Horace — The Odes

**Ode I.**

TO MAECENAS.

Maecenas, descended from royal ancestors, O both my protection and my

darling honor! There are those whom it delights to have collected

Olympic dust in the chariot race; and [whom] the goal nicely avoided by

the glowing wheels, and the noble palm, exalts, lords of the earth, to

the gods.

This man, if a crowd of the capricious Quirites strive to raise him to

the highest dignities; another, if he has stored up in his own granary

whatsoever is swept from the Libyan thrashing floors: him who delights

to cut with the hoe his patrimonial fields, you could never tempt, for

all the wealth of Attalus, [to become] a timorous sailor and cross the

Myrtoan sea in a Cyprian bark. The merchant, dreading the south-west

wind contending with the Icarian waves, commends tranquility and the

rural retirement of his village; but soon after, incapable of being

taught to bear poverty, he refits his shattered vessel. There is

another, who despises not cups of old Massic, taking a part from the

entire day, one while stretched under the green arbute, another at the

placid head of some sacred stream.

The camp, and the sound of the trumpet mingled with that of the clarion,

and wars detested by mothers, rejoice many.

The huntsman, unmindful of his tender spouse, remains in the cold air,

whether a hart is held in view by his faithful hounds, or a Marsian boar

has broken the fine-wrought toils.

Ivy, the reward of learned brows, equals me with the gods above: the

cool grove, and the light dances of nymphs and satyrs, distinguish me

from the crowd; if neither Euterpe withholds her pipe, nor Polyhymnia

disdains to tune the Lesbian lyre. But, if you rank me among the lyric

poets, I shall tower to the stars with my exalted head.

* * * * *

**Ode II.**

TO AUGUSTUS CAESAR

Enough of snow and dreadful hail has the Sire now sent upon the earth,

and having hurled [his thunderbolts] with his red right hand against the

sacred towers, he has terrified the city; he has terrified the nations,

lest the grievous age of Pyrrha, complaining of prodigies till then

unheard of, should return, when Proteus drove all his [marine] herd to

visit the lofty mountains; and the fishy race were entangled in the elm

top, which before was the frequented seat of doves; and the timorous

deer swam in the overwhelming flood. We have seen the yellow Tiber, with

his waves forced back with violence from the Tuscan shore, proceed to

demolish the monuments of king [Numa], and the temples of Vesta; while

he vaunts himself the avenger of the too disconsolate Ilia, and the

uxorious river, leaving his channel, overflows his left bank,

notwithstanding the disapprobation of Jupiter.

Our youth, less numerous by the vices of their fathers, shall hear of

the citizens having whetted that sword [against themselves], with which

it had been better that the formidable Persians had fallen; they shall

hear of [actual] engagements. Whom of the gods shall the people invoke

to the affairs of the sinking empire? With what prayer shall the sacred

virgins importune Vesta, who is now inattentive to their hymns? To whom

shall Jupiter assign the task of expiating our wickedness? Do thou at

length, prophetic Apollo, (we pray thee!) come, vailing thy radiant

shoulders with a cloud: or thou, if it be more agreeable to thee,

smiling Venus, about whom hover the gods of mirth and love: or thou, if

thou regard thy neglected race and descendants, our founder Mars, whom

clamor and polished helmets, and the terrible aspect of the Moorish

infantry against their bloody enemy, delight, satiated at length with

thy sport, alas! of too long continuance: or if thou, the winged son of

gentle Maia, by changing thy figure, personate a youth upon earth,

submitting to be called the avenger of Caesar; late mayest thou return

to the skies, and long mayest thou joyously be present to the Roman

people; nor may an untimely blast transport thee from us, offended at

our crimes. Here mayest thou rather delight in magnificent triumphs, and

to be called father and prince: nor suffer the Parthians with impunity

to make incursions, you, O Caesar, being our general.

* * * * *

**Ode III.**

TO THE SHIP, IN WHICH VIRGIL WAS ABOUT TO SAIL TO ATHENS.

So may the goddess who rules over Cyprus; so may the bright stars, the

brothers of Helen; and so may the father of the winds, confining all

except Iapyx, direct thee, O ship, who art intrusted with Virgil; my

prayer is, that thou mayest land him safe on the Athenian shore, and

preserve the half of my soul. Surely oak and three-fold brass surrounded

his heart who first trusted a frail vessel to the merciless ocean, nor

was afraid of the impetuous Africus contending with the northern storms,

nor of the mournful Hyades, nor of the rage of Notus, than whom there is

not a more absolute controller of the Adriatic, either to raise or

assuage its waves at pleasure. What path of death did he fear, who

beheld unmoved the rolling monsters of the deep; who beheld unmoved the

tempestuous swelling of the sea, and the Acroceraunians--ill-famed

rocks?

In vain has God in his wisdom divided the countries of the earth by the

separating ocean, if nevertheless profane ships bound over waters not to

be violated. The race of man presumptuous enough to endure everything,

rushes on through forbidden wickedness.

The presumptuous son of Iapetus, by an impious fraud, brought down fire

into the world. After fire was stolen from the celestial mansions,

consumption and a new train of fevers settled upon the earth, and the

slow approaching necessity of death, which, till now, was remote,

accelerated its pace. Daedalus essayed the empty air with wings not

permitted to man. The labor of Hercules broke through Acheron. There is

nothing too arduous for mortals to attempt. We aim at heaven itself in

our folly; neither do we suffer, by our wickedness, Jupiter to lay aside

his revengeful thunderbolts.

* * * * *

**Ode IV.**

TO SEXTIUS.

Severe winter is melted away beneath the agreeable change of spring and

the western breeze; and engines haul down the dry ships. And neither

does the cattle any longer delight in the stalls, nor the ploughman in

the fireside; nor are the meadows whitened by hoary frosts. Now

Cytherean Venus leads off the dance by moonlight; and the comely Graces,

in conjunction with the Nymphs, shake the ground with alternate feet;

while glowing Vulcan kindles the laborious forges of the Cyclops. Now it

is fitting to encircle the shining head either with verdant myrtle, or

with such flowers as the relaxed earth produces. Now likewise it is

fitting to sacrifice to Faunus in the shady groves, whether he demand a

lamb, or be more pleased with a kid. Pale death knocks at the cottages

of the poor, and the palaces of kings, with an impartial foot. O happy

Sextius! The short sum total of life forbids us to form remote

expectations. Presently shall darkness, and the unreal ghosts, and the

shadowy mansion of Pluto oppress you; where, when you shall have once

arrived, you shall neither decide the dominion of the bottle by dice,

nor shall you admire the tender Lycidas, with whom now all the youth is

inflamed, and for whom ere long the maidens will grow warm.

* * * * *

**Ode V.**

TO PYRRHA.

What dainty youth, bedewed with liquid perfumes, caresses you, Pyrrha,

beneath the pleasant grot, amid a profusion of roses? For whom do you

bind your golden hair, plain in your neatness? Alas! how often shall he

deplore your perfidy, and the altered gods; and through inexperience be

amazed at the seas, rough with blackening storms who now credulous

enjoys you all precious, and, ignorant of the faithless gale, hopes you

will be always disengaged, always amiable! Wretched are those, to whom

thou untried seemest fair? The sacred wall [of Neptune's temple]

demonstrates, by a votive tablet, that I have consecrated my dropping

garments to the powerful god of the sea.

* * * * *

**Ode VI.**

TO AGRIPPA.

You shall be described by Varius, a bird of Maeonian verse, as brave,

and a subduer of your enemies, whatever achievements your fierce

soldiery shall have accomplished, under your command; either on

ship-board or on horseback. We humble writers, O Agrippa, neither

undertake these high subjects, nor the destructive wrath of inexorable

Achilles, nor the voyages of the crafty Ulysses, nor the cruel house of

Pelops: while diffidence, and the Muse who presides over the peaceful

lyre, forbid me to diminish the praise of illustrious Caesar, and yours,

through defect of genius. Who with sufficient dignity will describe Mars

covered with adamantine coat of mail, or Meriones swarthy with Trojan

dust, or the son of Tydeus by the favor of Pallas a match for the gods?

We, whether free, or ourselves enamored of aught, light as our wont,

sing of banquets; we, of the battles of maids desperate against young

fellows--with pared nails.

* * * * *

**Ode VII.**

TO MUNATIUS PLANCUS.

Other poets shall celebrate the famous Rhodes, or Mitylene, or Ephesus,

or the walls of Corinth, situated between two seas, or Thebes,

illustrious by Bacchus, or Delphi by Apollo, or the Thessalian Tempe.

There are some, whose one task it is to chant in endless verse the city

of spotless Pallas, and to prefer the olive culled from every side, to

every other leaf. Many a one, in honor of Juno, celebrates Argos,

productive of steeds, and rich Mycenae. Neither patient Lacedaemon so

much struck me, nor so much did the plain of fertile Larissa, as the

house of resounding Albunea, and the precipitately rapid Anio, and the

Tiburnian groves, and the orchards watered by ductile rivulets. As the

clear south wind often clears away the clouds from a lowering sky, now

teems with perpetual showers; so do you, O Plancus, wisely remember to

put an end to grief and the toils of life by mellow wine; whether the

camp, refulgent with banners, possess you, or the dense shade of your

own Tibur shall detain you. When Teucer fled from Salamis and his

father, he is reported, notwithstanding, to have bound his temples,

bathed in wine, with a poplar crown, thus accosting his anxious friends:

"O associates and companions, we will go wherever fortune, more

propitious than a father, shall carry us. Nothing is to be despaired of

under Teucer's conduct, and the auspices of Teucer: for the infallible

Apollo has promised, that a Salamis in a new land shall render the name

equivocal. O gallant heroes, and often my fellow-sufferers in greater

hardships than these, now drive away your cares with wine: to-morrow we

will re-visit the vast ocean."

* * * * *

**Ode VIII.**

TO LYDIA.

Lydia, I conjure thee by all the powers above, to tell me why you are so

intent to ruin Sybaris by inspiring him with love? Why hates he the

sunny plain, though inured to bear the dust and heat? Why does he

neither, in military accouterments, appear mounted among his equals; nor

manage the Gallic steed with bitted reins? Why fears he to touch the

yellow Tiber? Why shuns he the oil of the ring more cautiously than

viper's blood? Why neither does he, who has often acquired reputation by

the quoit, often by the javelin having cleared the mark, any longer

appear with arms all black-and-blue by martial exercises? Why is he

concealed, as they say the son of the sea-goddess Thetis was, just

before the mournful funerals of Troy; lest a manly habit should hurry

him to slaughter, and the Lycian troops?

* * * * *

**Ode IX.**

TO THALIARCHUS.

You see how Soracte stands white with deep snow, nor can the laboring

woods any longer support the weight, and the rivers stagnate with the

sharpness of the frost. Dissolve the cold, liberally piling up billets

on the hearth; and bring out, O Thaliarchus, the more generous wine,

four years old, from the Sabine jar. Leave the rest to the gods, who

having once laid the winds warring with the fervid ocean, neither the

cypresses nor the aged ashes are moved. Avoid inquiring what may happen

tomorrow; and whatever day fortune shall bestow on you, score it up for

gain; nor disdain, being a young fellow, pleasant loves, nor dances, as

long as ill-natured hoariness keeps off from your blooming age. Now let

both the Campus Martius and the public walks, and soft whispers at the

approach of evening be repeated at the appointed hour: now, too, the

delightful laugh, the betrayer of the lurking damsel from some secret

corner, and the token ravished from her arms or fingers, pretendingly

tenacious of it.

* * * * *

**Ode X.**

TO MERCURY.

Mercury, eloquent grandson of Atlas, thou who artful didst from the

savage manners of the early race of men by oratory, and the institution

of the graceful Palaestra: I will celebrate thee, messenger of Jupiter

and the other gods, and parent of the curved lyre; ingenious to conceal

whatever thou hast a mind to, in jocose theft. While Apollo, with angry

voice, threatened you, then but a boy, unless you would restore the

oxen, previously driven away by your fraud, he laughed, [when he found

himself] deprived of his quiver [also]. Moreover, the wealthy Priam too,

on his departure from Ilium, under your guidance deceived the proud sons

of Atreus, and the Thessalian watch-lights, and the camp inveterate

agaist Troy. You settle the souls of good men in blissful regions, and

drive together the airy crowd with your golden rod, acceptable both to

the supernal and infernal gods.

* * * * *

**Ode XI.**

TO LEUCONOE.

Inquire not, Leuconoe (it is not fitting you should know), how long a

term of life the gods have granted to you or to me: neither consult the

Chaldean calculations. How much better is it to bear with patience

whatever shall happen! Whether Jupiter have granted us more winters, or

[this as] the last, which now breaks the Etrurian waves against the

opposing rocks. Be wise; rack off your wines, and abridge your hopes [in

proportion] to the shortness of your life. While we are conversing,

envious age has been flying; seize the present day, not giving the least

credit to the succeeding one.

* * * * *

**Ode XII.**

TO AUGUSTUS.

What man, what hero, O Clio, do you undertake to celebrate on the harp,

or the shrill pipe? What god? Whose name shall the sportive echo

resound, either in the shady borders of Helicon, or on the top of

Pindus, or on cold Haemus? Whence the woods followed promiscuously the

tuneful Orpheus, who by his maternal art retarded the rapid courses of

rivers, and the fleet winds; and was so sweetly persuasive, that he drew

along the listening oaks with his harmonious strings. But what can I

sing prior to the usual praises of the Sire, who governs the affairs of

men and gods; who [governs] the sea, the earth, and the whole world with

the vicissitudes of seasons? Whence nothing is produced greater than

him; nothing springs either like him, or even in a second degree to him:

nevertheless, Pallas has acquired these honors, which are next after

him.

Neither will I pass thee by in silence, O Bacchus, bold in combat; nor

thee, O Virgin, who art an enemy to the savage beasts; nor thee, O

Phoebus, formidable for thy unerring dart.

I will sing also of Hercules, and the sons of Leda, the one illustrious

for his achievements on horseback, the other on foot; whose

clear-shining constellation as soon as it has shone forth to the

sailors, the troubled surge falls down from the rocks, the winds cease,

the clouds vanish, and the threatening waves subside in the sea--because

it was their will. After these, I am in doubt whom I shall first

commemorate, whether Romulus, or the peaceful reign of Numa, or the

splendid ensigns of Tarquinius, or the glorious death of Cato. I will

celebrate, out of gratitude, with the choicest verses, Regulus, and the

Scauri, and Paulus, prodigal of his mighty soul, when Carthage

conquered, and Fabricius.

Severe poverty, and an hereditary farm, with a dwelling suited to it,

formed this hero useful in war; as it did also Curius with his rough

locks, and Camillus. The fame of Marcellus increases, as a tree does in

the insensible progress of time. But the Julian constellation shines

amid them all, as the moon among the smaller stars. O thou son of

Saturn, author and preserver of the human race, the protection of Caesar

is committed to thy charge by the Fates: thou shalt reign supreme, with

Caesar for thy second. Whether he shall subdue with a just victory the

Parthians making inroads upon Italy, or shall render subject the Seres

and Indians on the Eastern coasts; he shall rule the wide world with

equity, in subordination to thee. Thou shalt shake Olympus with thy

tremendous car; thou shalt hurl thy hostile thunderbolts against the

polluted groves.

* * * * *

**Ode XIII.**

TO LYDIA.

O Lydia, when you commend Telephus' rosy neck, and the waxen arms of

Telephus, alas! my inflamed liver swells with bile difficult to be

repressed. Then neither is my mind firm, nor does my color maintain a

certain situation: and the involuntary tears glide down my cheek,

proving with what lingering flames I am inwardly consumed. I am on fire,

whether quarrels rendered immoderate by wine have stained your fair

shoulders; or whether the youth, in his fury, has impressed with his

teeth a memorial on your lips. If you will give due attention to my

advice, never expect that he will be constant, who inhumanly wounds

those sweet kisses, which Venus has imbued with the fifth part of all

her nectar. O thrice and more than thrice happy those, whom an

indissoluble connection binds together; and whose love, undivided by

impious complainings, does not separate them sooner than the last day!

* * * * *

**Ode XIV.**

TO THE ROMAN STATE.

O ship, new waves will bear you back again to sea. O what are you doing?

Bravely seize the port. Do you not perceive, that your sides are

destitute of oars, and your mast wounded by the violent south wind, and

your main-yards groan, and your keel can scarcely support the

impetuosity of the waves without the help of cordage? You have not

entire sails; nor gods, whom you may again invoke, pressed with

distress: notwithstanding you are made of the pines of Pontus, and as

the daughter of an illustrious wood, boast your race, and a fame now of

no service to you. The timorous sailor has no dependence on a painted

stern. Look to yourself, unless you are destined to be the sport of the

winds. O thou, so lately my trouble and fatigue, but now an object of

tenderness and solicitude, mayest thou escape those dangerous seas which

flow among the shining Cyclades.

* * * * *

**Ode XV.**

TO PARIS.

When the perfidious shepherd (Paris) carried off by sea in Trojan ships

his hostess Helen, Nereus suppressed the swift winds in an unpleasant

calm, that he might sing the dire fates. "With unlucky omen art thou

conveying home her, whom Greece with a numerous army shall demand back

again, having entered into a confederacy to dissolve your nuptials, and

the ancient kingdom of Priam. Alas! what sweat to horses, what to men,

is just at hand! What a destruction art thou preparing for the Trojan

nation! Even now Pallas is fitting her helmet, and her shield, and her

chariot, and her fury. In vain, looking fierce through the patronage of

Venus, will you comb your hair, and run divisions upon the effeminate

lyre with songs pleasing to women. In vain will you escape the spears

that disturb the nuptial bed, and the point of the Cretan dart, and the

din [of battle], and Ajax swift in the pursuit. Nevertheless, alas! the

time will come, though late, when thou shalt defile thine adulterous

hairs in the dust. Dost thou not see the son of Laertes, fatal to thy

nation, and Pylian Nestor, Salaminian Teucer, and Sthenelus skilled in

fight (or if there be occasion to manage horses, no tardy charioteer),

pursue thee with intrepidity? Meriones also shalt thou experience.

Behold! the gallant son of Tydeus, a better man than his father, glows

to find you out: him, as a stag flies a wolf, which he has seen on the

opposite side of the vale, unmindful of his pasture, shall you,

effeminate, fly, grievously panting:--not such the promises you made

your mistress. The fleet of the enraged Achilles shall defer for a time

that day, which is to be fatal to Troy and the Trojan matrons: but,

after a certain number of years, Grecian fire shall consume the Trojan

palaces."

* * * * *

**Ode XVI.**

TO A YOUNG LADY HORACE HAD OFFENDED.

O daughter, more charming than your charming mother, put what end you

please to my insulting iambics; either in the flames, or, if you choose

it, in the Adriatic. Nor Cybele, nor Apollo, the dweller in the shrines,

so shakes the breast of his priests; Bacchus does not do it equally, nor

do the Corybantes so redouble their strokes on the sharp-sounding

cymbals, as direful anger; which neither the Noric sword can deter, nor

the shipwrecking sea, nor dreadful fire, not Jupiter himself rushing

down with awful crash. It is reported that Prometheus was obliged to add

to that original clay [with which he formed mankind], some ingredient

taken from every animal, and that he applied the vehemence of the raging

lion to the human breast. It was rage that destroyed Thyestes with

horrible perdition; and has been the final cause that lofty cities have

been entirely demolished, and that an insolent army has driven the

hostile plowshare over their walls. Compose your mind. An ardor of soul

attacked me also in blooming youth, and drove me in a rage to the

writing of swift-footed iambics. Now I am desirous of exchanging

severity for good nature, provided that you will become my friend, after

my having recanted my abuse, and restore me your affections.

* * * * *

**Ode XVII.**

TO TYNDARIS.

The nimble Faunus often exchanges the Lycaean mountain for the pleasant

Lucretilis, and always defends my she-goats from the scorching summer,

and the rainy winds. The wandering wives of the unsavory husband seek

the hidden strawberry-trees and thyme with security through the safe

grove: nor do the kids dread the green lizards, or the wolves sacred to

Mars; whenever, my Tyndaris, the vales and the smooth rocks of the

sloping Ustica have resounded with his melodious pipe. The gods are my

protectors. My piety and my muse are agreeable to the gods. Here plenty,

rich with rural honors, shall flow to you, with her generous horn filled

to the brim. Here, in a sequestered vale, you shall avoid the heat of

the dog-star; and, on your Anacreontic harp, sing of Penelope and the

frail Circe striving for one lover; here you shall quaff, under the

shade, cups of unintoxicating Lesbian. Nor shall the raging son of

Semele enter the combat with Mars; and unsuspected you shall not fear

the insolent Cyrus, lest he should savagely lay his intemperate hands on

you, who are by no means a match for him; and should rend the chaplet

that is platted in your hair, and your inoffensive garment.

* * * * *

**Ode XVIII.**

TO VARUS.

O Varus, you can plant no tree preferable to the sacred vine, about the

mellow soil of Tibur, and the walls of Catilus. For God hath rendered

every thing cross to the sober; nor do biting cares disperse any

otherwise [than by the use of wine]. Who, after wine, complains of the

hardships of war or of poverty? Who does not rather [celebrate] thee,

Father Bacchus, and thee, comely Venus? Nevertheless, the battle of the

Centaurs with the Lapithae, which was fought in their cups, admonishes

us not to exceed a moderate use of the gifts of Bacchus. And Bacchus

himself admonishes us in his severity to the Thracians; when greedy to

satisfy their lusts, they make little distinction between right and

wrong. O beauteous Bacchus, I will not rouse thee against thy will, nor

will I hurry abroad thy [mysteries, which are] covered with various

leaves. Cease your dire cymbals, together with your Phrygian horn, whose

followers are blind Self-love and Arrogance, holding up too high her

empty head, and the Faith communicative of secrets, and more transparent

than glass.

* * * * *

**Ode XIX.**

TO GLYCERA.

The cruel mother of the Cupids, and the son of the Theban Gemele, and

lascivious ease, command me to give back my mind to its deserted loves.

The splendor of Glycera, shining brighter than the Parian marble,

inflames me: her agreeable petulance, and her countenance, too unsteady

to be beheld, inflame me. Venus, rushing on me with her whole force, has

quitted Cyprus; and suffers me not to sing of the Scythians, and the

Parthian, furious when his horse is turned for flight, or any subject

which is not to the present purpose. Here, slaves, place me a live turf;

here, place me vervains and frankincense, with a flagon of two-year-old

wine. She will approach more propitious, after a victim has been

sacrificed.

* * * * *

**Ode XX.**

TO MAECENAS.

My dear knight Maecenas, you shall drink [at my house] ignoble Sabine

wine in sober cups, which I myself sealed up in the Grecian cask, stored

at the time, when so loud an applause was given to you in the

amphitheatre, that the banks of your ancestral river, together with the

cheerful echo of the Vatican mountain, returned your praises. You [when

you are at home] will drink the Caecuban, and the grape which is

squeezed in the Calenian press; but neither the Falernian vines, nor the

Formian hills, season my cups.

* * * * *

**Ode XXI.**

ON DIANA AND APOLLO.

Ye tender virgins, sing Diana; ye boys, sing Apollo with his unshorn

hair, and Latona passionately beloved by the supreme Jupiter. Ye

(virgins), praise her that rejoices in the rivers, and the thick groves,

which project either from the cold Algidus, or the gloomy woods of

Erymanthus, or the green Cragus. Ye boys, extol with equal praises

Apollo's Delos, and his shoulder adorned with a quiver, and with his

brother Mercury's lyre. He, moved by your intercession, shall drive away

calamitous war, and miserable famine, and the plague from the Roman

people and their sovereign Caesar, to the Persians and the Britons.

* * * * *

**Ode XXII.**

TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS.

The man of upright life and pure from wickedness, O Fuscus, has no need

of the Moorish javelins, or bow, or quiver loaded with poisoned darts.

Whether he is about to make his journey through the sultry Syrtes, or

the inhospitable Caucasus, or those places which Hydaspes, celebrated in

story, washes. For lately, as I was singing my Lalage, and wandered

beyond my usual bounds, devoid of care, a wolf in the Sabine wood fled

from me, though I was unarmed: such a monster as neither the warlike

Apulia nourishes in its extensive woods, nor the land of Juba, the

dry-nurse of lions, produces. Place me in those barren plains, where no

tree is refreshed by the genial air; at that part of the world, which

clouds and an inclement atmosphere infest. Place me under the chariot of

the too neighboring sun, in a land deprived of habitations; [there] will

I love my sweetly-smiling, sweetly-speaking Lalage.

* * * * *

**Ode XXIII.**

TO CHLOE.

You shun me, Chloe, like a fawn that is seeking its timorous mother in

the pathless mountains, not without a vain dread of the breezes and the

thickets: for she trembles both in her heart and knees, whether the

arrival of the spring has terrified by its rustling leaves, or the green

lizards have stirred the bush. But I do not follow you, like a savage

tigress, or a Gaetulian lion, to tear you to pieces. Therefore, quit

your mother, now that you are mature for a husband.

* * * * *

**Ode XXIV.**

TO VIRGIL.

What shame or bound can there be to our affectionate regret for so dear

a person? O Melpomene, on whom your father has bestowed a clear voice

and the harp, teach me the mournful strains. Does then perpetual sleep

oppress Quinctilius? To whom when will modesty, and uncorrupt faith the

sister of Justice, and undisguised truth, find any equal? He died

lamented by many good men, but more lamented by none than by you, my

Virgil. You, though pious, alas! in vain demand Quinctilius back from

the gods, who did not lend him to us on such terms. What, though you

could strike the lyre, listened to by the trees, with more sweetness

than the Thracian Orpheus; yet the blood can never return to the empty

shade, which Mercury, inexorable to reverse the fates, has with his

dreadful Caduceus once driven to the gloomy throng. This is hard: but

what it is out of our power to amend, becomes more supportable by

patience.

* * * * *

**Ode XXV.**

TO LYDIA.

The wanton youths less violently shake thy fastened windows with their

redoubled knocks, nor do they rob you of your rest; and your door, which

formerly moved its yielding hinges freely, now sticks lovingly to its

threshold. Less and less often do you now hear: "My Lydia, dost thou

sleep the live-long night, while I your lover am dying?" Now you are an

old woman, it will be your turn to bewail the insolence of rakes, when

you are neglected in a lonely alley, while the Thracian wind rages at

the Interlunium: when that hot desire and lust, which is wont to render

furious the dams of horses, shall rage about your ulcerous liver: not

without complaint, that sprightly youth rejoice rather in the verdant

ivy and growing myrtle, and dedicate sapless leaves to Eurus, the

companion of winter.

* * * * *

**Ode XXVI.**

TO AELIUS LAMIA.

A friend to the Muses, I will deliver up grief and fears to the wanton

winds, to waft into the Cretan Sea; singularly careless, what king of a

frozen region is dreaded under the pole, or what terrifies Tiridates. O

sweet muse, who art delighted with pure fountains, weave together the

sunny flowers, weave a chaplet for my Lamia. Without thee, my praises

profit nothing. To render him immortal by new strains, to render him

immortal by the Lesbian lyre, becomes both thee and thy sisters.

* * * * *

**Ode XXVII.**

TO HIS COMPANIONS.

To quarrel over your cups, which were made for joy, is downright

Thracian. Away with the barbarous custom, and protect modest Bacchus

from bloody frays. How immensely disagreeable to wine and candles is the

sabre of the Medes! O my companions, repress your wicked vociferations,

and rest quietly on bended elbow. Would you have me also take my share

of stout Falernian? Let the brother of Opuntian Megilla then declare,

with what wound he is blessed, with what dart he is dying.--What, do you

refuse? I will not drink upon any other condition. Whatever kind of

passion rules you, it scorches you with the flames you need not be

ashamed of, and you always indulge in an honorable, an ingenuous love.

Come, whatever is your case, trust it to faithful ears. Ah, unhappy! in

what a Charybdis art thou struggling, O youth, worthy of a better flame!

What witch, what magician, with his Thessalian incantations, what deity

can free you? Pegasus himself will scarcely deliver you, so entangled,

from this three-fold chimera.

* * * * *

**Ode XXVIII.**

ARCHYTAS.

The [want of the] scanty present of a little sand near the Mantinian

shore, confines thee, O Archytas, the surveyor of sea and earth, and of

the innumerable sand: neither is it of any advantage to you, to have

explored the celestial regions, and to have traversed the round world in

your imagination, since thou wast to die. Thus also did the father of

Pelops, the guest of the gods, die; and Tithonus likewise was translated

to the skies, and Minos, though admitted to the secrets of Jupiter; and

the Tartarean regions are possessed of the son of Panthous, once more

sent down to the receptacle of the dead; notwithstanding, having retaken

his shield from the temple, he gave evidence of the Trojan times, and

that he had resigned to gloomy death nothing but his sinews and skin; in

your opinion, no inconsiderable judge of truth and nature. But the game

night awaits all, and the road of death must once be travelled. The

Furies give up some to the sport of horrible Mars: the greedy ocean is

destructive to sailors: the mingled funerals of young and old are

crowded together: not a single person does the cruel Proserpine pass by.

The south wind, the tempestuous attendant on the setting Orion, has sunk

me also in the Illyrian waves. But do not thou, O sailor, malignantly

grudge to give a portion of loose sand to my bones and unburied head.

So, whatever the east wind shall threaten to the Italian sea, let the

Venusinian woods suffer, while you are in safety; and manifold profit,

from whatever port it may, come to you by favoring Jove, and Neptune,

the defender of consecrated Tarentum. But if you, by chance, make light

of committing a crime, which will be hurtful to your innocent posterity,

may just laws and haughty retribution await you. I will not be deserted

with fruitless prayers; and no expiations shall atone for you. Though

you are in haste, you need not tarry long: after having thrice sprinkled

the dust over me, you may proceed.

* * * * *

**Ode XXIX.**

TO ICCIUS.

O Iccius, you now covet the opulent treasures of the Arabians, and are

preparing vigorous for a war against the kings of Saba, hitherto

unconquered, and are forming chains for the formidable Mede. What

barbarian virgin shall be your slave, after you have killed her

betrothed husband? What boy from the court shall be made your

cup-bearer, with his perfumed locks, skilled to direct the Seric arrows

with his father's bow? Who will now deny that it is probable for

precipitate rivers to flow back again to the high mountains, and for

Tiber to change his course, since you are about to exchange the noble

works of Panaetius, collected from all parts, together with the whole

Socratic family, for Iberian armor, after you had promised better

things?

* * * * *

**Ode XXX.**

TO VENUS.

O Venus, queen of Gnidus and Paphos, neglect your favorite Cyprus, and

transport yourself into the beautiful temple of Glycera, who is invoking

you with abundance of frankincense. Let your glowing son hasten along

with you, and the Graces with their zones loosed, and the Nymphs, and

Youth possessed of little charm without you and Mercury.

* * * * *

**Ode XXXI.**

TO APOLLO.

What does the poet beg from Phoebus on the dedication of his temple?

What does he pray for, while he pours from the flagon the first

libation? Not the rich crops of fertile Sardinia: not the goodly flocks

of scorched Calabria: not gold, or Indian ivory: not those countries,

which the still river Liris eats away with its silent streams. Let those

to whom fortune has given the Calenian vineyards, prune them with a

hooked knife; and let the wealthy merchant drink out of golden cups the

wines procured by his Syrian merchandize, favored by the gods

themselves, inasmuch as without loss he visits three or four times a

year the Atlantic Sea. Me olives support, me succories and soft mallows.

O thou son of Latona, grant me to enjoy my acquisitions, and to possess

my health, together with an unimpaired understanding, I beseech thee;

and that I may not lead a dishonorable old age, nor one bereft of the

lyre.

* * * * *

**Ode XXXII.**

TO HIS LYRE.

We are called upon. If ever, O lyre, in idle amusement in the shade with

thee, we have played anything that may live for this year and many, come

on, be responsive to a Latin ode, my dear lyre--first tuned by a Lesbian

citizen, who, fierce in war, yet amid arms, or if he had made fast to

the watery shore his tossed vessel, sung Bacchus, and the Muses, and

Venus, and the boy, her ever-close attendant, and Lycus, lovely for his

black eyes and jetty locks. O thou ornament of Apollo, charming shell,

agreeable even at the banquets of supreme Jove! O thou sweet alleviator

of anxious toils, be propitious to me, whenever duly invoking thee!

* * * * *

**Ode XXXIII.**

TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS.

Grieve not too much, my Albius, thoughtful of cruel Glycera; nor chant

your mournful elegies, because, as her faith being broken, a younger man

is more agreeable, than you in her eyes. A love for Cyrus inflames

Lycoris, distinguished for her little forehead: Cyrus follows the rough

Pholoe; but she-goats shall sooner be united to the Apulian wolves, than

Pholoe shall commit a crime with a base adulterer. Such is the will of

Venus, who delights in cruel sport, to subject to her brazen yokes

persons and tempers ill suited to each other. As for myself, the

slave-born Myrtale, more untractable than the Adriatic Sea that forms

the Calabrian gulfs, entangled me in a pleasing chain, at the very time

that a more eligible love courted my embraces.

* * * * *

**Ode XXXIV.**

AGAINST THE EPICURIANS.

A remiss and irregular worshiper of the gods, while I professed the

errors of a senseless philosophy, I am now obliged to set sail back

again, and to renew the course that I had deserted. For Jupiter, who

usually cleaves the clouds with his gleaming lightning, lately drove

his thundering horses and rapid chariot through the clear serene; which

the sluggish earth, and wandering rivers; at which Styx, and the horrid

seat of detested Taenarus, and the utmost boundary of Atlas were shaken.

The Deity is able to make exchange between the highest and the lowest,

and diminishes the exalted, bringing to light the obscure; rapacious

fortune, with a shrill whizzing, has borne off the plume from one head,

and delights in having placed it on another.

* * * * *

**Ode XXXV.**

TO FORTUNE.

O Goddess, who presidest over beautiful Antium; thou, that art ready to

exalt mortal man from the most abject state, or to convert superb

triumphs into funerals! Thee the poor countryman solicits with his

anxious vows; whosoever plows the Carpathian Sea with the Bithynian

vessel, importunes thee as mistress of the ocean. Thee the rough Dacian,

thee the wandering Scythians, and cities, and nations, and warlike

Latium also, and the mothers of barbarian kings, and tyrants clad in

purple, fear. Spurn not with destructive foot that column which now

stands firm, nor let popular tummult rouse those, who now rest quiet, to

arms--to arms--and break the empire. Necessity, thy minister, alway

marches before thee, holding in her brazen hand huge spikes and wedges,

nor is the unyielding clamp absent, nor the melted lead. Thee Hope

reverences, and rare Fidelity robed in a white garment; nor does she

refuse to bear thee company, howsoever in wrath thou change thy robe,

and abandon the houses of the powerful. But the faithless crowd [of

companions], and the perjured harlot draw back. Friends, too faithless

to bear equally the yoke of adversity, when casks are exhausted, very

dregs and all, fly off. Preserve thou Caesar, who is meditating an

expedition against the Britons, the furthest people in the world, and

also the new levy of youths to be dreaded by the Eastern regions, and

the Red Sea. Alas! I am ashamed of our scars, and our wickedness, and of

brethren. What have we, a hardened age, avoided? What have we in our

impiety left unviolated! From what have our youth restrained their

hands, out of reverence to the gods? What altars have they spared? O

mayest thou forge anew our blunted swords on a different anvil against

the Massagetae and Arabians.

* * * * *

**Ode XXXVI.**

This is a joyful occasion to sacrifice both with incense and music of

the lyre, and the votive blood of a heifer to the gods, the guardians of

Numida; who, now returning in safety from the extremest part of Spain,

imparts many embraces to his beloved companions, but to none more than

his dear Lamia, mindful of his childhood spent under one and the same

governor, and of the gown, which they changed at the same time. Let not

this joyful day be without a Cretan mark of distinction; let us not

spare the jar brought forth [from the cellar]; nor, Salian-like, let

there be any cessation of feet; nor let the toping Damalis conquer

Bassus in the Thracian Amystis; nor let there be roses wanting to the

banquet, nor the ever-green parsley, nor the short-lived lily. All the

company will fix their dissolving eyes on Damalis; but she, more

luxuriant than the wanton ivy, will not be separated from her new lover.

* * * * *

**Ode XXXVII.**

TO HIS COMPANIONS.

Now, my companions, is the time to carouse, now to beat the ground with

a light foot: now is the time that was to deck the couch of the gods

with Salian dainties. Before this, it was impious to produce the old

Caecuban stored up by your ancestors; while the queen, with a

contaminated gang of creatures, noisome through distemper, was preparing

giddy destruction for the Capitol and the subversion of the empire,

being weak enough to hope for any thing, and intoxicated with her

prospering fortune. But scarcely a single ship preserved from the flames

bated her fury; and Caesar brought down her mind, inflamed with Egyptian

wine, to real fears, close pursuing her in her flight from Italy with

his galleys (as the hawk pursues the tender doves, or the nimble hunter

the hare in the plains of snowy Aemon), that he might throw into chains

this destructive monster [of a woman]; who, seeking a more generous

death, neither had an effeminate dread of the sword, nor repaired with

her swift ship to hidden shores. She was able also to look upon her

palace, lying in ruins, with a countenance unmoved, and courageous

enough to handle exasperated asps, that she might imbibe in her body the

deadly poison, being more resolved by having pre-meditated her death:

for she was a woman of such greatness of soul, as to scorn to be carried

off in haughty triumph, like a private person, by rough Liburnians.

* * * * *

**Ode XXXVIII.**

TO HIS SERVANT.

Boy, I detest the pomp of the Persians; chaplets, which are woven with

the rind of the linden, displease me; give up the search for the place

where the latter rose abides. It is my particular desire that you make

no laborious addition to the plain myrtle; for myrtle is neither

unbecoming you a servant, nor me, while I quaff under this mantling

vine.

* * * * *

**Ode I.**

TO ASINIUS POLLIO.

You are treating of the civil commotion, which began from the consulship

of Metelius, and the causes, and the errors, and the operations of the

war, and the game that fortune played, and the pernicious confederacy of

the chiefs, and arms stained with blood not yet expiated--a work full of

danger and hazard: and you are treading upon fires, hidden under

deceitful ashes: let therefore the muse that presides over severe

tragedy, be for a while absent from the theaters; shortly, when thou

hast completed the narrative of the public affairs, you shall resume

your great work in the tragic style of Athens, O Pollio, thou excellent

succor to sorrowing defendants and a consulting senate; [Pollio,] to

whom the laurel produced immortal honors in the Dalmatian triumph. Even

now you stun our ears with the threatening murmur of horns: now the

clarions sound; now the glitter of arms affrights the flying steeds, and

dazzles the sight of the riders. Now I seem to hear of great commanders

besmeared with, glorious dust, and the whole earth subdued, except the

stubborn soul of Cato. Juno, and every other god propitious to the

Africans, impotently went off, leaving that land unrevenged; but soon

offered the descendants of the conquerors, as sacrifices to the manes of

Jugurtha. What plain, enriched by Latin blood, bears not record, by its

numerous sepulchres, of our impious battles, and of the sound of the

downfall of Italy, heard even by the Medes? What pool, what rivers, are

unconscious of our deplorable war? What sea have not the Daunian

slaughters discolored? What shore is unstained by our blood? Do not,

however, rash muse, neglecting your jocose strains, resume the task of

Caean plaintive song, but rather with me seek measures of a lighter

style beneath some love-sequestered grotto.

* * * * *

**Ode II.**

TO CRISPUS SALLUSTIUS.

O Crispus Sallustius, thou foe to bullion, unless it derives splendor

from a moderate enjoyment, there is no luster in money concealed in the

niggard earth. Proculeius shall live an extended age, conspicuous for

fatherly affection to brothers; surviving fame shall bear him on an

untiring wing. You may possess a more extensive dominion by controlling

a craving disposition, than if you could unite Libya to the distant

Gades, and the natives of both the Carthages were subject to you alone.

The direful dropsy increases by self-indulgence, nor extinguishes its

thirst, unless the cause of the disorder has departed from the veins,

and the watery languor from the pallid body. Virtue, differing from the

vulgar, excepts Phraates though restored to the throne of Cyrus, from

the number of the happy; and teaches the populace to disuse false names

for things, by conferring the kingdom and a safe diadem and the

perpetual laurel upon him alone, who can view large heaps of treasure

with undazzled eye.

* * * * *

**Ode III.**

TO QUINTUS DELLIUS.

O Dellius, since thou art born to die, be mindful to preserve a temper

of mind even in times of difficulty, as well an restrained from insolent

exultation in prosperity: whether thou shalt lead a life of continual

sadness, or through happy days regale thyself with Falernian wine of the

oldest date, at case reclined in some grassy retreat, where the lofty

pine and hoary poplar delight to interweave their boughs into a

hospitable shade, and the clear current with trembling surface purls

along the meandering rivulet. Hither order [your slaves] to bring the

wine, and the perfumes, and the too short-lived flowers of the grateful

rose, while fortune, and age; and the sable threads of the three sisters

permit thee. You must depart from your numerous purchased groves; from

your house also, and that villa, which the yellow Tiber washes, you must

depart: and an heir shall possess these high-piled riches. It is of no

consequence whether you are the wealthy descendant of ancient Inachus,

or whether, poor and of the most ignoble race, you live without a

covering from the open air, since you are the victim of merciless Pluto.

We are all driven toward the same quarter: the lot of all is shaken in

the urn; destined sooner or later to come forth, and embark us in

[Charon's] boat for eternal exile.

* * * * *

**Ode IV.**

TO XANTHIAS PHOCEUS.

Let not, O Xanthias Phoceus, your passion for your maid put you out of

countenance; before your time, the slave Briseis moved the haughty

Achilles by her snowy complexion. The beauty of the captive Tecmessa

smote her master, the Telamonian Ajax; Agamemnon, in the midst of

victory, burned for a ravished virgin: when the barbarian troops fell by

the hands of their Thessalian conqueror, and Hector, vanquished, left

Troy more easily to be destroyed by the Grecians. You do not know that

perchance the beautiful Phyllis has parents of condition happy enough to

do honor to you their son-in-law. Certainly she must be of royal race,

and laments the unpropitiousness of her family gods. Be confident, that

your beloved is not of the worthless crowd; nor that one so true, so

unmercenary, could possibly be born of a mother to be ashamed of. I can

commend arms, and face, and well-made legs, quite chastely: avoid being

jealous of one, whose age is hastening onward to bring its eighth

mastrum to a close.

* * * * *

**Ode V.**

Not yet is she fit to be broken to the yoke; not yet is she equal to the

duties of a partner, nor can she support the weight of the bull

impetuously rushing to enjoyment. Your heifer's sole inclination is

about verdant fields, one while in running streams soothing the grievous

heat; at another, highly delighted to frisk with the steerlings in the

moist willow ground. Suppress your appetite for the immature grape;

shortly variegated autumn will tinge for thee the lirid clusters with a

purple hue. Shortly she shall follow you; for her impetuous time runs

on, and shall place to her account those years of which it abridges you;

shortly Lalage with a wanton assurance will seek a husband, beloved in a

higher degree than the coy Pholoe, or even Chloris; shining as brightly

with her fair shoulder, as the spotless moon upon the midnight sea, or

even the Gnidian Gyges, whom if you should intermix in a company of

girls, the undiscernible difference occasioned by his flowing locks and

doubtful countenance would wonderfully impose even on sagacious

strangers.

* * * * *

**Ode VI.**

TO SEPTIMUS.

Septimus, who art ready to go with me, even to Gades, and to the

Cantabrian, still untaught to bear our yoke, and the inhospitable

Syrtes, where the Mauritanian wave perpetually boils. O may Tibur,

founded by a Grecian colony, be the habitation of my old age! There let

there be an end to my fatigues by sea, and land, and war; whence if the

cruel fates debar me, I will seek the river of Galesus, delightful for

sheep covered with skins, and the countries reigned over by

Lacedaemonian Phalantus. That corner of the world smiles in my eye

beyond all others; where the honey yields not to the Hymettian, and the

olive rivals the verdant Venafrian: where the temperature of the air

produces a long spring and mild winters, and Aulon friendly to the

fruitful vine, envies not the Falernian grapes. That place, and those

blest heights, solicit you and me; there you shall bedew the glowing

ashes of your poet friend with a tear due [to his memory].

* * * * *

**Ode VII.**

TO POMPEIUS VARUS.

O thou, often reduced with me to the last extremity in the war which

Brutus carried on, who has restored thee as a Roman citizen, to the gods

of thy country and the Italian air, Pompey, thou first of my companions;

with whom I have frequently broken the tedious day in drinking, having

my hair, shining with the Syrian maiobathrum, crowned [with flowers]!

Together with thee did I experience the [battle of] Phillippi and a

precipitate flight, having shamefully enough left my shield; when valor

was broken, and the most daring smote the squalid earth with their

faces. But Mercury swift conveyed me away, terrified as I was, in a

thick cloud through the midst of the enemy. Thee the reciprocating sea,

with his tempestuous waves, bore back again to war. Wherefore render to

Jupiter the offering that is due, and deposit your limbs, wearied with a

tedious war, under my laurel, and spare not the casks reserved for you.

Fill up the polished bowls with care-dispelling Massic: pour out the

perfumed ointments from the capacious shells. Who takes care to quickly

weave the chaplets of fresh parsely or myrtle? Whom shall the Venus

pronounce to be master of the revel? In wild carouse I will become

frantic as the Bacchanalians. 'Tis delightful to me to play the madman,

on the reception of my friends.

* * * * *

**Ode VIII.**

TO BARINE.

If any punishment, Barine, for your violated oath had ever been of

prejudice to you: if you had become less agreeable by the blackness of a

single tooth or nail, I might believe you. But you no sooner have bound

your perfidious head with vows, but you shine out more charming by far,

and come forth the public care of our youth. It is of advantage to you

to deceive the buried ashes of your mother, and the silent

constellations of the night, together with all heaven, and the gods free

from chill death. Venus herself, I profess, laughs at this; the

good-natured nymphs laugh, and cruel Cupid, who is perpetually

sharpening his burning darts on a bloody whetstone. Add to this, that

all our boys are growing up for you; a new herd of slaves is growing up;

nor do the former ones quit the house of their impious mistress,

notwithstanding they often have threatened it. The matrons are in dread

of you on account of their young ones; the thrifty old men are in dread

of you; and the girls but just married are in distress, lest your beauty

should slacken [the affections of] their husbands.

* * * * *

**Ode IX.**

TO TITUS VALGIUS.

Showers do not perpetually pour down upon the rough fields, nor do

varying hurricanes forever harass the Caspian Sea; nor, my friend

Valgius, does the motionless ice remain fixed throughout all the months,

in the regions of Armenia; nor do the Garganian oaks [always] labor

under the northerly winds, nor are the ash-trees widowed of their

leaves. But thou art continually pursuing Mystes, who is taken from

thee, with mournful measures: nor do the effects of thy love for him

cease at the rising of Vesper, or when he flies the rapid approach of

the sun. But the aged man who lived three generations, did not lament

the amiable Antilochus all the years of his life: nor did his parents or

his Trojan sisters perpetually bewail the blooming Troilus. At length

then desist from thy tender complaints; and rather let us sing the fresh

trophies of Augustus Caesar, and the Frozen Niphates, and the river

Medus, added to the vanquished nations, rolls more humble tides, and the

Gelonians riding within a prescribed boundary in a narrow tract of land.

* * * * *

**Ode X.**

TO LICINIUS MURENA.

O Licinius, you will lead a more correct course of life, by neither

always pursuing the main ocean, nor, while you cautiously are in dread

of storms, by pressing too much upon the hazardous shore. Whosoever

loves the golden mean, is secure from the sordidness of an antiquated

cell, and is too prudent to have a palace that might expose him to

envy, if the lofty pine is more frequently agitated with winds, and high

towers fall down with a heavier ruin, and lightnings strike the summits

of the mountains. A well-provided breast hopes in adversity, and fears

in prosperity. 'Tis the same Jupiter, that brings the hideous winters

back, and that takes them away. If it is ill with us now, it will not be

so hereafter. Apollo sometimes rouses the silent lyric muse, neither

does he always bend his bow. In narrow circumstances appear in high

spirits, and undaunted. In the same manner you will prudently contract

your sails, which are apt to be too much swollen in a prosperous gale.

* * * * *

**Ode XI.**

TO QUINTIUS HIRPINUS.

O Quintius Hirpinus, forbear to be inquisitive what the Cantabrian, and

the Scythian, divided from us by the interposed Adriatic, is meditating;

neither be fearfully solicitous for the necessaries of a life, which

requires but a few things. Youth and beauty fly swift away, while

sapless old age expels the wanton loves and gentle sleep. The same glory

does not always remain to the vernal flowers, nor does the ruddy moon

shine with one continued aspect; why, therefore, do you fatigue you

mind, unequal to eternal projects? Why do we not rather (while it is in

our power) thus carelessly reclining under a lofty plane-tree, or this

pine, with our hoary locks made fragrant by roses, and anointed with

Syrian perfume, indulge ourselves with generous wine? Bacchus dissipates

preying cares. What slave is here, instantly to cool some cups of ardent

Falernian in the passing stream? Who will tempt the vagrant wanton Lyde

from her house? See that you bid her hasten with her ivory lyre,

collecting her hair into a graceful knot, after the fashion of a Spartan

maid.

* * * * *

**Ode XII.**

TO MAECENAS.

Do not insist that the long wars of fierce Numantia, or the formidable

Annibal, or the Sicilian Sea impurpled with Carthaginian blood, should

be adapted to the tender lays of the lyre: nor the cruel Lapithae, nor

Hylaeus excessive in wine and the earth born youths, subdued by

Herculean force, from whom the splendid habitation of old Saturn dreaded

danger. And you yourself, Maecenas, with more propriety shall recount

the battles of Caesar, and the necks of haughty kings led in triumph

through the streets in historical prose. It was the muse's will that I

should celebrate the sweet strains of my mistress Lycimnia, that I

should celebrate her bright darting eyes, and her breast laudably

faithful to mutual love: who can with a grace introduce her foot into

the dance, or, sporting, contend in raillery, or join arms with the

bright virgins on the celebrated Diana's festival. Would you,

[Maecenas,] change one of Lycimnia's tresses for all the rich Achaemenes

possessed, or the Mygdonian wealth of fertile Phrygia, or all the

dwellings of the Arabians replete with treasures? Especially when she

turns her neck to meet your burning kisses, or with a gentle cruelty

denies, what she would more delight to have ravished than the

petitioner--or sometimes eagerly anticipates to snatch them her self.

* * * * *

**Ode XIII.**

TO A TREE.

O tree, he planted thee on an unlucky day whoever did it first, and with

an impious hand raised thee for the destruction of posterity, and the

scandal of the village. I could believe that he had broken his own

father's neck, and stained his most secret apartments with the midnight

blood of his guest. He was wont to handle Colchian poisons, and whatever

wickedness is anywhere conceived, who planted in my field thee, a sorry

log; thee, ready to fall on the head of thy inoffensive master. What we

ought to be aware of, no man is sufficiently cautious at all hours. The

Carthaginian sailor thoroughly dreads the Bosphorus; nor, beyond that,

does he fear a hidden fate from any other quarter. The soldier dreads

the arrows and the fleet retreat of the Parthian; the Parthian, chains

and an Italian prison; but the unexpected assault of death has carried

off, and will carry off, the world in general. How near was I seeing the

dominions of black Proserpine, and Aeacus sitting in judgment; the

separate abodes also of the pious, and Sappho complaining in her Aeohan

lyre of her own country damsels; and thee, O Alcaeus, sounding in fuller

strains on thy golden harp the distresses of exile, and the distresses

of war. The ghosts admire them both, while they utter strains worthy of

a sacred silence; but the crowded multitude, pressing with their

shoulders, imbibes, with a more greedy ear, battles and banished

tyrants. What wonder? Since the many headed monster, astonished at those

lays, hangs down his sable ears; and the snakes, entwined in the hair of

the furies, are soothed. Moreover, Prometheus and the sire of Pelops are

deluded into an insensibility of their torments, by the melodious sound:

nor is Orion any longer solicitous to harass the lions, or the fearful

lynxes.

* * * * *

**Ode XIV.**

TO POSTUMUS.

Alas! my Postumus, my Postumus, the fleeting years gilde on; nor will

piety cause any delay to wrinkles, and advancing old age, and

insuperable death. You could not, if you were to sacrifice every passing

day three hundred bulls, render propitious pitiless Pluto, who confines

the thrice-monstrous Geryon and Tityus with the dismal Stygian stream,

namely, that stream which is to be passed over by all who are fed by the

bounty of the earth, whether we be kings or poor ninds. In vain shall we

be free from sanguinary Mars, and the broken billows of the hoarse

Adriatic; in vain shall we be apprehensive for ourselves of the noxious

South, in the time of autumn. The black Cocytus wandering with languid

current, and the infamous race of Danaus, and Sisyphus, the son of the

Aeolus, doomed to eternal toil, must be visited; your land and house and

pleasing wife must be left, nor shall any of those trees, which you are

nursing, follow you, their master for a brief space, except the hated

cypresses; a worthier heir shall consume your Caecuban wines now guarded

with a hundred keys, and shall wet the pavement with the haughty wine,

more exquisite than what graces pontifical entertainment.

* * * * *

**Ode XV.**

AGAINST THE LUXURY OF THE ROMANS.

The palace-like edifices will in a short time leave but a few acres for

the plough; ponds of wider extent than the Lucrine lake will be every

where to be seen; and the barren plane-tree will supplant the elms. Then

banks of violets, and myrtle groves, and all the tribe of nosegays shall

diffuse their odors in the olive plantations, which were fruitful to

their preceding master. Then the laurel with dense boughs shall exclude

the burning beams. It was not so prescribed by the institutes of

Romulus, and the unshaven Cato, and ancient custom. Their private income

was contracted, while that of the community was great. No private men

were then possessed of galleries measured by ten-feet rules, which

collected the shady northern breezes; nor did the laws permit them to

reject the casual turf [for their own huts], though at the same time

they obliged them to ornament in the most sumptuous manner, with new

stone, the buildings of the public, and the temples of the gods, at a

common expense.

* * * * *

**Ode XVI.**

TO GROSPHUS.

O Grosphus, he that is caught in the wide Aegean Sea; when a black

tempest has obscured the moon, and not a star appears with steady light

for the mariners, supplicates the gods for repose: for repose, Thrace

furious in war; the quiver-graced Medes, for repose neither purchasable

by jewels, nor by purple, nor by gold. For neither regal treasures nor

the consul's officer can remove the wretched tumults of the mind, nor

the cares that hover about splendid ceilings. That man lives happily on

a little, who can view with pleasure the old-fashioned family

salt-cellar on his frugal board; neither anxiety nor sordid avarice robs

him of gentle sleep. Why do we, brave for a short season, aim at many

things? Why do we change our own for climates heated by another sun?

Whoever, by becoming an exile from his country, escaped likewise from

himself? Consuming care boards even brazen-beaked ships: nor does it

quit the troops of horsemen, for it is more fleet than the stags, more

fleet than the storm-driving east wind. A mind that is cheerful in its

present state, will disdain to be solicitous any further, and can

correct the bitters of life with a placid smile. Nothing is on all hands

completely blessed. A premature death carried off the celebrated

Achilles; a protracted old age wore down Tithonus; and time perhaps may

extend to me, what it shall deny to you. Around you a hundred flocks

bleat, and Sicilian heifers low; for your use the mare, fit for the

harness, neighs; wool doubly dipped in the African purple-dye, clothes

you: on me undeceitful fate has bestowed a small country estate, and the

slight inspiration of the Grecian muse, and a contempt for the malignity

of the vulgar.

* * * * *

**Ode XVII.**

TO MAECENAS.

Why dost thoti kill me with thy complaints? 'Tis neither agreeable to

the gods, nor to me, that thou shouldest depart first, O Maecenas, thou

grand ornament and pillar of my affairs. Alas! if an untimely blow hurry

away thee, a part of my soul, why do I the other moiety remain, my value

lost, nor any longer whole? That [fatal] day shall bring destruction

upon us both. I have by no means taken a false oath: we will go, we will

go, whenever thou shalt lead the way, prepared to be fellow-travelers in

the last journey. Me nor the breath of the fiery Chimaera, nor

hundred-handed Gyges, were he to rise again, shall ever tear from thee:

such is the will of powerful Justice, and of the Fates. Whether Libra or

malignant Scorpio had the ascendant at my natal hour, or Capricon the

ruler of the western wave, our horoscopes agree in a wonderful manner.

Thee the benign protection of Jupiter, shining with friendly aspect,

rescued from the baleful influence of impious Saturn, and retarded the

wings of precipitate destiny, at the time the crowded people with

resounding applauses thrice hailed you in the theatre: me the trunk of a

tree, falling upon my skull, would have dispatched, had not Faunus, the

protector of men of genius, with his right hand warded off the blow. Be

thou mindful to pay the victims and the votive temple; I will sacrifice

an humble lamb.

* * * * *

**Ode XVIII.**

AGAINST AVARICE AND LUXURY.

Nor ivory, nor a fretted ceiling adorned with gold, glitters in my

house: no Hymettian beams rest upon pillars cut out of the extreme parts

of Africa; nor, a pretended heir, have I possessed myself of the palace

of Attalus, nor do ladies, my dependants, spin Laconian purple for my

use. But integrity, and a liberal vein of genius, are mine: and the man

of fortune makes his court to me, who am but poor. I importune the gods

no further, nor do I require of my friend in power any larger

enjoyments, sufficiently happy with my Sabine farm alone. Day is driven

on by day, and the new moons hasten to their wane. You put out marble to

be hewn, though with one foot in the grave; and, unmindful of a

sepulcher, are building houses; and are busy to extend the shore of the

sea, that beats with violence at Baiae, not rich enough with the shore

of the mainland. Why is it, that through avarice you even pluck up the

landmarks of your neighbor's ground, and trespass beyond the bounds of

your clients; and wife and husband are turned out, bearing in their

bosom their household gods and their destitute children? Nevertheless,

no court more certainly awaits its wealthy lord, than the destined limit

of rapacious Pluto. Why do you go on? The impartial earth is opened

equally to the poor and to the sons of kings; nor has the life-guard

ferryman of hell, bribed with gold, re-conducted the artful Prometheus.

He confines proud Tantalus; and the race of Tantalus, he condescends,

whether invoked or not, to relieve the poor freed from their labors.

* * * * *

**Ode XIX.**

ON BACCHUS.

A DITHYRAMBIC, OR DRINKING SONG.

I saw Bacchus (believe it, posterity) dictating strains among the remote

rocks, and the nymphs learning them, and the ears of the goat-footed

satyrs all attentive. Evoe! my mind trembles with recent dread, and my

soul, replete with Bacchus, has a tumultuous joy, Evoe! spare me,

Bacchus; spare me, thou who art formidable for thy dreadful thyrsus. It

is granted me to sing the wanton Bacchanalian priestess, and the

fountain of wine, and rivulets flowing with milk, and to tell again of

the honeys distilling from the hollow trunks. It is granted me likewise

to celebrate the honor added to the constellations by your happy spouse,

and the palace of Pentheus demolished with no light ruin, and the

perdition of Thracian. Lycurgus. You command the rivers, you the

barbarian sea. You, moist with wine, on lonely mountain-tops bind the

hair of your Thracian priestesses with a knot of vipers without hurt.

You, when the impious band of giants scaled the realms of father Jupiter

through the sky, repelled Rhoetus, with the paws and horrible jaw of the

lion-shape [you had assumed]. Thou, reported to be better fitted for

dances, and jokes and play, you were accounted insufficient for fight;

yet it then appeared, you, the same deity, was the mediator of peace and

war. Upon you, ornamented with your golden horn, Orberus innocently

gazed, gently wagging his tail; and with his triple tongue licked your

feet and legs, as you returned.

* * * * *

**Ode XX.**

TO MAECENAS.

I, a two-formed poet, will be conveyed through the liquid air with no

vulgar or humble wing; nor will I loiter upon earth any longer; and

superior to envy, I will quit cities. Not I, even I, the blood of low

parents, my dear Maecenas, shall die; nor shall I be restrained by the

Stygian wave. At this instant a rough skin settles upon my ankles, and

all upwards I am transformed into a white bird, and the downy plumage

arises over my fingers and shoulders. Now, a melodious bird, more

expeditious than the Daepalean Icarus, I will visit the shores of the

murmuring Bosphorus, and the Gzetulean Syrtes, and the Hyperborean

plains. Me the Colchian and the Dacian, who hides his fear of the

Marsian cohort, land the remotest Gelonians, shall know: me the learned

Spaniard shall study, and he that drinks of the Rhone. Let there be no

dirges, nor unmanly lamentations, nor bewailings at my imaginary

funeral; suppress your crying, and forbear the superfluous honors of a

sepulcher.

* * * * *

**Ode I.**

ON CONTENTMENT.

I abominate the uninitiated vulgar, and keep them at a distance.

Preserve a religious silence: I, the priest of the Muses, sing to

virgins and boys verses not heard before. The dominion of dread

sovereigns is over their own subjects; that of Jupiter, glorious for his

conquest over the giants, who shakes all nature with his nod, is over

sovereigns themselves. It happens that one man, arranges trees, in

regular rows, to a greater extent than another; this man comes down into

the Campus [Martius] as a candidate of a better family; another vies

with him for morals and a better reputation; a third has a superior

number of dependants; but Fate, by the impartial law of nature, is

allotted both to the conspicuous and the obscure; the capacious urn

keeps every name in motion. Sicilian dainties will not force a delicious

relish to that man, over whose impious neck the naked sword hangs: the

songs of birds and the lyre will not restore his sleep. Sleep disdains

not the humble cottages and shady bank of peasants; he disdains not

Tempe, fanned by zephyrs. Him, who desires but a competency, neither the

tempestuous sea renders anxious, nor the malign violence of Arcturus

setting, or of the rising Kid; not his vineyards beaten down with hail,

and a deceitful farm; his plantations at one season blaming the rains,

at another, the influence of the constellations parching the grounds, at

another, the severe winters. The fishes perceive the seas contracted, by

the vast foundations that have been laid in the deep: hither numerous

undertakers with their men, and lords, disdainful of the land, send down

mortar: but anxiety and the threats of conscience ascend by the same way

as the possessor; nor does gloomy care depart from the brazen-beaked

galley, and she mounts behind the horseman. Since then nor Phrygian

marble, nor the use of purple more dazzling than the sun, nor the

Falernian vine, nor the Persian nard, composes a troubled mind, why

should I set about a lofty edifice with columns that excite envy, and in

the modern taste? Why should I exchange my Sabine vale for wealth, which

is attended with more trouble?

* * * * *

**Ode II.**

AGAINST THE DEGENERACY OF THE ROMAN YOUTH.

Let the robust youth learn patiently to endure pinching want in the

active exercise of arms; and as an expert horseman, dreadful for his

spear, let him harass the fierce Parthians; and let him lead a life

exposed to the open air, and familiar with dangers. Him, the consort and

marriageable virgin-daughter of some warring tyrant, viewing from the

hostile walls, may sigh--- Alas! let not the affianced prince,

inexperienced as he is in arms, provoke by a touch this terrible lion,

whom bloody rage hurries through the midst of slaughter. It is sweet and

glorious to die for one's country; death even pursues the man that flies

from him; nor does he spare the trembling knees of effeminate youth, nor

the coward back. Virtue, unknowing of base repulse, shines with

immaculate honors; nor does she assume nor lay aside the ensigns of her

dignity, at the veering of the popular air. Virtue, throwing open heaven

to those who deserve not to die, directs her progress through paths of

difficulty, and spurns with a rapid wing grovelling cowards and the

slippery earth. There is likewise a sure reward for faithful silence. I

will prohibit that man, who shall divulge the sacred rites of mysterious

Ceres, from being under the same roof with me, or from setting sail with

me in the same fragile bark: for Jupiter, when slighted, often joins a

good man in the same fate with a bad one. Seldom hath punishment, though

lame, of foot, failed to overtake the wicked.

* * * * *

**Ode III.**

ON STEADINESS AND INTEGRITY.

Not the rage of the people pressing to hurtful measures, not the aspect

of a threatening tyrant can shake from his settled purpose the man who

is just and determined in his resolution; nor can the south wind, that

tumultuous ruler of the restless Adriatic, nor the mighty hand of

thundering Jove; if a crushed world should fall in upon him, the ruins

would strike him undismayed. By this character Pollux, by this the

wandering Hercules, arrived at the starry citadels; among whom Augustus

has now taken his place, and quaffs nectar with empurpled lips. Thee, O

Father Bacchus, meritorious for this virtue, thy tigers carried, drawing

the yoke with intractable neck; by this Romulus escaped Acheron on the

horses of Mars--Juno having spoken what the gods in full conclave

approve: "Troy, Troy, a fatal and lewd judge, and a foreign woman, have

reduced to ashes, condemned, with its inhabitants and fraudulent prince,

to me and the chaste Minerva, ever since Laomedon disappointed the gods

of the stipulated reward. Now neither the infamous guest of the

Lacedaemonian adulteress shines; nor does Priam's perjured family repel

the warlike Grecians by the aid of Hector, and that war, spun out to

such a length by our factions, has sunk to peace. Henceforth, therefore,

I will give up to Mars both my bitter resentment, and the detested

grandson, whom the Trojan princes bore. Him will I suffer to enter the

bright regions, to drink the juice of nectar, and to be enrolled among

the peaceful order of gods. As long as the extensive sea rages between

Troy and Rome, let them, exiles, reign happy in any other part of the

world: as long as cattle trample upon the tomb of Priam and Paris, and

wild beasts conceal their young ones there with impunity, may the

Capitol remain in splendor, and may brave Rome be able to give laws to

the conquered Medes. Tremendous let her extend her name abroad to the

extremest boundaries of the earth, where the middle ocean separates

Europe from Africa, where the swollen Nile waters the plains; more brave

in despising gold as yet undiscovered, and so best situated while hidden

in the earth, than in forcing it out for the uses of mankind, with a

hand ready to make depredations on everything that is sacred. Whatever

end of the world has made resistance, that let her reach with her arms,

joyfully alert to visit, even that part where fiery heats rage madding;

that where clouds and rains storm with unmoderated fury. But I pronounce

this fate to the warlike Romans, upon this condition; that neither

through an excess of piety, nor of confidence in their power, they

become inclined to rebuild the houses of their ancestors' Troy. The

fortune of Troy, reviving under unlucky auspices, shall be repeated with

lamentable destruction, I, the wife and sister of Jupiter, leading on

the victorious bands. Thrice, if a brazen wall should arise by means of

its founder Phoebus, thrice should it fall, demolished by my Grecians;

thrice should the captive wife bewail her husband and her children."

These themes ill suit the merry lyre. Whither, muse, are you

going?--Cease, impertinent, to relate the language of the gods, and to

debase great things by your trifling measures.

* * * * *

**Ode IV.**

TO CALLIOPE.

Descend from heaven, queen Calliope, and come sing with your pipe a

lengthened strain; or, if you had now rather, with your clear voice, or

on the harp or lute of Phoebus. Do ye hear? or does a pleasing frenzy

delude me? I seem to hear [her], and to wander [with her] along the

hallowed groves, through which pleasant rivulets and gales make their

way. Me, when a child, and fatigued with play, in sleep the woodland

doves, famous in story, covered with green leaves in the Apulian Vultur,

just without the limits of my native Apulia; so that it was matter of

wonder to all that inhabit the nest of lofty Acherontia, the Bantine

Forests, and the rich soil of low Ferentum, how I could sleep with my

body safe from deadly vipers and ravenous bears; how I could be covered

with sacred laurel and myrtle heaped together, though a child, not

animated without the [inspiration of the] gods. Yours, O ye muses, I am

yours, whether I am elevated to the Sabine heights; or whether the cool

Praeneste, or the sloping Tibur, or the watery Baiae have delighted me.

Me, who am attached to your fountains and dances, not the army put to

flight at Philippi, not the execrable tree, nor a Palinurus in the

Sicilian Sea has destroyed. While you shall be with me with pleasure

will I, a sailor, dare the raging Bosphorus; or, a traveler, the burning

sands of the Assyrian shore: I will visit the Britons inhuman to

strangers, and the Concanian delighted [with drinking] the blood of

horses; I will visit the quivered Geloni, and the Scythian river without

hurt. You entertained lofty Caesar, seeking to put an end to his toils,

in the Pierian grotto, as soon as he had distributed in towns his

troops, wearied by campaigning: you administer [to him] moderate

counsel, and graciously rejoice at it when administered. We are aware

how he, who rules the inactive earth and the stormy main, the cities

also, and the dreary realms [of hell], and alone governs with a

righteous sway both gods and the human multitude, how he took off the

impious Titans and the gigantic troop by his falling thunderbolts. That

horrid youth, trusting to the strength of their arms, and the brethren

proceeding to place Pelion upon shady Olympus, had brought great dread

[even] upon Jove. But what could Typhoeus, and the strong Mimas, or what

Porphyrion with his menacing statue; what Rhoetus, and Enceladus, a

fierce darter with trees uptorn, avail, though rushing violently against

the sounding shield of Pallas? At one part stood the eager Vulcan, at

another the matron Juno, and he, who is never desirous to lay aside his

bow from his shoulders, Apollo, the god of Delos and Patara, who bathes

his flowing hair in the pure dew of Castalia, and possesses the groves

of Lycia and his native wood. Force, void of conduct, falls by its own

weight; moreover, the gods promote discreet force to further advantage;

but the same beings detest forces, that meditate every kind of impiety.

The hundred-handed Gyges is an evidence of the sentiments I allege: and

Orion, the tempter of the spotless Diana, destroyed by a virgin dart.

The earth, heaped over her own monsters, grieves and laments her

offspring, sent to murky Hades by a thunderbolt; nor does the active

fire consume Aetna that is placed over it, nor does the vulture desert

the liver of incontinent Tityus, being stationed there as an avenger of

his baseness; and three hundred chains confine the amorous Pirithous.

* * * * *

**Ode V.**

ON THE RECOVERY OF THE STANDARDS FROM PHRAATES.

We believe from his thundering that Jupiter has dominion in the heavens:

Augustus shall be esteemed a present deity the Britons and terrible

Parthians being added to the empire. What! has any soldier of Crassus

lived, a degraded husband with a barbarian wife? And has (O [corrupted]

senate, and degenerate morals!) the Marsian and Apulian, unmindful of

the sacred bucklers, of the [Roman] name and gown, and of eternal Vesta,

grown old in the lands of hostile fathers-in-law, Jupiter and the city

being in safety? The prudent mind of Regulus had provided against this,

dissenting from ignominious terms, and inferring from such a precedent

destruction to the succeeding age, if the captive youth were not to

perish unpitied. I have beheld, said he, the Roman standards affixed to

the Carthaginian temples, and their arms taken away from our soldiers

without bloodshed. I have beheld the arms of our citizens bound behind

their free-born backs, and the gates [of the enemy] unshut, and the

fields, which were depopulated by our battles, cultivated anew. The

soldier, to be sure, ransomed by gold, will return a braver

fellow!--No--you add loss to infamy; [for] neither does the wool once

stained by the dye of the sea-weed ever resume its lost color; nor does

genuine valor, when once it has failed, care to resume its place in

those who have degenerated through cowardice. If the hind, disentangled

from the thickset toils, ever fights, then indeed shall he be valorous,

who has intrusted himself to faithless foes; and he shall trample upon

the Carthaginians in a second war, who dastardly has felt the thongs

with his arms tied behind him, and has been afraid of death. He, knowing

no other way to preserve his life, has confounded peace with war. O

scandal! O mighty Carthage, elevated to a higher pitch by Italy's

disgraceful downfall! He *(Regulus)* is reported to have rejected the

embrace of his virtuous wife and his little sons like one degraded; and

to have sternly fixed his manly countenance on the ground, until, as an

adviser, by his counsel he confirmed the wavering senators, and amid his

weeping friends hastened away, a glorious exile. Notwithstanding he knew

what the barbarian executioner was providing for him, yet he pushed from

his opposing kindred and the populace retarding his return, in no other

manner, than if (after he had quitted the tedious business of his

clients, by determining their suit) he was only going to the Venafrian

plains, or the Lacedaemonian Tarentum.

* * * * *

**Ode VI.**

TO THE ROMANS.

Thou shalt atone, O Roman, for the sins of your ancestors, though

innocent, till you shall have repaired the temples and tottering shrines

of the gods, and their statues, defiled with sooty smoke. Thou boldest

sway, because thou bearest thyself subordinate to the gods; to this

source refer every undertaking; to this, every event. The gods, because

neglected, have inflicted many evils on calamitous Italy. Already has

Monaeses, and the band of Pacorus, twice repelled our inauspicious

attacks, and exults in having added the Roman spoils to their trivial

collars. The Dacian and Ethiopian have almost demolished the city

engaged in civil broils, the one formidable for his fleet, the other

more expert for missile arrows. The times, fertile in wickedness, have

in the first place polluted the marriage state, and [thence] the issue

and families. From this fountain perdition being derived, has

overwhelmed the nation and people. The marriageable virgin delights to

be taught the Ionic dances, and even at this time is trained up in

[seductive] arts, and cherishes unchaste desires from her very infancy.

Soon after she courts younger debauchees when her husband is in his

cups, nor has she any choice, to whom she shall privately grant her

forbidden pleasures when the lights are removed, but at the word of

command, openly, not without the knowledge of her husband, she will come

forth, whether it be a factor that calls for her, or the captain of a

Spanish ship, the extravagant purchaser of her disgrace. It was not a

youth born from parents like these, that stained the sea with

Carthaginian gore, and slew Pyrrhus, and mighty Antiochus, and terrific

Annibal; but a manly progeny of rustic soldiers, instructed to turn the

glebe with Sabine spades, and to carry clubs cut [out of the woods] at

the pleasure of a rigid mother, what time the sun shifted the shadows of

the mountains, and took the yokes from the wearied oxen, bringing on the

pleasant hour with his retreating chariot. What does not wasting time

destroy? The age of our fathers, worse than our grandsires, produced us

still more flagitious, us, who are about to product am offspring more

vicious [even than ourselves].

* * * * *

**Ode VII.**

TO ASTERIE.

Why, O Asterie, do you weep for Gyges, a youth of inviolable constancy,

whom the kindly zephyrs will restore to you in the beginning of the

Spring, enriched with a Bithynian cargo? Driven as far as Oricum by the

southern winds, after [the rising] of the Goat's tempestuous

constellation, he sleepless passes the cold nights in abundant weeping

[for you]; but the agent of his anxious landlady slyly tempts him by a

thousand methods, informing him that [his mistress], Chloe, is sighing

for him, and burns with the same love that thou hast for him. He

remonstrates with him how a perfidious woman urged the credulous

Proetus, by false accusations, to hasten the death of the over-chaste

Bellerophon. He tells how Peleus was like to have been given up to the

infernal regions, while out of temperance he avoided the Magnesian

Hippolyte: and the deceiver quotes histories to him, that are lessons

for sinning. In vain; for, heart-whole as yet, he receives his words

deafer than the Icarian rocks. But with regard to you, have a care lest

your neighbor Enipeus prove too pleasing. Though no other person equally

skillful to guide the steed, is conspicuous in the course, nor does any

one with equal swiftness swim down the Etrurian stream, yet secure your

house at the very approach of night, nor look down into the streets at

the sound of the doleful pipe; and remain inflexible toward him, though

he often upbraid thee with cruelty.

* * * * *

**Ode VIII.**

TO MAECENAS.

O Maecenas, learned in both languages, you wonder what I, a single man,

have to do on the calends of March; what these flowers mean, and the

censer replete with frankincense, and the coals laid upon the live turf.

I made a vow of a joyous banquet, and a white goat to Bacchus, after

having been at the point of death by a blow from a tree. This day,

sacred in the revolving year, shall remove the cork fastened with pitch

from that jar, which was set to inhale the smoke in the consulship of

Tullus. Take, my Maecenas, a hundred cups on account of the safety of

your friend, and continue the wakeful lamps even to day-light: all

clamor and passion be far away. Postpone your political cares with

regard to the state: the army of the Dacian Cotison is defeated; the

troublesome Mede is quarreling with himself in a horrible [civil] war:

the Cantabrian, our old enemy on the Spanish coast, is subject to us,

though conquered by a long-disputed victory: now, too, the Scythians are

preparing to quit the field with their imbent bows. Neglectful, as a

private person, forbear to be too solicitous lest the community in any

wise suffer, and joyfully seize the boons of the present hour, and quit

serious affairs.

* * * * *

**Ode IX.**

TO LYDIA.

HORACE. As long as I was agreeable to thee, and no other youth more

favored was wont to fold his arms around thy snowy neck, I lived happier

than the Persian monarch.

LYDIA. As long as thou hadst not a greater flame for any other, nor was

Lydia below Chloe [in thine affections], I Lydia, of distinguished fame,

flourished more eminent than the Roman Ilia.

HOR. The Thracian Chloe now commands me, skillful in sweet modulations,

and a mistress of the lyre; for whom I would not dread to die, if the

fates would spare her, my surviving soul.

LYD. Calais, the son of the Thurian Ornitus, inflames me with a mutual

fire; for whom I would twice endure to die, if the fates would spare my

surviving youth.

HOR. What! if our former love returns, and unites by a brazen yoke us

once parted? What if Chloe with her golden locks be shaken off, and the

door again open to slighted Lydia.

LYD. Though he is fairer than a star, thou of more levity than a cork,

and more passionate than the blustering Adriatic; with thee I should

love to live, with thee I would cheerfully die.

* * * * *

**Ode X.**

TO LYCE.

O Lyce, had you drunk from the remote Tanais, in a state of marriage

with tome barbarian, yet you might be sorry to expose me, prostrate

before your obdurate doors, to the north winds that have made those

places their abode. Do you hear with what a noise your gate, with what

[a noise] the grove, planted about your elegant buildings, rebellows to

the winds? And how Jupiter glazes the settled snow with his bright

influence? Lay aside disdain, offensive to Venus, lest your rope should

run backward, while the wheel is revolving. Your Tyrrhenian father did

not beget you to be as inaccessible as Penelope to your wooers. O though

neither presents, nor prayers, nor the violet-tinctured paleness of your

lovers, nor your husband smitten with a musical courtezan, bend you to

pity; yet [at length] spare your suppliants, you that are not softer

than the sturdy oak, nor of a gentler disposition than the African

serpents. This side [of mine] will not always be able to endure your

threshold, and the rain.

* * * * *

**Ode XI.**

TO MERCURY.

O Mercury, for under thy instruction the ingenious Amphion moved rocks

by his voice, you being his tutor; and though my harp, skilled in

sounding, with seven strings, formerly neither vocal nor pleasing, but

now agreeable both to the tables of the wealthy and the temples [of the

gods]; dictate measures to which Lyde may incline her obstinate ears,

who, like a filly of three years old, plays and frisks about in the

spacious fields, inexperienced in nuptial loves, and hitherto unripe for

a brisk husband. You are able to draw after your tigers and attendant

woods, and to retard rapid rivers. To your blandishments the enormous

porter of the [infernal] palace yielded, though a hundred serpents

fortify his head, and a pestilential steam and an infectious poison

issue from his triple-tongued mouth. Moreover, Ixion and Tityus smiled

with a reluctant aspect: while you soothe the daughters of Danaus with

your delightful harmony, their vessel for some time remained dry. Let

Lyde hear of the crime, and the well-known punishment of the virgins,

and the cask emptied by the water streaming through the bottom, and what

lasting fates await their misdeeds even beyond the grave. Impious! (for

what greater impiety could they have committed?) Impious! who could

destroy their bridegrooms with the cruel sword! One out of the many,

worthy of the nuptial torch, was nobly false to her perjured parent, and

a maiden illustrious to all posterity; she, who said to her youthful

husband, "Arise! arise! lest an eternal sleep be given to you from a

hand you have no suspicion of; disappoint your father-in-law and my

wicked sisters, who, like lionesses having possessed themselves of

calves (alas)! tear each of them to pieces; I, of softer mold than they,

will neither strike thee, nor detain thee in my custody. Let my father

load me with cruel chains, because out of mercy I spared my unhappy

spouse; let him transport me even to the extreme Numidian plains.

Depart, whither your feet and the winds carry you, while the night and

Venus are favorable: depart with happy omen; yet, not forgetful of me,

engrave my mournful story on my tomb."

* * * * *

**Ode XII.**

TO NEOBULE.

It is for unhappy maidens neither to give indulgence to love, nor to

wash away cares with delicious wine; or to be dispirited out of dread of

the lashes of an uncle's tongue. The winged boy of Venus, O Neobule, has

deprived you of your spindle and your webs, and the beauty of Hebrus

from Lipara of inclination for the labors of industrious Minerva, after

he has bathed his anointed shoulders in the waters of the Tiber; a

better horseman than Bellerophon himself, neither conquered at boxing,

nor by want of swiftness in the race: he is also skilled to strike with

his javelin the stags, flying through the open plains in frightened

herd, and active to surprise the wild boar lurking in the deep thicket.

* * * * *

ODE XIII. TO THE BANDUSIAN FOUNTAIN.

O thou fountain of Bandusia, clearer than glass, worthy of delicious

wine, not unadorned by flowers; to-morrow thou shalt be presented with a

kid, whose forehead, pouting with new horns, determines upon both love

and war in vain; for this offspring of the wanton flock shall tinge thy

cooling streams with scarlet blood. The severe season of the burning

dog-star cannot reach thee; thou affordest a refreshing coolness to the

oxen fatigued with the plough-share, and to the ranging flock. Thou also

shalt become one of the famous fountains, through my celebrating the oak

that covers the hollow rock, whence thy prattling rills descend with a

bound.

* * * * *

**Ode XIV.**

TO THE ROMANS.

Augustus Caesar, O ye people, who was lately said, like another

Hercules, to have sought for the laurel to be purchased only by death,

revisits his domestic gods, victorious from the Spanish shore. Let the

matron (*Livia*), to whom her husband alone is dear, come forth in

public procession, having first performed her duty to the just gods; and

(*Octavia*), the sister of our glorious general; the mothers also of the

maidens and of the youths just preserved from danger, becomingly adorned

with supplicatory fillets. Ye, O young men, and young women lately

married, abstain from ill-omened words. This day, to me a real festival,

shall expel gloomy cares: I will neither dread commotions, nor violent

death, while Caesar is in possession of the earth. Go, slave, and seek

for perfume and chaplets, and a cask that remembers the Marsian war, if

any vessel could elude the vagabond Spartacus. And bid the tuneful

Neaera make haste to collect into a knot her auburn hair; *but* if any

delay should happen from the surly porter, come away. Hoary hair

mollifies minds that are fond of strife and petulant wrangling. I would

not have endured this treatment, warm with youth in the consulship of

Plancus.

* * * * *

**Ode XV.**

TO CHLORIS.

You wife of the indigent Ibycus, at length put an end to your

wickedness, and your infamous practices. Cease to sport among the

damsels, and to diffuse a cloud among bright constellations, now on the

verge of a timely death. If any thing will become Pholoe, it does not

you Chloris, likewise. Your daughter with more propriety attacks the

young men's apartments, like a Bacchanalian roused up by the rattling

timbrel. The love of Nothus makes her frisk about like a wanton

she-goat. The wool shorn near the famous Luceria becomes you now

antiquated: not musical instruments, or the damask flower of the rose,

or hogsheads drunk down to the lees.

* * * * *

**Ode XVI.**

TO MAECENAS.

A brazen tower, and doors of oak, and the melancholy watch of wakeful

dogs, had sufficiently defended the imprisoned Danae from midnight

gallants, had not Jupiter and Venus laughed at Acrisius, the anxious

keeper of the immured maiden: [for they well knew] that the way would be

safe and open, after the god had transformed himself into a bribe. Gold

delights to penetrate through the midst of guards, and to break through

stone-walls, more potent than the thunderbolt. The family of the Grecian

augur perished, immersed in destruction on account of lucre. The man of

Macedon cleft the gates of the cities and subverted rival monarchs by

bribery. Bribes enthrall fierce captains of ships. Care, and a thirst

for greater things, is the consequence of increasing wealth. Therefore,

Maecenas, thou glory of the [Roman] knights, I have justly dreaded to

raise the far-conspicuous head. As much more as any man shall deny

himself, so much more shall he receive from the gods. Naked as I am, I

seek the camps of those who covet nothing; and as a deserter, rejoice to

quit the side of the wealthy: a more illustrious possessor of a

contemptible fortune, than if I could be said to treasure up in my

granaries all that the industrious Apulian cultivates, poor amid

abundance of wealth. A rivulet of clear water, and a wood of a few

acres, and a certain prospect of my good crop, are blessings unknown to

him who glitters in the proconsulship of fertile Africa: I am more

happily circumstanced. Though neither the Calabrian bees produce honey,

nor wine ripens to age for me in a Formian cask, nor rich fleeces

increase in Gallic pastures; yet distressful poverty is remote; nor, if

I desired more, would you refuse to grant it me. I shall be better able

to extend my small revenues, by contracting my desires, than if I could

join the kingdom of Alyattes to the Phrygian plains. Much is wanting to

those who covet much. 'Tis well with him to whom God has given what is

necessary with a sparing hand.

* * * * *

**Ode XVII.**

TO AELIUS LAMIA.

O Aelius, who art nobly descended from the ancient Lamus (forasmuch as

they report, that both the first of the Lamian family had their name

hence, and all the race of the descendants through faithful records

derives its origin from that founder, who is said to have possessed, as

prince, the Formian walls, and Liris gliding on the shores of Marica--an

extensive potentate). To-morrow a tempest sent from the east shall strew

the grove with many leaves, and the shore with useless sea-weed, unless

that old prophetess of rain, the raven, deceives me. Pile up the dry

wood, while you may; to-morrow you shall indulge your genius with wine,

and with a pig of two months old, with your slaves dismissed from their

labors.

* * * * *

**Ode XVIII.**

TO FAUNUS.

A HYMN.

O Faunus, thou lover of the flying nymphs, benignly traverse my borders

and sunny fields, and depart propitious to the young offspring of my

flocks; if a tender kid fall [a victim] to thee at the completion of the

year, and plenty of wines be not wanting to the goblet, the companion of

Venus, and the ancient altar smoke with liberal perfume. All the cattle

sport in the grassy plain, when the nones of December return to thee;

the village keeping holiday enjoys leisure in the fields, together with

the oxen free from toil. The wolf wanders among the fearless lambs; the

wood scatters its rural leaves for thee, and the laborer rejoices to

have beaten the hated ground in triple dance.

* * * * *

**Ode XIX.**

TO TELEPHUS.

How far Codrus, who was not afraid to die for his country, is removed

from Inachus, and the race of Aeacus, and the battles also that were

fought at sacred Troy--[these subjects] you descant upon; but at what

price we may purchase a hogshead of Chian; who shall warm the water [for

bathing]; who finds a house: and at what hour I am to get rid of these

Pelignian colds, you are silent. Give me, boy, [a bumper] for the new

moon in an instant, give me one for midnight, and one for Murena the

augur. Let our goblets be mixed up with three or nine cups, according to

every one's disposition. The enraptured bard, who delights in the

odd-numbered muses, shall call for brimmers thrice three. Each of the

Graces, in conjunction with the naked sisters, fearful of broils,

prohibits upward of three. It is my pleasure to rave; why cease the

breathings of the Phrygian flute? Why is the pipe hung up with the

silent lyre? I hate your niggardly handfuls: strew roses freely. Let the

envious Lycus hear the jovial noise; and let our fair neighbor,

ill-suited to the old Lycus, [hear it.] The ripe Rhode aims at thee,

Telephus, smart with thy bushy locks; at thee, bright as the clear

evening star; the love of my Glycera slowly consumes me.

* * * * *

**Ode XX.**

TO PYRRHUS.

Do you not perceive, O Pyrrhus, at what hazard yon are taking away the

whelps from a Gutulian lioness? In a little while you, a timorous

ravisher, shall fly from the severe engagement, when she shall march

through the opposing band of youths, re-demanding her beauteous

Nearchus; a grand contest, whether a greater share of booty shall fall

to thee or to her! In the mean time, while you produce your swift

arrows, she whets her terrific teeth; while the umpire of the combat is

reported to have placed the palm under his naked foot, and refreshed his

shoulder, overspread with his perfumed locks, with the gentle breeze:

just such another was Nireus, or he that was ravished from the watery

Ida.

* * * * *

**Ode XXI.**

TO HIS JAR.

O thou goodly cask, that wast brought to light at the same time with me

in the consulship of Manlius, whether thou containest the occasion of

complaint, or jest, or broils and maddening amours, or gentle sleep;

under whatever title thou preservest the choice Massic, worthy to be

removed on an auspicious day; descend, Corvinus bids me draw the

mellowest wine. He, though he is imbued in the Socratic lectures, will

not morosely reject thee. The virtue even of old Cato is recorded to

have been frequently warmed with wine. Thou appliest a gentle violence

to that disposition, which is in general of the rougher cast: Thou

revealest the cares and secret designs of the wise, by the assistance of

merry Bacchus. You restore hope and spirit to anxious minds, and give

horns to the poor man, who after [tasting] you neither dreads the

diadems of enraged monarchs, nor the weapons of the soldiers. Thee

Bacchus, and Venus, if she comes in good-humor, and the Graces loth to

dissolve the knot [of their union], and living lights shall prolong,

till returning Phoebus puts the stars to flight.

* * * * *

**Ode XXII.**

TO DIANA.

O virgin, protectress of the mountains and the groves, thou three-formed

goddess, who thrice invoked, hearest young women in labor, and savest

them from death; sacred to thee be this pine that overshadows my villa,

which I, at the completion of every year, joyful will present with the

blood of a boar-pig, just meditating his oblique attack.

* * * * *

**Ode XXIII.**

TO PHIDYLE.

My rustic Phidyle, if you raise your suppliant hands to heaven at the

new moon, and appease the household gods with frankincense, and this

year's fruits, and a ravening swine; the fertile vine shall neither

feel the pestilential south-west, nor the corn the barren blight, or

your dear brood the sickly season in the fruit-bearing autumn. For the

destined victim, which is pastured in the snowy Algidus among the oaks

and holm trees, or thrives in the Albanian meadows, with its throat

shall stain the axes of the priests. It is not required of you, who are

crowning our little gods with rosemary and the brittle myrtle, to

propitiate them with a great slaughter of sheep. If an innocent hand

touches a clear, a magnificent victim does not pacify the offended

Penates more acceptably, than a consecrated cake and crackling salt.

* * * * *

**Ode XXIV.**

TO THE COVETOUS.

Though, more wealthy than the unrifled treasures of the Arabians and

rich India, you should possess yourself by your edifices of the whole

Tyrrhenian and Apulian seas; yet, if cruel fate fixes its adamantine

grapples upon the topmost roofs, you shall not disengage your mind from

dread, nor your life from the snares of death. The Scythians that dwell

in the plains, whose carts, according to their custom, draw their

vagrant habitations, live in a better manner; and [so do] the rough

Getae, whose uncircumscribed acres produce fruits and corn free to all,

nor is a longer than annual tillage agreeable, and a successor leaves

him who has accomplished his labor by an equal right. There the

guiltless wife spares her motherless step-children, nor does the

portioned spouse govern her husband, nor put any confidence in a sleek

adulterer. Their dower is the high virtue of their parents, and a

chastity reserved from any other man by a steadfast security; and it, is

forbidden to sin, or the reward is death. O if there be any one willing

to remove our impious slaughters, and civil rage; if he be desirous to

be written FATHER OF THE STATE, on statues [erected to him], let him

dare to curb insuperable licentiousness, and be eminent to posterity;

since we (O injustice!) detest virtue while living, but invidiously seek

for her after she is taken out of our view. To what purpose are our

woeful complaints, if sin is not cut off with punishment? Of what

efficacy are empty laws, without morals; if neither that part of the

world which is shut in by fervent heats, nor that side which borders

upon Boreas, and snows hardened upon the ground, keep off the merchant;

[and] the expert sailors get the better of the horrible seas? Poverty, a

great reproach, impels us both to do and to suffer any thing, and

deserts the path of difficult virtue. Let us, then, cast our gems and

precious stones and useless gold, the cause of extreme evil, either into

the Capitol, whither the acclamations and crowd of applauding [citizens]

call us, or into the adjoining ocean. If we are truly penitent for our

enormities, the very elements of depraved lust are to be erased, and the

minds of too soft a mold should be formed by severer studies. The noble

youth knows not how to keep his seat on horseback and is afraid to go a

hunting, more skilled to play (if you choose it) with the Grecian

trochus, or dice, prohibited by law; while the father's perjured faith

can deceive his partner and friend, and he hastens to get money for an

unworthy heir. In a word, iniquitous wealth increases, yet something is

ever wanting to the incomplete fortune.

* * * * *

**Ode XXV.**

TO BACCHUS.

A DITHYRAMBIC.

Whither, O Bacchus, art thou hurrying me, replete with your influence?

Into what groves, into what recesses am I driven, actuated with uncommon

spirit? In what caverns, meditating the immortal honor of illustrious

Caesar, shall I be heard enrolling him among the stars and the council

of Jove? I will utter something extraordinary, new, hitherto unsung by

any other voice. Thus the sleepless Bacchanal is struck with enthusiasm,

casting her eyes upon Hebrus, and Thrace bleached with snow, and Rhodope

traversed by the feet of barbarians. How am I delighted in my rambles,

to admire the rocks and the desert grove! O lord of the Naiads and the

Bacchanalian women, who are able with their hands to overthrow lofty

ash-trees; nothing little, nothing low, nothing mortal will I sing.

Charming is the hazard, O Bacchus, to accompany the god, who binds his

temples with the verdant vine-leaf.

* * * * *

**Ode XXVI.**

TO VENUS.

I lately lived a proper person for girls, and campaigned it not without

honor; but now this wall, which guards the left side of [the statue] of

sea-born Venus, shall have my arms and my lyre discharged from warfare.

Here, here, deposit the shining flambeaux, and the wrenching irons, and

the bows, that threatened the resisting doors. O thou goddess, who

possessest the blissful Cyprus, and Memphis free from Sithonian snow, O

queen, give the haughty Chloe one cut with your high-raised lash.

* * * * *

**Ode XXVII.**

TO GALATEA, UPON HER GOING TO SEA.

Let the omen of the noisy screech-owl and a pregnant bitch, or a tawny

wolf running down from the Lanuvian fields, or a fox with whelp conduct

the impious [on their way]; may the serpent also break their undertaken

journey, if, like an arrow athwart the road, it has frightened the

horses. What shall I, a provident augur, fear? I will invoke from the

east, with my prayers, the raven forboding by his croaking, before the

bird which presages impending showers, revisits the stagnant pools.

Mayest thou be happy, O Galatea, wheresoever thou choosest to reside,

and live mindful of me and neither the unlucky pye nor the vagrant crow

forbids your going on. But you see, with what an uproar the prone Orion

hastens on: I know what the dark bay of the Adriatic is, and in what

manner Iapyx, [seemingly] serene, is guilty. Let the wives and children

of our enemies feel the blind tumults of the rising south, and the

roaring of the blackened sea, and the shores trembling with its lash.

Thus too Europa trusted her fair side to the deceitful bull, and bold as

she was, turned pale at the sea abounding with monsters, and the cheat

now become manifest. She, who lately in the meadows was busied about

flowers, and a composer of the chaplet meet for nymphs, saw nothing in

the dusky night put stars and water. Who as soon as she arrived at

Crete, powerful with its hundred cities, cried out, overcome with rage,

"O father, name abandoned by thy daughter! O my duty! Whence, whither am

I come? One death is too little for virgins' crime. Am I awake, while I

deplore my base offense; or does some vain phantom, which, escaping from

the ivory gate, brings on a dream, impose upon me, still free from

guilt. Was it better to travel over the tedious waves, or to gather the

fresh flowers? If any one now would deliver up to me in my anger this

infamous bull, I would do my utmost to tear him to pieces with steel,

and break off the horns of the monster, lately so much beloved.

Abandoned I have left my father's house, abandoned I procrastinate my

doom. O if any of the gods hear this, I wish I may wander naked among

lions: before foul decay seizes my comely cheeks, and moisture leaves

this tender prey, I desire, in all my beauty, to be the food of tigers."

"Base Europa," thy absent father urges, "why do you hesitate to die? you

may strangle your neck suspended from this ash, with your girdle that

has commodiously attended you. Or if a precipice, and the rocks that are

edged with death, please you, come on, commit yourself to the rapid

storm; unless you, that are of blood-royal, had rather card your

mistress's wool, and be given up as a concubine to some barbarian dame."

As she complained, the treacherously-smiling Venus, and her son, with

his bow relaxed, drew near. Presently, when she had sufficiently rallied

her, "Refrain (she cried) from your rage and passionate chidings, since

this detested bull shall surrender his horns to be torn in pieces by

you. Are you ignorant, that you are the wife of the invincible Jove?

Cease your sobbing; learn duly to support your distinguished good

fortune. A division of the world shall bear your name."

* * * * *

**Ode XXVIII.**

TO LYDE.

What can I do better on the festal day of Neptune? Quickly produce,

Lyde, the hoarded Caecuban, and make an attack upon wisdom, ever on her

guard. You perceive the noontide is on its decline; and yet, as if the

fleeting day stood still, you delay to bring out of the store-house the

loitering cask, [that bears its date] from the consul Bibulus. We will

sing by turns, Neptune, and the green locks of the Nereids; you, shall

chant, on your wreathed lyre, Latona and the darts of the nimble

Cynthia; at the conclusion of your song, she also [shall be celebrated],

who with her yoked swans visits Gnidos, and the shining Cyclades, and

Paphos: the night also shall be celebrated in a suitable lay.

* * * * *

**Ode XXIX.**

TO MAECENAS.

O Maecenas, thou progeny of Tuscan kings, there has been a long while

for you in my house some mellow wine in an unbroached hogshead, with

rose-flowers and expressed essence for your hair. Disengage yourself

from anything that may retard you, nor contemplate the ever marshy

Tibur, and the sloping fields of Aesula, and the hills of Telegonus the

parricide. Leave abundance, which is the source of daintiness, and yon

pile of buildings approaching near the lofty clouds: cease to admire the

smoke, and opulence, and noise of flourishing Rome. A change is

frequently agreeable to the rich, and a cleanly meal in the little

cottage of the poor has smoothed an anxious brow without carpets or

purple. Now the bright father of Andromeda displays his hidden fire; now

Procyon rages, and the constellation of the ravening Lion, as the sun

brings round the thirsty season. Now the weary shepherd with his languid

flock seeks the shade, and the river, and the thickets of rough

Sylvanus; and the silent bank is free from the wandering winds. You

regard what constitution may suit the state, and are in an anxious dread

for Rome, what preparations the Seres and the Bactrians subject to

Cyrus, and the factious Tanais are making. A wise deity shrouds in

obscure darkness the events of the time to come, and smiles if a mortal

is solicitous beyond the law of nature. Be mindful to manage duly that

which is present. What remains goes on in the manner of the river, at

one time calmly gliding in the middle of its channel to the Tuscan Sea,

at another, rolling along corroded stones, and stumps of trees, forced

away, and cattle, and houses, not without the noise of mountains and

neighboring woods, when the merciless deluge enrages the peaceful

waters. That man is master of himself and shall live happy, who has it

in his power to say, "I have lived to-day: to-morrow let the Sire invest

the heaven, either with a black cloud, or with clear sunshine;

nevertheless, he shall not render ineffectual what is past, nor undo or

annihilate what the fleeting hour has once carried off. Fortune, happy

in the execution of her cruel office, and persisting to play her

insolent game, changes uncertain honors, indulgent now to me, by and by

to another. I praise her, while she abides by me. If she moves her fleet

wings, I resign what she has bestowed, and wrap myself up in my virtue,

and court honest poverty without a portion. It is no business of mine,

if the mast groan with the African storms, to have recourse to piteous

prayers, and to make a bargain with my vows, that my Cyprian and Syrian

merchandize may not add to the wealth of the insatiable sea. Then the

gale and the twin Pollux will carry me safe in the protection of a skiff

with two oars, through the tumultuous Aegean Sea."

* * * * *

**Ode XXX.**

ON HIS OWN WORKS.

I have completed a monument more lasting than brass, and more sublime

than the regal elevation of pyramids, which neither the wasting shower,

the unavailing north wind, nor an innumerable succession of years, and

the flight of seasons, shall be able to demolish. I shall not wholly

die; but a great part of me shall escape Libitina. I shall continualy be

renewed in the praises of posterity, as long as the priest shall ascend

the Capitol with the silent [vestal] virgin. Where the rapid Aufidus

shall murmur, and where Daunus, poorly supplied with water, ruled over a

rustic people, I, exalted from a low degree, shall be acknowledged as

having originally adapted the Aeolic verse to Italian measures.

Melpomene, assume that pride which your merits have acquired, and

willingly crown my hair with the Delphic laurel.

* * * * *

**Ode I.**

TO VENUS.

After a long cessation, O Venus, again are you stirring up tumults?

Spare me, I beseech you, I beseech you. I am not the man I was under the

dominion of good-natured Cynara. Forbear, O cruel mother of soft

desires, to bend one bordering upon fifty, now too hardened for soft

commands: go, whither the soothing prayers of youths, invoke you. More

seasonably may you revel in the house of Paulus Maximus, flying thither

with your splendid swans, if you seek to inflame a suitable breast. For

he is both noble and comely, and by no means silent in the cause of

distressed defendants, and a youth of a hundred accomplishments; he

shall bear the ensigns of your warfare far and wide; and whenever, more

prevailing than the ample presents of a rival, he shall laugh [at his

expense], he shall erect thee in marble under a citron dome near the

Alban lake. There you shall smell abundant frankincense, and shall be

charmed with the mixed music of the lyre and Berecynthian pipe, not

without the flageolet. There the youths, together with the tender

maidens, twice a day celebrating your divinity, shall, Salian-like, with

white foot thrice shake the ground. As for me, neither woman, nor youth,

nor the fond hopes of mutual inclination, nor to contend in wine, nor to

bind my temples with fresh flowers, delight me [any longer]. But why;

ah! why, Ligurinus, does the tear every now and then trickle down my

cheeks? Why does my fluent tongue falter between my words with an

unseemly silence? Thee in my dreams by night I clasp, caught [in my

arms]; thee flying across the turf of the Campus Martius; thee I pursue,

O cruel one, through the rolling waters.

* * * * *

**Ode II.**

TO ANTONIUS IULUS.

Whoever endeavors, O Iulus, to rival Pindar, makes an effort on wings

fastened with wax by art Daedalean, about to communicate his name to the

glassy sea. Like a river pouring down from a mountain, which sudden

rains have increased beyond its accustomed banks, such the deep-mouthed

Pindar rages and rushes on immeasurable, sure to merit Apollo's laurel,

whether he rolls down new-formed phrases through the daring dithyrambic,

and is borne on in numbers exempt from rule: whether he sings the gods,

and kings, the offspring of the gods, by whom the Centaurs perished with

a just destruction, [by whom] was quenched the flame of the dreadful

Chimaera; or celebrates those whom the palm, [in the Olympic games] at

Elis, brings home exalted to the skies, wrestler or steed, and presents

them with a gift preferable to a hundred statues: or deplores some

youth, snatched [by death] from his mournful bride--he elevates both his

strength, and courage, and golden morals to the stars, and rescues him

from the murky grave. A copious gale elevates the Dircean swan, O

Antonius, as often as he soars into the lofty regions of the clouds: but

I, after the custom and manner of the Macinian bee, that laboriously

gathers the grateful thyme, I, a diminutive creature, compose elaborate

verses about the grove and the banks of the watery Tiber. You, a poet of

sublimer style, shall sing of Caesar, whenever, graceful in his

well-earned laurel, he shall drag the fierce Sygambri along the sacred

hill; Caesar, than whom nothing greater or better the fates and

indulgent gods ever bestowed on the earth, nor will bestow, though the

times should return to their primitive gold. You shall sing both the

festal days, and the public rejoicings on account of the prayed-for

return of the brave Augustus, and the forum free from law-suits. Then

(if I can offer any thing worth hearing) a considerable portion of my

voice shall join [the general acclamation], and I will sing, happy at

the reception of Caesar, "O glorious day, O worthy thou to be

celebrated." And while [the procession] moves along, shouts of triumph

we will repeat, shouts of triumph the whole city [will raise], and we

will offer frankincense to the indulgent gods. Thee ten bulls and as

many heifers shall absolve; me, a tender steerling, that, having left

his dam, thrives in spacious pastures for the discharge of my vows,

resembling [by the horns on] his forehead the curved light of the moon,

when she appears of three days old, in which part he has a mark of a

snowy aspect, being of a dun color over the rest of his body.

* * * * *

**Ode III.**

TO MELPOMENE.

Him, O Melpomene, upon whom at his birth thou hast once looked with

favoring eye, the Isthmian contest shall not render eminent as a

wrestler; the swift horse shall not draw him triumphant in a Grecian

car; nor shall warlike achievement show him in the Capitol, a general

adorned with the Delian laurel, on account of his having quashed the

proud threats of kings: but such waters as flow through the fertile

Tiber, and the dense leaves of the groves, shall make him distinguished

by the Aeolian verse. The sons of Rome, the queen of cities, deign to

rank me among the amiable band of poets; and now I am less carped at by

the tooth of envy. O muse, regulating the harmony of the gilded shell! O

thou, who canst immediately bestow, if thou please, the notes of the

swan upon the mute fish! It is entirely by thy gift that I am marked

out, as the stringer of the Roman lyre, by the fingers of passengers;

that I breathe, and give pleasure (if I give pleasure), is yours.

* * * * *

ODE IV

THE PRAISE OF DRUSUS.

Like as the winged minister of thunder (to whom Jupiter, the sovereign

of the gods, has assigned the dominion over the fleeting birds, having

experienced his fidelity in the affair of the beauteous Ganymede), early

youth and hereditary vigor save impelled from his nest unknowing of

toil; and the vernal winds, the showers being now dispelled, taught him,

still timorous, unwonted enterprises: in a little while a violent

impulse dispatched him, as an enemy against the sheepfolds, now an

appetite for food and fight has impelled him upon the reluctant

serpents;--or as a she-goat, intent on rich pastures, has beheld a young

lion but just weaned from the udder of his tawny dam, ready to be

devoured by his newly-grown tooth: such did the Rhaeti and the Vindelici

behold Drusus carrying on the war under the Alps; whence this people

derived the custom, which has always prevailed among them, of arming

their right hands with the Amazonian ax, I have purposely omitted to

inquire: (neither is it possible to discover everything.) But those

troops, which had been for a long while and extensively victorious,

being subdued by the conduct of a youth, perceived what a disposition,

what a genius rightly educated under an auspicious roof, what the

fatherly affection of Augustus toward the young Neros, could effect. The

brave are generated by the brave and good; there is in steers, there is

in horses, the virtue of their sires; nor do the courageous eagles

procreate the unwarlike dove. But learning improves the innate force,

and good discipline confirms the mind: whenever morals are deficient,

vices disgrace what is naturally good. What thou owest, O Rome, to the

Neros, the river Metaurus is a witness, and the defeated Asdrubal, and

that day illustrious by the dispelling of darkness from Italy, and which

first smiled with benignant victory; when the terrible African rode

through the Latian cities, like a fire through the pitchy pines, or the

east wind through the Sicilian waves. After this the Roman youth

increased continually in successful exploits, and temples, laid waste by

the impious outrage of the Carthaginians, had the [statues of] their

gods set up again. And at length the perfidious Hannibal said; "We, like

stags, the prey of rapacious wolves, follow of our own accord those,

whom to deceive and escape is a signal triumph. That nation, which,

tossed in the Etrurian waves, bravely transported their gods, and sons,

and aged fathers, from the burned Troy to the Italian cities, like an

oak lopped by sturdy axes in Algidum abounding in dusky leaves, through

losses and through wounds derives strength and spirit from the very

steel. The Hydra did not with more vigor grow upon Hercules grieving to

be overcome, nor did the Colchians, or the Echionian Thebes, produce a

greater prodigy. Should you sink it in the depth, it will come out more

beautiful: should you contend with it, with great glory will it

overthrow the conqueror unhurt before, and will fight battles to be the

talk of wives. No longer can I send boasting messengers to Carthage: all

the hope and success of my name is fallen, is fallen by the death of

Asdrubal. There is nothing, but what the Claudian hands will perform;

which both Jupiter defends with his propitious divinity, and sagacious

precaution conducts through the sharp trials of war."

* * * * *

**Ode V.**

TO AUGUSTUS.

O best guardian of the Roman people, born under propitious gods, already

art thou too long absent; after having promised a mature arrival to the

sacred council of the senators, return. Restore, O excellent chieftain,

the light to thy country; for, like the spring, wherever thy countenance

has shone, the day passes more agreeably for the people, and the sun has

a superior lustre. As a mother, with vows, omens, and prayers, calls for

her son (whom the south wind with adverse gales detains from his sweet

home, staying more than a year beyond the Carpathian Sea), nor turns

aside her looks from the curved shore; in like manner, inspired with

loyal wishes, his country seeks for Caesar. For, [under your auspices,]

the ox in safety traverses the meadows: Ceres nourishes the ground; and

abundant Prosperity: the sailors skim through the calm ocean: and Faith

is in dread of being censured. The chaste family is polluted by no

adulteries: morality and the law have got the better of that foul crime;

the child-bearing women are commended for an offspring resembling [the

father; and] punishment presses as a companion upon guilt. Who can fear

the Parthian? Who, the frozen Scythian? Who, the progeny that rough

Germany produces, while Caesar is in safety? Who cares for the war of

fierce Spain? Every man puts a period to the day amid his own hills, and

weds the vine to the widowed elm-trees; hence he returns joyful to his

wine, and invites you, as a deity, to his second course; thee, with many

a prayer, thee he pursues with wine poured out [in libation] from the

cups; and joins your divinity to that of his household gods, in the same

manner as Greece was mindful of Castor and the great Hercules. May you,

excellent chieftain, bestow a lasting festivity upon Italy! This is our

language, when we are sober at the early day; this is our language, when

we have well drunk, at the time the sun is beneath the ocean.

* * * * *

**Ode VI.**

HYMN TO APOLLO.

Thou god, whom the offspring of Niobe experienced as avenger of a

presumptuous tongue, and the ravisher Tityus, and also the Thessalian

Achilles, almost the conqueror of lofty Troy, a warrior superior to all

others, but unequal to thee; though, son of the sea-goddess, Thetis, he

shook the Dardanian towers, warring with his dreadful spear. He, as it

were a pine smitten with the burning ax, or a cypress prostrated by the

east wind, fell extended far, and reclined his neck in the Trojan dust.

He would not, by being shut up in a [wooden] horse, that belied the

sacred rights of Minerva, have surprised the Trojans reveling in an evil

hour, and the court of Priam making merry in the dance; but openly

inexorable to his captives, (oh impious! oh!) would have burned

speechless babes with Grecian fires, even him concealed in his mother's

womb: had not the father of the gods, prevailed upon by thy entreaties

and those of the beauteous Venus, granted to the affairs of Aeneas walls

founded under happier auspices. Thou lyrist Phoebus, tutor of the

harmonious Thalia, who bathest thy locks in the river Xanthus, O

delicate Agyieus, support the dignity of the Latian muse. Phoebus gave

me genius, Phoebus the art of composing verse, and the title of poet. Ye

virgins of the first distinction, and ye youths born of illustrious

parents, ye wards of the Delian goddess, who stops with her bow the

flying lynxes, and the stags, observe the Lesbian measure, and the

motion of my thumb; duly celebrating the son of Latona, duly

[celebrating] the goddess that enlightens the night with her shining

crescent, propitious to the fruits, and expeditious in rolling on the

precipitate months. Shortly a bride you will say: "I, skilled in the

measures of the poet Horace, recited an ode which was acceptable to the

gods, when the secular period brought back the festal days."

* * * * *

**Ode VII.**

TO TORQUATUS.

The snows are fled, the herbage now returns to the fields, and the

leaves to the trees. The earth changes its appearance, and the

decreasing rivers glide along their banks: the elder Grace, together

with the Nymphs, and her two sisters, ventures naked to lead off the

dance. That you are not to expect things permanent, the year, and the

hour that hurries away the agreeable day, admonish us. The colds are

mitigated by the zephyrs: the summer follows close upon the spring,

shortly to die itself, as soon as fruitful autumn shall have shed its

fruits: and anon sluggish winter returns again. Nevertheless the

quick-revolving moons repair their wanings in the skies; but when we

descend [to those regions] where pious Aeneas, where Tullus and the

wealthy Ancus [have gone before us], we become dust and a mere shade.

Who knows whether the gods above will add to this day's reckoning the

space of to-morrow? Every thing, which you shall indulge to your beloved

soul, will escape the greedy hands of your heir. When once, Torquatus,

you shall be dead, and Minos shall have made his awful decisions

concerning you; not your family, not you eloquence, not your piety shall

restore you. For neither can Diana free the chaste Hippolytus from

infernal darkness; nor is Theseus able to break off the Lethaean fetters

from his dear Piri thous.

* * * * *

**Ode VIII.**

TO MARCIUS CENSORINUS.

O Censorinus, liberally would I present my acquaintance with goblets and

beautiful vases of brass; I would present them with tripods, the rewards

of the brave Grecians: nor would you bear off the meanest of my

donations, if I were rich in those pieces of art, which either

Parrhasius or Scopas produced; the latter in statuary, the former in

liquid colors, eminent to portray at one time a man, at another a god.

But I have no store of this sort, nor do your circumstances or

inclination require any such curiosities as these. You delight in

verses: verses I can give, and set a value on the donation. Not marbles

engraved with public inscriptions, by means of which breath and life

returns to illustrious generals after their decease; not the precipitate

flight of Hannibal, and his menaces retorted upon his own head: not the

flames of impious Carthage * * * * more eminently set forth his praises,

who returned, having gained a name from conquered Africa, than the

Calabrlan muses; neither, should writings be silent, would you have any

reward for having done well. What would the son of Mars and Ilia be, if

invidious silence had stifled the merits of Romulus? The force, and

favor, and voice of powerful poets consecrate Aecus, snatched from the

Stygian floods, to the Fortunate Islands. The muse forbids a

praiseworthy man to die: the muse, confers the happiness of heaven. Thus

laborious Hercules has a place at the longed-for banquets of Jove:

[thus] the sons of Tyndarus, that bright constellation, rescue shattered

vessels from the bosom of the deep: [and thus] Bacchus, his temples

adorned with the verdant vine-branch, brings the prayers of his votaries

to successful issues.

* * * * *

**Ode IX.**

TO MARCUS LOLLIUS.

Lest you for a moment imagine that those words will be lost, which I,

born on the far-resounding Aufidus, utter to be accompanied with the

lyre, by arts hitherto undivulged--If Maeonian Homer possesses the first

rank, the Pindaric and Cean muses, and the menacing strains of Alcaeus,

and the majestic ones of Stesichorus, are by no means obscure: neither,

if Anacreon long ago sportfully sung any thing, has time destroyed it:

even now breathes the love and live the ardors of the Aeolian maid,

committed to her lyre. The Lacedaemonian Helen is not the only fair, who

has been inflamed by admiring the delicate ringlets of a gallant, and

garments embroidered with gold, and courtly accomplishments, and

retinue: nor was Teucer the first that leveled arrows from the Cydonian

bow: Troy was more than once harassed: the great Idomeneus and Sthenelus

were not the only heroes that fought battles worthy to be recorded by

the muses: the fierce Hector, or the strenuous Deiphobus were not the

first that received heavy blows in defense of virtuous wives and

children. Many brave men lived before Agamemnon: but all of them,

unlamented and unknown, are overwhelmed with endless obscurity, because

they were destitute of a sacred bard. Valor, uncelebrated, differs but

little from cowardice when in the grave. I will not [therefore], O

Lollius, pass you over in silence, uncelebrated in my writings, or

suffer envious forgetfulness with impunity to seize so many toils of

thine. You have a mind ever prudent in the conduct of affairs, and

steady alike amid success and trouble: you are an avenger of avaricious

fraud, and proof against money, that attracts every thing; and a consul

not of one year only, but as often as the good and upright magistrate

has preferred the honorable to the profitable, and has rejected with a

disdainful brow the bribes of wicked men, and triumphant through

opposing bands has displayed his arms. You can not with propriety call

him happy, that possesses much; he more justly claims the title of

happy, who understands how to make a wise use of the gifts of the gods,

and how to bear severe poverty; and dreads a reproachful deed worse than

death; such a man as this is not afraid to perish in the defense of his

dear friends, or of his country.

* * * * *

**Ode X.**

TO LIGURINUS.

O cruel still, and potent in the endowments of beauty, when an

unexpected plume shall come upon your vanity, and those locks, which now

wanton on your shoulders, shall fall off, and that color, which is now

preferable to the blossom of the damask rose, changed, O Ligurinus,

shall turn into a wrinkled face; [then] will you say (as often as you

see yourself, [quite] another person in the looking glass), Alas! why

was not my present inclination the same, when I was young? Or why do not

my cheeks return, unimpaired, to these my present sentiments?

* * * * *

**Ode XI.**

TO PHYLLIS.

Phyllis, I have a cask full of Abanian wine, upward of nine years old; I

have parsley in my garden, for the weaving of chaplets, I have a store

of ivy, with which, when you have bound your hair, you look so gay: the

house shines cheerfully With plate: the altar, bound with chaste

vervain, longs to be sprinkled [with the blood] of a sacrificed lamb:

all hands are busy: girls mingled with boys fly about from place to

place: the flames quiver, rolling on their summit the sooty smoke. But

yet, that you may know to what joys you are invited, the Ides are to be

celebrated by you, the day which divides April, the month of sea-born

Venus; [a day,] with reason to be solemnized by me, and almost more

sacred to me than that of my own birth; since from this day my dear

Maecenas reckons his flowing years. A rich and buxom girl hath possessed

herself of Telephus, a youth above your rank; and she holds him fast by

an agreeable fetter. Consumed Phaeton strikes terror into ambitious

hopes, and the winged Pegasus, not stomaching the earth-born rider

Bellerophon, affords a terrible example, that you ought always to pursue

things that are suitable to you, and that you should avoid a

disproportioned match, by thinking it a crime to entertain a hope beyond

what is allowable. Come then, thou last of my loves (for hereafter I

shall burn for no other woman), learn with me such measures, as thou

mayest recite with thy lovely voice: our gloomy cares shall be mitigated

with an ode.

* * * * *

**Ode XII.**

TO VIRGIL.

The Thracian breezes, attendants on the spring, which moderate the deep,

now fill the sails; now neither are the meadows stiff [with frost], nor

roar the rivers swollen with winter's snow. The unhappy bird, that

piteotisly bemoans Itys, and is the eternal disgrace of the house of

Cecrops (because she wickedly revenged the brutal lusts of kings), now

builds her nest. The keepers of the sheep play tunes upon the pipe amid

the tendar herbage, and delight that god, whom flocks and the shady

hills of Arcadia delight. The time of year, O Virgil, has brought on a

drought: but if you desire to quaff wine from the Calenian press, you,

that are a constant companion of young noblemen, must earn your liquor

by [bringing some] spikenard: a small box of spikenard shall draw out a

cask, which now lies in the Sulpician store-house, bounteous in the

indulgence of fresh hopes and efficacious in washing away the

bitterness of cares. To which joys if you hasten, come instantly with

your merchandize: I do not intend to dip you in my cups scot-free, like

a man of wealth, in a house abounding with plenty. But lay aside delay,

and the desire of gain; and, mindful of the gloomy [funeral] flames,

intermix, while you may, your grave studies with a little light gayety:

it is delightful to give a loose on a proper occasion.

* * * * *

**Ode XIII.**

TO LYCE.

The gods have heard my prayers, O Lyce; Lyce, the gods have heard my

prayers, you are become an old woman, and yet you would fain seem a

beauty; and you wanton and drink in an audacious manner; and when drunk,

solicit tardy Cupid, with a quivering voice. He basks in the charming

cheeks of the blooming Chia, who is a proficient on the lyre. The

teasing urchin flies over blasted oaks, and starts back at the sight of

you, because foul teeth, because wrinkles and snowy hair render you

odious. Now neither Coan purples nor sparkling jewels restore those

years, which winged time has inserted in the public annals. Whither is

your beauty gone? Alas! or whither your bloom? Whither your graceful

deportment? What have you [remaining] of her, of her, who breathed

loves, and ravished me from myself? Happy next to Cynara, and

distinguished for an aspect of graceful ways: but the fates granted a

few years only to Cynara, intending to preserve for a long time Lyce, to

rival in years the aged raven: that the fervid young fellows might see,

not without excessive laughter, that torch, [which once so brightly

scorched,] reduced to ashes.

* * * * *

**Ode XIV.**

TO AUGUSTUS.

What zeal of the senators, or what of the Roman people, by decreeing the

most ample honors, can eternize your virtues, O Augustus, by monumental

inscriptions and lasting records? O thou, wherever the sun illuminates

the habitable regions, greatest of princes, whom the Vindelici, that

never experienced the Roman sway, have lately learned how powerful thou

art in war! For Drusus, by means of your soldiery, has more than once

bravely overthrown the Genauni, an implacable race, and the rapid

Brenci, and the citadels situated on the tremendous Alps. The elder of

the Neros soon after fought a terrible battle, and, under your

propitious auspices, smote the ferocious Rhoeti: how worthy of

admiration in the field of battle, [to see] with what destruction he

oppressed the brave, hearts devoted to voluntary death: just as the

south wind harasses the untameable waves, when the dance of the Pleiades

cleaves the clouds; [so is he] strenuous to annoy the troops of the

enemy, and to drive his eager steed through the midst of flames. Thus

the bull-formed Aufidus, who washes the dominions of the Apulian Daunus,

rolls along, when he rages and meditates an horrible deluge to the

cultivated lands; when Claudius overthrew with impetuous might, the iron

ranks of the barbarians, and by mowing down both front and rear strewed

the ground, victorious without any loss; through you supplying them with

troops, you with councils, and your own guardian powers. For on that

day, when the suppliant Alexandria opened her ports, and deserted court,

fortune, propitious to you in the third lustrum, has put a happy period

to the war, and has ascribed praise and wished-for honor to the

victories already obtained. O thou dread guardian of Italy and imperial

Rome, thee the Spaniard, till now unconquered, and the Mede, and the

Indian, thee the vagrant Scythian admires; thee both the Nile, who

conceals his fountain heads, and the Danube; thee the rapid Tigris; thee

the monster-bearing ocean, that roars against the remote Britons; thee

the region of Gaul fearless of death, and that of hardy Iberia obeys;

thee the Sicambrians, who delight in slaughter, laying aside their arms,

revere.

* * * * *

**Ode XV.**

TO AUGUSTUS, ON THE RESTORATION OF PEACE.

Phoebus chid me, when I was meditating to sing of battles And conquered

cities on the lyre: that I might not set my little sails along the

Tyrrhenian Sea. Your age, O Caesar, has both restored plenteous crops

to the fields, and has brought back to our Jupiter the standards torn

from the proud pillars of the Parthians; and has shut up [the temple] of

Janus [founded by] Romulus, now free from war; and has imposed a due

discipline upon headstrong licentiousness, and has extirpated crimes,

and recalled the ancient arts; by which the Latin name and strength of

Italy have increased, and the fame and majesty of the empire is extended

from the sun's western bed to the east. While Caesar is guardian of

affairs, neither civil rage nor violence shall disturb tranquillity; nor

hatred which forges swords, and sets at variance unhappy states. Not

those, who drink of the deep Danube, shall now break the Julian edicts:

not the Getae, not the Seres, nor the perfidious Persians, nor those

born upon the river Tanais. And let us, both on common and festal days,

amid the gifts of joyous Bacchus, together with our wives and families,

having first duly invoked the gods, celebrate, after the manner of our

ancestors, with songs accompanied with Lydian pipes, our late valiant

commanders: and Troy, and Anchises, and the offspring of benign Venus.

* * * * *