nor do + My younglings harm. + Each year, thou know'st, a kid must die + For thee; nor lacks the wine's full stream + To Venus' mate, the bowl; and high + The altars steam. + Sure as December's nones appear, + All o'er the grass the cattle play; + The village, with the lazy steer, + Keeps holyday. + Wolves rove among the fearless sheep; + The woods for thee their foliage strow; + The delver loves on earth to leap, + His ancient foe. + + + + +XIX. + +QUANTUM DISTAT. + + + What the time from Inachus + To Codrus, who in patriot battle fell, + Who were sprung from Aeacus, + And how men fought at Ilion,--this you tell. + What the wines of Chios cost, + Who with due heat our water can allay, + What the hour, and who the host + To give us house-room,--this you will not say. + Ho, there! wine to moonrise, wine + To midnight, wine to our new augur too! + Nine to three or three to nine, + As each man pleases, makes proportion true. + Who the uneven Muses loves, + Will fire his dizzy brain with three times three; + Three once told the Grace approves; + She with her two bright sisters, gay and free, + Shrinks, as maiden should, from strife: + But I'm for madness. What has dull'd the fire + Of the Berecyntian fife? + Why hangs the flute in silence with the lyre? + Out on niggard-handed boys! + Rain showers of roses; let old Lycus hear, + Envious churl, our senseless noise, + And she, our neighbour, his ill-sorted fere. + You with your bright clustering hair, + Your beauty, Telephus, like evening's sky, + Rhoda loves, as young, as fair; + I for my Glycera slowly, slowly die. + + + + +XXI. + +O NATE MECUM. + + + O born in Manlius' year with me, + Whate'er you bring us, plaint or jest, + Or passion and wild revelry, + Or, like a gentle wine-jar, rest; + Howe'er men call your Massic juice, + Its broaching claims a festal day; + Come then; Corvinus bids produce + A mellower wine, and I obey. + Though steep'd in all Socratic lore + He will not slight you; do not fear. + They say old Cato o'er and o'er + With wine his honest heart would cheer. + Tough wits to your mild torture yield + Their treasures; you unlock the soul + Of wisdom and its stores conceal'd, + Arm'd with Lyaeus' kind control. + 'Tis yours the drooping heart to heal; + Your strength uplifts the poor man's horn; + Inspired by you, the soldier's steel, + The monarch's crown, he laughs to scorn. + Liber and Venus, wills she so, + And sister Graces, ne'er unknit, + And living lamps shall see you flow + Till stars before the sunrise flit. + + + + +XXII. + +MONTIUM CUSTOS. + + + Guardian of hill and woodland, Maid, + Who to young wives in childbirth's hour + Thrice call'd, vouchsafest sovereign aid, + O three-form'd power! + This pine that shades my cot be thine; + Here will I slay, as years come round, + A youngling boar, whose tusks design + The side-long wound. + + + + +XXIII. + +COELO SUPINAS. + + + If, Phidyle, your hands you lift + To heaven, as each new moon is born, + Soothing your Lares with the gift + Of slaughter'd swine, and spice, and corn, + Ne'er shall Scirocco's bane assail + Your vines, nor mildew blast your wheat, + Ne'er shall your tender younglings fail + In autumn, when the fruits are sweet. + The destined victim 'mid the snows + Of Algidus in oakwoods fed, + Or where the Alban herbage grows, + Shall dye the pontiff's axes red; + No need of butcher'd sheep for you + To make your homely prayers prevail; + Give but your little gods their due, + The rosemary twined with myrtle frail. + The sprinkled salt, the votive meal, + As soon their favour will regain, + Let but the hand be pure and leal, + As all the pomp of heifers slain. + + + + +XXIV. + +INTACTIS OPULENTIOR. + + + Though your buried wealth surpass + The unsunn'd gold of Ind or Araby, + Though with many a ponderous mass + You crowd the Tuscan and Apulian sea, + Let Necessity but drive + Her wedge of adamant into that proud head, + Vainly battling will you strive + To 'scape Death's noose, or rid your soul of dread. + Better life the Scythians lead, + Trailing on waggon wheels their wandering home, + Or the hardy Getan breed, + As o'er their vast unmeasured steppes they roam; + Free the crops that bless their soil; + Their tillage wearies after one year's space; + Each in turn fulfils his toil; + His period o'er, another takes his place. + There the step-dame keeps her hand + From guilty plots, from blood of orphans clean; + There no dowried wives command + Their feeble lords, or on adulterers lean. + Theirs are dowries not of gold, + Their parents' worth, their own pure chastity, + True to one, to others cold; + They dare not sin, or, if they dare, they die. + O, whoe'er has heart and head + To stay our plague of blood, our civic brawls, + Would he that his name be read + "Father of Rome" on lofty pedestals, + Let him chain this lawless will, + And be our children's hero! cursed spite! + Living worth we envy still, + Then seek it with strain'd eyes, when snatch'd from sight. + What can sad laments avail + Unless sharp justice kill the taint of sin? + What can laws, that needs must fail + Shorn of the aid of manners form'd within, + If the merchant turns not back + From the fierce heats that round the tropic glow, + Turns not from the regions black + With northern winds, and hard with frozen snow; + Sailors override the wave, + While guilty poverty, more fear'd than vice, + Bids us crime and suffering brave, + And shuns the ascent of virtue's precipice? + Let the Capitolian fane, + The favour'd goal of yon vociferous crowd, + Aye, or let the nearest main + Receive our gold, our jewels rich and proud: + Slay we thus the cause of crime, + If yet we would repent and choose the good: + Ours the task to take in time + This baleful lust, and crush it in the bud. + Ours to mould our weakling sons + To nobler sentiment and manlier deed: + Now the noble's first-born shuns + The perilous chase, nor learns to sit his steed: + Set him to the unlawful dice, + Or Grecian hoop, how skilfully he plays! + While his sire, mature in vice, + A friend, a partner, or a guest betrays, + Hurrying, for an heir so base, + To gather riches. Money, root of ill, + Doubt it not, still grows apace: + Yet the scant heap has somewhat lacking still. + + + + +XXV. + +QUO ME, BACCHE. + + + Whither, Bacchus, tear'st thou me, + Fill'd with thy strength? What dens, what forests these, + Thus in wildering race I see? + What cave shall hearken to my melodies, + Tuned to tell of Caesar's praise + And throne him high the heavenly ranks among? + Sweet and strange shall be my lays, + A tale till now by poet voice unsung. + As the Evian on the height, + Roused from her sleep, looks wonderingly abroad, + Looks on Thrace with snow-drifts white, + And Rhodope by barbarous footstep trod, + So my truant eyes admire + The banks, the desolate forests. O great King + Who the Naiads dost inspire, + And Bacchants, strong from earth huge trees to wring! + Not a lowly strain is mine, + No mere man's utterance. O, 'tis venture sweet + Thee to follow, God of wine, + Making the vine-branch round thy temples meet! + + + + +XXVI. + +VIXI PUELLIS. + + + For ladies's love I late was fit, + And good success my warfare blest, + But now my arms, my lyre I quit, + And hang them up to rust or rest. + Here, where arising from the sea + Stands Venus, lay the load at last, + Links, crowbars, and artillery, + Threatening all doors that dared be fast. + O Goddess! Cyprus owns thy sway, + And Memphis, far from Thracian snow: + Raise high thy lash, and deal me, pray, + That haughty Chloe just one blow! + + + + +XXVII. + +IMPIOS PARRAE. + + + When guilt goes forth, let lapwings shrill, + And dogs and foxes great with young, + And wolves from far Lanuvian hill, + Give clamorous tongue: + Across the roadway dart the snake, + Frightening, like arrow loosed from string, + The horses. I, for friendship's sake, + Watching each wing, + Ere to his haunt, the stagnant marsh, + The harbinger of tempest flies, + Will call the raven, croaking harsh, + From eastern skies. + Farewell!--and wheresoe'er you go, + My Galatea, think of me: + Let lefthand pie and roving crow + Still leave you free. + But mark with what a front of fear + Orion lowers. Ah! well I know + How Hadria glooms, how falsely clear + The west-winds blow. + Let foemen's wives and children feel + The gathering south-wind's angry roar, + The black wave's crash, the thunder-peal, + The quivering shore. + So to the bull Europa gave + Her beauteous form, and when she saw + The monstrous deep, the yawning grave, + Grew pale with awe. + That morn of meadow-flowers she thought, + Weaving a crown the nymphs to please: + That gloomy night she look'd on nought + But stars and seas. + Then, as in hundred-citied Crete + She landed,--"O my sire!" she said, + "O childly duty! passion's heat + Has struck thee dead. + Whence came I? death, for maiden's shame, + Were little. Do I wake to weep + My sin? or am I pure of blame, + And is it sleep + From dreamland brings a form to trick + My senses? Which was best? to go + Over the long, long waves, or pick + The flowers in blow? + O, were that monster made my prize, + How would I strive to wound that brow, + How tear those horns, my frantic eyes + Adored but now! + Shameless I left my father's home; + Shameless I cheat the expectant grave; + O heaven, that naked I might roam + In lions' cave! + Now, ere decay my bloom devour + Or thin the richness of my blood, + Fain would I fall in youth's first flower, + The tigers' food. + Hark! 'tis my father--Worthless one! + What, yet alive? the oak is nigh. + 'Twas well you kept your maiden zone, + The noose to tie. + Or if your choice be that rude pike, + New barb'd with death, leap down and ask + The wind to bear you. Would you like + The bondmaid's task, + You, child of kings, a master's toy, + A mistress' slave?'" Beside her, lo! + Stood Venus smiling, and her boy + With unstrung bow. + Then, when her laughter ceased, "Have done + With fume and fret," she cried, "my fair; + That odious bull will give you soon + His horns to tear. + You know not you are Jove's own dame: + Away with sobbing; be resign'd + To greatness: you shall give your name + To half mankind." + + + + +XXVIII. + +FESTO QUID POTIUS. + + + Neptune's feast-day! what should man + Think first of doing? Lyde mine, be bold, + Broach the treasured Caecuban, + And batter Wisdom in her own stronghold. + Now the noon has pass'd the full, + Yet sure you deem swift Time has made a halt, + Tardy as you are to pull + Old Bibulus' wine-jar from its sleepy vault. + I will take my turn and sing + Neptune and Nereus' train with locks of green; + You shall warble to the string + Latona and her Cynthia's arrowy sheen. + Hers our latest song, who sways + Cnidos and Cyclads, and to Paphos goes + With her swans, on holydays; + Night too shall claim the homage music owes. + + + + +XXIX. + +TYRRHENA REGUM. + + + Heir of Tyrrhenian kings, for you + A mellow cask, unbroach'd as yet, + Maecenas mine, and roses new, + And fresh-drawn oil your locks to wet, + Are waiting here. Delay not still, + Nor gaze on Tibur, never dried, + And sloping AEsule, and the hill + Of Telegon the parricide. + O leave that pomp that can but tire, + Those piles, among the clouds at home; + Cease for a moment to admire + The smoke, the wealth, the noise of Rome! + In change e'en luxury finds a zest: + The poor man's supper, neat, but spare, + With no gay couch to seat the guest, + Has smooth'd the rugged brow of care. + Now glows the Ethiop maiden's sire; + Now Procyon rages all ablaze; + The Lion maddens in his ire, + As suns bring back the sultry days: + The shepherd with his weary sheep + Seeks out the streamlet and the trees, + Silvanus' lair: the still banks sleep + Untroubled by the wandering breeze. + You ponder on imperial schemes, + And o'er the city's danger brood: + Bactrian and Serian haunt your dreams, + And Tanais, toss'd by inward feud. + The issue of the time to be + Heaven wisely hides in blackest night, + And laughs, should man's anxiety + Transgress the bounds of man's short sight. + Control the present: all beside + Flows like a river seaward borne, + Now rolling on its placid tide, + Now whirling massy trunks uptorn, + And waveworn crags, and farms, and stock, + In chaos blent, while hill and wood + Reverberate to the enormous shock, + When savage rains the tranquil flood + Have stirr'd to madness. Happy he, + Self-centred, who each night can say, + "My life is lived: the morn may see + A clouded or a sunny day: + That rests with Jove: but what is gone, + He will not, cannot turn to nought; + Nor cancel, as a thing undone, + What once the flying hour has brought." + Fortune, who loves her cruel game, + Still bent upon some heartless whim, + Shifts her caresses, fickle dame, + Now kind to me, and now to him: + She stays; 'tis well: but let her shake + Those wings, her presents I resign, + Cloak me in native worth, and take + Chaste Poverty undower'd for mine. + Though storms around my vessel rave, + I will not fall to craven prayers, + Nor bargain by my vows to save + My Cyprian and Sidonian wares, + Else added to the insatiate main. + Then through the wild Aegean roar + The breezes and the Brethren Twain + Shall waft my little boat ashore. + + + + +XXX. + +EXEGI MONUMENTUM. + + + And now 'tis done: more durable than brass + My monument shall be, and raise its head + O'er royal pyramids: it shall not dread + Corroding rain or angry Boreas, + Nor the long lapse of immemorial time. + I shall not wholly die: large residue + Shall 'scape the queen of funerals. Ever new + My after fame shall grow, while pontiffs climb + With silent maids the Capitolian height. + "Born," men will say, "where Aufidus is loud, + Where Daunus, scant of streams, beneath him bow'd + The rustic tribes, from dimness he wax'd bright, + First of his race to wed the Aeolian lay + To notes of Italy." Put glory on, + My own Melpomene, by genius won, + And crown me of thy grace with Delphic bay. + + + + +BOOK IV. + + +I. + +INTERMISSA, VENUS. + + + Yet again thou wak'st the flame + That long had slumber'd! Spare me, Venus, spare! + Trust me, I am not the same + As in the reign of Cinara, kind and fair. + Cease thy softening spells to prove + On this old heart, by fifty years made hard, + Cruel Mother of sweet Love! + Haste, where gay youth solicits thy regard. + With thy purple cygnets fly + To Paullus' door, a seasonable guest; + There within hold revelry, + There light thy flame in that congenial breast. + He, with birth and beauty graced, + The trembling client's champion, ne'er tongue-tied, + Master of each manly taste, + Shall bear thy conquering banners far and wide. + Let him smile in triumph gay, + True heart, victorious over lavish hand, + By the Alban lake that day + 'Neath citron roof all marble shalt thou stand: + Incense there and fragrant spice + With odorous fumes thy nostrils shall salute; + Blended notes thine ear entice, + The lyre, the pipe, the Berecyntine flute: + Graceful youths and maidens bright + Shall twice a day thy tuneful praise resound, + While their feet, so fair and white, + In Salian measure three times beat the ground. + I can relish love no more, + Nor flattering hopes that tell me hearts are true, + Nor the revel's loud uproar, + Nor fresh-wreathed flowerets, bathed in vernal dew. + Ah! but why, my Ligurine, + Steal trickling tear-drops down my wasted cheek? + Wherefore halts this tongue of mine, + So eloquent once, so faltering now and weak? + Now I hold you in my chain, + And clasp you close, all in a nightly dream; + Now, still dreaming, o'er the plain + I chase you; now, ah cruel! down the stream. + + + + +II. + +PINDARUM QUISQUIS. + + + Who fain at Pindar's flight would aim, + On waxen wings, Iulus, he + Soars heavenward, doom'd to give his name + To some new sea. + Pindar, like torrent from the steep + Which, swollen with rain, its banks o'erflows, + With mouth unfathomably deep, + Foams, thunders, glows, + All worthy of Apollo's bay, + Whether in dithyrambic roll + Pouring new words he burst away + Beyond control, + Or gods and god-born heroes tell, + Whose arm with righteous death could tame + Grim Centaurs, tame Chimaeras fell, + Out-breathing flame, + Or bid the boxer or the steed + In deathless pride of victory live, + And dower them with a nobler meed + Than sculptors give, + Or mourn the bridegroom early torn + From his young bride, and set on high + Strength, courage, virtue's golden morn, + Too good to die. + Antonius! yes, the winds blow free, + When Dirce's swan ascends the skies, + To waft him. I, like Matine bee, + In act and guise, + That culls its sweets through toilsome hours, + Am roaming Tibur's banks along, + And fashioning with puny powers + A laboured song. + Your Muse shall sing in loftier strain + How Caesar climbs the sacred height, + The fierce Sygambrians in his train, + With laurel dight, + Than whom the Fates ne'er gave mankind + A richer treasure or more dear, + Nor shall, though earth again should find + The golden year. + Your Muse shall tell of public sports, + And holyday, and votive feast, + For Caesar's sake, and brawling courts + Where strife has ceased. + Then, if my voice can aught avail, + Grateful for him our prayers have won, + My song shall echo, "Hail, all hail, + Auspicious Sun!" + There as you move, "Ho! Triumph, ho! + Great Triumph!" once and yet again + All Rome shall cry, and spices strow + Before your train. + Ten bulls, ten kine, your debt discharge: + A calf new-wean'd from parent cow, + Battening on pastures rich and large, + Shall quit my vow. + Like moon just dawning on the night + The crescent honours of his head; + One dapple spot of snowy white, + The rest all red. + + + + +III. + +QUEM TU, MELPOMENE. + + + He whom thou, Melpomene, + Hast welcomed with thy smile, in life arriving, + Ne'er by boxer's skill shall be + Renown'd abroad, for Isthmian mastery striving; + Him shall never fiery steed + Draw in Achaean car a conqueror seated; + Him shall never martial deed + Show, crown'd with bay, after proud kings defeated, + Climbing Capitolian steep: + But the cool streams that make green Tibur flourish, + And the tangled forest deep, + On soft Aeolian airs his fame shall nourish. + Rome, of cities first and best, + Deigns by her sons' according voice to hail me + Fellow-bard of poets blest, + And faint and fainter envy's growls assail me. + Goddess, whose Pierian art + The lyre's sweet sounds can modulate and measure, + Who to dumb fish canst impart + The music of the swan, if such thy pleasure: + O, 'tis all of thy dear grace + That every finger points me out in going + Lyrist of the Roman race; + Breath, power to charm, if mine, are thy bestowing! + + + + +IV. + +QUALEM MINISTRUM. + + + E'en as the lightning's minister, + Whom Jove o'er all the feather'd breed + Made sovereign, having proved him sure + Erewhile on auburn Ganymede; + Stirr'd by warm youth and inborn power, + He quits the nest with timorous wing, + For winter's storms have ceased to lower, + And zephyrs of returning spring + Tempt him to launch on unknown skies; + Next on the fold he stoops downright; + Last on resisting serpents flies, + Athirst for foray and for flight: + As tender kidling on the grass + Espies, uplooking from her food, + A lion's whelp, and knows, alas! + Those new-set teeth shall drink her blood: + So look'd the Raetian mountaineers + On Drusus:--whence in every field + They learn'd through immemorial years + The Amazonian axe to wield, + I ask not now: not all of truth + We seekers find: enough to know + The wisdom of the princely youth + Has taught our erst victorious foe + What prowess dwells in boyish hearts + Rear'd in the shrine of a pure home, + What strength Augustus' love imparts + To Nero's seed, the hope of Rome. + Good sons and brave good sires approve: + Strong bullocks, fiery colts, attest + Their fathers' worth, nor weakling dove + Is hatch'd in savage eagle's nest. + But care draws forth the power within, + And cultured minds are strong for good: + Let manners fail, the plague of sin + Taints e'en the course of gentle blood. + How great thy debt to Nero's race, + O Rome, let red Metaurus say, + Slain Hasdrubal, and victory's grace + First granted on that glorious day + Which chased the clouds, and show'd the sun, + When Hannibal o'er Italy + Ran, as swift flames o'er pine-woods run, + Or Eurus o'er Sicilia's sea. + Henceforth, by fortune aiding toil, + Rome's prowess grew: her fanes, laid waste + By Punic sacrilege and spoil, + Beheld at length their gods replaced. + Then the false Libyan own'd his doom:-- + "Weak deer, the wolves' predestined prey, + Blindly we rush on foes, from whom + 'Twere triumph won to steal away. + That race which, strong from Ilion's fires, + Its gods, on Tuscan waters tost, + Its sons, its venerable sires, + Bore to Ausonia's citied coast; + That race, like oak by axes shorn + On Algidus with dark leaves rife, + Laughs carnage, havoc, all to scorn, + And draws new spirit from the knife. + Not the lopp'd Hydra task'd so sore + Alcides, chafing at the foil: + No pest so fell was born of yore + From Colchian or from Theban soil. + Plunged in the deep, it mounts to sight + More splendid: grappled, it will quell + Unbroken powers, and fight a fight + Whose story widow'd wives shall tell. + No heralds shall my deeds proclaim + To Carthage now: lost, lost is all: + A nation's hope, a nation's name, + They died with dying Hasdrubal." + What will not Claudian hands achieve? + Jove's favour is their guiding star, + And watchful potencies unweave + For them the tangled paths of war. + + + + +V. + +DIVIS ORTE BONIS. + + + Best guardian of Rome's people, dearest boon + Of a kind Heaven, thou lingerest all too long: + Thou bad'st thy senate look to meet thee soon: + Do not thy promise wrong. + Restore, dear chief, the light thou tak'st away: + Ah! when, like spring, that gracious mien of thine + Dawns on thy Rome, more gently glides the day, + And suns serener shine. + See her whose darling child a long year past + Has dwelt beyond the wild Carpathian foam; + That long year o'er, the envious southern blast + Still bars him from his home: + Weeping and praying to the shore she clings, + Nor ever thence her straining eyesight turns: + So, smit by loyal passion's restless stings, + Rome for her Caesar yearns. + In safety range the cattle o'er the mead: + Sweet Peace, soft Plenty, swell the golden grain: + O'er unvex'd seas the sailors blithely speed: + Fair Honour shrinks from stain: + No guilty lusts the shrine of home defile: + Cleansed is the hand without, the heart within: + The father's features in his children smile: + Swift vengeance follows sin. + Who fears the Parthian or the Scythian horde, + Or the rank growth that German forests yield, + While Caesar lives? who trembles at the sword + The fierce Iberians wield? + In his own hills each labours down the day, + Teaching the vine to clasp the widow'd tree: + Then to his cups again, where, feasting gay, + He hails his god in thee. + A household power, adored with prayers and wine, + Thou reign'st auspicious o'er his hour of ease: + Thus grateful Greece her Castor made divine, + And her great Hercules. + Ah! be it thine long holydays to give + To thy Hesperia! thus, dear chief, we pray + At sober sunrise; thus at mellow eve, + When ocean hides the day. + + + +VI. + +DIVE, QUEM PROLES. + + + Thou who didst make thy vengeful might + To Niobe and Tityos known, + And Peleus' son, when Troy's tall height + Was nigh his own, + Victorious else, for thee no peer, + Though, strong in his sea-parent's power, + He shook with that tremendous spear + The Dardan tower. + He, like a pine by axes sped, + Or cypress sway'd by angry gust, + Fell ruining, and laid his head + In Trojan dust. + Not his to lie in covert pent + Of the false steed, and sudden fall + On Priam's ill-starr'd merriment + In bower and hall: + His ruthless arm in broad bare day + The infant from the breast had torn, + Nay, given to flame, ah, well a way! + The babe unborn: + But, won by Venus' voice and thine, + Relenting Jove Aeneas will'd + With other omens more benign + New walls to build. + Sweet tuner of the Grecian lyre, + Whose locks are laved in Xanthus' dews, + Blooming Agyieus! help, inspire + My Daunian Muse! + 'Tis Phoebus, Phoebus gifts my tongue + With minstrel art and minstrel fires: + Come, noble youths and maidens sprung + From noble sires, + Blest in your Dian's guardian smile, + Whose shafts the flying silvans stay, + Come, foot the Lesbian measure, while + The lyre I play: + Sing of Latona's glorious boy, + Sing of night's queen with crescent horn, + Who wings the fleeting months with joy, + And swells the corn. + And happy brides shall say, "'Twas mine, + When years the cyclic season brought, + To chant the festal hymn divine + By HORACE taught." + + + + +VII. + +DIFFUGERE NIVES. + + + The snow is fled: the trees their leaves put on, + The fields their green: + Earth owns the change, and rivers lessening run. + Their banks between. + Naked the Nymphs and Graces in the meads + The dance essay: + "No 'scaping death" proclaims the year, that speeds + This sweet spring day. + Frosts yield to zephyrs; Summer drives out Spring, + To vanish, when + Rich Autumn sheds his fruits; round wheels the ring,-- + Winter again! + Yet the swift moons repair Heaven's detriment: + We, soon as thrust + Where good Aeneas, Tullus, Ancus went, + What are we? dust. + Can Hope assure you one more day to live + From powers above? + You rescue from your heir whate'er you give + The self you love. + When life is o'er, and Minos has rehearsed + The grand last doom, + Not birth, nor eloquence, nor worth, shall burst + Torquatus' tomb. + Not Dian's self can chaste Hippolytus + To life recall, + Nor Theseus free his loved Pirithous + From Lethe's thrall. + + + + +VIII. + +DONAREM PATERAS. + + + Ah Censorinus! to my comrades true + Rich cups, rare bronzes, gladly would I send: + Choice tripods from Olympia on each friend + Would I confer, choicer on none than you, + Had but my fate such gems of art bestow'd + As cunning Scopas or Parrhasius wrought, + This with the brush, that with the chisel taught + To image now a mortal, now a god. + But these are not my riches: your desire + Such luxury craves not, and your means disdain: + A poet's strain you love; a poet's strain + Accept, and learn the value of the lyre. + Not public gravings on a marble base, + Whence comes a second life to men of might + E'en in the tomb: not Hannibal's swift flight, + Nor those fierce threats flung back into his face, + Not impious Carthage in its last red blaze, + In clearer light sets forth his spotless fame, + Who from crush'd Afric took away--a name, + Than rude Calabria's tributary lays. + Let silence hide the good your hand has wrought. + Farewell, reward! Had blank oblivion's power + Dimm'd the bright deeds of Romulus, at this hour, + Despite his sire and mother, he were nought. + Thus Aeacus has 'scaped the Stygian wave, + By grace of poets and their silver tongue, + Henceforth to live the happy isles among. + No, trust the Muse: she opes the good man's grave, + And lifts him to the gods. So Hercules, + His labours o'er, sits at the board of Jove: + So Tyndareus' offspring shine as stars above, + Saving lorn vessels from the yawning seas: + So Bacchus, with the vine-wreath round his hair, + Gives prosperous issue to his votary's prayer. + + + + +IX. + +NE FORTE CREDAS. + + + Think not those strains can e'er expire, + Which, cradled 'mid the echoing roar + Of Aufidus, to Latium's lyre + I sing with arts unknown before. + Though Homer fill the foremost throne, + Yet grave Stesichorus still can please, + And fierce Alcaeus holds his own, + With Pindar and Simonides. + The songs of Teos are not mute, + And Sappho's love is breathing still: + She told her secret to the lute, + And yet its chords with passion thrill. + Not Sparta's queen alone was fired + By broider'd robe and braided tress, + And all the splendours that attired + Her lover's guilty loveliness: + Not only Teucer to the field + His arrows brought, nor Ilion + Beneath a single conqueror reel'd: + Not Crete's majestic lord alone, + Or Sthenelus, earn'd the Muses' crown: + Not Hector first for child and wife, + Or brave Deiphobus, laid down + The burden of a manly life. + Before Atrides men were brave: + But ah! oblivion, dark and long, + Has lock'd them in a tearless grave, + For lack of consecrating song. + 'Twixt worth and baseness, lapp'd in death, + What difference? YOU shall ne'er be dumb, + While strains of mine have voice and breath: + The dull neglect of days to come + Those hard-won honours shall not blight: + No, Lollius, no: a soul is yours, + Clear-sighted, keen, alike upright + When fortune smiles, and when she lowers: + To greed and rapine still severe, + Spurning the gain men find so sweet: + A consul, not of one brief year, + But oft as on the judgment-seat + You bend the expedient to the right, + Turn haughty eyes from bribes away, + Or bear your banners through the fight, + Scattering the foeman's firm array. + The lord of boundless revenues, + Salute not him as happy: no, + Call him the happy, who can use + The bounty that the gods bestow, + Can bear the load of poverty, + And tremble not at death, but sin: + No recreant he when called to die + In cause of country or of kin. + + + + +XI. + +EST MIHI NONUM. + + + Here is a cask of Alban, more + Than nine years old: here grows + Green parsley, Phyllis, and good store + Of ivy too + (Wreathed ivy suits your hair, you know) + The plate shines bright: the altar, strewn + With vervain, hungers for the flow + Of lambkin's blood. + There's stir among the serving folk; + They bustle, bustle, boy and girl; + The flickering flames send up the smoke + In many a curl. + But why, you ask, this special cheer? + We celebrate the feast of Ides, + Which April's month, to Venus dear, + In twain divides. + O, 'tis a day for reverence, + E'en my own birthday scarce so dear, + For my Maecenas counts from thence + Each added year. + 'Tis Telephus that you'd bewitch: + But he is of a high degree; + Bound to a lady fair and rich, + He is not free. + O think of Phaethon half burn'd, + And moderate your passion's greed: + Think how Bellerophon was spurn'd + By his wing'd steed. + So learn to look for partners meet, + Shun lofty things, nor raise your aims + Above your fortune. Come then, sweet, + My last of flames + (For never shall another fair + Enslave me), learn a tune, to sing + With that dear voice: to music care + Shall yield its sting. + + + + +XII. + +JAM VERIS COMITES. + + + The gales of Thrace, that hush the unquiet sea, + Spring's comrades, on the bellying canvas blow: + Clogg'd earth and brawling streams alike are free + From winter's weight of snow. + Wailing her Itys in that sad, sad strain, + Builds the poor bird, reproach to after time + Of Cecrops' house, for bloody vengeance ta'en + On foul barbaric crime. + The keepers of fat lambkins chant their loves + To silvan reeds, all in the grassy lea, + And pleasure Him who tends the flocks and groves + Of dark-leaved Arcady. + It is a thirsty season, Virgil mine: + But would you taste the grape's Calenian juice, + Client of noble youths, to earn your wine + Some nard you must produce. + A tiny box of nard shall bring to light + The cask that in Sulpician cellar lies: + O, it can give new hopes, so fresh and bright, + And gladden gloomy eyes. + You take the bait? then come without delay + And bring your ware: be sure, 'tis not my plan + To let you drain my liquor and not pay, + As might some wealthy man. + Come, quit those covetous thoughts, those knitted brows, + Think on the last black embers, while you may, + And be for once unwise. When time allows, + 'Tis sweet the fool to play. + + + + +XIII. + +AUDIVERE, LYCE. + + + The gods have heard, the gods have heard my prayer; + Yes, Lyce! you are growing old, and still + You struggle to look fair; + You drink, and dance, and trill + Your songs to youthful Love, in accents weak + With wine, and age, and passion. Youthful Love! + He dwells in Chia's cheek, + And hears her harp-strings move. + Rude boy, he flies like lightning o'er the heath + Past wither'd trees like you; you're wrinkled now; + The white has left your teeth + And settled on your brow. + Your Coan silks, your jewels bright as stars, + Ah no! they bring not back the days of old, + In public calendars + By flying Time enroll'd. + Where now that beauty? where those movements? where + That colour? what of her, of her is left, + Who, breathing Love's own air, + Me of myself bereft, + Who reign'd in Cinara's stead, a fair, fair face, + Queen of sweet arts? but Fate to Cinara gave + A life of little space; + And now she cheats the grave + Of Lyce, spared to raven's length of days, + That youth may see, with laughter and disgust, + A fire-brand, once ablaze, + Now smouldering in grey dust. + + + + +XIV. + +QUAE CURA PATRUM. + + + What honours can a grateful Rome, + A grateful senate, Caesar, give + To make thy worth through days to come + Emblazon'd on our records live, + Mightiest of chieftains whomsoe'er + The sun beholds from heaven on high? + They know thee now, thy strength in war, + Those unsubdued Vindelici. + Thine was the sword that Drusus drew, + When on the Breunian hordes he fell, + And storm'd the fierce Genaunian crew + E'en in their Alpine citadel, + And paid them back their debt twice told; + 'Twas then the elder Nero came + To conflict, and in ruin roll'd + Stout Raetian kernes of giant frame. + O, 'twas a gallant sight to see + The shocks that beat upon the brave + Who chose to perish and be free! + As south winds scourge the rebel wave + When through rent clouds the Pleiads weep, + So keen his force to smite, and smite + The foe, or make his charger leap + Through the red furnace of the fight. + Thus Daunia's ancient river fares, + Proud Aufidus, with bull-like horn, + When swoln with choler he prepares + A deluge for the fields of corn. + So Claudius charged and overthrew + The grim barbarian's mail-clad host, + The foremost and the hindmost slew, + And conquer'd all, and nothing lost. + The force, the forethought, were thine own, + Thine own the gods. The selfsame day + When, port and palace open thrown, + Low at thy footstool Egypt lay, + That selfsame day, three lustres gone, + Another victory to thine hand + Was given; another field was won + By grace of Caesar's high command. + Thee Spanish tribes, unused to yield, + Mede, Indian, Scyth that knows no home, + Acknowledge, sword at once and shield + Of Italy and queenly Rome. + Ister to thee, and Tanais fleet, + And Nile that will not tell his birth, + To thee the monstrous seas that beat + On Britain's coast, the end of earth, + To thee the proud Iberians bow, + And Gauls, that scorn from death to flee; + The fierce Sygambrian bends his brow, + And drops his arms to worship thee + + + + +XV. + +PHOEBUS VOLENTEM. + + + Of battles fought I fain had told, + And conquer'd towns, when Phoebus smote + His harp-string: "Sooth, 'twere over-bold + To tempt wide seas in that frail boat." + Thy age, great Caesar, has restored + To squalid fields the plenteous grain, + Given back to Rome's almighty Lord + Our standards, torn from Parthian fane, + Has closed Quirinian Janus' gate, + Wild passion's erring walk controll'd, + Heal'd the foul plague-spot of the state, + And brought again the life of old, + Life, by whose healthful power increased + The glorious name of Latium spread + To where the sun illumes the east + From where he seeks his western bed. + While Caesar rules, no civil strife + Shall break our rest, nor violence rude, + Nor rage, that whets the slaughtering knife + And plunges wretched towns in feud. + The sons of Danube shall not scorn + The Julian edicts; no, nor they + By Tanais' distant river born, + Nor Persia, Scythia, or Cathay. + And we on feast and working-tide, + While Bacchus' bounties freely flow, + Our wives and children at our side, + First paying Heaven the prayers we owe, + Shall sing of chiefs whose deeds are done, + As wont our sires, to flute or shell, + And Troy, Anchises, and the son + Of Venus on our tongues shall dwell. + + + + +CARMEN SAECULARE. + +PHOEBE, SILVARUMQUE. + + + Phoebus and Dian, huntress fair, + To-day and always magnified, + Bright lights of heaven, accord our prayer + This holy tide, + On which the Sibyl's volume wills + That youths and maidens without stain + To gods, who love the seven dear hills, + Should chant the strain! + Sun, that unchanged, yet ever new, + Lead'st out the day and bring'st it home, + May nought be present to thy view + More great than Rome! + Blest Ilithyia! be thou near + In travail to each Roman dame! + Lucina, Genitalis, hear, + Whate'er thy name! + O make our youth to live and grow! + The fathers' nuptial counsels speed, + Those laws that shall on Rome bestow + A plenteous seed! + So when a hundred years and ten + Bring round the cycle, game and song + Three days, three nights, shall charm again + The festal throng. + Ye too, ye Fates, whose righteous doom, + Declared but once, is sure as heaven, + Link on new blessings, yet to come, + To blessings given! + Let Earth, with grain and cattle rife, + Crown Ceres' brow with wreathen corn; + Soft winds, sweet waters, nurse to life + The newly born! + O lay thy shafts, Apollo, by! + Let suppliant youths obtain thine ear! + Thou Moon, fair "regent of the sky," + Thy maidens hear! + If Rome is yours, if Troy's remains, + Safe by your conduct, sought and found + Another city, other fanes + On Tuscan ground, + For whom, 'mid fires and piles of slain, + AEneas made a broad highway, + Destined, pure heart, with greater gain. + Their loss to pay, + Grant to our sons unblemish'd ways; + Grant to our sires an age of peace; + Grant to our nation power and praise, + And large increase! + See, at your shrine, with victims white, + Prays Venus and Anchises' heir! + O prompt him still the foe to smite, + The fallen to spare! + Now Media dreads our Alban steel, + Our victories land and ocean o'er; + Scythia and Ind in suppliance kneel, + So proud before. + Faith, Honour, ancient Modesty, + And Peace, and Virtue, spite of scorn, + Come back to earth; and Plenty, see, + With teeming horn. + Augur and lord of silver bow, + Apollo, darling of the Nine, + Who heal'st our frame when languors slow + Have made it pine; + Lov'st thou thine own Palatial hill, + Prolong the glorious life of Rome + To other cycles, brightening still + Through time to come! + From Algidus and Aventine + List, goddess, to our grave Fifteen! + To praying youths thine ear incline, + Diana queen! + Thus Jove and all the gods agree! + So trusting, wend we home again, + Phoebus and Dian's singers we, + And this our strain. + + + + + + +NOTES. + + + + +BOOK I, ODE 3. + +THE ESTRANGING MAIN. + + "The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea." + MATTHEW ARNOLD. + + And slow Fate quicken'd Death's once halting pace. + +The commentators seem generally to connect Necessitas with Leti; I have +preferred to separate them. Necessitas occurs elsewhere in Horace (Book +I, Ode 35, v. 17; Book III, Ode 1, v. 14; Ode 24, v. 6) as an +independent personage, nearly synonymous with Fate, and I do not see +why she should not be represented as accelerating the approach of +Death. + + + + +BOOK I, ODE 5. + +I have ventured to model my version of this Ode, to some extent, on +Milton's, "the high-water mark," as it has been termed, "which Horatian +translation has attained." I have not, however, sought to imitate his +language, feeling that the attempt would be presumptuous in itself, and +likely to create a sense of incongruity with the style of the other +Odes. + + + + +BOOK I, ODE 6. + + Who with pared nails encounter youths in fight. + +I like Ritter's interpretation of sectis, cut sharp, better than the +common one, which supposes the paring of the nails to denote that the +attack is not really formidable. Sectis will then be virtually +equivalent to Bentley's strictis. Perhaps my translation is not +explicit enough. + + + + +BOOK I, ODE 7. + + And search for wreaths the olive's rifled bower. + +Undique decerptam I take, with Bentley, to mean "plucked +on all hands," i. e. exhausted as a topic of poetical treatment. +He well compares Lucretius, Book I, v. 927-- + + "Juvatque novas decerpere flores, + Insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam + Unde prius nulli velarint tempora Musae." + + 'Tis Teucer leads, 'tis Teucer breathes the wind. + +If I have slurred over the Latin, my excuse must be that the precise +meaning of the Latin is difficult to catch. Is Teucer called auspex, as +taking the auspices, like an augur, or as giving the auspices, like a +god? There are objections to both interpretations; a Roman imperator +was not called auspex, though he was attended by an auspex, and was +said to have the auspicia; auspex is frequently used of one who, as we +should say, inaugurates an undertaking, but only if he is a god or a +deified mortal. Perhaps Horace himself oscillated between the two +meanings; his later commentators do not appear to have distinguished +them. + + + + +BOOK I, ODE 9. + +Since this Ode was printed off, I find that my last stanza bears a +suspicious likeness to the version by "C. S. C." I cannot say whether +it is a case of mere coincidence, or of unconscious recollection; it +certainly is not one of deliberate appropriation. I have only had the +opportunity of seeing his book at distant intervals; and now, on +finally comparing his translations with my own, I find that, while +there are a few resemblances, there are several marked instances of +dissimilarity, where, though we have adopted the same metre, we do not +approach each other in the least. + + + + +BOOK I, ODE 15. + + And for your dames divide + On peaceful lyre the several parts of song. + +I have taken feminis with divides, but it is quite possible that Orelli +may be right in constructing it with grata. The case is really one of +those noticed in the Preface, where an interpretation which would not +commend itself to a commentator may be adopted by a poetical translator +simply as a free rendering. + + + + +BOOK I, ODE 27. + + Our guest, + Megilla's brother. + +There is no warrant in the original for representing this person as a +guest of the company; but the Ode is equally applicable to a tavern +party, where all share alike, and an entertainment where there is a +distinction between hosts and guests. + + + +BOOK I, ODE 28. + +I have translated this Ode as it stands, without attempting to decide +whether it is dialogue or monologue. Perhaps the opinion which supposes +it to be spoken by Horace in his own person, as if he had actually +perished in the shipwreck alluded to in Book III, Ode 4, v. 27, "Me... +non exstinxit... Sicula Palinurus unda," deserves more attention than +it has received. + + + + +BOOK II, ODE 1. + + Methinks I hear of leaders proud. + +Horace supposes himself to hear not the leaders themselves, but +Pollio's recitation of their exploits. There is nothing weak in this, +as Orelli thinks. Horace has not seen Pollio's work, but compliments +him by saying that he can imagine what its finest passages will be +like--"I can fancy how you will glow in your description of the great +generals, and of Cato." Possibly "Non indecoro pulvere sordidos" may +refer to the deaths of the republican generals, whom old recollections +would lead Horace to admire. We may then compare Ode 7 of this Book, v. +11-- + + "Cum fracta virtus, et minaces + Turpe solum tetigere mento," + +where, as will be seen, I agree with Ritter, against Orelli, in +supposing death in battle rather than submission to be meant, though +Horace, writing from a somewhat different point of view, has chosen +there to speak of the vanquished as dying ingloriously. + + + + +BOOK II, ODE 3. + + Where poplar pale and pine-tree high. + +I have translated according to the common reading "Qua pinus ... et +obliquo," without stopping to inquire whether it is sufficiently +supported by MSS. Those who with Orelli prefer "Quo pinus ... quid +obliquo," may substitute-- + + Know you why pine and poplar high + Their hospitable shadows spread + Entwined? why panting waters try + To hurry down their zigzag bed? + + + + +BOOK II, ODE 7. + + A man of peace. + +Quiritem is generally understood of a citizen with rights undiminished. +I have interpreted it of a civilian opposed to a soldier, as in the +well-known story in Suetonius (Caes. c. 70), where Julius Caesar takes +the tenth legion at their word, and intimates that they are disbanded +by the simple substitution of Quirites for milites in his speech to +them. But it may very well include both. + + + + +BOOK II, ODE 13. + + In sacred awe the silent dead + Attend on each. + + "'Sacro digna silentio:' digna eo silentio quod in sacris + faciendis observatur."--RITTER. + + + + +BOOK II, ODE 14. + + Not though three hundred bullocks flame + Each year. + +I have at last followed Ritter in taking trecenos as loosely put for +365, a steer for each day in the year. The hyperbole, as he says, would +otherwise be too extravagant. And richer spilth the pavement stain. + + "Our vaults have wept + With drunken spilth of wine." + SHAKESPEARE, Timon of Athens. + + + + +BOOK II, ODE 18. + + Suns are hurrying suns a-west, + And newborn moons make speed to meet their end. + +The thought seems to be that the rapid course of time, hurrying men to +the grave, proves the wisdom of contentment and the folly of avarice. +My version formerly did not express this, and I have altered it +accordingly, while I have rendered "Novaeque pergunt interire lunae" +closely, as Horace may perhaps have intended to speak of the moons as +hastening to their graves as men do. + + Yet no hall that wealth e'er plann'd + Waits you more surely than the wider room + Traced by Death's yet greedier hand. + +Fine is the instrumental ablative constructed with destinata, which is +itself an ablative agreeing with aula understood. The rich man looks +into the future, and makes contracts which he may never live to see +executed (v. 17--"Tu secanda marmora Locas sub ipsum funus"); meantime +Death, more punctual than any contractor, more greedy than any +encroaching proprietor, has planned with his measuring line a mansion +of a different kind, which will infallibly be ready when the day +arrives. + + + + +BOOK II, ODE 20. + + I, whom you call + Your friend, Maecenas. + +With Ritter I have rendered according to the interpretation which +makes dilecte Maecenas' address to Horace; but it is a choice of evils. + + + + +BOOK III, ODE 1. + + And lords of land + Affect the sea. + +Terrae of course goes with fastidiosus, not with dominus. Mine is a +loose rendering, not a false interpretation. + + + + +BOOK III, ODE 2. + + Her robes she keeps unsullied still. + +The meaning is not that worth is not disgraced by defeat in contests +for worldly honours, but that the honours which belong to worth are +such as the worthy never fail to attain, such as bring no disgrace +along with them, and such as the popular breath can neither confer nor +resume. + + True men and thieves + Neglected Justice oft confounds. + + "The thieves have bound the true men." + SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV, Act ii. Scene 2; +where see Steevens' note. + + + + +BOOK III, ODE 3. + + No more the adulterous guest can charm + The Spartan queen. + +I have followed Ritter in constructing Lacaenae adulterae as a dative +with splendet; but I have done so as a poetical translator rather than +as a commentator. + + + + +BOOK III, ODE 4. + + Or if a graver note than, love, + With Phoebus' cittern and his lyre. + +I have followed Horace's sense, not his words. I believe, with Ritter, +that the alternative is between the pipe as accompanying the vox acuta, +and the cithara or lyre as accompanying the vox gravis. Horace has +specified the vox acuta, and left the vox gravis to be inferred; I have +done just the reverse. + + Me, as I lay on Vultur's steep. + +In this and the two following stanzas I have paraphrased Horace, with a +view to bring out what appears to be his sense. There is, I think, a +peculiar force in the word fabulosae, standing as it does at the very +opening of the stanza, in close connection with me, and thus bearing +the weight of all the intervening words till the very end, where its +noun, palumbes, is introduced at last. Horace says in effect, "I, too, +like other poets, have a legend of my infancy." Accordingly I have +thrown the gossip of the country-side into the form of an actual +speech. Whether I am justified in heightening the marvellous by making +the stock-doves actually crown the child, instead of merely laying +branches upon him, I am not so sure; but something more seems to be +meant than the covering of leaves, which the Children in the Wood, in +our own legend, receive from the robin. + + Loves the leafy growth + Of Lycia next his native wood. + +Some of my predecessors seem hardly to distinguish between the Lyciae +dumeta and the natalem silvam of Delos, Apollo's attachment to both of +which warrants the two titles Delius et Patareus. I knew no better way +of marking the distinction within the compass of a line and a half than +by making Apollo exhibit a preference where Horace speaks of his +likings as co-ordinate. + + Strength mix'd with mind is made more strong. + +"Mixed" is not meant as a precise translation of temperatam, chastened +or restrained, though "to mix" happens to be one of the shades of +meaning of temperare. + + + + +BOOK III, ODE 5. + + The fields we spoil'd with corn are green. + +The later editors are right in not taking Marte nostro with coli as +well as with populata. As has been remarked to me, the pride of the +Roman is far more forcibly expressed by the complaint that the enemy +have been able to cultivate fields that Rome has ravaged than by the +statement that Roman captives have been employed to cultivate the +fields they had ravaged as invaders. The latter proposition, it is +true, includes the former; but the new matter draws off attention from +the old, and so weakens it. + + Who once to faithless foes has knelt. + +"Knelt" is not strictly accurate, expressing Bentley's dedidit rather +than the common, and doubtless correct, text, credidit. + + And, girt by friends that mourn'd him, sped + * * * + The press of kin he push'd apart. + +I had originally reversed amicos and propinquos, supposing it to be +indifferent which of them was used in either stanza. But a friend has +pointed out to me that a distinction is probably intended between the +friends who attended Regulus and the kinsmen who sought to prevent his +going. + + + + +BOOK III, ODE 8. + + Lay down that load of state-concern. + +I have translated generally; but Horace's meaning is special, referring +to Maecenas' office of prefect of the city. + + + + +BOOK III, ODE 9. + +Buttmann complains of the editors for specifying the interlocutors as +Horace and Lydia, which he thinks as incongruous as if in an English +amoebean ode Collins were to appear side by side with Phyllis. The +remark may be just as affects the Latin, though Ode 19 of the present +Book, and Odes 33 and 36 of Book I, might be adduced to show that +Horace does not object to mixing Latin and Greek names in the same +poem; but it does not apply to a translation, where to the English +reader's apprehension Horace and Lydia will seem equally real, equally +fanciful. + + + + +BOOK III, ODE 17. + +Lamia was doubtless vain of his pedigree; Horace accordingly banters +him good-humouredly by spending two stanzas out of four in giving him +his proper ancestral designation. To shorten the address by leaving out +a stanza, as some critics and some translators have done, is simply to +rob Horace's trifle of its point. + + + + +BOOK III, ODE 23. + +There is something harsh in the expression of the fourth stanza of this +Ode in the Latin. Tentare cannot stand without an object, and to +connect it, as the commentators do, with deos is awkward. I was going +to remark that possibly some future Bentley would conjecture certare, +or litare, when I found that certare had been anticipated by Peerlkamp, +who, if not a Bentley, was a Bentleian. But it would not be easy to +account for the corruption, as the fact that the previous line begins +with cervice would rather have led to the change of tentare into +certare than vice versa. + + + + +BOOK III, ODE 24. + + Let Necessity but drive + Her wedge of adamant into that proud head. + +I have translated this difficult passage nearly as it stands, not +professing to decide whether tops of buildings or human heads are +meant. Either is strange till explained; neither seems at present to be +supported by any exact parallel in ancient literature or ancient art. +Necessity with her nails has met us before in Ode 35 of Book I, and +Orelli describes an Etruscan work of art where she is represented with +that cognizance; but though the nail is an appropriate emblem of +fixity, we are apparently not told where it is to be driven. The +difficulty here is further complicated by the following metaphor of the +noose, which seems to be a new and inconsistent image. + + + + +BOOK III, ODE 29. + + Nor gaze on Tibur, never dried. + +With Ritter I have connected semper udum (an interpretation first +suggested by Tate, who turned ne into ut); but I do not press it as the +best explanation of the Latin. The general effect of the stanza is the +same either way. + + Those piles, among the clouds at home. + +I have understood molem generally of the buildings of Rome, not +specially of Maecenas' tower. The parallel passage in Virg. Aen. i. +421-- + + "Miratur molem Aeneas, magalia quondam, + Miratur portas strepitumque et strata viarum"-- + +is in favour of the former view. + + What once the flying hour has brought. + +I have followed Ritter doubtfully. Compare Virg. +Georg. i. 461,-- + + "Quid vesper serus vehat." + + Shall waft my little boat ashore. + +I have hardly brought out the sense of the Latin with sufficient +clearness. Horace says that if adversity comes upon him he shall accept +it, and be thankful for what is left him, like a trader in a tempest, +who, instead of wasting time in useless prayers for the safety of his +goods, takes at once to the boat and preserves his life. + + + + +BOOK IV, ODE 2. + + And spices strow + Before your train. + +I had written "And gifts bestow at every fane;" but Ritter is doubtless +right in explaining dabimus tura of the burning of incense in the +streets during the procession. About the early part of the stanza I am +less confident; but the explanation which makes Antonius take part in +the procession as praetor, the reading adopted being Tuque dum +procedis, is perhaps the least of evils. + + + + +BOOK IV, ODE 3. + + On soft AEolian airs his fame shall nourish. + +Horace evidently means that the scenery of Tibur contributes to the +formation of lyric genius. It is Wordsworth's doctrine in the germ; +though, if the author had been asked what it involved, perhaps he would +not have gone further than Ritter, who resolves it all into the +conduciveness of a pleasant retreat to successful composition. + + + + +BOOK IV, ODE 4. + +I have deranged the symmetry of the two opening similes, making the +eagle the subject of the sentence in the first, the kid in the second, +an awkwardness which the Latin is able to avoid by its power of +distinguishing cases by inflexion. I trust, however, that it will not +offend an English reader. + + Whence in every field + They learned. + +Horace seems to allude jokingly to some unseasonable inquiry into the +antiquity of the armour of these Alpine tribes, which had perhaps been +started by some less skilful celebrator of the victory; at the same +time that he gratifies his love of lyrical commonplace by a +parenthetical digression in the style of Pindar. + + And watchful potencies unweave + For them the tangled paths of war. + +On the whole, Ritter seems right, after Acron, in understanding curae +sagaces of the counsels of Augustus, whom Horace compliments similarly +in the Fourteenth Ode of this Book, as the real author of his step- +son's victories. He is certainly right in giving the stanza to Horace, +not to Hannibal. Even a courtly or patriotic Roman would have shrunk +from the bad taste of making the great historical enemy of Italy +conclude his lamentation over his own and his country's deep sorrow by +a flattering prophecy of the greatness of his antagonist's family. + + + + +BOOK IV, ODE 9. + + 'Twixt worth and baseness, lapp'd in death, + What difference? + +I believe I have expressed Horace's meaning, though he has chosen to +express himself as if the two things compared were dead worthlessness +and uncelebrated worth. By fixing the epithet sepultae to inertiae he +doubtless meant to express that the natural and appropriate fate of +worthlessness was to be dead, buried, and forgotten. But the context +shows that he was thinking of the effect of death and its consequent +oblivion on worth and worthlessness alike, and contending that the poet +alone could remedy the undiscriminating and unjust award of destiny. +Throughout the first half of the Ode, however, Horace has rather failed +to mark the transitions of thought. He begins by assuring himself and, +by implication, those whom he celebrates, of immortality, on the ground +that the greatest poets are not the only poets; he then exchanges this +thought for another, doubtless suggested by it, that the heroes of +poetry are not the only heroes, though the very fact that there have +been uncelebrated heroes is used to show that celebration by a poet is +everything. + + Or bear your banners through the fight, + Scattering the foeman's firm array. + +It seems, on the whole, simpler to understand this of actual victories +obtained by Lollius as a commander, than of moral victories obtained by +him as a judge. There is harshness in passing abruptly from the +judgment-seat to the battle-field; but to speak of the judgment-seat as +itself the battle-field would, I think, be harsher still. + +FINIS. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ODES AND CARMEN SAECULARE OF HORACE *** + +This file should be named 5432.txt or 5432.zip + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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