M. 2/. /&*■ 
 
 
THE ODES AND CARMEN 
 
 SiECULARE 
 
 OF 
 
 HORACE. 
 
THE ODES AND CARMEN 
 
 SACCULARE OF 
 HORACE 
 
 TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE 
 
 BY JOHN CONINGTON, M.A. 
 
 CORPUS PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION, 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 BELL AND DALDY, YORK STREET 
 
 COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1872. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/odescarmensaeculOOhora 
 
~ /<P^ A 3 ; Vj^ta *y 
 
 8 7 / 
 
 f-f S’cs^ c* 
 
 I&7X 
 
 TO 
 
 J. A. SYMONDS, M.D. F.R.S. EDIN. 
 
 ETC. ETC. ETC. 
 
 IN MEMORIAL 
 
 OF COMMON TASTES AND INTERESTS, 
 AND IN TOKEN 
 
 OF SINCERE AND GRATEFUL REGARD. 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 SCARCELY know what excuse I 
 can offer for making public this 
 attempt to “ translate the untrans- 
 latable.” No one can he more con- 
 vinced than I am that a really successful translator 
 must be himself an original poet ; and where the 
 author translated happens to be one whose special 
 characteristic is incommunicable grace of expression, 
 the demand on the translator’s powers would seem 
 to be indefinitely increased. Yet the time appears 
 to be gone by when men of great original gifts 
 could find satisfaction in reproducing the thoughts 
 and words of others ; and the work, if done at all, 
 must now be done by writers of inferior pretension. 
 Among these, however, there are still degrees ; and 
 the experience which I have gained since I first 
 adventured as a poetical translator has made me* 
 doubt whether I may not be ill-advised in resuming 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 viii 
 
 the experiment under any circumstances. Still, an 
 experiment of this kind may have an advantage of 
 its own, even when it is unsuccessful ; it may serve 
 as a piece of embodied criticism, showing what the 
 experimenter conceived to be the conditions of suc- 
 cess, and may thus, to borrow Horace’s own meta- 
 phor of the whetstone, impart to others a quality 
 which it is itself without. Perhaps I may be allowed, 
 for a few moments, to combine precept with ex- 
 ample, and imitate my distinguished friend and 
 colleague, Professor Arnold, in offering some coun- 
 sels to the future translator of Horace’s Odes, 
 referring, at the same time, by way of illustration, 
 to my own attempt. 
 
 The first thing at which, as it seems to me, a 
 Horatian translator ought to aim, is some kind of 
 metrical conformity to his original. Without this 
 we are in danger of losing not only the metrical, but 
 the general effect of the Latin ; we express ourselves 
 in a different compass, and the character of the 
 expression is altered accordingly. Por instance, one 
 of Horace’s leading features is his occasional sen- 
 tentiousness. It is this, perhaps more than any- 
 thing else, that has made him a storehouse of quo- 
 tations. He condenses a general truth in a few 
 words, and thus makes his wisdom portable. “ Non , 
 
PREFACE . 
 
 IX 
 
 si male nunc, et olim sic erit ; ” “ Nihil est ab omni 
 parte beatum “ Omnes eodem cogimur ” — these 
 and similar expressions remain in the memory when 
 other features of Horace’s style, equally charac- 
 teristic, but less obvious, are forgotten. It is almost 
 impossible for a translator to do justice to this sen- 
 tentious brevity unless the stanza in which he writes 
 is in some sort analogous to the metre of Horace. 
 If he chooses a longer and more diffuse measure, he 
 will be apt to spoil the proverb by expansion ; not 
 to mention that much will often depend on the very 
 position of the sentence in the stanza. Perhaps, in 
 order to preserve these external peculiarities, it may 
 be necessary to recast the expression, to substitute, 
 in fact, one form of proverb for another; but this is 
 far preferable to retaining the words in a diluted 
 form, and so losing what gives them their character. 
 I cannot doubt, then, that it is necessary in trans- 
 lating an Ode of Horace to choose some analogous 
 metre ; as little can I doubt that a translator of the 
 Odes should appropriate to each Ode some parti- 
 cular metre as its own. It may be true that Horace 
 himself does not invariably suit his metre to his 
 subject; the solemn Alcaic is used for a poem in 
 dispraise of serious thought and praise of wine ; the 
 Asclepiad stanza in wdiich Quintilius is lamented is 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE ; 
 
 employed to describe the loves of Maecenas and 
 Licymnia. But though this consideration may in- 
 fluence us in our choice of an English metre, it is 
 no reason for not adhering to the one which we may 
 have chosen. If we translate an Alcaic and a 
 Sapphic Ode into the same English measure, be- 
 cause the feeling in both appears to be the same, 
 we are sure to sacrifice some important charac- 
 teristic of the original in the case of one or the 
 other, perhaps of both. It is better to try to make 
 an English metre more flexible than to use two dif- 
 ferent English metres to represent two different 
 aspects of one measure in Latin. I am sorry to say 
 that I have myself deviated from this rule occasion- 
 ally, under circumstances which I shall soon have 
 to explain ; but though I may perhaps succeed in 
 showing that my offences have not been serious, I 
 believe the rule itself to be one of universal applica- 
 tion, always honoured in the observance, if not 
 always equally dishonoured in the breach. 
 
 The question, what metres should be selected, is 
 of course one of very great difficulty. I can only 
 explain what my own practice has been, with some 
 of the reasons which have influenced me in parti- 
 cular cases. Perhaps we may take Milton’s cele- 
 brated translation of the Ode to Pyrrha as a starting 
 
PREFACE . 
 
 xi 
 
 point. There can be no doubt that to an English 
 reader the metre chosen does give much of the effect 
 of the original ; jet the resemblance depends rather 
 on the length of the respective lines than on any 
 similarity in the cadences. But it is evident that 
 he chose the iambic movement as the ordinary 
 movement of English poetry ; and it is evident, I 
 think, that in translating Horace we shall he right 
 in doing the same, as a general rule. Anapaestic 
 and other rhythms may he beautiful and appropriate 
 in themselves, hut they cannot he manipulated so 
 easily ; the stanzas with which they are associated 
 bear no resemblance, as stanzas, to the stanzas of 
 Horace’s Odes. I have then followed Milton in 
 appropriating the measure in question to the Latin 
 metre, technically called the fourth Asclepiad, at 
 the same time that I have substituted rhyme for 
 blank verse, believing rhyme to be an inferior 
 artist’s only chance of giving pleasure. There still 
 remains a question about the distribution of the 
 rhymes, which here, as in most other cases, I have 
 chosen to make alternate. Successive rhymes have 
 their advantages, but they do not give the effect of 
 interlinking, which is so natural in a stanza; the 
 quatrain is reduced to two couplets, and its unity is 
 gone. Erom the fourth to the third Asclepiad the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xii 
 
 step is easy. Taking an English iambic line of ten 
 syllables to represent the longer lines of the Latin, 
 an English iambic line of six syllables to represent 
 the shorter, we see that the metre of Horace’s 
 “ Scriberis Vario ” finds its representative in the 
 metre of Mr. Tennyson’s “ Dream of Fair Women/’ 
 My experience would lead me to believe the English 
 metre to be quite capable, in really skilful hands, of 
 preserving the effect of the Latin, though, as I have 
 said above, the Latin measure is employed by 
 Horace both for a threnody and for a love-song. 
 
 The Sapphic and the Alcaic involve more difficult 
 questions. Here, however, as in the Asclepiad, I 
 believe we must be guided, to some extent, by ex- 
 ternal similarity. We must choose the iambic move- 
 ment as being most congenial to English ; we must 
 avoid the ten-syllable iambic as already appropriated 
 to the longer Asclepiad line. This leads me to 
 conclude that the staple of each stanza should he the 
 eight-syllable iambic, a measure more familiar to 
 English lyric poetry than any other, and as such 
 well adapted to represent the most familiar lyric 
 measures of Horace. With regard to the Sapphic, 
 it seems desirable that it should be represented by 
 a measure of which the three first lines are eight- 
 syllable iambics, the fourth some shorter variety. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xiii 
 
 Of this stanza there are at least two kinds for which 
 something might be said. It might he constructed 
 so that the three first lines should rhyme with each 
 other, the fourth being otherwise dealt with ; or it 
 might he framed on the plan of alternate rhymes, 
 the fourth line still being shorter than the rest. Of 
 the former kind two or three specimens are to be 
 found in Francis’ translation of Horace. In these 
 the fourth line consists of but three syllables, the 
 two last of which rhyme with the two last syllables 
 of the fourth line of the next succeeding stanza, as 
 for instance : — 
 
 You shoot ; she whets her tusks to bite ; 
 
 While he who sits to judge the fight 
 Treads on the palm with foot so white, 
 Disdainful, 
 
 And sweetly floating in the air 
 Wanton he spreads his fragrant hair, 
 
 Like Ganymede or Nireus fair, 
 
 And vainfuk 
 
 It would be possible, no doubt, to produce verses 
 better adapted to recommend the measure than these 
 stanzas, which are, however, the best that can be 
 quoted from Francis ; it might be possible, too, to 
 suggest some improvement in the structure of the 
 fourth line. But, however managed, this stanza 
 would, I think, be open to two serious objections ; 
 
XIV 
 
 PREFACE . 
 
 the difficulty of finding three suitable rhymes for 
 each stanza, and the difficulty of disposing of the 
 fourth line, which, if made to rhyme with the fourth 
 line of the next stanza, produces an awkwardness in 
 the case of those Odes which consist of an odd num- 
 ber of stanzas (a large proportion of the whole 
 amount), if left unrhymed, creates an obviously dis- 
 agreeable effect. We come then to the other alter- 
 native, the stanza with alternate rhymes. Here the 
 question is about the fourth line, which may either 
 consist of six syllables, like Coleridge’s Fragment, 
 “ O leave the lily on its stem,” or of four, as in 
 Pope’s youthful “ Ode on Solitude,” these types 
 being further varied by the addition of an extra 
 syllable to form a double rhyme. Of these the 
 four- syllable type seems to me the one to be pre- 
 ferred, as giving the effect of the Adonic better than 
 if it had been two syllables longer. The double 
 rhyme has, I think, an advantage over the single, 
 were it not for its greater difficulty. Much as 
 English lyric poetry owes to double rhymes, a re- 
 gular supply of them is not easy to procure ; some 
 of them are apt to be cumbrous, such as words in 
 -ation ; others, such as the participial - ing {dying, 
 flying , <fcc.), spoil the language of poetry, leading 
 to the employment of participles where participles 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xv 
 
 are not wanted, and of verbal substantives that exist 
 nowhere else. My first intention was to adopt the 
 double rhyme in this measure, and I accordingly 
 executed three Odes on that plan (Book I. Odes 
 22, 38 : Book II. Ode 16) ; afterwards I aban- 
 doned it, and contented myself with the single 
 rhyme. On the whole, I certainly think this 
 measure answers sufficiently well to the Latin Sap- 
 phic ; but I have felt its brevity painfully in almost 
 every Ode that I have attempted, being constantly 
 obliged to omit some part of the Latin which I would 
 gladly have preserved. The great number of mono- 
 syllables in English is of course a reason for ac- 
 quiescing in lines shorter than the corresponding 
 lines in Latin ; but even in English polysyllables 
 are often necessary, and still oftener desirable on 
 grounds of harmony ; and an allowance of twenty- 
 eight syllables of English for thirty-eight of Latin 
 is, after all, rather short. 
 
 Eor the place of the Alcaic there are various can- 
 didates. Mr. Tennyson has recently invented a 
 measure which, if not intended to reproduce the 
 Alcaic, was doubtless suggested by it, that which 
 appears in his poem of “ The Daisy,” and, in a 
 slightly different form, in the “ Lines to Mr. 
 Maurice.” The two last lines of the latter form of 
 
XVI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 the stanza are indeed evidently copied from the 
 Alcaic, with the simple omission of the last syllable 
 of the last line of the original. Still, as a whole, I 
 doubt whether this form would be as suitable, at 
 least for a dignified Ode, as the other, where the 
 initial iambic in the last line, substituted for a 
 trochee, makes the movement different. I was de- 
 terred, however, from attempting either, partly by 
 a doubt whether either had been sufficiently natu- 
 ralized in English to be safely practised by an un- 
 skilful hand, partly by the obvious difficulty of 
 having to provide three rhymes per stanza, against 
 which the occurrence of one line in each without a 
 rhyme at all was but a poor set-off. A second 
 metre which occurred to me is that of Andrew 
 Marvel’s Horatian Ode, a variety of which is found 
 twice in Mr. Keble’s Christian Year. Here two 
 lines of eight syllables are followed by two of six, 
 the difference between the types being that in Mar- 
 vel’s Ode the rhymes are successive, in Mr. Keble’s 
 alternate. The external correspondence between 
 this and the Alcaic is considerable ; but the brevity 
 of the English measure struck me at once as a fatal 
 obstacle, and I did not try to encounter it. A third 
 possibility is the stanza of “ In Memoriam,” which 
 has been adopted by the clever author of “ Poems 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XVII 
 
 and Translations, by C. S. C.,” in his version of 
 “ Justum et tenacem.” I think it very probable 
 that this will be found eventually to be the best 
 representation of the Alcaic in English, especially 
 as it appears to afford facilities for that linking of 
 stanza to stanza which one who wishes to adhere 
 closely to the logical and rhythmical structure of the 
 Latin soon learns to desire. But I have not adopted 
 it ; and I believe there is good reason for not doing 
 so. With all its advantages, it has the patent dis- 
 advantage of having been brought into notice by a 
 poet who is influencing the present generation as 
 only a great living poet can. A great writer now, 
 an inferior writer hereafter, may be able to handle 
 it with some degree of independence ; but the ma- 
 jority of those who use it at present are sure in 
 adopting Mr. Tennyson’s metre to adopt his man- 
 ner. It is no reproach to “ C. S. C.” that his Ode 
 reminds us of Mr. Tennyson ; it is a praise to him 
 that the recollection is a pleasant one. But Mr. 
 Tennyson’s manner is not the manner of Horace, 
 and it is the manner of a contemporary ; the ex- 
 pression — a most powerful and beautiful expression 
 — of influences to which a translator of an ancient 
 classic feels himself to be too much subjected al- 
 ready. What is wanted is a metre which shall have 
 b 
 
XV111 
 
 PREFACE . 
 
 other associations than those of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, which shall he the growth of various periods 
 of English poetry, and so he independent of any. 
 Such a metre is that which I have been led to 
 choose, the eight- syllable iambic with alternate 
 rhymes. It is one of the commonest metres in the 
 language, and for that reason it is adapted to more 
 than one class of subjects, to the gay as well as to 
 the grave. But I am mistaken if it is not peculiarly 
 suited to express that concentrated grandeur, that 
 majestic combination of high eloquence with high 
 poetry, which make the early Alcaic Odes of 
 Horace’s Third Book what they are to us. The main 
 difficulty is in accommodating its structure to that of 
 the Latin, of varying the pauses, and of linking stanza 
 to stanza. It is a difficulty before which I have felt 
 myself almost powerless, and I have in consequence 
 been driven to the natural expedient of weakness, 
 compromise, sometimes evading it, sometimes coping 
 with it unsuccessfully. In other respects I may be 
 allowed to say that I have found the metre plea- 
 santer to handle than any of the others that I have 
 attempted, except, perhaps, that of “ The Dream of 
 Fair Women.” The proportion of syllables in each 
 stanza of English to each stanza of Latin is not much 
 greater than in the case of the Sapphic, thirty-two 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XiX 
 
 against forty-one ; yet, except in a few passages, 
 chiefly those containing proper names, I have had 
 no disagreeable sense of confinement. I believe the 
 reason of this to be that the Latin Alcaic generally 
 contains fewer words in proportion than the Latin 
 Sapphic, the former being favourable to long words, 
 the latter to short ones, as may be seen by contrast- 
 ing such lines as “ Dissentientis conclitionibus ” 
 with such as 66 Dona prcesentis rape Icetus horce ac .” 
 This, no doubt, shows that there is an inconvenience 
 in applying the same English iambic measure to two 
 metres which differ so greatly in their practical re- 
 sult; but so far as I can see at present, the evil 
 appears to be one of those which it is wiser to sub- 
 mit to than to attempt to cure. 
 
 The problem of finding English representatives 
 for the other Horatian metres, if a more difficult, is 
 a less important one. The most pressing case is 
 that of the metre known as the second Asclepiad, 
 the “ Sic te diva potens CypriP With this, I fear, 
 I shall be thought to have dealt rather capriciously, 
 having rendered it by four different measures, three 
 of them, however, varieties of the same general 
 type. It so happens that the first Ode which I 
 translated was the celebrated Amcebean Poem, the 
 dialogue between Horace and Lydia. I had had at 
 
XX 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 that time not the most distant notion of translating 
 the whole of the Odes, or even any considerable 
 number of them, so that in choosing a metre I 
 thought simply of the requirements of the Ode in 
 question, not of those of the rest of its class. In- 
 deed, I may say that it was the thought of the metre 
 which led me to try if I could translate the Ode. 
 Haying accomplished my attempt, I turned to an- 
 other Ode of the same class, the scarcely less cele- 
 brated, “ Quern tu , Melpomene For this I took a 
 different metre, which happens to he identical with 
 that of a solitary Ode in the Second Book, “ Non 
 ehur neque aureum” being guided still by my feel- 
 ing about the individual Ode, not by any more 
 general considerations. I did not attempt a third 
 until I had proceeded sufficieitly far in my under- 
 taking to see that I should probably continue to the 
 end. Then I had to consider the question of a 
 uniform metre to answer to the Latin. Both of 
 those which I had already tried were rendered im- 
 practicable by a double rhyme, which, however 
 manageable in one or two Odes, is unmanageable, 
 as I have before intimated, in the case of a large 
 number. The former of the two measures, divested 
 of the double rhyme, would, I think, lose most of its 
 attractiveness ; the latter suffers much less from the 
 
PEE FA CE. 
 
 xxi 
 
 privation : the latter accordingly I chose. The 
 trochaic character of the first line seems to me to 
 give it an advantage over any metre composed of 
 pure iambics, if it were only that it discriminates it 
 from those alternate ten-syllable and eight-syllable 
 iambics into which it would be natural to render 
 many of the Epodes. At the same time, it did not 
 appear worth while to rewrite the two Odes already 
 translated, merely for the sake of uniformity, as the 
 principle of correspondence to the Latin, the alterna- 
 tion of longer and shorter lines, is really the same 
 in all three cases. JSTa y, so tentative has been my 
 treatment of the whole matter, that I have even 
 translated one Ode, the third of Book I, into suc- 
 cessive rather than into alternate rhymes, so that 
 readers may judge of the comparative effect of the 
 two varieties. After this confession of irregularity, 
 I need scarcely mention that on coming to the Ode 
 which had suggested the metre in its unmutilated 
 state, I translated it into the mutilated form, not 
 caring either to encounter the inconvenience of the 
 double rhymes, or to make confusion worse con- 
 founded oy giving it, what it has in the Latin, a 
 separate form of its own. 
 
 The remaining metres may he dismissed in a 
 very few words. As a general rule, I have avoided 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xxii 
 
 couplets of any sort, and chosen some kind of stanza. 
 As a German critic has pointed out, all the Odes of 
 Horace, with one doubtful exception, may be re* 
 duced to quatrains ; and though this peculiarity 
 does not, so far as we can see, affect the character 
 of any of the Horatian metres (except, of course, 
 those that are written in stanzas), or influence the 
 structure of the Latin, it must be considered as a 
 happy circumstance for those who wish to render 
 Horace into English. In respect of restraint, in- 
 deed, the English couplet may sometimes he less 
 inconvenient than the quatrain, as it is, on the whole, 
 easier to run couplet into couplet than to run quat- 
 rain into quatrain ; but the couplet seems hardly 
 suitable for an English, lyrical poem of any length, 
 the very notion of lyrical poetry apparently involv- 
 ing a complexity which can only be represented by 
 rhymes recurring at intervals. In the case of one 
 of the three poems written by Horace in the measure 
 called the greater Asclepiad, (“ Tu ne qucesieris ,”) 
 I have adopted the couplet ; in another (“ Nullam , 
 Vare ,”) the quatrain, the determining reason in the 
 two cases being the length of the two Odes, the 
 former of which consists but of eight lines, the latter 
 of sixteen. The metre which I selected for each is 
 the thirteen-syllable trochaic of u Locksley Hall ; ” 
 
PR EFA C E. xxiii 
 
 and it is curious to observe the different effect of the 
 metre according as it is written in two lines or in 
 four. In the “ Locksley Hall ” couplet its move- 
 ment is undoubtedly trochaic ; but when it is ex- 
 panded into a quatrain, as in Mrs. Browning’s poem 
 of “ Lady Geraldine’s Courtship,” the movement 
 changes, and instead of a more or less equal stress 
 on the alternate syllables, the full ictus is only felt 
 in one syllable out of every four ; in ancient metrical 
 language the metre becomes Ionic a minore. This 
 very Ionic a minore is itself, I need not say, the 
 metre of a single Ode in the Third Book, the 
 “ Miserarum est ,” and I have devised a stanza for 
 it, taking much more pains with the apportionment 
 of the ictus than in the case of the trochaic quatrain, 
 which is better able to modulate itself. I have also 
 ventured to invent a metre for that technically 
 known as the Fourth Archilochian, the “ Solvitur 
 acris hiems by combining the fourteen-syllable 
 with the ten-syllable iambic in an alternately rhym- 
 ing stanza.* The First Archilochian, “ Biffugere 
 nives ,” I have represented by a combination of the 
 
 * I may be permitted to mention that Lord Derby, in a 
 volume of Translations printed privately before the appear- 
 ance of this work, has employed the same measure in render- 
 ing the same Ode, the only difference being that his rhymes 
 are not alternate, but successive. 
 
XXIV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ten-syllable witli the four- syllable iambic. For the 
 so-called greater Sapphic, the “ Lydia , die per 
 omnes ,” I have made another iambic combination, 
 the six-syllable with the fourteen-syllable, arranged 
 as a couplet. The choriambic I thought might be 
 exchanged for a heroic stanza, in which the first 
 line should rhyme with the fourth, the second with 
 the third, a kind of “ In Memoriatn ” elongated. 
 Lastly, I have chosen the heroic quatrain proper, 
 the metre of Gray’s “ Elegy,” for the two Odes in 
 the First Book written in what is called the Metrurn 
 Alcmanium , “ Laudabunt alii ” and “ Te mavis et 
 terree” rather from a vague notion of the dignity of 
 the measure than from any distinct sense of special 
 appropriateness. 
 
 From this enumeration, which I fear has been 
 somewhat tedious, it will be seen that I have been 
 guided throughout not by any systematic principles, 
 but by a multitude of minor considerations, some 
 operating more strongly in one case, and some in 
 another. I trust, however, that in all this diversity 
 I shall be found to have kept in view the object on 
 which I have been insisting, a metrical corres- 
 pondence with the original. Even where I have 
 been most inconsistent, I have still adhered to the 
 rule of comprising the English within the same 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XXV 
 
 number of lines as the Latin. I believe this to be 
 almost essential to the preservation of the character 
 of the Horatian lyric, which always retains a certain 
 severity, and never loses itself in modern exube- 
 rance ; and though I am well aware that the result 
 in my case has frequently, perhaps generally, been 
 a most un-Horatian stiffness, I am convinced from 
 my own experience that a really accomplished artist 
 would find the task of composing under these condi- 
 tions far more hopeful than he had previously ima- 
 gined it to be. Yet it is a restraint to which scarcely 
 any of the previous translators of the Odes have 
 been willing to submit. Perhaps Professor Newman 
 is the only one who has carried it through the whole 
 of the Four Books ; most of my predecessors have 
 ignored it altogether. It is this which, in my judg- 
 ment, is the chief drawback to the success of the 
 most distinguished of them, Mr. Theodore Martin. 
 He has brought to his work a grace and delicacy of 
 expression and a happy flow of musical verse which 
 are beyond my praise, and which render many of 
 his Odes most pleasing to read as poems. I wish 
 he had combined with these qualities that terseness 
 and condensation which remind us that a Homan, 
 even when writing “ songs of love and wine,” was a 
 Homan still. 
 
XXVI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Some may consider it extraordinary that in dis- 
 cussing the different ways of representing Horatian 
 metres I have said nothing of transplanting those 
 metres themselves into English. I think, however, 
 that an apology for my silence may he found in the 
 present state of the controversy about the English 
 hexameter. Whatever may be the ultimate fate of 
 that struggling alien — and I confess myself to be 
 one of those who doubt whether he can ever he 
 naturalized — most judges will, I believe, agree that 
 for the present at any rate his case is sufficient to 
 occupy the literary tribunals, and that to raise any 
 discussion on the rights of others of his class would 
 be premature. Practice, after all, is more powerful 
 in such matters than theory; and hardly at any 
 time in the three hundred years during which we 
 have had a formed literature has the introduction of 
 classical lyric measures into English been a practical 
 question. Stanihurst has had many successors in the 
 hexameter ; probably he has not had more than one 
 or two in the Asclepiad. The Sapphic, indeed, has 
 been tried repeatedly ; but it is an exception which 
 is no exception, the metre thus intruded into our lan- 
 guage not being really the Latin Sapphic, but a metre 
 of a different kind, founded on a mistake in the manner 
 of reading the Latin, into which Englishmen natu- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XXV11 
 
 rally fall, and in which, for convenience’ sake, they as 
 naturally persist. The late Mr. Clough, whose efforts 
 in literature were essentially tentative, in form as well 
 as in spirit, and whose loss for that very reason is 
 perhaps of more serious import to English poetry 
 than if, with equal genius, he had possessed a more 
 conservative habit of mind, once attempted repro- 
 ductions of nearly all the different varieties of Hora- 
 tian metres. They may he found in a paper which 
 he contributed to the fourth volume of the “ Classical 
 Museum and a perusal of them will, I think, be 
 likely to convince the reader that the task is one in 
 which even great rhythmical power and mastery of 
 language would be far from certain of succeeding. 
 Even the Alcaic fragment which he has inserted in 
 his “ Amours de Voyage ” — 
 
 C£ Eager for battle here 
 Stood Vulcan, here matronal Juno, 
 
 And with the bow to his shoulder faithful 
 He who with pure dew laveth of Castaly 
 His flowing locks, who holdeth of Lycia 
 
 The oak forest and the wood that bore him, 
 Delos’ and Patara's own Apollo,” — 
 
 admirably finished as it is, and highly pleasing as a 
 fragment, scarcely persuades us that twenty stanzas 
 of the same workmanship would be read with 
 adequate pleasure, still less that the same satis- 
 
XXV111 
 
 PREFACE . 
 
 faction would be felt through six-and-thirty Odes. 
 After all, however, a sober critic will be disposed 
 rather to pass judgment on the past than to predict 
 the future, knowing, as he must, how easily the 
 “ solvitur ambulando 99 of an artist like Mr. Tenny- 
 son may disturb a whole chain of ingenious reason- 
 ing on the possibilities of things. 
 
 The question of the language into which Horace 
 should be translated is not less important than that of 
 the metre ; but it involves far less discussion of points 
 of detail, and may, in fact, be very soon dismissed. I 
 believe that the chief danger which a translator has 
 to avoid is that of subjection to the influences of his 
 own period. Whether or no Mr. Merivale is right 
 in supposing that an analogy exists between the 
 literature of the present day and that of post- 
 Augustan Home, it will not, I think, be disputed 
 that between our period and the Augustan period 
 the resemblances are very few, perhaps not more 
 than must necessarily exist between two periods of 
 high cultivation. It is the fashion to say that the 
 characteristic of the literature of the last century 
 was shallow clearness, the expression of obvious 
 thoughts in obvious, though highly finished lan- 
 guage ; it is the fashion to retort upon our own 
 generation that its tendency is to over- thinking and 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 over- expression, a constant search for thoughts 
 which shall not be obvious and words which shall be 
 above the level of received conventionality. Accept- 
 ing these as descriptions, however imperfect, of 
 two different types of literature, we can have no 
 doubt to which division to refer the literary remains 
 of Augustan Rome. The Odes of Horace, in parti- 
 cular, will, I think, strike a reader who comes back 
 to them after reading other books, as distinguished 
 by a simplicity, monotony, and almost poverty of 
 sentiment, and as depending for the charm of their 
 external form not so much on novel and ingenious 
 images as on musical words aptly chosen and aptly 
 combined. We are always hearing of wine-jars and 
 Thracian convivialities, of parsley wreaths and 
 Syrian nard ; the graver topics, which it is the poet’s 
 wisdom to forget, are constantly typified by the 
 terrors of quivered Medes and painted Gelonians ; 
 there is the perpetual antithesis between youth and 
 age, there is the ever-recurring image of green and 
 withered trees, and it is only the attractiveness of 
 the Latin, half real, half perhaps arising from asso- 
 ciation and the romance of a language not one’s 
 own, that makes us feel this “ lyrical common- 
 place” more supportable than common-place is 
 usually found to be. It is this, indeed, which con- 
 
YXX 
 
 PREFACE . 
 
 stitutes the grand difficulty of the translator, who 
 may well despair when he undertakes to reproduce 
 beauties depending on expression by a process in 
 which expression is sure to be sacrificed. But it 
 would, I think, be a mistake to attempt to get rid 
 of this monotony by calling in the aid of that variety 
 of images and forms of language which modern 
 poetry presents. Here, as in the case of metres, it 
 seems to me that to exceed the hounds of what may 
 be called classical parsimony would be to abandon 
 the one chance, faint as it may be, of producing on 
 the reader’s mind something like the impression 
 produced by Horace. I do not say that I have 
 always been as abstinent as I think a translator 
 ought to be ; here, as in all matters connected with 
 this most difficult work, weakness may claim a 
 licence of which strength would disdain to avail 
 itself ; I only say that I have not surrendered 
 myself to the temptation habitually and without a 
 struggle. As a general rule, while not unfrequently 
 compelled to vary the precise image Horace has 
 chosen, I have substituted one which he has used 
 elsewhere; where he has talked of triumphs, mean- 
 ing no more than victories, I have talked of bays ; 
 where he gives the picture of the luxuriant harvests 
 of Sardinia, I have spoken of the wheat on the 
 
PREFA CE. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 thresliing-floors. On the whole I have tried, so far 
 as my powers would allow me, to give my translation 
 something of the colour of our eighteenth- century 
 poetry, believing the poetry of that time to be the 
 nearest analogue of the poetry of Augustus’ court 
 that England has produced, and feeling quite sure 
 that a writer will bear traces enough of the language 
 and manner of his own time to redeem him from the 
 charge of having forgotten what is after all his 
 native tongue. As one instance out of many, 1 may 
 mention the use of compound epithets as a tempta- 
 tion to which the translator of Horace is sure to be 
 exposed, and which, in my judgment, he ought in 
 general to resist. Their power of condensation 
 naturally recommends them to a writer who has to 
 deal with inconvenient clauses, threatening to swallow 
 up the greater part of a line ; but there is no doubt 
 that in the Augustan poets, as compared with the 
 poets of the republic, they are chiefly conspicuous 
 for their absence, and it is equally certain, I think, 
 that a translator of an Augustan poet ought not to 
 suffer them to be a prominent feature of his style. I 
 have, perhaps, indulged in them too often myself to 
 note them as a defect in others ; but it seems to me 
 that they contribute, along with the Tennysonian 
 metre, to diminish the pleasure with which we read 
 
XXXll 
 
 PEE FA CE . 
 
 such a version as that of which I have already 
 spoken by “ C. S. CP of “ Justum et tenacem.” I 
 may add, too, that I have occasionally allowed the 
 desire of brevity to lead me into an omission of the 
 definite article, which, though perhaps in keeping 
 with the style of Milton, is certainly out of keeping 
 with that of the eighteenth century. It is one of a 
 translator’s many refuges, and has been conceded 
 so long that it can hardly he denied him with justice, 
 however it may remind the reader of a bald verbal 
 rendering. 
 
 A very few words will serve to conclude this 
 somewhat protracted Preface. I have not sought to 
 interpret Horace with the minute accuracy which I 
 should think necessary in writing a commentary ; 
 and in general I have been satisfied to consult two 
 of the latest editions, those by Orelli and Hitter. 
 In a few instances I have preferred the views of the 
 latter ; but his edition will not supersede that of the 
 former, whose commentary is one of the most judi- 
 cious ever produced, within a moderate compass, 
 upon a classical author. In the few notes which I 
 have added at the end of this volume, I have noticed 
 chiefly the instances in which I have differed from 
 him, in favour either of Hitter’s interpretation, or of 
 some view of my own. At the same time it must 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XXXiA 
 
 be said that my translation is not to be understood 
 as always indicating the interpretation I prefer. 
 Sometimes, where the general effect of two views of 
 the construction of a passage has been the same, I 
 have followed that which I believed to be less cor- 
 rect, for reasons of convenience. I have of course 
 held myself free to deviate in a thousand instances 
 from the exact form of the Latin sentence ; and it 
 did not seem reasonable to debar myself from a 
 mode of expression which appeared generally con- 
 sistent with the original, because it happened to be 
 verbally consistent with a mistaken view of the 
 Latin words. To take an example mentioned in 
 my notes, it may be better in Book III. Ode 3, 
 line 25, to make “ adulterce” the genitive case after 
 “Tiospes” than the dative after “splendet;” but 
 for practical purposes the two come to the same 
 thing, both being included in the full development 
 of the thought ; and a translation which represents 
 either is substantially a true translation. I have 
 omitted four Odes altogether, one in each Book, 
 and some stanzas of a fifth ; and in some other in- 
 stances I have been studiously paraphrastic. Nor 
 have I thought it worth while to extend my trans- 
 ation from the Odes to the Epodes. The Epodes 
 were the production of Horace’s youth, and pro- 
 c 
 
XXXIV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 bably would not have been much cared for by pos- 
 terity if they had constituted his only title to fame. 
 A few of them are beautiful, but some are revolting, 
 and the rest, as pictures of a roving and sensual 
 passion, remind us of the least attractive portion of 
 the Odes. In the case of a writer like Horace it is 
 not easy to draw an exact line; but though in 
 the Odes our admiration of much that is graceful 
 and tender and even true may balance our moral 
 repugnance to many parts of the poet’s philosophy 
 of life, it does not seem equally desirable to dwell 
 minutely on a class of compositions where the beau- 
 ties are fewer and the deformities more numerous 
 and more undisguised. 
 
 I should add that any coincidences that may be 
 noticed between my version and those of my prede- 
 cessors are, for the most part, merely coincidences. 
 In some cases I may have knowingly borrowed a 
 rhyme, but only where the rhyme was too common 
 to have created a right of property. 
 
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 AM very sensible of the favour which 
 has carried this translation from a first 
 edition into a second. The interval 
 between the two has been too short 
 to admit of my altering my judgment in any 
 large number of instances ; but I have been glad to 
 employ the present opportunity in amending, as I 
 hope, an occasional word or expression, and, in one 
 or two cases, recasting a stanza. The notices which 
 my book has received, and the opinions communi- 
 cated by the kindness of friends, have been gratify- 
 ing to me, both in themselves, and as showing the 
 interest which is being felt in the subject of IToratian 
 translation. It is not surprising that there should 
 be considerable differences of opinion about the 
 manner in which Horace is to be rendered, and also 
 about the metre appropriate to particular Odes ; but 
 
XXXVI 
 
 PREFACE . 
 
 I need not say that it is through such discussion 
 that questions like these advance towards settlement. 
 It would indeed be a satisfaction to me to think that 
 the question of translating Horace had been brought 
 a step nearer to its solution by the experiment which 
 I again venture to submit to the public. 
 
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. 
 
 
 ^HE changes which I have made in this 
 
 impression of m y translation are some- 
 /jSi what more numerous than those which 
 
 I was able to introduce into the last, 
 as might be expected from the longer interval be- 
 tween the times of publication ; but the work may 
 still be spoken of as substantially unaltered. 
 
THE ODES OF HORACE. 
 
/! 
 
THE ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 I. 
 
 Mcecenas atavis. 
 
 iEC ENAS, born of monarch ancestors, 
 The shield at once and glory of my 
 life ! 
 
 There are who joy them in the 
 Olympic strife 
 
 And love the dust they gather in the course ; 
 
 The goal by hot wheels shunn’d, the famous prize, 
 Exalt them to the gods that rule mankind ; 
 
 This joys, if rabbles fickle as the wind 
 Through triple grade of honours bid him rise, 
 That, if his granary has stored away 
 
 Of Libya’s thousand floors the yield entire ; 
 
 The man who digs his field as did his sire, 
 
 With honest pride, no Attalus may sway 
 By proffer’d wealth to tempt Myrtoan seas, 
 
 The timorous captain of a Cyprian bark. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 The winds that make Icarian billows dark 
 The merchant fears, and hugs the rural ease 
 Of his own village home ; but soon, ashamed 
 Of penury, he refits his batter’d craft. 
 
 There is, who thinks no scorn of Massic draught, 
 Who robs the daylight of an hour unblamed, 
 
 Now stretch’d beneath the arbute on the sward, 
 Now by some gentle river’s sacred spring ; 
 Some love the camp, the clarion’s joyous ring, 
 And battle, by the mother’s soul abhorr’d. 
 
 See, patient waiting in the clear keen air, 
 
 The hunter, thoughtless of his delicate bride, 
 Whether the trusty hounds a stag have eyed, 
 Or the fierce Marsian boar has burst the snare. 
 
 To me the artist’s meed, the ivy wreath 
 
 Is very heaven: me the sweet cool of woods, 
 Where Satyrs frolic with the Nymphs, secludes 
 From rabble rout, so but Euterpe’s breath 
 Fail not the flute, nor Polyhymnia fly 
 
 Averse from stringing new the Lesbian lyre. 
 
 0, write my name among that minstrel choir, 
 And my proud head shall strike upon the sky ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Jam satis terris . 
 
 T? NOUGH of snow and hail at last 
 
 The Sire has sent in vengeance down : 
 
 His bolts, at His own temple cast, 
 
 Appall’d the town, 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 3 
 
 Appall’d the lands, lest Pyrrha’s time 
 Beturn, with all its monstrous sights, 
 When Proteus led his flocks to climb 
 The flatten’d heights, 
 
 When fish were in the elm- tops caught, 
 Where once the stock- dove wont to bide, 
 And does were floating, all distraught, 
 Adown the tide. 
 
 Old Tiber, hurl’d in tumult back 
 
 From mingling with the Etruscan main, 
 Has threaten’d Duma’s court with wrack 
 And Yesta’s fane. 
 
 Boused by his Ilia’s plaintive woes, 
 
 He vows revenge for guiltless blood, 
 
 And, spite of Jove, his banks o’erfiows, 
 Uxorious flood. 
 
 Yes, Fame shall tell of civic steel 
 That better Persian lives had spilt, 
 
 To youths, whose minish’d numbers feel 
 Their parents’ guilt. 
 
 What god shall Borne invoke to stay 
 Her fall ? Can suppliance overbear 
 The ear of Vesta, turn’d away 
 
 From chant and prayer ? 
 
 Who comes, commission’d to atone 
 
 For crime like ours ? at length appear, 
 
 A cloud round thy bright shoulders thrown, 
 Apollo seer ! 
 
 Or Venus, laughter-loving dame, 
 
 Bound whom gay Loves and Pleasures fly ; 
 
4 
 
 ODES OF HOE ACE. 
 
 Or thou, if slighted sons may claim 
 A parent’s eye, 
 
 0 weary with thy long, long game, 
 
 Who lov’st fierce shouts and helmets bright, 
 And Moorish warrior’s glance of flame 
 Or e’er he smite ! 
 
 Or Maia’s son, if now awhile 
 
 In youthful guise we see thee here, 
 
 Caesar’s avenger — such the style 
 Thou deign’ st to bear ; 
 
 Late be thy journey home, and long 
 'Jhy sojourn with Rome’s family ; 
 
 Nor let thy wrath at our great wrong 
 Lend wings to fly. 
 
 Here take our homage, Chief and Sire ; 
 
 Here wreathe with bay thy conquering brow, 
 And bid the prancing Mede retire, 
 
 Our Caesar thou ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Sic te Diva. 
 
 ' J ''HUS may Cyprus’ heavenly queen, 
 
 Thus Helen’s brethren, stars of brightest 
 sheen, 
 
 Guide thee ! May the Sire of wind 
 Each truant gale, save only Zephyr, bind ! 
 
 So do thou, fair ship, that ow’st 
 Yirgil, thy precious freight, to Attic coast, 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 5 
 
 Safe restore thy loan and whole, 
 
 And save from death the partner of my soul ! 
 
 Oak and brass of triple fold 
 Encompass’d sure that heart, which first madebold 
 To the raging sea to trust 
 A fragile bark, nor fear’d the Afric gust 
 With its Northern mates at strife, 
 
 Nor Hyads’ frown, nor South- wind fury-rife, 
 Mightiest power that Hadria knows, 
 
 Wills he the waves to madden or compose. 
 
 What had Death in store to awe 
 Those eyes, that huge sea-beasts unmelting saw, 
 Saw the swelling of the surge, 
 
 And high Ceraunian cliffs, the seaman’s scourge P 
 Heaven’s high providence in vain 
 Has sever’d countries with the estranging main, 
 If our vessels ne’ertheless 
 With reckless plunge that sacred bar transgress. 
 
 Daring all, their goal to win, 
 
 Men tread forbidden ground, and rush on sin : 
 Daring all, Prometheus play’d 
 His wily game, and fire to man convey’d ; 
 
 Soon as fire was stolen away, 
 
 Pale Fever’s stranger host and wan Decay 
 Swept o’er earth’s polluted face, 
 
 And slow Fate quicken’d Death’s once halting pace. 
 
 Daedalus the void air tried 
 On wings, to humankind by Heaven denied ; 
 
 Acheron’s bar gave way with ease 
 Before the arm of labouring Hercules. 
 
6 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 Nought is there for man too high ; 
 
 Our impious folly e’en would climb the sky, 
 Braves the dweller on the steep, 
 
 Nor lets the bolts of heavenly vengeance sleep. 
 
 I Y. 
 
 SoJvitur acris Jiiems. 
 
 HP HE touch of Zephyr and of Spring has loosen’d 
 ^ Winter’s thrall ; 
 
 The well-dried keels are wheel’d again to sea : 
 
 The ploughman cares not for his fire, nor cattle for 
 their stall, 
 
 And frost no more is whitening all the lea. 
 
 Now Cytherea leads the dance, the bright moon 
 overhead ; 
 
 The Graces and the Nymphs, together knit, 
 
 With rhythmic feet the meadow beat, while Vul- 
 can, fiery red, 
 
 Heats the Cyclopian forge in ./Etna’s pit. 
 
 ’Tis now the time to wreathe the brow with branch 
 of myrtle green, 
 
 Or flowers, just opening to the vernal breeze ; 
 
 Now Faunus claims his sacrifice among the shady 
 treen, 
 
 Lambkin or kidling, which soe’er he please. 
 
 Pale Death, impartial, walks his round : he knocks 
 at cottage -gate 
 
BOOK I ; 
 
 7 
 
 And palace -portal. Sestius, child of bliss ! 
 How should a mortal’s hopes be long, when short 
 his being’s date ? 
 
 Lo here ! the fabulous ghosts, the dark abyss, 
 The void of the Plutonian hall, where soon as e’er 
 you go, 
 
 Ho more for you shall leap the auspicious die 
 To seat you on the throne of wine ; no more your 
 breast shall glow 
 
 For Lycidas, the star of every eye. 
 
 Y. 
 
 Quis multa gracilis, 
 
 \ 1 THAT slender youth, besprinkled with per- 
 * ^ fume, 
 
 Courts you on roses in some grotto’s shade ? 
 Fair Pyrrha, say, for whom 
 Your yellow hair you braid, 
 
 So trim, so simple ! Ah ! how oft shall he 
 Lament that faith can fail, that gods can 
 change, 
 
 Viewing the rough black sea 
 With eyes to tempests strange, 
 
 Who now is basking in your golden smile, 
 
 And dreams of you still fancy-free, still kind, 
 Poor fool, nor knows the guile 
 Of the deceitful wind ! 
 
8 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Woe to the eyes you dazzle without cloud 
 Untried ! For me, they show in yonder fane 
 My dripping garments, vow’d 
 To Him who curbs the main. 
 
 YI. 
 
 Scriberis Vario. 
 
 TVT OT I, but Varius : — he, of Homer’s brood 
 ^ A tuneful swan, shall bear you on his 
 wing, 
 
 Your tale of trophies, won by field or flood, 
 Mighty alike to sing. 
 
 Hot mine such themes, Agrippa ; no, nor mine 
 To chant the wrath that fill’d Pelides’ breast, 
 Hor dark Ulysses’ wanderings o’er the brine, 
 
 Uor Pelops’ house unblest. 
 
 Vast were the task, I feeble; inborn shame, 
 
 And she, who makes the peaceful lyre submit, 
 Forbid me to impair great Caesar’s fame 
 And yours by my weak wit. 
 
 But who may fitly sing of Mars array’d 
 
 In adamant mail, or Merion, black with dust 
 Of Troy, or Tydeus’ son by Pallas’ aid 
 
 Strong against gods to thrust? 
 
 Feasts are my theme, my warriors maidens fair, 
 Who with pared nails encounter youths in fight ; 
 Be Fancy free or caught in Cupid’s snare, 
 
 Her temper still is light. 
 
BOOK L 
 
 9 
 
 VII. 
 
 Laudabunt alii . 
 
 T ET others Rhodes or Mytilene sing, 
 
 J ' Or Ephesus, or Corinth, set between 
 Two seas, or Thebes, or Delphi, for its king 
 Each famous, or Thessalian Tempe green ; 
 There are who make chaste Pallas’ virgin tower 
 The daily burden of unending song, 
 
 And search for wreaths the olive’s rifled bower ; 
 
 The praise of Juno sounds from many a tongue, 
 Telling of Argos’ steeds, Mycense’s gold. 
 
 For me stern Sparta forges no such spell, 
 
 Ho, nor Larissa’s plain of richest mould, 
 
 As bright Albunea echoing from her cell. 
 
 0 headlong Anio ! 0 Tiburnian groves, 
 
 And orchards saturate with shifting streams ! 
 Look how the clear fresh south from heaven removes 
 The tempest, nor with rain perpetual teems ! 
 You too be wise, my Plancus : life’s worst cloud 
 Will melt in air, by mellow wine allay’d, 
 
 Dwell you in camps, with glittering banners proud, 
 Or ’neath your Tibur’s canopy of shade. 
 
 When Teucer fled before his father’s frown 
 From Salamis, they say his temples deep 
 He dipp’din wine, then wreath’d with poplar crown, 
 And bade his comrades lay their grief to sleep : 
 
10 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 “ Where Fortune bears us, than my sire more kind, 
 There let us go, my own, my gallant crew. 
 
 ’Tis Teucer leads, ’tis Teucer breathes the wind ; 
 
 No more despair; Apollo’s word is true. 
 Another Salamis in kindlier air 
 
 Shall yet arise. Hearts, that have borne 
 with me 
 
 Worse buffets ! drown to-day in wine your care ; 
 To-morrow we recross the wide, wide sea ! ” 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Lydia , die per omnes. 
 
 T YDIA, by all above, 
 
 J ' Why bear so hard on Sybaris, to ruin him 
 with love ? 
 
 What change has made him shun 
 The playing-ground, who once so well could bear 
 the dust and sun ? 
 
 Why does he never sit 
 
 On horseback in his company, nor with uneven bit 
 His Gallic courser tame p 
 Why dreads he yellow Tiber, as ’twould sully 
 that fair frame ? 
 
 Like poison loathes the oil, 
 
 His arms no longer black and blue with honour- 
 able toil, 
 
 He who erewhile was known 
 For quoit or javelin oft and oft beyond the limit 
 thrown ? 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 1L 
 
 Why skulks he, as they say 
 Did Thetis’ son before the dawn of Ilion’s fatal day, 
 For fear the manly dress 
 
 Should fling him into danger's arms, amid the 
 Lycian press ? 
 
 IX. 
 
 Vides ut alta. 
 
 CEE, how it stands, one pile of snow, 
 
 ^ Soracte ! ’neath the pressure yield 
 Its groaning woods ; the torrents’ flow 
 With clear sharp ice is all congeal’d. 
 Heap high the logs, and melt the cold, 
 
 Good Thaliarch ; draw the wine we ask, 
 That mellower vintage, four -year-old, 
 
 From out the cellar’d Sabine cask. 
 
 The future trust with Jove ; when He 
 Has still’d the warring tempests’ roar 
 On the vex’d deep, the cypress-tree 
 And aged ash are rock’d no more. 
 
 0, ask not what the morn will bring, 
 
 But count as gain each day that chance 
 May give you ; sport in life’s young spring, 
 Hor scorn sweet love, nor merry dance, 
 While years are green, while sullen eld 
 Is distant. How the walk, the game, 
 The whisper’d talk at sunset held, 
 
 Each in its hour, prefer their claim. 
 
12 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 Sweet too the laugh, whose feign’d alarm 
 The hiding-place of beauty tells, 
 
 The token, ravish’d from the arm 
 Or finger, that but ill rebels. 
 
 X. 
 
 Mercuri facuncle. 
 
 /‘"'BAXDSOH of Atlas, wise of tongue, 
 0 Mercury, whose wit could tame 
 Man’s savage youth by power of song 
 And plastic game ! 
 
 Thee sing I, herald of the sky, 
 
 Who gav’st the lyre its music sweet, 
 Hiding whate’er might please thine eye 
 In frolic cheat. 
 
 See, threatening thee, poor guileless child, 
 Apollo claims, in angry tone, 
 
 His cattle ; — all at once he smiled, 
 
 His quiver gone. 
 
 Strong in thy guidance, Hector’s sire 
 Escaped the Atridae, pass’d between 
 Thessalian tents and warders’ fire, 
 
 Of all unseen. 
 
 Thou lay’st unspotted souls to rest ; 
 
 Thy golden rod pale spectres know ; 
 Blest power ! by all thy brethren blest, 
 Above, below ! 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 13 
 
 XL 
 
 Tu ne qucesieris, 
 
 A SK not (’tis forbidden knowledge), wbat our 
 
 1 ^ destined term of years, 
 
 Mine and yours ; nor scan the tables of your 
 Babylonish seers. 
 
 Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like 
 the past, 
 
 Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or 
 this our last ; 
 
 This , that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend 
 their strength against the shore. 
 
 Strain your wine and prove your wisdom ; life is 
 short ; should hope be more ? 
 
 In the moment of our talking, envious time has 
 ebb’d away. 
 
 Seize the present; trust to-morrow e’en as little 
 as you may. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Quern virum aut heroa. 
 
 A I THAT man, what hero, Clio sweet, 
 v v On harp or flute wilt thou proclaim ? 
 What god shall echo’s voice repeat 
 In mocking game 
 
14 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 To Helicon’s sequester’d shade, 
 
 Or Pindus, or on Heemus chill, 
 
 Where once the hurrying woods obey’d 
 The minstrel’s will, 
 
 Who, by his mother’s gift of song, 
 
 Held the fleet stream, the rapid breeze, 
 
 And led with blandishment along 
 The listening trees p 
 
 Whom praise we first ? the Sire on high, 
 
 Who gods and men unerring guides, 
 
 Who rules the sea, the earth, the sky, 
 
 Their times and tides. 
 
 Ho mightier birth may He beget ; 
 
 Ho like, no second has He known ; 
 
 Yet nearest to her sire’s is set 
 Minerva’s throne. 
 
 Hor yet shall Bacchus pass unsaid, 
 
 Bold warrior, nor the virgin foe 
 Of savage beasts, nor Phoebus, dread 
 With deadly bow. 
 
 Alcides too shall be my theme, 
 
 And Leda’s twins, for horses he, 
 
 He famed for boxing ; soon as gleam 
 Their stars at sea, 
 
 The lash’d spray trickles from the steep, 
 
 The wind sinks down, the storm-cloud flies, 
 The threatening billow on the deep 
 Obedient lies. 
 
 Shall now Quirinus take his turn, 
 
 Or quiet Huma, or the state 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 Proud Tarquin held, or Cato stern, 
 
 By death made great ? 
 
 Ay, Begulus and the Scaurian name, 
 
 And Paullus, who at Cannas gave 
 His glorious soul, fair record claim, 
 
 For all were brave. 
 
 Thee, Furius, and Fabricius, thee, 
 
 Rough Curius too, with untrimm’d beard, 
 Your sires’ transmitted poverty 
 To conquest rear’d. 
 
 Marcellus’ fame, its up-growth hid, 
 
 Springs like a tree ; great Julius’ light 
 Shines, like the radiant moon amid 
 The lamps of night. 
 
 Dread Sire and Guardian of man’s race, 
 
 To Thee, 0 Jove, the Fates assign 
 Our Caesar’s charge • his power and place 
 Be next to Thine. 
 
 Whether the Parthian, threatening Rome, 
 His eagles scatter to the wind, 
 
 Or follow to their eastern home 
 Cathay and Ind, 
 
 Thy second let him rule below : 
 
 Thy car shall shake the realms above ; 
 Thy vengeful bolts shall overthrow 
 Each guilty grove. 
 
16 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Cum tu , Lydia . 
 
 '"'PELEPHUS — you praise him still, 
 
 His waxen arms, his rosy-tinted neck ; 
 
 Ah ! and all the while I thrill 
 With jealous pangs I cannot, cannot check. 
 
 See, my colour comes and goes, 
 
 My poor heart flutters, Lydia, and the dew, 
 
 Down my cheek soft stealing, shows 
 What lingering torments rack me through and 
 through. 
 
 Oh, ’tis agony to see 
 
 Those snowwhite shoulders scarr’d in drunken 
 fray, 
 
 Or those ruby lips, where he 
 Has left strange marks, that show how rough his 
 play ! 
 
 Never, never look to find 
 A faithful heart in him whose rage can harm 
 Sweetest lips, which Yenus kind 
 Has tinctured with her quintessential charm. 
 
 Happy, happy, happy they 
 Whose living love, untroubled by all strife, 
 
 Binds them till the last sad day, 
 
 Nor parts asunder but with parting life ! 
 
BOOK L 
 
 17 
 
 XIY. 
 
 0 navis, referent. 
 
 LUCKLESS bark ! new waves will force yon 
 
 To sea. 0, baste to make the haven yours ! 
 E’en now, a helpless wrack, 
 
 You drift, despoil’d of oars ; 
 
 The Afric gale has dealt your mast a wound; 
 Your sailyards groan, nor can your keel sustain, 
 Till lash’d with cables round, 
 
 A more imperious main. 
 
 Your canvass hangs in ribbons, rent and torn ; 
 No gods are left to pray to in fresh need. 
 
 A pine of Pontus born 
 Of noble forest breed, 
 
 You boast your name and lineage — madly blind ! 
 Can painted timbers quell a seaman’s fear ? 
 Beware ! or else the wind 
 Makes you its mock and jeer. 
 
 Your trouble late made sick this heart of mine, 
 And still I love you, still am ill at ease. 
 
 0, shun the sea, where shine 
 The thick- sown Cyclades ! 
 
 back 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 XV 
 
 Pastor cum Iraheret. 
 
 \ T 7HEH the false swain was hurrying o’er the 
 * v deep 
 
 His Spartan hostess in the Idsean bark, 
 
 Old Nereus laid the unwilling winds asleep, 
 
 That all to Fate might hark, 
 
 Speaking through him: — “Home in ill hour you 
 take 
 
 A prize whom Greece shall claim with troops 
 untold, 
 
 Leagued by an oath your marriage tie to break 
 And Priam’s kingdom old. 
 
 Alas ! what deaths you launch on Dardan realm ! 
 
 What toils are waiting, man and horse to tire ! 
 See ! Pallas trims her aegis and her helm, 
 
 Her chariot and her ire. 
 
 Yainly shall you, in Venus’ favour strong, 
 
 Your tresses comb, and for your dames divide 
 On peaceful lyre the several parts of song ; 
 
 Yainly in chamber hide 
 
 From spears and Gnossian arrows, barb’d with 
 fate, 
 
 And battle’s din, and Ajax in the chase 
 Unconquer’d ; those adulterous locks, though late, 
 Shall gory dust deface. 
 
BOOK A 
 
 19 
 
 Hark ! ’tis the death-cr y of your race ! look back ! 
 
 Ulysses comes, and Pylian Nestor grey ; 
 
 See ! Salaminian Teucer on your track, 
 
 And Sthenelus, in the fray 
 Yersed, or with whip and rein, should need require, 
 No laggard. Merion too your eyes shall know 
 From far. Tydides, fiercer than his sire, 
 
 Pursues you, all aglow ; 
 
 Him, as the stag forgets to graze for fright, 
 Seeing the wolf at distance in the glade, 
 
 And flies, high panting, you shall fly, despite 
 Boasts to your leman made. 
 
 What though Achilles’ wrathful fleet postpone 
 The day of doom to Troy and Troy’s proud 
 dames, 
 
 Her towers shall fall, the number’d winters flown, 
 Wrapp’d in Achaean flames.” 
 
 XYI. 
 
 0 matre pulchra . 
 
 LOVELIER than the lovely dame 
 That bore you, sentence as you please 
 Those scurril verses, be it flame 
 
 Your vengeance craves, or Hadrian seas. 
 Not Cybele, nor he that haunts 
 
 Rich Pytho, worse the brain confounds, 
 Not Bacchus, nor the Cory bants 
 
 Clash their loud gongs with fiercer sounds 
 
20 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Than savage wrath ; nor sword nor spear 
 Appals it, no, nor ocean’s frown, 
 
 Nor ravening fire, nor Jupiter 
 In hideous ruin crashing down. 
 Prometheus, forced, they say, to add 
 To his prime clay some favourite part 
 From every kind, took lion mad, 
 
 And lodged its gall in man’s poor heart. 
 ’Twas wrath that laid Thyestes low ; 
 
 ’Tis wrath that oft destruction calls 
 On cities, and invites the foe 
 
 To drive his plough o’er ruin’d walls. 
 Then calm your spirit ; I can tell 
 
 How once, when youth in all my veins 
 Was glowing, blind with rage, I fell 
 On friend and foe in ribald strains. 
 Come, let me change my sour for sweet, 
 And smile complacent as before : 
 
 Hear me my palinode repeat, 
 
 And give me back your heart once more. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Velooc amcenum . 
 
 T HE pleasures of Lucretilis 
 
 Tempt Faunus from his Grecian seat ; 
 He keeps my little goats in bliss 
 
 Apart from wind, and rain, and heat. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 21 
 
 In safety rambling o’er the sward 
 
 For arbutes and for thyme they peer, 
 
 The ladies of the unfragrant lord, 
 
 Nor vipers, green with venom, fear, 
 
 JSTor savage wolves, of Mars’ own breed, 
 
 My Tyndaris, while Ustica’s dell 
 Is vocal with the silvan reed, 
 
 And music thrills the limestone fell. 
 Heaven is my guardian ; Heaven approves 
 A blameless life, by song made sweet ; 
 Come hither, and the fields and groves 
 Their horn shall empty at your feet. 
 
 Here, shelter’d by a friendly tree, 
 
 In Teian measures you shall sing 
 Bright Circe and Penelope, 
 
 Love- smitten both by one sharp sting. 
 Here shall you quaff beneath the shade 
 Sweet Lesbian draughts that injure none, 
 Nor fear lest Mars the realm invade 
 Of Semele’s Thyonian son, 
 
 Lest Cyrus on a foe too weak 
 
 Lay the rude hand of wild excess, 
 
 His passion on your chaplet wreak, 
 
 Or spoil your undeserving dress. 
 
22 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Hullam, Vare. 
 
 \ ^ARUS, are your trees in planting? put in 
 v none before the vine, 
 
 In the rich domain of Tibur, by the walls of 
 Catilus ; 
 
 There’s a power above that hampers all that sober 
 brains design, 
 
 And the troubles man is heir to thus are quell’d, 
 and only thus. 
 
 Who can talk of want or warfare when the wine is 
 in his head, 
 
 Not of thee, good father Bacchus, and of Venus 
 fair and bright ? 
 
 But should any dream of licence, there’s a lesson 
 may be read, 
 
 How ’twas wine that drove the Centaurs with 
 the Lapithaa to fights 
 
 And the Thracians too may warn us ; truth and 
 falsehood, good and ill, 
 
 How they mix them, when the wine-god’s hand 
 is heavy on them laid ! 
 
 Never, never, gracious Bacchus, may I move thee 
 ’gainst thy will, 
 
 Or uncover what is hidden in the verdure of thy 
 shade ! 
 
BOOK L 
 
 28 
 
 Silence thou, thy savage cymbals, and the Berecyn- 
 tine horn ; 
 
 In their train Self-love still follows, dully, des- 
 perately blind, 
 
 And Yain -glory, towering upwards in its empty- 
 headed scorn, 
 
 And the Faith that keeps no secrets, with a 
 window in its mind. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Mater sceva Cujpidinum . 
 
 /^UPID’S mother, cruel dame, 
 
 ^ And Semele’s Theban boy, and Licence bold, 
 Bid me kindle into flame 
 This heart, by waning passion now left cold. 
 
 0, the charms of Glycera, 
 
 That hue, more dazzling than the Parian stone ! 
 
 0, that sweet tormenting play, 
 
 That too fair face, that blinds when look’d upon ! 
 
 Yenus comes in all her might, 
 
 Quits Cyprus for my heart, nor lets me tell 
 Of the Parthian, bold in flight, 
 
 Nor Scythian hordes, nor aught that breaks her 
 spell. 
 
 Heap the grassy altar up, 
 
 Bring vervain, boys, and sacred frankincense ; 
 
 Fill the sacrificial cup ; 
 
 A victim’s blood will soothe her vehemence. 
 
24 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 XX. 
 
 Vile potabis. 
 
 1VT OT large my cups, nor rich my cheer, 
 
 ^ This Sabine wine, which erst I seal’d, 
 That day the applauding theatre 
 Your welcome peal’d, 
 
 Dear knight Maecenas ! as ’twere fain 
 That your paternal river’s banks, 
 
 And Vatican, in sportive strain, 
 
 Should echo thanks. 
 
 For you Calenian grapes are press’d, 
 
 And Oaecuban ; these cups of mine 
 Falernum’s bounty ne’er has bless’d, 
 
 Nor Formian vine. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Dianam tenerce . 
 
 /XF Dian’s praises, tender maidens, tell ; 
 
 Of Cynthus’ unshorn god, young strip- 
 lings, sing; 
 
 And bright Latona, well 
 
 Beloved of Heaven’s high King. 
 
 Sing her that streams and silvan foliage loves, 
 Whate’er on Algidus’ chill brow is seen, 
 
 In Erymanthian groves 
 
 Dark-leaved, or Cragus green. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 25 
 
 Sing Tempe too, glad youths, in strain as loud, 
 And Phoebus’ birthplace, and that shoulder fair, 
 His golden quiver proud 
 And brother’s lyre to bear. 
 
 His arm shall banish Hunger, Plague, and War 
 To Persia and to Britain’s coast, away 
 From Borne and Caesar far, 
 
 If you have zeal to pray. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Integer vitae. 
 
 TVT 0 need of Moorish archer’s craft 
 1 ^ To guard the pure and stainless liver ; 
 He wants not, Fuscus, poison’d shaft 
 To store his quiver, 
 
 Whether he traverse Libyan shoals, 
 
 Or Caucasus, forlorn and horrent, 
 
 Or lands where far Hydaspes rolls 
 His fabled torrent. 
 
 A wolf, while roaming trouble-free 
 In Sabine wood, as fancy led me, 
 
 Unarm’d I sang my Lalage, 
 
 Beheld, and fled me. 
 
 Dire monster ! in her broad oak woods 
 Fierce Daunia fosters none such other. 
 
 Nor Juba’s land, of lion broods 
 The thirsty mother. 
 
26 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Place me where on the ice-bound plain 
 No tree is cheer’d by summer breezes, 
 Where Jove descends in sleety rain 
 Or sullen freezes ; 
 
 Place me where none can live for heat, 
 ’Neath Phoebus’ very chariot plant me, 
 That smile so swe^t, that voice so sweet, 
 Shall still enchant me. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Vitas hinnuleo. 
 
 \Z OU fly me, Ohloe, as o’er trackless hills 
 A A young fawn runs her timorous dam to 
 find, 
 
 Whom empty terror thrills 
 
 Of woods and whispering wind. 
 
 Whether ’tis Spring’s first shiver, faintly heard 
 Through the light leaves, or lizards in the brake 
 The rustling thorns have stirr’d, 
 
 Her heart, her knees, they quake. 
 
 Yet I, who chase you, no grim lion am, 
 
 No tiger fell, to crush you in my gripe : 
 
 Come, learn to leave your dam, 
 
 For lover’s kisses ripe. 
 
BOOK L 
 
 27 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Quis desiderio. 
 
 1 1 7HY blush to let our tears unmeasured fall 
 * v For one so dear? Begin the mournful 
 stave, 
 
 Melpomene, to whom the Sire of all 
 Sweet voice with music gave. 
 
 And sleeps he then the heavy sleep of death, 
 Quintilius ? Piety, twin sister dear 
 Of Justice ! naked Truth ! unsullied Faith ! 
 
 When will ye find his peer ? 
 
 By many a good man wept, Quintilius dies ; 
 
 By none than you, my Virgil, trulier wept : 
 Devout in vain, you chide the faithless skies. 
 Asking your loan ill-kept. 
 
 No, though more suasive than the bard of Thrace 
 You swept the lyre that trees were fain to hear, 
 Ne’er should the blood revisit his pale face 
 Whom once with wand severe 
 Mercury has folded with the sons of night, 
 Untaught to prayer Fate’s prison to unseal. 
 
 Ah, heavy grief ! but patience makes more light 
 What sorrow may not heal. 
 
28 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 XXYI. 
 
 Musis amicus. 
 
 r F'HE Muses love me : fear and grief, 
 
 ^ The winds may blow them to the sea ; 
 Who quail before the wintry chief 
 Of Scythia’s realm, is nought to me. 
 What cloud o’er Tiridates lowers, 
 
 I care not, I. 0, nymph divine 
 Of virgin springs, with sunniest flowers 
 A chaplet for my Lamia twine, 
 
 Pimplea sweet ! my praise were vain 
 
 Without thee. String this maiden lyre, 
 Attune for him the Lesbian strain, 
 
 0 goddess, with thy sister quire ! 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Natis in usum. 
 
 \ \ THAT, fight with cups that should give joy ? 
 v v ’Tis barbarous ; leave such savage ways 
 To Thracians. Bacchus, shamefaced boy, 
 
 Is blushing at your bloody frays. 
 
 The Median sabre ! lights and wine ! 
 
 Was stranger contrast ever seen ? 
 
 Cease, cease this brawling, comrades mine, 
 
 And still upon your elbows lean. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 29 
 
 Well, shall I take a toper’s part 
 Of fierce Falernian ? let our guest, 
 
 Megilla’s brother, say what dart 
 
 Gave the death-wound that makes him blest. 
 He hesitates ? no other hire 
 
 Shall tempt my sober brains. Whate’er 
 The goddess tames you, no base fire 
 She kindles ; ’tis some gentle fair 
 Allures you still. Come, tell me truth, 
 
 And trust my honour. — That the name ? 
 
 That wild Charybdis yours P Poor youth ! 
 
 0, you deserved a better flame ! 
 
 What wizard, what Thessalian spell, 
 
 What god can save you, hamper’d thus ? 
 
 To cope with this Chimaera fell 
 Would task another Pegasus. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Te marls et terra. 
 
 r | 'HE sea, the earth, the innumerable sand, 
 
 Archytas, thou couldst measure ; now, alas ! 
 A little dust on Matine shore has spann’d 
 That soaring spirit ; vain it was to pass 
 The gates of heaven, and send thy soul in quest 
 O’er air’s wide realms ; for thou hadst yet to die. 
 Ay, dead is Pelops’ father, heaven’s own guest, 
 And old Tithonus, rapt from earth to sky, 
 
30 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 And Minos, made the council-friend of Jove ; 
 
 And Panthus’ son has yielded up his breath 
 Once more, though down he pluck’d the shield, to 
 prove 
 
 His prowess under Troy, and bade grim death 
 O’er skin and nerves alone exert its power, 
 
 Hot he, you grant, in nature meanly read. 
 
 Yes, all “ await the inevitable hour ; ” 
 
 The downward journey all one day must 
 tread. 
 
 Some bleed, to glut the war-god’s savage eyes ; 
 
 Pate meets the sailor from the hungry brine ; 
 Youth jostles age in funeral obsequies ; 
 
 Each brow in turn is touch’d by Proserpine. 
 Me, too, Orion’s mate, the Southern blast, 
 
 Whelm’d in deep death beneath the Illyrian 
 wave. 
 
 But grudge not, sailor, of driven sand to cast 
 A handful on my head, that owns no grave. 
 
 So, though the eastern tempests loudly threat 
 Hesperia’s main, may green Yenusia’s crown 
 Be stripp’d, while you lie warm; may blessings 
 yet 
 
 Stream from Taren turn’s guard, great Neptune, 
 down, 
 
 And gracious Jove, into your open lap ! 
 
 What ! shrink you not from crime whose 
 punishment 
 
 Palls on your innocent children ? it may hap 
 Imperious Fate will make yourself repent. 
 
BOOK L 
 
 31 
 
 My prayers shall reach the avengers of all wrong ; 
 
 No expiations shall the curse unbind. 
 
 Great though your haste, I would not task you 
 long; 
 
 Thrice sprinkle dust, then scud before the wind. 
 
 XXIX. 
 led, beatis. 
 
 \7 ’ OUR heart on Arab wealth is set, 
 
 A Good Iccius : you would try your steel 
 On Saba’s kings, unconquer’d yet, 
 
 And make the Mede your fetters feel. 
 
 Come, tell me what barbarian fair 
 
 Will serve you now, her bridegroom slain ? 
 What page from court with essenced hair 
 Will tender you the bowl you drain, 
 
 Well skill’d to bend the Serian bow 
 His father carried p Who shall say 
 That rivers may not uphill flow, 
 
 And Tiber’s self return one day, 
 
 If you would change Panaetius’ works, 
 
 That costly purchase, and the clan 
 Of Socrates, for shields and dirks, 
 
 Whom once we thought a saner man p 
 
32 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 XXX. 
 
 0 Venus . 
 
 /^OME, Cnidian, Paphian Yenus, come, 
 Thy well-beloved Cyprus spurn, 
 Haste, where for thee in Glycera’s home 
 Sweet odours burn. 
 
 Bring too thy Cupid, glowing warm, 
 
 Graces and Nymphs, unzoned and free, 
 And Youth, that lacking thee lacks charm, 
 And Mercury. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Quid dedicatum. 
 
 THAT blessing shall the bard entreat 
 * * The god he hallows, as he pours 
 The winecup ? Not the mounds of wheat 
 That load Sardinian threshing floors ; 
 Not Indian gold or ivory — no, 
 
 Nor flocks that o’er Calabria stray, 
 
 Nor fields that Liris, still and slow, 
 
 Is eating, unperceived, away. 
 
 Let those whose fate allows them train 
 Calenum’s vine ; let trader bold 
 From golden cups rich liquor drain 
 For wares of Syria bought and sold, 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 33 
 
 Heaven’s favourite, sooth, for thrice a-year 
 He comes and goes across the brine 
 Undamaged. I in plenty here 
 
 On endives, mallows, succory dine. 
 
 0 grant me, Phoebus, calm content, 
 Strength unimpair’d, a mind entire, 
 
 Old age without dishonour spent, 
 
 Hor unbefriended by the lyre ! 
 
 We twain have warbled, to remain 
 Long months or years, now breathe, my shell, 
 A Roman strain, 
 
 Thou, strung by Lesbos’ minstrel hand, 
 
 The bard, who ’mid the clash of steel, 
 
 Or haply mooring to the strand 
 His batter’d keel, 
 
 Of Bacchus and the Muses sung, 
 
 And Cupid, still at Venus’ side, 
 
 And Lycus, beautiful and young, 
 
 Dark-hair’d, dark-eyed. 
 
 0 sweetest lyre, to Phoebus dear, 
 
 Delight of Jove’s high festival, 
 
 Blest balm in trouble, hail and hear 
 Whene’er I call ! 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Poscimur. 
 
 ‘HEY call ; — if aught in shady dell 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Albi, ne doleas. 
 
 \ T 7HAT, Albius ! why this passionate despair 
 * v For cruel Glycera ? why melt your voice 
 In dolorous strains, because the perjured fair 
 Has made a younger choice ? 
 
 See, narrow -brow’d Lycoris, how she glows 
 For Cyrus ! Cyrus turns away his head 
 To Pholoe’s frown ; but sooner gentle roes 
 Apulian wolves shall wed, 
 
 Than Pholoe to so mean a conqueror strike : 
 
 So Yenus wills it ; ’neath her brazen yoke 
 She loves to couple forms and minds unlike, 
 All for a heartless joke. 
 
 For me sweet Love had forged a milder spell ; 
 
 But Myrtale still kept me her fond slave, 
 More stormy she than the tempestuous swell 
 That crests Calabria’s wave. 
 
 XXXIY. 
 
 Par cm deorum. 
 
 A /r Y prayers were scant, my offerings few, 
 
 I ▼ J- While witless wisdom fool’d my mind ; 
 But now I trim my sails anew, 
 
 And trace the course I left behind. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 35 
 
 For lo ! the Sire of heaven on high, 
 
 By whose fierce bolts the clouds are riven, 
 To-day through an unclouded sky 
 
 His thundering steeds and car has driven. 
 E’en now dull earth and wandering floods, 
 And Atlas’ limitary range, 
 
 And Styx, and Tsenarus’ dark abodes 
 Are reeling. He can lowliest change 
 And loftiest ; bring the mighty down 
 And lift the weak ; with whirring flight 
 Comes Fortune, plucks the monarch’s crown, 
 And decks therewith some meaner wight. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 0 Diva, gratum. 
 
 T ADY of Antium, grave and stern ! 
 
 0 Goddess, who canst lift the low 
 To high estate, and sudden turn 
 A triumph to a funeral show ! 
 
 Thee the poor hind that tills the soil 
 
 Implores ; their queen they own in thee, 
 Who in Bithynian vessel toil 
 Amid the vex’d Carpathian sea. 
 
 Thee Dacians fierce, and Scythian hordes, 
 Peoples and towns, and Rome, their head, 
 And mothers of barbarian lords, 
 
 And tyrants in their purple dread, 
 
36 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Lest, spurn’d by thee in scorn, should fall 
 The state’s tall prop, lest crowds on fire 
 To arms, to arms ! the loiterers call, 
 
 And thrones be tumbled in the mire. 
 Necessity precedes thee still 
 
 With hard fierce eyes and heavy tramp : 
 
 Her hand the nails and wedges fill, 
 
 The molten lead and stubborn clamp. 
 
 Hope, precious Truth in garb of white, 
 
 Attend thee still, nor quit thy side 
 When with changed robes thou tak’st thy flight 
 In anger from the homes of pride. 
 
 Then the false herd, the faithless fair, 
 
 Start backward ; when the wine runs dry, 
 The jocund guests, too light to bear 
 An equal yoke, asunder fly. 
 
 0 shield our Caesar as he goes 
 
 To furthest Britain, and his band, 
 
 Rome’s harvest ! Send on Eastern foes 
 Their fear, and on the Red Sea strand ! 
 
 0 wounds that scarce have ceased to run ! 
 
 0 brother’s blood ! 0 iron time ! 
 
 What horror have we left undone ? 
 
 Has conscience shrunk from aught of crime ? 
 What shrine has rapine held in awe ? 
 
 What altar spared P 0 haste and beat 
 The blunted steel we yet may draw 
 On Arab and on Mas sage te ! 
 
BOOK /. 
 
 37 
 
 XXXYI. 
 
 Et thure, etfidibus ; 
 
 T) ID the lyre and cittern play ; 
 
 ^ Enkindle incense, shed the victim’s gore ; 
 
 Heaven has watch’d o’er Numida, 
 
 And brings him safe from far Hispania’s shore. 
 
 Now, returning, he bestows 
 On each dear comrade all the love he can ; 
 
 But to Lamia most he owes, 
 
 By whose sweet side he grew from boy to man. 
 
 Note we in our calendar 
 This festal day with whitest mark from Crete : 
 Let it flow, the old wine-jar, 
 
 And ply to Salian time your restless feet. 
 
 Damalis tosses off her wine, 
 
 But Bassus sure must prove her match to-night. 
 
 Give us roses all to twine, 
 
 And parsley green, and lilies deathly white. 
 
 Every melting eye will rest 
 On Damalis’ lovely face ; but none may part 
 Damalis from our new-found guest ; 
 
 She clings, and clings, like ivy, round his heart. 
 
ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 XXXYII. 
 
 Rune est bibendum . 
 
 1VT OW drink we deep, now featly tread 
 ^ A measure ; now before each shrine 
 With Salian feasts the table spread ; 
 
 The time invites ns, comrades mine. 
 ’Twas shame to broach, before to-day, 
 
 The Csecuban, while Egypt’s dame 
 Threaten’d our power in dust to lay 
 And wrap the Capitol in flame, 
 
 Girt with her foul emasculate throng, 
 
 By Fortune’s sweet new wine befool’d, 
 In hope’s ungovern’d weakness strong 
 To hope for all ; but soon she cool’d, 
 
 To see one ship from burning ’scape ; 
 
 Great Osesar taught her dizzy brain, 
 Made mad by Mareotic grape, 
 
 To feel the sobering truth of pain, 
 
 And gave her chase from Italy, 
 
 As after doves fierce falcons speed, 
 
 As hunters ’neath Hsemonia’s sky 
 
 Chase the tired hare, so might he lead 
 The fiend enchain’d ; she sought to die 
 More nobly, nor with woman’s dread 
 Quail’d at the steel, nor timorously 
 In her fleet ships to covert fled. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 39 
 
 Amid her ruin’d halls she stood 
 
 Unblench’d, and fearless to the end 
 Grasp’d the fell snakes, that all her blood 
 Might with the cold black venom blend, 
 Death’s purpose flushing in her face ; 
 
 Nor to our ships the glory gave, 
 
 That she, no vulgar dame, should grace 
 A triumph, crownless, and a slave. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Persicos odi. 
 
 TVT 0 Persian cumber, boy, for me ; 
 
 ^ ^ I hate your garlands linden-plaited ; 
 Leave winter’s rose where on the tree 
 It hangs belated. 
 
 Wreath me plain myrtle ; never think 
 Plain myrtle either’ s wear unfitting, 
 Yours as you wait, mine as I drink 
 In vine-bower sitting. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 I. 
 
 Motum ex Metello. 
 
 HE broils that from Metellus date, 
 
 The secret springs, the dark intrigues, 
 The freaks of Fortune, and the great 
 Confederate in disastrous leagues, 
 And arms with uncleansed slaughter red, 
 
 A work of danger and distrust, 
 
 You treat, as one on fire should tread 
 Scarce hid by treacherous ashen crust. 
 
 Let Tragedy’s stern muse be mute 
 Awhile ; and when your order’d page 
 Has told Rome’s tale, that buskin’d foot 
 Again shall mount the Attic stage, 
 
 Pollio, the pale defendant’s shield, 
 
 In deep debate the senate's stay, 
 
 The hero of Dalmatic field 
 
 By Triumph crown’d with deathless bay. 
 E’en now with trumpet’s threatening blare 
 You thrill our ears ; the clarion brays ; 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 41 
 
 The lightnings of the armour scare 
 The steed, and daunt the rider’s gaze. 
 Methinks I hear of leaders proud 
 With no uncomely dust distain’d, 
 
 And all the world by conquest bow’d, 
 
 And only Cato’s soul unchain’d. 
 
 Yes, Juno and the powers on high 
 That left their Afric to its doom, 
 
 Have led the victors’ progeny 
 As victims to Jugurtha’s tomb. 
 
 What field, by Latian blood- drops fed, 
 Proclaims not the unnatural deeds 
 It buries, and the earthquake dread 
 
 Whose distant thunder shook the Medes ? 
 What gulf, what river has not seen 
 Those sights of sorrow ? nay, what sea 
 Has Daunian carnage yet left green ? 
 
 What coast from Eoman blood is free ? 
 But pause, gay Muse, nor leave your play 
 Another Cean dirge to sing ; 
 
 With me to Venus’ bower away, 
 
 And there attune a lighter string. 
 
42 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 IL 
 
 Nullus argento. 
 
 HTHE silver, Sallust, shows not fair 
 
 While buried in the greedy mine • 
 
 You love it not till moderate wear 
 Have given it shine. 
 
 Honour to Proculeius ! he 
 
 To brethren play’d a father’s part ; 
 
 Fame shall embalm through years to be 
 That noble heart. 
 
 Who curbs a greedy soul may boast 
 
 More power than if his broad-based throne 
 Bridged Libya’s sea, and either coast 
 Were all his own. 
 
 Indulgence bids the dropsy grow ; 
 
 Who fain would quench the palate’s flame 
 Must rescue from the watery foe 
 The pale weak frame. 
 
 Phraates, throned where Cyrus sate, 
 
 May count for blest with vulgar herds, 
 
 But not with Virtue ; soon or late 
 From lying words 
 
 She weans men’s lips ; for him she keeps 
 The crown, the purple, and the bays, 
 
 Who dares to look on treasure-heaps 
 With unblench’d gaze. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 43 
 
 III. 
 
 JEquam memento . 
 
 A N equal mind, when storms o’ercloud, 
 
 ^ ^ Maintain, nor ’neath a brighter sky 
 Let pleasure make your heart too proud, 
 
 0 Dellius, Dellius ! sure to die, 
 
 Whether in gloom you spend each year, 
 
 Or through long holy days at ease 
 In grassy nook your spirit cheer 
 With old Falernian vintages, 
 
 Where poplar pale, and pine-tree high 
 Their hospitable shadows spread 
 Entwined, and panting waters try 
 To hurry down their zigzag bed. 
 
 Ering wine and scents, and roses’ bloom, 
 Too brief, alas ! to that sweet place, 
 
 While life, and fortune, and the loom 
 Of the Three Sisters yield you grace. 
 
 Soon must you leave the woods you buy, 
 Your villa, wash’d by Tiber’s flow, 
 
 Leave, — and your treasures, heap’d so high, 
 Your reckless heir will level low. 
 
 Whether from Argos’ founder born 
 In wealth you lived beneath the sun, 
 
 Or nursed in beggary and scorn, 
 
 You fall to Death, who pities none. 
 
44 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 One way all travel ; the dark nrn 
 
 Shakes each man’s lot, that soon or late 
 Will force him, hopeless of return, 
 
 On board the exile- ship of Fate. 
 
 IY. 
 
 Ne sit ancillce. 
 
 \\J HY, Xanthias, blush to own you love 
 v v Your slave ? Briseis, long ago, 
 
 A captive, could Achilles move 
 With breast of snow. 
 
 Tecmessa’s charms enslaved her lord, 
 
 Stout Ajax, heir of Telamon ; 
 
 Atrides, in his pride, adored 
 The maid he won, 
 
 When Troy to Thessaly gave way, 
 
 And Hector’s all too quick decease 
 Made Pergamus an easier prey 
 To wearied Greece. 
 
 What if, as auburn Phyllis’ mate, 
 
 You graft yourself on regal stem ? 
 
 Oh yes ! be sure her sires were great ; 
 
 She weeps for them. 
 
 Believe me, from no rascal scum 
 
 Your charmer sprang ; so true a flame, 
 Such hate of greed, could never come 
 From vulgar dame. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 45 
 
 With honest fervour I commend 
 
 Those lips, those eyes ; you need not fear 
 A rival, hurrying on to end 
 His fortieth year. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Septimi, Gacles. 
 
 OEPTIMIUS, who with me would brave 
 ^ Far Gades, and Cantabrian land 
 Untamed by Eome, and Moorish wave 
 That whirls the sand ; 
 
 Fair Tibur, town of Argive kings, 
 
 There would I end my days serene, 
 
 At rest from seas and travellings, 
 
 And service seen. 
 
 Should angry Fate those wishes foil, 
 
 Then let me seek Galesus, sweet 
 To skin-clad sheep, and that rich soil, 
 
 The Spartan’s seat. 
 
 0, what can match the green recess, 
 
 Whose honey not to Hybla yields, 
 Whose olives vie with those that bless 
 Venafrum’s fields P 
 
 Long springs, mild winters glad that spot 
 By Jove’s good grace, and Aulon, dear 
 To fruitful Bacchus, envies not 
 Falernian cheer. 
 
46 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 That spot, those happy heights desire 
 Our sojourn ; there, when life shall end, 
 Your tear shall dew my yet warm pyre, 
 Your bard and friend. 
 
 VII. 
 
 0 scepe mecum. 
 
 OFT with me in troublous time 
 > Involved, when Brutus warr’d in Greece, 
 Who gives you back to your own clime 
 And your own gods, a man of peace, 
 
 Pompey, the earliest friend I knew, 
 
 With whom I oft cut short the hours 
 With wine, my hair bright bathed in dew 
 Of Syrian oils, and wreathed with flowers ? 
 With you I shared Philippi’s rout, 
 
 Unseemly parted from my shield, 
 
 When Valour fell, and warriors stout 
 Were tumbled on the inglorious field : 
 
 But I was saved by Mercury, 
 
 Wrapp’d in thick mist, yet trembling sore, 
 While you to that tempestuous sea 
 
 Were swept by battle’s tide once more. 
 
 Come, pay to Jove the feast you owe ; 
 
 Lay down those limbs, with warfare spent, 
 Beneath my laurel ; nor be slow 
 
 To drain my cask ; for you ’twas meant. 
 
BOOK IT. 
 
 47 
 
 Lethe’s true draught is Mas sic wine ; 
 
 Fill high the goblet ; pour out free 
 Rich streams of unguent. Who will twine 
 The hasty wreath from myrtle-tree 
 Or parsley ? Whom will Yenus seat 
 
 Chairman of cups ? Are Bacchants sane ? 
 Then I’ll be sober. 0, ’tis sweet 
 
 To fool, when friends come home again ! 
 
 YIII. 
 
 Ulla si juris. 
 
 H AD chastisement for perjured truth, 
 Barine, mark’d you with a curse — 
 Did one wry nail, or one black tooth, 
 
 But make you worse — 
 
 I’d trust you ; but, when plighted lies 
 Have pledged you deepest, lovelier far 
 You sparkle forth, of all young eyes 
 The ruling star. 
 
 ’Tis gain to mock your mother’s bones, 
 
 And night’s still signs,, and all the sky, 
 And gods, that on their glorious thrones 
 Chill Death defy. 
 
 Ay, Yenus smiles; the pure nymphs smile, 
 And Cupid, tyrant-lord of hearts, 
 Sharpening on bloody stone the while 
 His fiery darts. 
 
48 
 
 ODES OF IIO RACE. 
 
 New captives fill tlie nets you weave ; 
 
 New slaves are bred ; and those before, 
 Though oft they threaten, never leave 
 Your godless door. 
 
 The mother dreads you for her son, 
 
 The thrifty sire, the new-wed bride, 
 Lest, lured by you, her precious one 
 Should leave her side. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Non semper imbres . 
 
 ' I 'HE rain, it rains not every day 
 * On the soak’d meads ; the Caspian main 
 Not always feels the unequal sway 
 Of storms, nor on Armenia’s plain, 
 
 Dear Yalgius, lies the cold dull snow 
 
 Through all the year ; nor northwinds keen 
 Upon Garganian oakwoods blow, 
 
 And strip the ashes of their green. 
 
 You still with tearful tones pursue 
 Your lost, lost Mystes ; Hesper sees 
 Your passion when he brings the dew, 
 
 And when before the sun he flees. 
 
 Yet not for loved Antilochus 
 
 Grey Nestor wasted all his years 
 In grief ; nor o’er young Troilus 
 His parents’ and his sisters’ tears 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 49 
 
 For ever flow’d. At length have done 
 With these soft sorrows ; rather tell 
 Of Cassar’s trophies newly won, 
 
 And hoar Hiphates’ icy fell, 
 
 And Medus’ flood, ’mid conquer’d tribes 
 Rolling a less presumptuous tide, 
 
 And Scythians taught, as Rome prescribes, 
 Henceforth o’er narrower steppes to ride. 
 
 X. 
 
 Rectius vives. 
 
 T ICINTUS, trust a seaman’s lore: 
 
 J 4 Steer not too boldly to the deep, 
 
 Hor, fearing storms, by treacherous shore 
 Too closely creep. 
 
 Who makes the golden mean his guide, 
 Shuns miser’s cabin, foul and dark, 
 Shuns gilded roofs, where pomp and pride 
 Are envy’s mark. 
 
 With fiercer blasts the pine’s dim height 
 Is rock’d ; proud towers with heavier fall 
 Crash to the ground ; and thunders smite 
 The mountains tall. 
 
 In sadness hope, in gladness fear 
 ’Gainst coming change will fortify 
 Your breast. The storms that Jupiter 
 Sweeps o’er the sky 
 E 
 
50 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 He chases. Why should rain to-day 
 Bring rain to-morrow ? Python’s foe 
 Is pleased sometimes his lyre to play, 
 
 Hor bends his bow. 
 
 Be brave in trouble ; meet distress 
 
 With dauntless front ; but when the gale 
 Too prosperous blows, be wise no less, 
 
 And shorten sail. 
 
 XL 
 
 Quid bellicosus. 
 
 ASK not what those sons of war, 
 Cantabrian, Scythian, each intend, 
 Disjoin’d from us by Hadria’s bar, 
 
 Hor puzzle, Quintius, how to spend 
 A life so simple. Youth removes, 
 
 And Beauty too ; and hoar Decay 
 Drives out the wanton tribe of Loves 
 And Sleep, that came or night or day. 
 
 The sweet spring-flowers not always keep 
 Their bloom, nor moonlight shines the same 
 Each evening. Why with thoughts too deep 
 O’ertask a mind of mortal frame ? 
 
 Why not, just thrown at careless ease 
 ’Heath plane or pine, our locks of grey 
 Perfumed with Syrian essences 
 
 And wreathed with roses, while we may, 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 51 
 
 Lie drinking ? Bacchus puts to shame 
 
 The cares that waste us. Where’s the slave 
 To quench the fierce Falernian’s flame 
 With water from the passing wave ? 
 
 Who’ll coax coy Lyde from her home ? 
 
 Go, bid her take her ivory lyre, 
 
 The runaway, and haste to come, 
 
 Her wild hair bound with Spartan tire. 
 
 XIT. 
 
 Nolis longa ferae. 
 
 HPHE weary war where fierce Human tia bled, 
 x Fell Hannibal, the swoln Sicilian main 
 Purpled with Punic blood — not mine to wed 
 These to the lyre’s soft strain, 
 
 Nor cruel Lapithae, nor, mad with wine, 
 
 Centaurs, nor, by Herculean arm o’ercome, 
 
 The earth-born youth, whose terrors dimm’d the 
 shine 
 
 Of the resplendent dome 
 Of ancient Saturn. You, Maecenas, best 
 In pictured prose of Caesar’s warrior feats 
 Will tell, and captive kings with haughty crest 
 Led through the Homan streets. 
 
 On me the Muse has laid her charge to tell 
 Of your Licymnia’s voice, the lustrous hue 
 Of her bright eye, her heart that beats so well 
 To mutual passion true : 
 
 LIBRARY ^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS 
 
52 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 How nought she does but lends her added grace, 
 Whether she dance, or join in bantering play, 
 Or with soft arms the maiden choir embrace 
 On great Diana’s day. 
 
 Say, would you change for all the wealth posses t 
 By rich Achsemenes or Phrygia’s heir, 
 
 Or the full stores of Araby the blest, 
 
 One lock of her dear hair, 
 
 While to your burning lips she bends her neck, 
 Or with kind cruelty denies the due 
 She means you not to beg for, but to take, 
 
 Or snatches it from you p 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Ille et nefasto. 
 
 T) LACK day he chose for planting thee, 
 
 ^ Accurst he rear’d thee from the ground, 
 The bane of children yet to be, 
 
 The scandal of the village round. 
 
 His father’s throat the monster press’d 
 Beside, and on his hearthstone spilt, 
 
 I ween, the blood of midnight guest ; 
 
 Black Colchian drugs, whate’er of guilt 
 Is hatch’d on earth, he dealt in all — 
 
 Who planted in my rural stead 
 Thee, fatal wood, thee, sure to fall 
 Upon thy blameless master’s head. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 The dangers of the hour ! no thought 
 We giye them ; Punic seaman’s fear 
 Is all of Bosporus, nor aught 
 Becks he of pitfalls otherwhere ; 
 
 The soldier fears the mask’d retreat 
 Of Parthia ; Parthia dreads the thrall 
 Of Borne ; but Death with noiseless feet 
 Has stolen and will steal on all. 
 
 How near dark Pluto’s court I stood, 
 
 And iEacus’ judicial throne, 
 
 The blest seclusion of the good, 
 
 And Sappho, with sweet lyric moan 
 Bewailing her ungentle sex, 
 
 And thee, Ale® us, louder far 
 Chanting thy tale of woful wrecks, 
 
 Of woful exile, woful war I 
 In sacred awe the silent dead 
 
 Attend on each : but when the song 
 Of combat tells and tyrants fled, 
 
 Keen ears, press’d shoulders, closer thron 
 What marvel, when at those sweet airs 
 The hundred-headed beast spell-bound 
 Each black ear droops, and Furies’ hairs 
 Uncoil their serpents at the sound ? 
 Prometheus too and Pel ops’ sire 
 In listening lose the sense of woe ; 
 
 Orion hearkens to the lyre, 
 
 And lets the lynx and lion go. 
 
ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Eheu , fugacec . 
 
 A H, Postumus ! they fleet away, 
 
 1 ^ Our years, nor piety one hour 
 Can win from wrinkles and decay, 
 
 And Death’s indomitable power ; 
 
 Not though three hundred bullocks flame 
 Each year, to soothe the tearless king 
 Who holds huge Geryon’s triple frame 
 And Tityos in his watery ring, 
 
 That circling flood, which all must stem, 
 Who eat the fruits that Nature yields, 
 Wearers of haughtiest diadem, 
 
 Or humblest tillers of the fields. 
 
 In vain we shun war’s contact red 
 
 Or storm-tost spray of Hadrian main : 
 In vain, the season through, we dread 
 For our frail lives Scirocco’s bane. 
 Cocytus’ black and stagnant ooze 
 
 Must welcome you, and Danaus’ seed 
 Ill-famed, and ancient Sisyphus 
 To never-ending toil decreed. 
 
 Your land, your house, your lovely bride 
 Must lose you ; of your cherish’d trees 
 None to its fleeting master’s side 
 Will cleave, but those sad cypresses. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 55 
 
 Your heir, a larger soul, will drain 
 The hundred-padlock’d Caecuban, 
 And richer spilth the pavement stain 
 Than e’er at pontiff’s supper ran. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Jam pauca aratro. 
 
 Tj'EW roods of ground the piles we raise 
 ^ Will leave to plough ; ponds wider spread 
 Than Lucrine lake will meet the gaze 
 On every side ; the plane unwed 
 Will top the elm ; the violet -bed, 
 
 The myrtle, each delicious sweet, 
 
 On olive-grounds their scent will shed, 
 
 Where once were fruit-trees yielding meat ; 
 Thick bays will screen the midday range 
 Of fiercest suns. Not such the rule 
 Of Romulus, and Cato sage, 
 
 And all the bearded, good old school. 
 
 Each Roman’s wealth was little worth, 
 
 His country’s much ; no colonnade 
 For private pleasance wooed the North 
 With cool “ prolixity of shade.” 
 
 None might the casual sod disdain 
 To roof his home ; a town alone, 
 
 At public charge, a sacred fane 
 Were honour’d with the pomp of stone. 
 
56 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 XYI. 
 
 Otium divos. 
 
 T^OR ease, in wide iEgean caught, 
 
 **■ The sailor prays, when clouds are hiding 
 The moon, nor shines of starlight aught 
 For seaman’s guiding : 
 
 For ease the Mede, with quiver gay : 
 
 For ease rude Thrace, in battle cruel : 
 
 Can purple buy it, Grosphus ? Nay, 
 
 Nor gold, nor jewel. 
 
 No pomp, no lictor clears the way 
 
 ’Mid rabble-routs of troublous feelings, 
 
 Nor quells the cares that sport and play 
 Round gilded ceilings. 
 
 More happy he whose modest board 
 
 His father’s well-worn silver brightens ; 
 
 No fear, nor lust for sordid hoard, 
 
 His light sleep frightens. 
 
 Why bend our bows of little span ? 
 
 Why change our homes for regions under 
 Another sun ? What exiled man 
 From self can sunder ? 
 
 Care climbs the bark, and trims the sail, 
 
 Curst fiend ! nor troops of horse can ’scape her, 
 More swift than stag, more swift than gale 
 That drives the vapour. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 57 
 
 Blest in the present, look not forth 
 On ills beyond, but soothe each bitter 
 With slow, calm smile. No suns on earth 
 Unclouded glitter. 
 
 Achilles’ light was quench’d at noon ; 
 
 A long decay Tithonus minish’d ; 
 
 My hours, it may be, yet will run 
 When yours are finish’d. 
 
 For you Sicilian heifers low, 
 
 Bleat countless flocks ; for you are neighing 
 Proud coursers ; Afric purples glow 
 For your arraying 
 With double dyes ; a small domain, 
 
 The soul that breathed in Grecian harping, 
 My portion these ; and high disdain 
 Of ribald carping. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Cur me querelis. 
 
 \ 1 7HY rend my heart with that sad sigh ? 
 
 ^ * It cannot please the gods or me 
 That you, Maecenas, first should die, 
 
 My pillar of prosperity. 
 
 Ah ! should I lose one half my soul 
 Untimely, can the other stay 
 Behind it ? Life that is not whole, 
 
 Is that as sweet p The self-same day 
 
58 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 Shall crush us twain ; no idle oath 
 Has Horace sworn ; whene’er you go, 
 
 We both will travel, travel both 
 The last dark journey down below. 
 
 Ho, not Chimsera’s fiery breath, 
 
 Hor Gy as, could he rise again, 
 
 Shall part us ; Justice, strong as death, 
 
 So wills it ; so the Fates ordain. 
 
 Whether ’twas Libra saw me born 
 Or angry Scorpio, lord malign 
 Of natal hour, or Capricorn, 
 
 The tyrant of the western brine, 
 
 Our planets sure with concord strange 
 Are blended. You by Jove’s blest power 
 Were snatch’d from out the baleful range 
 Of Saturn, and the evil hour 
 Was stay’d, when rapturous benches full 
 Three times the auspicious thunder peal’d ; 
 Me the curst trunk, that smote my skull, 
 
 Had slain ; but Faunus, strong to shield 
 The friends of Mercury, check’d the blow 
 In mid descent. Be sure to pay 
 The victims and the fane you owe ; 
 
 Your bard a humbler lamb will slay. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 59 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Non ebur. 
 
 ARVEN ivory have I none ; 
 
 No golden cornice in my dwelling shines ; 
 Pillars choice of Libyan stone 
 Upbear no architrave from Attic mines ; 
 
 ’Twas not mine to enter in 
 To Attalus’ broad realms, an unknown heir, 
 
 Nor for me fair clients spin 
 Laconian purples for their patron’s wear. 
 
 Truth is mine, and Genius mine ; 
 
 The rich man comes, and knocks at my low door : 
 Favour’d thus, I ne’er repine, 
 
 Nor weary out indulgent Heaven for more : 
 
 In my Sabine homestead blest, 
 
 Why should I further tax a generous friend ? 
 
 Suns are hurrying suns a-west, 
 
 And newborn moons make speed to meet their end. 
 
 You have hands to square and hew 
 Vast marble-blocks, hard on your day of doom, 
 Ever building mansions new, 
 
 Nor thinking of the mansion of the tomb. 
 
 Now you press on ocean’s bound, 
 
 Where waves on Baige beat, as earth were scant ; 
 
 Now absorb your neighbour’s ground, 
 
 And tear his landmarks up, your own to plant. 
 
60 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Hedges set round clients’ farms 
 Your avarice tramples ; see, the outcasts fly, 
 Wife and husband, in their arms 
 Their fathers’ gods, their squalid family. 
 
 Yet no hall that wealth e’er plann’d 
 Waits you more surely than the wider room 
 Traced by Death’s yet greedier hand. 
 
 Why strain so far p you cannot leap the tomb. 
 
 Earth removes the impartial sod 
 Alike for beggar and for monarch’s child : 
 
 Nor the slave of Hell’s dark god 
 Convey’d Prometheus back, with bribe beguiled. 
 
 Pelops he and Pelops’ sire 
 Holds, spite of pride, in close captivity ; 
 
 Beggars, who of labour tire, 
 
 Call’d or uncall’d, he hears and sets them free. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Bacchum in remotis. 
 
 T) AC CHUS I saw in mountain glades 
 ^ Ketired (believe it, after years !) 
 Teaching his strains to Dryad maids, 
 
 While goat-hoof’d satyrs prick’d their ears. 
 Evoe ! my eyes with terror glare ; 
 
 My heart is revelling with the god ; 
 
 ’Tis madness ! Evoe ! spare, 0 spare, 
 
 Dread wielder of the ivied rod ! 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 81 
 
 Yes, I may sing the Thyiad crew, 
 
 The stream of wine, the sparkling rills 
 That run with milk, and honey-dew 
 That from the hollow trunk distils ; 
 
 And I may sing thy consort’s crown, 
 
 New set in heaven, and Pentheus’ hall 
 With ruthless ruin thundering down, 
 
 And proud Lycurgus’ funeral. 
 
 Thou turn’st the rivers, thou the sea ; 
 
 Thou, on far summits, moist with wine, 
 Thy Bacchants’ tresses harmlessly 
 Dost knot with living serpent-twine. 
 Thou, when the giants, threatening wrack, 
 Were clambering up Jove’s citadel, 
 Didst hurl o’erweening Bhoetus back, 
 
 In tooth and claw a lion fell. 
 
 Who knew thy feats in dance and play 
 Deem’d thee belike for war’s rough game 
 Unmeet : but peace and battle -fray 
 
 Pound thee, their centre, still the same. 
 Grim Cerberus wagg’d his tail to see 
 Thy golden horn, nor dream’ d of wrong, 
 But gently fawning, follow’d thee, 
 
 And lick’d thy feet with triple tongue. 
 
62 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Non usitata. 
 
 TVT 0 vulgar wing, nor weakly plied, 
 
 1 ^ Shall bear me through the liquid sky 
 A two-form’d bard, no more to bide 
 Within the range of envy’s eye 
 ’Mid haunts of men. I, all ungraced 
 By gentle blood, I, whom you call 
 Your friend, Maecenas, shall not taste 
 Of death, nor chafe in Lethe’s thrall. 
 
 E’en now a rougher skin expands 
 Along my legs : above I change 
 To a white bird ; and o’er my hands 
 
 And shoulders grows a plumage strange : 
 Fleeter than Icarus, see me float 
 O’er Bosporus, singing as I go, 
 
 And o’er Gaetulian sands remote, 
 
 And Hyperborean fields of snow ; 
 
 By Dacian horde, that masks its fear 
 Of Marsic steel, shall I be known, 
 
 And furthest Scythian : Spain shall hear 
 My warbling, and the banks of Bhone. 
 
 No dirges for my fancied death; 
 
 No weak lament, no mournful stave ; 
 
 All clamorous grief were waste of breath, 
 And vain the tribute of a grave. 
 

 BOOK III. 
 
 I. 
 
 Odi profanum. 
 
 BID the unhallow’d crowd avaunt ! 
 
 Keep holy silence ; strains unknown 
 Till now, the Muses’ hierophant, 
 
 I sing to youths and maids alone. 
 Kings o’er their flocks the sceptre wield ; 
 
 E’en kings beneath J ove’s sceptre bow : 
 Victor in giant battle-field, 
 
 He moves all nature with his brow. 
 
 This man his planted walks extends 
 Beyond his peers ; an older name 
 One to the people’s choice commends ; 
 
 One boasts a more unsullied fame ; 
 
 One plumes him on a larger crowd 
 Of clients. What are great or small p 
 Death takes the mean man with the proud ; 
 
 The fatal urn has room for all. 
 
 When guilty Pomp the drawn sword sees 
 Hung o’er her, richest feasts in vain 
 
64 
 
 ODES OF HORACE , 
 
 Strain their sweet juice her taste to please ; 
 
 1ST o lutes, no singing birds again 
 Will bring her sleep. Sleep knows no pride ; 
 
 It scorns not cots of village hinds, 
 
 Nor shadow-trembling river-side, 
 
 Nor Tempe, stirr’d by western winds. 
 
 Who, having competence, has all, 
 
 The tumult of the sea defies, 
 
 Nor fears Arcturus’ angry fall, 
 
 Nor fears the Kid-star’s sullen rise, 
 
 Though hail- storms on the vineyard beat, 
 
 Though crops deceive, though trees complain, 
 One while of showers, one while of heat, 
 
 One while of winter’s barbarous reign. 
 
 Fish feel the narrowing of the main 
 From sunken piles, while on the strand 
 Contractors with their busy train 
 
 Let down huge stones, and lords of land 
 Affect the sea : but fierce Alarm 
 Can clamber to the master’s side : 
 
 Black Cares can up the galley swarm, 
 
 And close behind the horseman ride. 
 
 If Phrygian marbles soothe not pain, 
 
 Nor star-bright purple’s costliest wear, 
 
 Nor vines of true Falernian strain, 
 
 Nor Achaemenian spices rare, 
 
 Why with rich gate and pillar’d range 
 Upbuild new mansions, twice as high, 
 
 Or why my Sabine vale exchange 
 For more laborious luxury ? 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 65 
 
 II. 
 
 Angustam amice . 
 
 * I ''O suffer hardness with good cheer, 
 
 In sternest school of warfare bred, 
 
 Our youth should learn ; let steed and spear 
 Make him one day the Parthian’s dread ; 
 Cold skies, keen perils, brace his life. 
 
 Methinks I see from rampired town 
 Some battling tyrant’s matron wife, 
 
 Some maiden, look in terror down, — 
 
 “ Ah, my dear lord, un train’d in war ! 
 
 0 tempt not the infuriate mood 
 Of that fell lion ! see ! from far 
 
 He plunges through a tide of blood ! ” 
 What joy, for fatherland to die ! 
 
 Death’s darts e’en flying feet o’ertake, 
 
 Nor spare a recreant chivalry, 
 
 A back that cowers, or loins that quake. 
 True Yirtue never knows defeat : 
 
 Her robes she keeps unsullied still, 
 
 Nor takes, nor quits, her curule seat 
 To please a people’s veering will. 
 
 True Virtue opens heaven to worth : 
 
 She makes the way she does not find : 
 
 The vulgar crowd, the humid earth, 
 
 Her soaring pinion leaves behind. 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Seal’d lips have blessings sure to come : 
 
 Who drags Eleusis’ rite to-day, 
 
 That man shall never share my home, 
 
 Or join my voyage : roofs give way 
 And boats are wreck’d : true men and thieves 
 Neglected Justice oft confounds : 
 
 Though Vengeance halt, she seldom leaves 
 The wretch whose flying steps she hounds. 
 
 III. 
 
 Justum et tenacem. 
 
 HTHE man of firm and righteous will, 
 
 No rabble, clamorous for the wrong, 
 
 No tyrant’s brow, whose frown may kill, 
 
 Can shake the strength that makes him strong 
 Not winds, that chafe the sea they sway, 
 
 Nor Jove’s right hand, with lightning red : 
 Should Nature’s pillar’d frame give way, 
 
 That wreck would strike one fearless head. 
 Pollux and roving Hercules 
 
 Thus won their way to Heaven’s proud steep, 
 ’Mid whom Augustus, couch’d at ease, 
 
 Dyes his red lips with nectar deep. 
 
 Eor this, great Bacchus, tigers drew 
 Thy glorious car, untaught to slave 
 In harness : thus Quirinus flew 
 
 On Mars’ wing’d steeds from Acheron’s wave, 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 67 
 
 When Juno spoke with Heaven’s assent : 
 
 “ 0 Ilium, Ilium, wretched town ! 
 
 The judge accurst, incontinent, 
 
 And stranger dame have dragg’d thee down 
 Pallas and I, since Priam’s sire 
 
 Denied the gods his pledged reward, 
 
 Had doom’d them all to sword and fire, 
 
 The people and their perjured lord. 
 
 Ho more the adulterous guest can charm 
 The Spartan queen : the house forsworn 
 Ho more repels by Hector’s arm 
 My warriors, baffled and outworn : 
 
 Hush’d is the war our strife made long : 
 
 I welcome now, my hatred o’er, 
 
 A grandson in the child of wrong, 
 
 Him whom the Trojan priestess bore. 
 Receive him, Mars ! the gates of flame 
 May open : let him taste forgiven 
 The nectar, and enrol his name 
 
 Among the peaceful ranks of Heaven. 
 
 Let the wide waters sever still 
 Ilium and Rome, the exiled race 
 May reign and prosper where they will : 
 
 So but in Paris’ burial-place 
 The cattle sport, the wild beasts hide 
 Their cubs, the Capitol may stand 
 All bright, and Rome in warlike pride 
 O’er Media stretch a conqueror’s hand. 
 
 Aye, let her scatter far and wide 
 
 Her terror, where the land-lock’d waves 
 
68 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Europe from Afric’s shore divide, 
 
 Where swelling Nile the corn-field laves — 
 
 Of strength more potent to disdain 
 Hid gold, best buried in the mine, 
 
 Than gather it with hand profane, 
 
 That for man’s greed would rob a shrine. 
 Whate’er the bound to earth ordain’d, 
 
 There let her reach the arm of power, 
 Travelling, where raves the fire unrein’d, 
 
 And where the storm-cloud and the shower. 
 Yet, warlike Eoman, know thy doom, 
 
 Nor, drunken with a conqueror’s joy, 
 
 Or blind with duteous zeal, presume 
 To build again ancestral Troy. 
 
 Should Troy revive to hateful life, 
 
 Her star again should set in gore, 
 
 While I, Jove’s sister and his wife, 
 
 To victory led my host once more. 
 
 Though Phoebus thrice in brazen mail 
 
 Should case her towers, they thrice should fall, 
 Storm’d by my Greeks : thrice wives should wail 
 Husband and son, themselves in thrall.” 
 
 — Such thunders from the lyre of love ! 
 
 Back, wayward Muse ! refrain, refrain 
 To tell the talk of gods above, 
 
 And dwarf high themes in puny strain. 
 
BOOK III . 
 
 69 
 
 IY. 
 
 Descende ccelo . 
 
 /^OME down, Calliope, from above: 
 
 Breathe on the pipe a strain of fire : 
 
 Or if a graver note thou love, 
 
 With Phoebus’ cittern and his lyre. 
 
 You hear her ? or is this the play 
 Of fond illusion ? Hark ! meseems 
 Through gardens of the good I stray, 
 
 ’Mid murmuring gales and purling streams. 
 Me, as I lay on Yultur’s steep, 
 
 A truant past Apulia’s bound, 
 
 O’ertired, poor child, with play and sleep, 
 
 With living green the stock-doves crown’d — 
 A legend, nay, a miracle, 
 
 By Acherontia’s nestlings told, 
 
 By all in Bantine glade that dwell, 
 
 Or till the rich Eorentan mould. 
 
 “ Bears, vipers, spared him as he lay, 
 
 The sacred garland deck’d his hair, 
 
 The myrtle blended with the bay : 
 
 The child’s inspired : the gods were there.” 
 Your grace, sweet Muses, shields me still 
 On Sabine heights, or lets me range 
 Where cool Prseneste, Tibur’s hill, 
 
 Or liquid Baiae proffers change. 
 
70 
 
 ODES CF HORACE. 
 
 Me to your springs, your dances true, 
 
 Philippi bore not to the ground, 
 
 Nor the doom’d tree in falling slew, 
 
 Nor billowy Palinurus drown’d. 
 
 Grant me your presence, blithe and fain 
 Mad Bosporus shall my bark explore ; 
 
 My foot shall tread the sandy plain 
 That glows beside Assyria’s shore ; 
 
 ’Mid Briton tribes, the stranger’s foe, 
 
 And Spaniards, drunk with horses’ blood, 
 And quiver’d Scythians, will I go 
 Unharm’d, and look on Tanais’ flood. 
 
 When Cassar’s self in peaceful town 
 The weary veteran’s home has made, 
 
 You bid him lay his helmet down 
 And rest in your Pierian shade. 
 
 Mild thoughts you plant, and joy to see 
 
 Mild thoughts take root. The nations know 
 How with descending thunder He 
 The impious Titans hurl’d below, 
 
 Who rules dull earth and stormy seas, 
 
 And towns of men, and realms of pain, 
 
 And gods, and mortal companies, 
 
 Alone, impartial in his reign. 
 
 Yet Jove had fear’d the giant rush, 
 
 Their upraised arms, their port of pride, 
 
 And the twin brethren bent to push 
 Huge Pelion up Olympus’ side. 
 
 But Typhon, Mimas, what could these, 
 
 Or what Porphyrion’s stalwart scorn, 
 
BOOK III . 
 
 71 
 
 Bhoetus, or he whose spears were trees, 
 Enceladus, from earth uptorn, 
 
 As on they rush’d in mad career 
 
 ’Gainst Pallas’ shield ? Here met the foe 
 Fierce Yulcan, queenly Juno here, 
 
 And he who ne’er shall quit his bow, 
 
 Who laves in clear Oastalian flood 
 His locks, and loves the leafy growth 
 Of Lycia next his native wood, 
 
 The Delian and the Pataran both. 
 
 Strength, mindless, falls by its own weight ; 
 
 Strength, mix’d with mind, is made more strong 
 By the just gods, who surely hate 
 
 The strength whose thoughts are set on wrong. 
 Let hundred-handed Gyas bear 
 His witness, and Orion known 
 Tempter of Dian, chaste and fair, 
 
 By Dian’s maiden dart o’erthrown. 
 
 Hurl’d on the monstrous shapes she bred, 
 
 Earth groans, and mourns her children thrust 
 To Orcus ; iEtna’s weight of lead 
 
 Keeps down the fire that breaks its crust ; 
 
 Still sits the bird on Tityos’ breast, 
 
 The warder of unlawful love ; 
 
 Still suffers lewd Pirithous, prest 
 
 By massive chains no hand may move. 
 
72 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 V. 
 
 Ccelo toncintem. 
 
 J OYE rules in heaven, his thunder shows ; 
 
 Henceforth Augustus earth shall own 
 Her present god, now Briton foes 
 And Persians bow before his throne. 
 
 Has Crassus’ soldier ta’en to wife 
 A base barbarian, and grown grey 
 (Woe, for a nation’s tainted life !) 
 
 Earning his foemen-kinsmen’s pay, 
 
 His king, forsooth, a Mede, his sire 
 A Marsian ? can he name forget, 
 
 Gown, sacred shield, undying fire, * 
 
 And Jove and Pome are standing yet ? 
 ’Twas this that Pegulus foresaw, 
 
 What time he spurn’d the foul disgrace 
 Of peace, whose precedent would draw 
 Destruction on an unborn race, 
 
 Should aught but death the prisoner's chain 
 Unrivet. “ I have seen,” he said, 
 
 “ Pome’s eagle in a Punic fane, 
 
 And armour, ne’er a blood-drop shed, 
 Stripp’d from the soldier ; I have seen 
 Free sons of Pome with arms fast tied ; 
 
BOOK III . 
 
 73 
 
 The fields we spoil’d with corn are green, 
 And Carthage opes her portals wide. 
 
 The warrior, sure, redeem’d by gold, 
 
 Will fight the bolder ! Aye, you heap 
 On baseness loss. The hues of old 
 Revisit not the wool we steep ; 
 
 And genuine worth, expell’d by fear, 
 Returns not to the worthless slave. 
 
 Break but her meshes, will the deer 
 Assail you ? then will he be brave 
 Who once to faithless foes has knelt ; 
 
 Yes, Carthage yet his spear will fly, 
 
 Who with bound arms the cord has felt, 
 
 The coward, and has fear’d to die. 
 
 He knows not, he, how life is won ; 
 
 Thinks war, like peace, a thing of trade ! 
 Great art thou, Carthage ! mate the sun, 
 While Italy in dust is laid ! ” 
 
 His wife’s pure kiss he waved aside, 
 
 And prattling boys, as one disgraced, 
 They tell us, and with manly pride 
 Stern on the ground his visage placed. 
 With counsel thus ne’er else aread 
 He nerved the fathers’ weak intent, 
 
 And, girt by friends that mourn’d him, sped 
 Into illustrious banishment. 
 
 Well witting what the torturer’s art 
 Design’d him, with like unconcern 
 The press of kin he push’d apart 
 
 And crowds encumbering his return, 
 
74 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 As though, some tedious business o’er 
 Of clients’ court, his journey lay 
 Towards Venafrum’s grassy floor. 
 
 Or Sparta-built Tarentum’s bay. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Delicta ma jorum. 
 
 \T OUE fathers’ guilt you still must pay, 
 Till, Eoman, you restore each shrine, 
 
 Each temple, mouldering in decay, 
 
 And smoke-grimed statue, scarce divine. 
 
 Eevering Heaven, you rule below ; 
 
 Be that your base, your coping still ; 
 
 ’Tis Heaven neglected bids o’erflow 
 The measure of Italian ill. 
 
 How Pacorus and Monseses twice 
 
 Have given our unblest arms the foil ; 
 
 Their necklaces, of mean device, 
 
 Smiling they deck with Eoman spoil. 
 
 Our city, torn by faction’s throes, 
 
 Dacian and Ethiop well-nigh razed, 
 
 These with their dreadful navy, those 
 For archer-prowess rather praised. 
 
 An evil age erewhile debased 
 
 The marriage-bed, the race, the home ; 
 
 Thence rose the flood whose waters waste 
 The nation and the name of Eome. 
 
BOOK III . 
 
 75 
 
 Not such their birth, who stain’d for us 
 The sea with Punic carnage red, 
 
 Smote Pyrrhus, smote Antiochus, 
 
 And Hannibal, the Roman’s dread. 
 Theirs was a hardy soldier-brood, 
 
 Inured all day the land to till 
 With Sabine spade, then shoulder wood 
 Hewn at a stern old mother’s will. 
 
 When sunset lengthen’d from each height 
 The shadows, and unyoked the steer, 
 Restoring in its westward flight 
 The hour to toilworn travail dear. 
 
 What has not cankering Time made worse ? 
 
 Yiler than grandsires, sires beget 
 Ourselves, yet baser, soon to curse 
 The world with offspring baser yet. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Quid Jles, Asteme. 
 
 "X 7HY weep for him whom sweet Favonian airs 
 v v Will waft next spring, Asteria, back to you, 
 Rich with Bithynia’s wares, 
 
 A lover fond and true, 
 
 Your Gyges ? He, detain’d by stormy stress 
 At Oricum, about the Goat-star’s rise, 
 
 Cold, wakeful, comfortless, 
 
 The long night weeping lies. 
 
76 
 
 ODES OF HORACE, 
 
 Meantime his lovesick hostess’ messenger 
 
 Talks of the flames that waste poor Chloe’s heart 
 (Flames lit for you, not her ! ) 
 
 With a besieger’s art ; 
 
 Shows how a treacherous woman’s lying breath 
 Once on a time on trustful Proetus won 
 To doom to early death 
 Too chaste Bellerophon ; 
 
 Warns him of Peleus’ peril, all but slain 
 For virtuous scorn of fair Hippolyta, 
 
 And tells again each tale 
 That e’er led heart astray. 
 
 In vain ; for deafer than Icarian seas 
 
 He hears, untainted yet. But, lady fair, 
 
 What if Enipeus please 
 
 Your listless eye ? beware ! 
 
 Though true it be that none with surer seat 
 O’er Mars’s grassy turf is seen to ride, 
 
 Nor any swims so fleet 
 Adown the Tuscan tide, 
 
 Yet keep each evening door and window barr’d ; 
 Look not abroad when music strikes up shrill, 
 And though he call you hard, 
 
 Remain obdurate still. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 77 
 
 Till. 
 
 Martiis coelebs. 
 
 r T'HE first of March ! a man unwed ! 
 
 What can these flowers, this censer mean ? 
 
 Or what these embers, glowing red 
 On sods of green ? 
 
 You ask, in either language skill’d ! 
 
 A feast I vow’d to Bacchus free, 
 
 A white he-goat, when all but kill’d 
 By falling tree. 
 
 So, when that holyday comes round, 
 
 It sees me still the rosin clear 
 
 From this my wine-jar, first embrown’d 
 In Tullus’ year. 
 
 Come, crush one hundred cups for life 
 Preserved, Maecenas ; keep till day 
 
 The candles lit ; let noise and strife 
 Be far away. 
 
 Lay down that load of state- concern ; 
 
 The Dacian hosts are all o’erthrown ; 
 
 The Mede, that sought our overturn, 
 
 How seeks his own ; 
 
 A servant now, our ancient foe, 
 
 The Spaniard, wears at last our chain ; 
 
 The Scythian half unbends his bow 
 And quits the plain. 
 
78 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Then fret not lest the state should ail ; 
 
 A private man such thoughts may spare ; 
 Enjoy the present hour’s regale, 
 
 And banish care. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Donee gratus eram. 
 
 Horace . 
 
 7HILE I had power to bless you, 
 
 X or any round that neck his arms did fling 
 More privileged to caress you, 
 
 Happier was Horace than the Persian king. 
 
 Lydia . While you for none were pining 
 Sorer, nor Lydia after Chloe came, 
 
 Lydia, her peers outshining, 
 
 Might match her own with Ilia’s Eoman fame. 
 
 H. How Chloe is my treasure, 
 
 Whose voice, whose touch, can make sweet music 
 flow: 
 
 For her I’d die with pleasure, 
 
 Would Fate but spare the dear survivor so. 
 
 L. I love my own fond lover, 
 
 Young Calais, son of Thurian Ornytus : 
 
 For him I’d die twice over, 
 
 Would Fate but spare the sweet survivor thus. 
 
 H. What now, if Love returning 
 Should pair us ’neath his brazen yoke once more. 
 
 And, bright-hair’d Chloe spurning, 
 Horace to off-cast Lydia ope his door ? 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 79 
 
 L. Though he is fairer, milder, 
 
 Than starlight, you lighter than bark of tree, 
 Than stormy Hadria wilder, 
 
 With you to live, to die, were bliss for me. 
 
 X. 
 
 Extremum Tanain . 
 
 A H Lyce ! though your drink were Tanais, 
 
 1 ^ Your husband some rude savage, you would 
 weep 
 
 To leave me shivering, on a night like this, 
 
 Where storms their watches keep. 
 
 Hark ! how your door is creaking ! how the grove 
 In your fair court-yard, while the wild winds blow, 
 Wails in accord ! with what transparence Jove 
 Is glazing the driven snow ! 
 
 Cease that proud temper: Yenus loves it not : 
 The rope may break, the wheel may backward 
 turn : 
 
 Begetting you, no Tuscan sire begot 
 Penelope the stern. 
 
 0, though no gift, no “prevalence of prayer,” 
 
 Hor lovers’ paleness deep as violet, 
 
 Nor husband, smit with a Pierian fair, 
 
 Move you, have pity yet ! 
 
 0 harder e’en than toughest heart of oak, 
 
 Deafer than uncharm’d snake to suppliant moan s' 
 This side, I warn you, will not always brook 
 Rain-water and cold stones. 
 
80 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 XL 
 
 Mercuri, nam te. 
 
 OME, Mercury, by whose minstrel spell 
 Amphion raised the Theban stones, 
 Come, with thy seven sweet strings, my shell, 
 Thy “ diverse tones,” 
 
 Nor vocal once nor pleasant, now 
 
 To rich man’s board and temple dear : 
 
 Put forth thy power, till Lyde bow 
 Her stubborn ear. 
 
 She, like a three-year colt unbroke, 
 
 Is frisking o’er the spacious plain, 
 
 Too shy to bear a lover’s yoke, 
 
 A husband’s rein. 
 
 The wood, the tiger, at thy call 
 
 Have follow’d : thou canst rivers stay : 
 
 The monstrous guard of Pluto’s hall 
 To thee gave way, 
 
 Grim Cerberus, round whose Gorgon head 
 A hundred snakes are hissing death, 
 
 Whose triple jaws black venom shed, 
 
 And sickening breath. 
 
 Ixion too and Tityos smooth’d 
 
 Their rugged brows : the urn stood dry 
 One hour, while Danaus’ maids were sooth’d 
 With minstrelsy. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 81 
 
 Let Lyde hear those maidens’ guilt, 
 
 Their famous doom, the ceaseless drain 
 Of outpour’d water, ever spilt, 
 
 And all the pain 
 
 Eeserved for sinners, e’en when dead: 
 
 Those impious hands, (could crime do more ?) 
 Those impious hands had hearts to shed 
 Their bridegrooms’ gore ! 
 
 One only, true to Hymen’s flame, 
 
 Was traitress to her sire forsworn : 
 
 That splendid falsehood lights her name 
 Through times unborn. 
 
 “ Wake !” to her youthful spouse she cried, 
 
 “ Wake ! or you yet may sleep too well : 
 
 Fly — from the father of your bride, 
 
 Her sisters fell : 
 
 They, as she-lions bullocks rend, 
 
 Tear each her victim : I, less hard 
 Than these, will slay you not, poor friend, 
 
 Nor hold in ward : 
 
 Me let my sire in fetters lay 
 
 For mercy to my husband shown : 
 
 Me let him ship far hence away, 
 
 To climes unknown. 
 
 Go ; speed your flight o’er land and wave, 
 While Hight and Yenus shield you ; go 
 Be blest : and on my tomb engrave 
 This tale of woe.” 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 ODES OF HOB AGE. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Miserarum est. 
 
 T T OW unhappy are the maidens who with 
 
 A Cupid may not play, 
 
 Who may never touch the wine-cup, but must 
 tremble all the day 
 
 At an uncle, and the scourging of his tongue ! 
 
 Neobule, there’s a robber takes your needle and 
 your thread, 
 
 Lets the lessons of Minerva run no longer in your 
 head; 
 
 It is Hebrus, the athletic and the young ! 
 
 0, to see him when anointed he is plunging in the 
 flood ! 
 
 What a seat he has on horseback! was Bellero- 
 phon’s as good? 
 
 As a boxer, as a runner, past compare ! 
 
 When the deer are flying blindly all the open 
 country o’er, 
 
 He can aim and he can hit them; he can steal 
 upon the boar, 
 
 As it couches in the thicket unaware. 
 
BOOK III . 
 
 83 
 
 XIII. 
 
 0 fons Bandusice. 
 
 T3 AHDUSIA’S fount, in clearness crystalline, 
 ^ 0 worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow ! 
 
 To-morrow shall be thine 
 A kid, whose crescent brow 
 Is sprouting all for love and victory. 
 
 In vain : his warm red blood, so early stirr’d, 
 Thy gelid stream shall dye, 
 
 Child of the wanton herd. 
 
 Thee the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired, 
 Forbears to touch : sweet cool thy waters yield 
 To ox with ploughing tired, 
 
 And lazy sheep afield. 
 
 Thou too one day shalt win proud eminence 
 ’Mid honour’d founts, while I the ilex sing 
 Crowning the cavern, whence 
 Thy babbling wavelets spring. 
 
 XIY. 
 
 Herculis ritu . 
 
 /^~AUR Hercules, they told us, Rome, 
 
 Had sought the laurel Death bestows : 
 How Glory brings him conqueror home 
 From Spaniard foes. 
 
84 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Proud of her spouse, the imperial fair 
 
 Must thank the gods that shield from death ; 
 His sister too : — let matrons wear 
 The suppliant wreath 
 For daughters and for sons restored : 
 
 Ye youths and damsels newly wed, 
 
 Let decent awe restrain each word 
 Best left unsaid. 
 
 This day, true holyday to me, 
 
 Shall banish care : I will not fear 
 Rude broils or bloody death to see, 
 
 While Caesar’s here. 
 
 Quick, boy, the chaplets and the nard, 
 
 And wine, that knew the Marsian war, 
 
 If roving Spartacus have spared 
 A single jar. 
 
 And bid Neaera come and trill, 
 
 Her bright locks bound with careless art : 
 
 If her rough porter cross your will, 
 
 Why then depart. 
 
 Soon palls the taste for noise and fray, 
 
 When hair is white and leaves are sere : 
 
 How had I fired in life’s warm May, 
 
 In Plancus’ year ! 
 
BOOK ITT. 
 
 85 
 
 XY. 
 
 Uxor pauperis Ibyci, 
 
 \ \ 7TFE of Ibycus the poor, 
 v v Let aged scandals have at length their 
 bound : 
 
 Give your graceless doings o’er, 
 
 Eipe as you are for going underground. 
 
 You the maidens’ dance to lead, 
 
 And cast your gloom upon those beaming stars ! 
 
 Daughter Pholoe may succeed, 
 
 But mother Chloris what she touches mars. 
 
 Young men’s homes your daughter storms, 
 Like Thyiad, madden’d by the cymbals’ beat : 
 Nothus’ love her bosom warms : 
 
 She gambols like a fawn with silver feet. 
 
 Yours should be the wool that grows 
 By fair Luceria, not the merry lute : 
 
 Flowers beseem not wither’d brows, 
 
 Nor wither’d lips with emptied wine-jars suit. 
 
 XYI. 
 
 Indusam Danaen. 
 
 T ^ ULL well had Danae been secured, in truth, 
 By oaken portals, and a brazen tower, 
 
 And savage watch-dogs, from the roving youth 
 That prowl at midnight’s hour : 
 
86 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 But Jove and Venus mock’d with gay disdain 
 The jealous warder of that close stronghold: 
 The way, they knew, must soon be smooth and 
 plain 
 
 When gods could change to gold. 
 
 Gold, gold can pass the tyrant’s sentinel, 
 
 Can shiver rocks with more resistless blow 
 Than is the thunder’s. Argos’ prophet fell, 
 
 He and his house laid low, 
 
 And all for gain. The man of Macedon 
 Cleft gates of cities, rival kings o’erthrew 
 By force of gifts : their cunning snares have won 
 Bude captains and their crew. 
 
 As riches grow, care follows : men repine 
 And thirst for more. Ho lofty crest I raise : 
 Wisdom that thought forbids, Maecenas mine, 
 
 The knightly order’s praise. 
 
 He that denies himself shall gain the more 
 
 From bounteous Heaven. I strip me of my pride. 
 Desert the rich man’s standard, and pass o’er 
 To bare Contentment’s side, 
 
 More proud as lord of what the great despise 
 Than if the wheat thresh’d on Apulia’s floor 
 I hoarded all in my huge granaries, 
 
 ’Mid vast possessions poor. 
 
 A clear fresh stream, a little field o’ergrown 
 With shady trees, a crop that ne’er deceives, 
 Pass, though men know it not, their wealth, that 
 own 
 
 All Afric’s golden sheaves. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 87 
 
 Though no Calabrian bees their honey yield 
 For me, nor mellowing sleeps the god of wine 
 In Formian jar, nor in Gaul’s pasture-field 
 The wool grows long and fine, 
 
 Yet Poverty ne’er comes to break my peace ; 
 
 If more I craved, you would not more refuse. 
 Desiring less, I better shall increase 
 My tiny revenues, 
 
 Than if to Alyattes’ wide domains 
 
 I join’d the realms of Mygdon. Great desires 
 Sort with great wants. ’Tis best, when prayer 
 obtains 
 
 Mo more than life requires. 
 
 XYII. 
 
 2Eli vetusto. 
 
 /C* LIUS, of Lamus’ ancient name 
 1 (For since from that high parentage 
 The prehistoric Lamias came 
 
 And all who fill the storied page, 
 
 Mo doubt you trace your line from him, 
 Who stretch’d his sway o’er Formise, 
 And Liris, whose still waters swim 
 Where green Marica skirts the sea, 
 
 Lord of broad realms), an eastern gale 
 Will blow to-morrow, and bestrew 
 
88 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 The shore with weeds, with leaves the vale, 
 If rain’s old prophet tell me true, 
 
 The raven. Gather, while ’tis fine, 
 
 Your wood ; to-morrow shall be gay 
 With smoking pig and streaming wine, 
 And lord and slave keep holyday. 
 
 Good Faunus, through my sunny farm 
 Pass gently, gently pass, nor do 
 My younglings harm. 
 
 Each year, thou know’st, a kid must die 
 For thee ; nor lacks the wine’s full stream 
 To Venus’ mate, the bowl ; and high 
 The altars steam. 
 
 Sure as December’s nones appear, 
 
 All o’er the grass the cattle play ; 
 
 The village, with the lazy steer, 
 
 Keeps holyday. 
 
 Wolves rove among the fearless sheep ; 
 
 The woods for thee their foliage strow ; 
 
 The delver loves on earth to leap, 
 
 His ancient foe. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Faune , Nymphctrum. 
 
 W ONT the flying Nymphs to woo, 
 
BOOK III . 
 
 89 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Quantum distat . 
 
 \ THAT the time from Inachus 
 v v To Codrus, who in patriot battle fell, 
 Who were sprung from iEacus, 
 
 And how men fought at Ilion, — this you tell. 
 
 What the wines of Chios cost, 
 
 Who with due heat our water can allay, 
 
 What the hour, and who the host 
 To give us house-room, — this you will not say. 
 
 Ho, there ! wine to moonrise, wine 
 To midnight, wine to our new augur too ! 
 
 Nine to three or three to nine, 
 
 As each man pleases, makes proportion true. 
 
 Who the uneven Muses loves, 
 
 Will fire his dizzy brain with three times three ; 
 
 Three once told the Grace approves ; 
 
 She with her two bright sisters, gay and free, 
 Shrinks, as maiden should, from strife : 
 But I’m for madness. What has dull’d the fire 
 Of the Berecyntian fife ? 
 
 Why hangs the flute in silence with the lyre ? 
 
 Out on niggard-handed boys ! 
 
 Bain showers of roses ; let old Lycus hear, 
 Envious churl, our senseless noise, 
 
 And she, our neighbour, his ill-sorted fere. 
 
90 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 You with your bright clustering hair, 
 Your beauty, Telephus, like evening’s sky, 
 Rhoda loves, as young, as fair ; 
 
 I for my Glycera slowly, slowly die. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 0 nate mecum. 
 
 BORN in Manlius’ year with me, 
 Whate’er you bring us, plaint or jest, 
 
 Or passion and wild revelry, 
 
 Or, like a gentle wine-jar, rest ; 
 
 Howe’er men call your Mas sic juice, 
 
 Its broaching claims a festal day ; 
 
 Come then ; Corvinus bids produce 
 A mellower wine, and I obey. 
 
 Though steep’d in all Socratic lore 
 He will not slight you ; do not fear. 
 
 They say old Cato o’er and o’er 
 
 With wine his honest heart would cheer. 
 
 Tough wits to your mild torture yield 
 Their treasures ; you unlock the soul 
 
 Of wisdom and its stores conceal’d, 
 
 Arm’d with Lyaeus’ kind control. 
 
 ’Tis yours the drooping heart to heal ; 
 
 Your strength uplifts the poor man’s horn ; 
 
 Inspired by you, the soldier’s steel, 
 
 The monarch’s crown, he laughs to scorn. 
 
BOOK III . 
 
 91 
 
 Liber and Venus, wills she so, 
 
 And sister Graces, ne’er unknit, 
 And living lamps shall see you flow 
 Till stars before the sunrise flit. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Montium custos. 
 
 UARDIAN of hill and woodland, Maid, 
 Who to young wives in childbirth’s hour 
 Thrice call’d, vouchsafest sovereign aid, 
 
 0 three-form’d power ! 
 
 This pine that shades my cot be thine ; 
 
 Here will I slay, as years come round, 
 
 A youngling boar, whose tusks design 
 The side-long wound. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Ccelo supinas. 
 
 T F, Phidyle, your hands you lift 
 
 To heaven, as each new moon is born, 
 Soothing your Lares with the gift 
 
 Of slaughter’d swine, and spice, and corn, 
 Ne’er shall Scirocco’s bane assail 
 
 Your vines, nor mildew blast your wheat, 
 
92 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Ne’er shall your tender younglings fail 
 In autumn, when the fruits are sweet. 
 The destined victim ’mid the snows 
 Of Algidus in oakwoods fed, 
 
 Or where the Alban herbage grows, 
 
 Shall dye the pontiff’s axes red ; 
 
 No need of butcher’d sheep for you 
 
 To make your homely prayers prevail ; 
 Give but your little gods their due, 
 
 The rosemary twined with myrtle frail. 
 The sprinkled salt, the votive meal, 
 
 As soon their favour will regain, 
 
 Let but the hand be pure and leal, 
 
 As all the pomp of heifers slain. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Intactis opulentior. 
 
 ' I ''HOUGH your buried wealth surpass 
 ^ The unsunn’d gold of Ind or Araby, 
 
 Though with many a ponderous mass 
 You crowd the Tuscan and Apulian sea, 
 
 Let Necessity but drive 
 Her wedge of adamant into that proud head, 
 Vainly battling will you strive 
 To ’scape Death’s noose, or rid your soul of dread. 
 
 Better life the Scythians lead, 
 
 Trailing on waggon wheels their wandering home, 
 
BOOK III . 
 
 93 
 
 Or the hardy Getan breed, 
 
 As o’er their vast unmeasured steppes they roam ; 
 
 Free the crops that bless their soil ; 
 
 Their tillage wearies after one year’s space ; 
 
 Each in turn fulfils his toil ; 
 
 His period o’er, another takes his place. 
 
 There the step-dame keeps her hand 
 From guilty plots, from blood of orphans clean ; 
 
 There no downed wives command 
 Their feeble lords, or on adulterers lean. 
 
 Theirs are dowries not of gold, 
 
 Their parents’ worth, their own pure chastity, 
 True to one, to others cold ; 
 
 They dare not sin, or, if they dare, they die. 
 
 0, whoe’er has heart and head 
 To stay our plague of blood, our civic brawls, 
 Would he that his name be read 
 “ Father of Eome” on lofty pedestals, 
 
 Let him chain this lawless will, 
 
 And be our children’s hero ! cursed spite ! 
 
 Living worth we envy still, 
 
 Then seek it with strain’d eyes, when snatch’d 
 from sight. 
 
 What can sad laments avail 
 Unless sharp justice kill the taint of sin ? 
 
 What can laws, that needs must fail 
 Shorn of the aid of manners form’d within, 
 
 If the merchant turns not back 
 From the fierce heats that round the tropic glow, 
 Turns not from the regions black 
 
94 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 With northern winds, and hard with frozen snow 
 Sailors override the wave, 
 
 While guilty poverty, more fear’d than vice. 
 
 Bids us crime and suffering brave, 
 
 And shuns the ascent of virtue’s precipice ? 
 
 Let the Capitolian fane, 
 
 The favour’d goal of yon vociferous crowd, 
 
 Aye, or let the nearest main 
 Receive our gold, our jewels rich and proud: 
 
 Slay we thus the cause of crime, 
 
 If yet we would repent and choose the good : 
 Ours the task to take in time 
 This baleful lust, and crush it in the bud. 
 
 Ours to mould our weakling sons 
 To nobler sentiment and manlier deed : 
 
 How the noble’s first-born shuns 
 The perilous chase, nor learns to sit his steed : 
 Set him to the unlawful dice, 
 
 Or Grecian hoop, how skilfully he plays ! 
 
 While his sire, mature in vice, 
 
 A friend, a partner, or a guest betrays, 
 Hurrying, for an heir so base, 
 
 To gather riches. Money, root of ill, 
 
 Doubt it not, still grows apace : 
 
 Yet the scant heap has somewhat lacking still. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 95 
 
 XXY. 
 
 Quo me, Bacche . 
 
 A \ THITHER, Bacchus, tear’st thou me. 
 
 Fill’d with thy strength ? What dens, what 
 forests these, 
 
 Thus in wildering race I see ? 
 
 What cave shall hearken to my melodies, 
 
 Tuned to tell of Csesar’s praise 
 And throne him high the heavenly ranks among ? 
 
 Sweet and strange shall be my lays, 
 
 A tale till now by poet voice unsung. 
 
 As the Evian on the height, 
 
 Roused from her sleep, looks wonderingly abroad, 
 Looks on Thrace with snow-drifts white, 
 And Rhodope by barbarous footstep trod, 
 
 So my truant eyes admire 
 The banks, the desolate forests. 0 great King 
 Who the Naiads dost inspire, 
 
 And Bacchants, strong from earth huge trees to 
 wring ! 
 
 Not a lowly strain is mine, 
 
 No mere man’s utterance. 0, ’tis venture sweet 
 Thee to follow, God of wine, 
 
 Making the vine-branch round thy temples meet ! 
 
96 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 XXYI. 
 
 Vixi jouellis. 
 
 T^OB ladies’ love I late was fit, 
 
 And good success my warfare blest, 
 But now my arms, my lyre I quit, 
 
 And hang them up to rust or rest. 
 
 Here, where arising from the sea 
 Stands Yenus, lay the load at last, 
 Links, crowbars, and artillery, 
 
 Threatening all doors that dared be fast. 
 O Goddess ! Cyprus owns thy sway, 
 
 And Memphis, far from Thracian snow : 
 Eaise high thy lash, and deal me, pray, 
 That haughty Chloe just one blow ! 
 
 XXYIL 
 
 Imjoios parrcB. 
 
 \ \ /HEN guilt goes forth, let lapwings shrill, 
 v v And dogs and foxes great with young, 
 And wolves from far Lanuvian hill, 
 
 Give clamorous tongue : 
 
 Across the roadway dart the snake, 
 
 Frightening, like arrow loosed from string, 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 97 
 
 The horses. I, for friendship’s sake, 
 Watching each wing, 
 
 Ere to his haunt, the stagnant marsh, 
 
 The harbinger of tempest flies, 
 
 Will call the raven, croaking harsh, 
 
 From eastern skies. 
 
 Farewell ! — and wheresoe’er you go, 
 
 My Galatea, think of me : 
 
 Let lefthand pie and roving crow 
 Still leave you free. 
 
 But mark with what a front of fear 
 Orion lowers. Ah ! well I know 
 How Hadria glooms, how falsely clear 
 The west-winds blow. 
 
 Let foemen’s wives and children feel 
 The gathering south-wind’s angry roar, 
 The black wave’s crash, the thunder-peal, 
 The quivering shore. 
 
 So to the bull Europa gave 
 
 Her beauteous form, and when she saw 
 The monstrous deep, the yawning grave, 
 Grew pale with awe. 
 
 That morn of meadow-flowers she thought, 
 Weaving a crown the nymphs to please: 
 That gloomy night she look’d on nought 
 But stars and seas. 
 
 Then, as in hundred-citied Crete 
 
 She landed, — “ 0 my sire !” she said, 
 
 “ 0 childly duty ! passion’s heat 
 Has struck thee dead. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 Whence came I ? death, for maiden’s shame, 
 Were little. Do I wake to weep 
 My sin ? or am I pure of blame, 
 
 And is it sleep 
 
 From dreamland brings a form to trick 
 My senses ? Which was best ? to go 
 Over the long, long waves, or pick 
 The flowers in blow ? 
 
 0, were that monster made my prize, 
 
 How would I strive to wound that brow, 
 How tear those horns, my frantic eyes 
 Adored but now ! 
 
 Shameless I left my father’s home ; 
 
 Shameless I cheat the expectant grave ; 
 
 0 heaven, that naked I might roam 
 In lions’ cave ! 
 
 Now, ere decay my bloom devour 
 Or thin the richness of my blood, 
 
 Fain would I fall in youth’s first flower, 
 
 The tigers’ food. 
 
 Hark ! ’tis my father — 4 Worthless one ! 
 
 What, yet alive p the oak is nigh. 
 
 ’Twas well you kept your maiden zone, 
 
 The noose to tie. 
 
 Or if your choice be that rude pike, 
 
 New barb’d with death, leap down and ask 
 The wind to bear you. Would you like 
 The bondmaid’s task, 
 
 You, child of kings, a master’s toy, 
 
 A mistress’ slave ? ’” Beside her, lo ! 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 99 
 
 Stood Venus smiling, and her boy 
 With unstrung bow. 
 
 Then, when her laughter ceased, “ Have done 
 With fume and fret,” she cried, “ my fair ; 
 That odious bull will give you soon 
 His horns to tear. 
 
 You know not you are Jove’s own dame : 
 Away with sobbing ; be resign’d 
 To greatness : you shall give your name 
 To half mankind.” 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Festo quid potius. 
 
 "IVT EPTUNE’S feast-day ! what should man 
 1 ^ Think first of doing ? Lyde mine, be bold, 
 Broach the treasured Csecuban, 
 
 And batter Wisdom in her own stronghold. 
 
 How the noon has pass’d the full, 
 
 Yet sure you deem swift Time has made a halt, 
 Tardy as you are to pull 
 Old Bibulus’ wine-jar from its sleepy vault. 
 
 I will take my turn and sing 
 Neptune and Nereus’ train with locks of green ; 
 
 You shall warble to the string 
 Latona and her Cynthia’s arrowy sheen. 
 
100 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Hers our latest song, who sways 
 Cnidos and Cy clads, and to Paphos goes 
 With her swans, on holydays ; 
 
 Night too shall claim the homage music owes. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Tyrrhena regum. 
 
 T T EIR of Tyrrhenian kings, for you 
 A A A mellow cask, unbroach’d as yet, 
 Maecenas mine, and roses new, 
 
 And fresh-drawn oil your locks to wet, 
 Are waiting here. Delay not still, 
 
 Nor gaze on Tibur, never dried, 
 
 And sloping iEsule, and the hill 
 Of Telegon the parricide. 
 
 0 leave that pomp that can but tire, 
 
 Those piles, among the clouds at home ; 
 Cease for a moment to admire 
 
 The smoke, the wealth, the noise of Rome 
 In change e’en luxury finds a zest : 
 
 The poor man’s supper, neat, but spare, 
 With no gay couch to seat the guest, 
 
 Has smooth’d the rugged brow of care. 
 Now glows the Ethiop maiden’s sire ; 
 
 Now Procyon rages all ablaze ; 
 
 The Lion maddens in his ire, 
 
 As suns bring back the sultry days : 
 
BOOK III . 
 
 101 
 
 The shepherd with his weary sheep 
 Seeks out the streamlet and the trees, 
 Silvanus’ lair : the still banks sleep 
 Untroubled by the wandering breeze. 
 
 You ponder on imperial schemes, 
 
 And o’er the city’s danger brood : 
 
 Bactrian and Serian haunt your dreams, 
 
 And Tanais, toss’d by inward feud. 
 
 The issue of the time to be 
 
 Heaven wisely hides in blackest night, 
 
 And laughs, should man’s anxiety 
 
 Transgress the bounds of man’s short sight. 
 Control the present : all beside 
 Flows like a river seaward borne, 
 
 How rolling on its placid tide, 
 
 How whirling massy trunks uptorn, 
 
 And waveworn crags, and farms, and stock, 
 
 In chaos blent, while hill and wood 
 Reverberate to the enormous shock, 
 
 When savage rains the tranquil flood 
 Have stirr’d to madness. Happy he, 
 Self-centred, who each night can say, 
 
 “ My life is lived : the morn may see 
 A clouded or a sunny day : 
 
 That rests with Jove: but what is gone, 
 
 He will not, cannot turn to nought ; 
 
 Hor cancel, as a thing undone, 
 
 What once the flying hour has brought.” 
 Fortune, who loves her cruel game, 
 
 Still bent upon some heartless whim, 
 
102 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 Shifts her caresses, fickle dame, 
 
 Now kind to me, and now to him : 
 She stays ; ’tis well : but let her shake 
 Those wings, her presents I resign, 
 Cloak me in native worth, and take 
 Chaste Poverty nndower’d for mine. 
 Though storms around my vessel rave, 
 I will not fall to craven prayers, 
 
 Nor bargain by my vows to save 
 My Cyprian and Sidonian wares, 
 Else added to the insatiate main. 
 
 Then through the wild iEgean roar 
 The breezes and the Brethren Twain 
 Shall waft my little boat ashore. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Exegi monumentum. 
 
 A ND now ’tis done : more durable than brass 
 1 ^ My monument shall be, and raise its head 
 O’er royal pyramids : it shall not dread 
 Corroding rain or angry Boreas, 
 
 Nor the long lapse of immemorial time. 
 
 I shall not wholly die : large residue 
 Shall ’scape the queen of funerals. Ever new 
 My after fame shall grow, while pontiffs climb 
 With silent maids the Capitolian height. 
 
BOOK III . 
 
 103 
 
 “ Born, men will say, “ where Aufidus is loud, 
 Where Daunus, scant of streams, beneath him 
 bow’d 
 
 The rustic tribes, from dimness he wax’d bright, 
 First of his race to wed the JEolian lay 
 To notes of Italy.” Put glory on, 
 
 My own Melpomene, by genius won, 
 
 And crown me of thy grace with Delphic bay. 
 
BOOK IY. 
 
 I. 
 
 Intermissa , Venus. 
 
 ET again thou wak’st the flame 
 That long had slumber’d ! Spare me, 
 Yenus, spare ! 
 
 Trust me, I am not the same 
 As in the reign of Cinara, kind and fair. 
 
 Cease thy softening spells to prove 
 On this old heart, by fifty years made hard, 
 
 Cruel Mother of sweet Love ! 
 
 Haste, where gay youth solicits thy regard. 
 
 With thy purple cygnets fly 
 To Paullus’ door, a seasonable guest ; 
 
 There within hold revelry, 
 
 There light thy flame in that congenial breast. 
 
 He, with birth and beauty graced, 
 
 The trembling client’s champion, ne’er tongue-tied, 
 Master of each manly taste, 
 
 Shall bear thy conquering banners far and wide. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 105 
 
 Let him smile in triumph gay, 
 
 True heart, victorious over lavish hand, 
 
 By the Alban lake that day 
 ’Neath citron roof all marble shalt thou stand: 
 Incense there and fragrant spice 
 With odorous fumes thy nostrils shall salute ; 
 
 Blended notes thine ear entice, 
 
 The lyre, the pipe, the Berecyntine flute : 
 
 Graceful youths and maidens bright 
 Shall twice a day thy tuneful praise resound, 
 While their feet, so fair and white, 
 
 In Salian measure three times beat the ground. 
 
 I can relish love no more, 
 
 Nor flattering hopes that tell me hearts are true, 
 Nor the revel’s loud uproar, 
 
 Nor fresh-wreathed flowerets, bathed in vernal 
 dew. 
 
 Ah ! but why, my Ligurine, 
 
 Steal trickling tear-drops down my wasted cheek ? 
 
 Wherefore halts this tongue of mine, 
 
 So eloquent once, so faltering now and weak ? 
 
 Now I hold you in my chain, 
 
 And clasp you dose, all in a nightly dream ; 
 
 Now, still dreaming, o’er the plain 
 I chase you ; now, ah cruel ! down the stream. 
 
106 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 II. 
 
 Pindarum quisquis. 
 
 1 I IHO fain at Pindar’s flight would aim, 
 v v On waxen wings, lulus, he 
 Soars heavenward, doom’d to give his name 
 To some new sea. 
 
 Pindar, like torrent from the steep 
 
 Which, swollen with rain, its banks o’erflows, 
 With mouth unfathomably deep, 
 
 Foams, thunders, glows, 
 
 All worthy of Apollo’s bay, 
 
 Whether in dithyrambic roll 
 Pouring new words he burst away 
 Beyond control, 
 
 Or gods and god-born heroes tell, 
 
 Whose arm with righteous death could tame 
 Grim Centaurs, tame Chimaeras fell, 
 Out-breathing flame, 
 
 Or bid the boxer or the steed 
 
 In deathless pride of victory live, 
 
 And dower them with a nobler meed 
 Than sculptors give, 
 
 Or mourn the bridegroom early torn 
 From his young bride, and set on high 
 Strength, courage, virtue’s golden morn, 
 
 Too good to die. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 107 
 
 Antonius ! yes, the winds blow free, 
 
 When Dirce’s swan ascends the skies, 
 
 To waft him. I, like Matine bee, 
 
 In act and guise, 
 
 That culls its sweets through toilsome hours, 
 Am roaming Tibur’s banks along, 
 
 And fashioning with puny powers 
 A laboured song. 
 
 Your Muse shall sing in loftier strain 
 How Caesar climbs the sacred height, 
 
 The fierce Sygambrians in his train, 
 
 With laurel dight, 
 
 Than whom the Fates ne’er gave mankind 
 A richer treasure or more dear, 
 
 Hor shall, though earth again should find 
 The golden year. 
 
 Your Muse shall tell of public sports, 
 
 And holyday, and votive feast, 
 
 For Caesar’s sake, and brawling courts 
 Where strife has ceased. 
 
 Then, if my voice can aught avail, 
 
 Grateful for him our prayers have won, 
 
 My song shall echo, “ Hail, all hail, 
 Auspicious Sun ! ” 
 
 There as you move, “ Ho ! Triumph, ho ! 
 
 Great Triumph ! ” once and yet again 
 All Home shall cry, and spices strow 
 Before your train. 
 
 Ten bulls, ten kine, your debt discharge : 
 
 A calf new -wean’d from parent cow, 
 
108 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 Battening on pastures rich and large, 
 Shall quit my vow. 
 
 Like moon just dawning on the night 
 The crescent honours of his head ; 
 One dapple spot of snowy white, 
 
 The rest all red. 
 
 III. 
 
 Quern tu , Melpomene . 
 
 T T E whom thou, Melpomene, 
 x A Hast welcomed with thy smile, in life 
 arriving, 
 
 JSTe’er by boxer’s skill shall be 
 Benown’d abroad, for Isthmian mastery striving; 
 
 Him shall never fiery steed 
 Draw in Achaean car a conqueror seated ; 
 
 Him shall never martial deed 
 Show, crowm’d with bay, after proud kings 
 defeated, 
 
 Climbing Capitolian steep : 
 
 But the cool streams that make green Tibur 
 flourish, 
 
 And the tangled forest deep, 
 
 On soft iEolian airs his fame shall nourish. 
 
 Borne, of cities first and best, 
 
 Deigns by her sons’ according voice to hail me 
 Eellow-bard of poets blest, 
 
 And faint and fainter envy’s growls assail me. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 ] 09 
 
 Goddess, whose Pierian art 
 The lyre’s sweet sounds can modulate and measure, 
 Who to dumb fish canst impart 
 The music of the swan, if such thy pleasure : 
 
 0, ’tis all of thy dear grace 
 That every finger points me out in going 
 Lyrist of the Roman race ; 
 
 Breath, power to charm, if mine, are thy bestowing ! 
 
 Whom Jove o’er all the feather’d breed 
 Made sovereign, having proved him sure 
 Erewhile on auburn Ganymede ; 
 
 Stirr’d by warm youth and inborn power, 
 
 He quits the nest with timorous wing, 
 
 For winter’s storms have ceased to lower, 
 And zephyrs of returning spring 
 Tempt him to launch on unknown skies ; 
 
 Next on the fold he stoops downright ; 
 
 Last on resisting serpents flies, 
 
 Athirst for foray and for flight : 
 
 As tender kidling on the grass 
 Espies, uplooking from her food, 
 
 A lion’s whelp, and knows, alas ! 
 
 Those new-set teeth shall drink her blood : 
 
 IV. 
 
 Qualem ministrum. 
 
 ’EH as the lightning’s minister, 
 
110 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 So look’d the Raetian mountaineers 
 On Drusus : — whence in every field 
 They learn’ d through immemorial years 
 The Amazonian axe to wield, 
 
 I ask not now : not all of truth 
 We seekers find: enough to know 
 The wisdom of the princely youth 
 Has taught our erst victorious foe 
 What prowess dwells in boyish hearts 
 Rear’d in the shrine of a pure home, 
 
 What strength Augustus’ love imparts 
 To Hero’s seed, the hope of Rome. 
 
 Good sons and brave good sires approve : 
 Strong bullocks, fiery colts, attest 
 Their fathers’ worth, nor weakling dove 
 Is hatch’d in savage eagle’s nest. 
 
 But care draws forth the power within, 
 
 And cultured minds are strong for good : 
 Let manners fail, the plague of sin 
 Taints e’en the course of gentle blood. 
 
 How great thy debt to Hero’s race, 
 
 0 Rome, let red Metaurus say, 
 
 Slain Hasdrubal, and victory’s grace 
 First granted on that glorious day 
 Which chased the clouds, and show’d the sun, 
 When Hannibal o’er Italy 
 Ran, as swift flames o’er pine-woods run, 
 
 Or Eurus o’er Sicilia’s sea. 
 
 Henceforth, by fortune aiding toil, 
 
 Rome’s prowess grew: her fanes, laid waste 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 Ill 
 
 By Punic sacrilege and spoil, 
 
 Beheld at length their gods replaced. 
 
 Then the false Libyan own’d his doom : — 
 
 “ Weak deer, the wolves’ predestined prey, 
 Blindly we rush on foes, from whom 
 ’Twere triumph won to steal away. 
 
 That race which, strong from Ilion’s fires, 
 
 Its gods, on Tuscan waters tost, 
 
 Its sons, its venerable sires, 
 
 Bore to Ausonia’s citied coast ; 
 
 That race, like oak by axes shorn 
 On Algidus with dark leaves rife, 
 
 Laughs carnage, havoc, all to scorn, 
 
 And draws new spirit from the knife. 
 
 Hot the lopp’d Hydra task’d so sore 
 Alcides, chafing at the foil : 
 
 Ho pest so fell was born of yore 
 
 From Colchian or from Theban soil. 
 Plunged in the deep, it mounts to sight 
 More splendid : grappled, it will quell 
 Unbroken powers, and fight a fight 
 Whose story widow’d wives shall tell. 
 
 Ho heralds shall my deeds proclaim 
 To Carthage now : lost, lost is all : 
 
 A nation’s hope, a nation’s name, 
 
 They died with dying Hasdrubal.” 
 
 What will not Claudian hands achieve ? 
 
 Jove’s favour is their guiding star, 
 
 And watchful potencies unweave 
 For them the tangled paths of war. 
 
112 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 Y. 
 
 Divis orto bonis. 
 
 T) EST guardian of Rome’s people, dearest boon 
 Of a kind Heaven, thou lingerest all too long : 
 Thou bad’st thy senate look to meet thee soon : 
 
 Do not thy promise wrong. 
 
 Restore, dear chief, the light thou tak’st away : 
 Ah ! when, like spring, that gracious mien of 
 thine 
 
 Dawns on thy Rome, more gently glides the day, 
 And suns serener shine. 
 
 See her whose darling child a long year past 
 Has dwelt beyond the wild Carpathian foam ; 
 That long year o’er, the envious southern blast 
 Still bars him from his home : 
 
 Weeping and praying to the shore she clings, 
 
 Hor ever thence her straining eyesight turns : 
 So, smit by loyal passion’s restless stings, 
 
 Rome for her Cassar yearns. 
 
 In safety range the cattle o’er the mead : 
 
 Sweet Peace, soft Plenty, swell the golden grain : 
 O’er unvex’d seas the sailors blithely speed : 
 
 Pair Honour shrinks from stain : 
 
 Ho guilty lusts the shrine of home defile : 
 
 Cleansed is the hand without, the heart within : 
 The father’s features in his children smile : 
 
 Swift vengeance follows sin. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 113 
 
 Who fears the Parthian or the Scythian horde, 
 
 Or the rank growth that German forests yield, 
 While Caesar lives p who trembles at the sword 
 The fierce Iberians wield? 
 
 In his own hills each labours down the day, 
 Teaching the vine to clasp the widow’d tree : 
 Then to his cups again, where, feasting gay, 
 
 He hails his god in thee. 
 
 A household power, adored with prayers and wine, 
 Thou reign’st auspicious o’er his hour of ease : 
 Thus grateful Greece her Castor made divine, 
 And her great Hercules. 
 
 Ah ! be it thine long holydays to give 
 
 To thy Hesperia ! thus, dear chief, we pray 
 At sober sunrise ; thus at mellow eve, 
 
 When ocean hides the day. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Dive , quem proles. 
 
 HTHOU who didst make thy vengeful might 
 To Niobe and Tityos known, 
 
 And Peleus’ son, when Troy’s tall height 
 Was nigh his own, 
 
 Victorious else, for thee no peer, 
 
 Though, strong in his sea-parent’s power, 
 He shook with that tremendous spear 
 The Dardan tower. 
 
 i 
 
114 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 He, like a pine by axes sped, 
 
 Or cypress sway’d by angry gust, 
 
 Fell mining, and laid bis bead 
 In Trojan dust. 
 
 Hot bis to lie in covert pent 
 
 Of tbe false steed, and sudden fall 
 On Priam’s ill-starr’d merriment 
 In bower and ball : 
 
 His ruthless arm in broad bare day 
 Tbe infant from tbe breast bad torn, 
 
 Hay, given to flame, ab, well a way ! 
 
 Tbe babe unborn : 
 
 But, won by Venus’ voice and tbine, 
 Belenting Jove iEneas will’d 
 With other omens more benign 
 Hew walls to build. 
 
 Sweet tuner of tbe Grecian lyre, 
 
 Whose locks are laved in Xanthus’ dews, 
 Blooming Agyieus ! help, inspire 
 My Daunian Muse ! 
 
 ’Tis Phoebus, Phoebus gifts my tongue 
 With minstrel art and minstrel fires : 
 Come, noble youths and maidens sprung 
 From noble sires, 
 
 Blest in your Dian’s guardian smile, 
 
 Whose shafts tbe flying silvans stay, 
 Come, foot tbe Lesbian measure, while 
 Tbe lyre I play : 
 
 Sing of Latona’s glorious boy, 
 
 Sing of night’s queen with crescent born. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 115 
 
 Who wings the fleeting months with joy, 
 And swells the corn. 
 
 And happy brides shall say, “ ’Twas mine, 
 When years the cyclic season brought, 
 To chant the festal hymn divine 
 By Hokace taught.” 
 
 HE snow is fled : the trees their leaves put on, 
 
 Earth owns the change, and rivers lessening run 
 Their banks between. 
 
 Naked the Nymphs and Graces in the meads 
 The dance essay : 
 
 “ No ’scaping death ” proclaims the year, that 
 speeds 
 
 This sweet spring day. 
 
 Frosts yield to zephyrs; Summer drives out 
 Spring, 
 
 To vanish, when 
 
 Bich Autumn sheds his fruits ; round wheels the 
 
 Winter again ! 
 
 Yet the swift moons repair Heaven’s detriment : 
 We, soon as thrust 
 
 Where good iEneas, Tullus, Ancus went, 
 
 What are we p dust. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Diffugere nives. 
 
 The fields their green : 
 
 ring,— 
 
116 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 Can Hope assure you one more day to live 
 From powers above ? 
 
 You rescue from your heir whate’er you give 
 The self you love. 
 
 When life is o’er, and Minos has rehearsed 
 The grand last doom, 
 
 Hot birth, nor eloquence, nor worth, shall burst 
 Torquatus’ tomb. 
 
 Hot Dian’s self can chaste Hippolytus 
 To life recall, 
 
 Hor Theseus free his loved Pirithous 
 From Lethe’s thrall. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Donarem pateras. 
 
 A 11 Censorinus ! to my comrades true 
 1 ^ Pich cups, rare bronzes, gladly would I send : 
 Choice tripods from Olympia on each friend 
 Would I confer, choicer on none than you, 
 
 Had but my fate such gems of art bestow’d 
 As cunning Scopas or Parrhasius wrought, 
 This with the brush, that with the chisel taught 
 To image now a mortal, now a god. 
 
 But these are not my riches : your desire 
 
 Such luxury craves not, and your means disdain : 
 A poet’s strain you love ; a poet’s strain 
 Accept, and learn the value of the lyre. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 117 
 
 Not public gravings on a marble base, 
 
 Whence comes a second life to men of might 
 E’en in the tomb : not Hannibal’s swift flight, 
 Nor those fierce threats flung back into his face, 
 Not impious Carthage in its last red blaze, 
 
 In clearer light sets forth his spotless fame, 
 Who from crush’d Afric took away — a name, 
 Than rude Calabria’s tributary lays. 
 
 Let silence hide the good your hand has wrought, 
 Farewell, reward ! Had blank oblivion’s power 
 Dimm’d the bright deeds of Eomulus, at this 
 hour, 
 
 Despite his sire and mother, he were nought. 
 
 Thus iEacus has ’scaped the Stygian wave, 
 
 By grace of poets and their silver tongue, 
 Henceforth to live the happy isles among. 
 
 No, trust the Muse : she opes the good man’s grave, 
 And lifts him to the gods. So Hercules, 
 
 His labours o’er, sits at the board of Jove : 
 
 So Tyndareus’ offspring shine as stars above, 
 Saving lorn vessels from the yawning seas : 
 
 So Bacchus, with the vine-wreath round his hair, 
 Gives prosperous issue to his votary’s prayer. 
 
118 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Ne forte credas . 
 
 'T'HIHK not those strains can e’er expire, 
 Which, cradled ’mid the echoing roar 
 Of Anfidus, to Latium’s lyre 
 
 I sing with arts unknown before. 
 
 Though Homer fill the foremost throne, 
 
 Yet grave Stesichorus still can please, 
 And fierce Alcaeus holds his own 
 With Pindar and Simonides. 
 
 The songs of Teos are not mute, 
 
 And Sappho’s love is breathing still : 
 
 She told her secret to the lute, 
 
 And yet its chords with passion thrill. 
 Hot Sparta’s queen alone was fired 
 By broider’d robe and braided tress, 
 
 And all the splendours that attired 
 Her lover’s guilty loveliness : 
 
 Hot only Teucer to the field 
 His arrows brought, nor Ilion 
 Beneath a single conqueror reel’d : 
 
 Hot Crete’s majestic lord alone, 
 
 Or Sthenelus, earn’d the Muses’ crown : 
 
 Hot Hector first for child and wife, 
 
 Or brave Deiphobus, laid down 
 The burden of a manly life. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 119 
 
 Before Atrides men were brave : 
 
 But ah ! oblivion, dark and long, 
 
 Has lock’d them in a tearless grave, 
 
 For lack of consecrating song. 
 
 ’Twixt worth and baseness, lapp’d in death, 
 What difference ? You shall ne’er be dumb, 
 While strains of mine have voice and breath : 
 The dull neglect of days to -come 
 Those hard-won honours shall not blight : 
 
 Ho, Lollius, no : a soul is yours, 
 Clear-sighted, keen, alike upright 
 
 When fortune smiles, and when she lowers : 
 To greed and rapine still severe, 
 
 Spurning the gain men find so sweet : 
 
 A consul, not of one brief year, 
 
 But oft as on the judgment- seat 
 You bend the expedient to the right, 
 
 Turn haughty eyes from bribes away, 
 
 Or bear your banners through the fight, 
 Scattering the foeman’s firm array. 
 
 The lord of boundless revenues, 
 
 Salute not him as happy : no, 
 
 Call him the happy, who can use 
 The bounty that the gods bestow, 
 
 Can bear the load of poverty, 
 
 And tremble not at death, but sin : 
 
 Ho recreant he when called to die 
 In cause of country or of kin. 
 
120 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 XI. 
 
 Est mihi nonum, 
 
 IT ERE is a cask of Alban, more 
 
 ^ Than nine years old : here grows for you 
 
 Green parsley, Phyllis, and good store 
 Of ivy too 
 
 (Wreathed ivy suits your hair, you know): 
 
 The plate shines bright : the altar, strew’d 
 
 With vervain, hungers for the flow 
 Of lambkin’s blood. 
 
 There’s stir among the serving folk ; 
 
 They bustle, bustle, boy and girl ; 
 
 The flickering flames send up the smoke 
 In many a curl. 
 
 Rut why, you ask, this special cheer ? 
 
 We celebrate the feast of Ides, 
 
 Which April’s month, to Yenus dear, 
 
 In twain divides. 
 
 0, ’tis a day for reverence, 
 
 E’en my own birthday scarce so dear. 
 
 For my Maecenas counts from thence 
 Each added year. 
 
 ’Tis Telephus that you’d bewitch : 
 
 But he is of a high degree ; 
 
 Bound to a lady fair and rich, 
 
 He is not free. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 121 
 
 0 think of Phaethon half burn’d, 
 
 And moderate your passion’s greed : 
 Think how Bellerophon was spurn’d 
 By his wing’d steed. 
 
 So learn to look for partners meet, 
 
 Shun lofty things, nor raise yonr aims 
 Above your fortune. Come then, sweet, 
 My last of flames 
 (For never shall another fair 
 
 Enslave me) , learn a tune, to sing 
 With that dear voice : to music care 
 Shall yield its sting. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Jam veris comites . 
 
 ' | 'HE gales of Thrace, that hush the unquiet sea, 
 Spring’s comrades, on the bellying canvas 
 blow : 
 
 Clogg’d earth and brawling streams alike are free 
 From winter’s weight of snow. 
 
 Wailing her Itys in that sad, sad strain, 
 
 Builds the poor bird, reproach to after time 
 Of Cecrops’ house, for bloody vengeance ta’en 
 On foul barbaric crime. 
 
 The keepers of fat lambkins chant their loves 
 To silvan reeds, all in the grassy lea, 
 
122 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 And pleasure Him who tends the flocks and groves 
 Of dark-leaved Arcady. 
 
 It is a thirsty season, Virgil mine ; 
 
 But would you taste the grape’s Calenian juice, 
 Client of noble youths, to earn your wine 
 Some nard you must produce. 
 
 A tiny box of nard shall bring to light 
 The cask that in Sulpician cellar lies : 
 
 0, it can give new hopes, so fresh and bright, 
 And gladden gloomy eyes. 
 
 You take the bait ? then come without delay 
 And bring your ware : be sure, ’tis not my plan 
 To let you drain my liquor and not pay, 
 
 As might some wealthy man. 
 
 Come, quit those covetous thoughts, those knitted 
 brows, 
 
 Think on the last black embers, while you may, 
 And be for once unwise. When time allows, 
 
 ’Tis sweet the fool to play. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Audivere , Lyce . 
 
 nHHE gods have heard, the gods have heard my 
 prayer ; 
 
 Yes, Lyce ! you are growing old, and still 
 You struggle to look fair ; 
 
 You drink, and dance, and trill 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 123 
 
 Your songs to youthful Love, in accents weak 
 With wine, and age, and passion. Youthful 
 Love ! 
 
 He dwells in Chia’s cheek, 
 
 And hears her harp-strings move. 
 
 Kude boy, he flies like lightning o’er the heath 
 Past wither’d trees like you ; you’re wrinkled 
 now ; 
 
 The white has left your teeth 
 And settled on your brow. 
 
 Your Ooan silks, your jewels bright as stars, 
 
 Ah no ! they bring not back the days of old, 
 
 In public calendars 
 
 By flying Time enroll’d. 
 
 Where now that beauty ? where those movements ? 
 where 
 
 That colour ? what of her, of her is left, 
 
 Who, breathing Love’s own air, 
 
 Me of myself bereft, 
 
 Who reign’d in Cinara’s stead, a fair, fair face, 
 Queen of sweet arts ? but Fate to Oinara gave 
 A life of little space ; 
 
 And now she cheats the grave 
 Of Lyce, spared to raven’s length of days, 
 
 That youth may see, with laughter and disgust* 
 A fire-brand, once ablaze, 
 
 Yow smouldering in grey dust. 
 
124 
 
 ODES OF HORACE . 
 
 XIY. 
 
 Quce cura jpatrum. 
 
 7HAT honours can a grateful Rome, 
 v * A grateful senate, Caesar, give 
 To make thy worth through days to come 
 Emblazon’d on our records live, 
 
 Mightiest of chieftains whomsoe’er 
 
 The sun beholds from heaven on high? 
 They know thee now, thy strength in war, 
 Those unsubdued Yindelici. 
 
 Thine was the sword that Drusus drew, 
 When on the Breunian hordes he fell, 
 
 And storm’d the fierce Genaunian crew 
 E’en in their Alpine citadel, 
 
 And paid them back their debt twice told ; 
 
 ’Twas then the elder Nero came 
 To conflict, and in ruin roll’d 
 
 Stout Raetian kernes of giant frame. 
 
 0, ’twas a gallant sight to see 
 
 The shocks that beat upon the brave 
 Who chose to perish and be free ! 
 
 As south winds scourge the rebel wave 
 When through rent clouds the Pleiads weep, 
 So keen his force to smite, and smite 
 The foe, or make his charger leap 
 
 Through the red furnace of the fight. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 125 
 
 Thus Daunia’s ancient river fares, 
 
 Proud Anfidus, with bull-like horn, 
 
 When swoln with choler he prepares 
 A deluge for the fields of corn. 
 
 So Claudius charged and overthrew 
 The grim barbarian’s mail-clad host, 
 
 The foremost and the hindmost slew, 
 
 And conquer’d all, and nothing lost. 
 
 The force, the forethought, were thine own, 
 Thine own the gods. The selfsame day 
 When, port and palace open thrown, 
 
 Low at thy footstool Egypt lay, 
 
 That selfsame day, three lustres gone, 
 Another victory to thine hand 
 Was given ; another field was won 
 By grace of Caesar’s high command. 
 
 Thee Spanish tribes, unused to yield, 
 
 Mede, Indian, Scyth that knows no home, 
 Acknowledge, sword at once and shield 
 Of Italy and queenly Borne. 
 
 Ister to thee, and Tanais fleet, 
 
 And Nile that will not tell his birth, 
 
 To thee the monstrous seas that beat 
 On Britain’s coast, the end of earth, 
 
 To thee the proud Iberians bow, 
 
 And Gauls, that scorn from death to flee; 
 The fierce Sygambrian bends his brow, 
 
 And drops his arms to worship thee. 
 
126 
 
 ODES OF HORACE. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Phoebus volenUm. 
 
 F battles fought I fain had told, 
 
 And conquer’d towns, when Phoebus smote 
 His harp-string : “ Sooth, ’twere over-bold 
 To tempt wide seas in that frail boat.” 
 
 Thy age, great Caesar, has restored 
 To squalid fields the plenteous grain. 
 
 Given back to Pome’s almighty Lord 
 Our standards, torn from Parthian fane, 
 
 Has closed Quirinian Janus’ gate, 
 
 Wild passion’s erring walk controll’d, 
 
 Heal’d the foul plague-spot of the state, 
 
 And brought again the life of old, 
 
 Life, by whose healthful power increased 
 The glorious name of Latium spread 
 To where the sun illumes the east 
 
 From where he seeks his western bed. 
 
 While Caesar rules, no civil strife 
 
 Shall break our rest, nor violence rude, 
 
 Hor rage, that whets the slaughtering knife 
 And plunges wretched towns in feud. 
 
 The sons of Danube shall not scorn 
 The Julian edicts ; no, nor they 
 By Tanais’ distant river born, 
 
 Hor Persia, Scythia, or Cathay. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 127 
 
 And we on feast and working-tide, 
 
 While Bacchus’ bounties freely flow, 
 
 Our wives and children at our side, 
 
 First paying Heaven the prayers we owe, 
 Shall sing of chiefs whose deeds are done, 
 As wont our sires, to flute or shell, 
 
 And Troy, Anchises, and the son 
 
 Of Yenus on our tongues shall dwell. 
 
128 
 
 CARMEN SJECULARE. 
 
 Phoebe, silvarumque. 
 
 "DHCEBUS and Dian, huntress fair, 
 To-day and always magnified, 
 
 Bright lights of heaven, accord our prayer 
 This holy tide, 
 
 On which the Sibyl’s volume wills 
 
 That youths and maidens without stain 
 To gods, who love the seven dear hills, 
 
 Should chant the strain ! 
 Sun, that unchanged, yet ever new, 
 
 Lead’st out the day and bring’st it home, 
 May nought be present to thy view 
 
 More great than Borne ! 
 Blest Ilithyia ! be thou near 
 
 In travail to each Roman dame ! 
 
 Lucina, Genitalis, hear, 
 
 Whate’er thy name ! 
 
 0 make our youth to live and grow ! 
 
 The fathers’ nuptial counsels speed, 
 Those laws that shall on Rome bestow 
 A plenteous seed ! 
 
 So when a hundred years and ten 
 
 Bring round the cycle, game and song 
 Three days, three nights, shall charm again 
 The festal throng. 
 
CARMEN SJBCULARE . . 
 
 129 
 
 Ye too, ye Fates, whose righteous doom, 
 Declared but once, is sure as heaven, 
 
 Link on new blessings, yet to come, 
 
 To blessings given ! 
 
 Let Earth, with grain and cattle rife, 
 
 Crown Ceres’ brow with wreathen corn ; 
 
 Soft winds, sweet waters, nurse to life 
 The newly born ! 
 
 0 lay thy shafts, Apollo, by ! 
 
 Let suppliant youths obtain thine ear ! 
 
 Thou Moon, fair “ regent of the sky,” 
 
 Thy maidens hear ! 
 
 If Lome is yours, if Troy’s remains, 
 
 Safe by your conduct, sought and found 
 
 Another city, other fanes 
 
 On Tuscan ground, 
 
 For whom, ’mid fires and piles of slain, 
 iEneas made a broad highway, 
 
 Destined, pure heart, with greater gain 
 Their loss to pay, 
 
 Grant to our sons unblemish’d ways ; 
 
 Grant to our sires an age of peace ; 
 
 Grant to our nation power and praise, 
 
 And large increase ! 
 
 See, at your shrine, with victims white, 
 Prays Yenus and Anchises’ heir! 
 
 O prompt him still the foe to smite, 
 
 The fallen to spare ! 
 
 Now Media dreads our Alban steel, 
 
 Our victories land and ocean o’er ; 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 CARMEN SASCULARE. 
 
 Scythia and Ind in suppliance kneel, 
 
 So proud before. 
 
 Faith, Honour, ancient Modesty, 
 
 And Peace, and Virtue, spite of scorn, 
 Come back to earth ; and Plenty, see, 
 With teeming horn. 
 Augur and lord of silver bow, 
 
 Apollo, darling of the Nine, 
 
 Who heal’st our frame when languors slow 
 Have made it pine ; 
 Lov’st thou thine own Palatial hill, 
 Prolong the glorious life of Eome 
 To other cycles, brightening still 
 
 Through time to come ! 
 From Algidus and Aventine 
 
 List, goddess, to our grave Fifteen ! 
 
 To praying youths thine ear incline, 
 
 Diana queen 1 
 
 Thus Jove and all the gods agree ! 
 
 So trusting, wend we home again, 
 Phoebus’ and Dian’s singers we, 
 
 And this our strain. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Book I, Ode 3. 
 
 The estranging main. 
 
 unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea.” 
 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 \d slow Fate quicken d Death’s once halting 
 pace. 
 
 The commentators seem generally to connect Necess- 
 itous with Leti ; I have preferred to separate them. Necess- 
 itas occurs elsewhere in Horace (Book I, Ode 35, v. 17 5 
 Book III, Ode 1 , v. 14 ; Ode 24, v. 6 ) as an independent 
 personage, nearly synonymous with Fate, and I do not 
 see why she should not be represented as accelerating the 
 approach of Death. 
 
 Book I, Ode 5. 
 
 I have ventured to model my version of this Ode, to some 
 extent, on Milton’s, “ the high-water mark,” as it has been 
 termed, “ which Horatian translation has attained.” I 
 have not, however, sought to imitate his language, feeling 
 that the attempt would be presumptuous in itself, and 
 likely to create a sense of incongruity with the style of the 
 other Odes. 
 
132 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Book I, Ode 6. 
 
 Who with pared nails encounter youths in fight. 
 
 I like Ritter’s interpretation of sectis , cut sharp, better 
 than the common one, which supposes the paring of the 
 nails to denote that the attack is not really formidable. 
 Sectis will then be virtually equivalent to Bentley’s strictis . 
 Perhaps my translation is not explicit enough. 
 
 Book I, Ode 7. 
 
 And search for wreaths the olive's rifled bower. 
 
 Undique decerptam I take, with Bentley, to mean “ plucked 
 on all hands,” i. e. exhausted as a topic of poetical treat- 
 ment. He well compares Lucretius, Book I, v. 927 — 
 
 “ Juvatque novos decerpere flores, 
 
 Insignemque ineo capiti petere inde coronam 
 Unde prius nulli velarint tempora Musa .” 
 
 ’ Tis Teucer leads , 'tis Teucer breathes the wind. 
 
 If I have slurred over the Latin, my excuse must be 
 that the precise meaning of the Latin is difficult to catch. 
 Is Teucer called auspex , as taking the auspices, like an 
 augur, or as giving the auspices, like a god ? There are 
 objections to both interpretations ; a Roman imperator 
 was not called auspex , though he was attended by an au- 
 spex , and was said to have the auspicia ; auspex is frequently 
 used of one who, as we should say, inaugurates an under- 
 taking, but only if he is a god or a deified mortal. Per- 
 haps Horace himself oscillated between the two meanings ; 
 his later commentators do not appear to have distinguished 
 them. 
 
NOTES . 
 
 133 
 
 Book I, Ode 9. 
 
 Since this Ode was printed off, I find that my last stanza 
 bears a suspicious likeness to the version by “ C. S. C.” I 
 cannot say whether it is a case of mere coincidence, or of 
 unconscious recollection; it certainly is not one of de- 
 liberate appropriation. I have only had the opportunity 
 of seeing his book at distant intervals ; and now, on finally 
 comparing his translations with my own, I find that, while 
 there are a few resemblances, there are several marked 
 instances of dissimilarity, where, though we have adopted 
 the same metre, we do not approach each other in the 
 least. 
 
 Book I, Ode 15. 
 
 And for your dames divide 
 On peaceful lyre the several parts of song. 
 
 I have taken feminis with divides , but it is quite possible 
 that Orelli may be right in constructing it with grata. 
 The case is really one of those noticed in the Preface, 
 where an interpretation which would not commend itself 
 to a commentator may be adopted by a poetical translator 
 simply as a free rendering. 
 
 Book I, Ode 27. 
 
 Our guest , 
 
 Megilla?s brother. 
 
 There is no warrant in the original for representing this 
 person as a guest of the company ; but the Ode is equally 
 applicable to a tavern party, where all share alike, and an 
 entertainment w'here there is a distinction between hosts 
 and guests. 
 
134 
 
 NOTES . 
 
 Book I, Ode 28. 
 
 I have translated this Ode as it stands, without attempt- 
 ing to decide whether it is dialogue or monologue. Per- 
 haps the opinion which supposes it to be spoken by Horace 
 in his own person, as if he had actually perished in the 
 shipwreck alluded to in Book III, Ode 4, v. 27, “ Me . . . 
 non exstinxit . . . Sicula Palinurus undo,” deserves more 
 attention than it has received. 
 
 Book II, Ode 1. 
 
 Methinks I hear of leaders proud. 
 
 Horace supposes himself to hear not the leaders them- 
 selves, but Pollio’s recitation of their exploits. There is 
 nothing weak in this, as Orelli thinks. Horace has not 
 seen Pollio’s work, but compliments him by saying that 
 he can imagine what its finest passages will be like — “ I 
 can fancy how you will glow in your description of the 
 great generals, and of Cato.” Possibly “ Non indecoro 
 pulvere sor didos ” may refer to the deaths of the republican 
 generals, whom old recollections would lead Horace to ad- 
 mire. We may then compare Ode 7 of this Book, v. 11 — 
 
 cc Cum fracta virtus , et minaces 
 Turpe solum tetigere mento 
 
 where, as will be seen, I agree with Ritter, against Orelli, 
 in supposing death in battle rather than submission to be 
 meant, though Horace, writing from a somewhat different 
 point of view, has chosen there to speak of the vanquished 
 as dying ingloriously. 
 
 Book II, Ode 3. 
 
 Where poplar pale and pine-tree high. 
 
 I have translated according to the common reading “ Qua 
 
NOTES. 
 
 135 
 
 pinus . ... et obliquo,” without stopping to inquire 
 whether it is sufficiently supported by MSS. Those who 
 with Orelli prefer Ci Quo pinus .... quid obliquo ” may 
 substitute — 
 
 Know you why pine and poplar high 
 Their hospitable shadows spread 
 Entwined ? why panting waters try 
 To hurry down their zigzag bed ? 
 
 Book II, Ode 7. 
 
 A man of peace. 
 
 Quiritem is generally understood of a citizen with rights 
 undiminished. I have interpreted it of a civilian opposed 
 to a soldier, as in the well-known story in Suetonius (Caes. 
 c. 70) where Julius Caesar takes the tenth legion at their 
 word, and intimates that they are disbanded by the simple 
 substitution of Quirites for milites in his speech to them. 
 But it may very well include both. 
 
 Book II, Ode 13. 
 
 In sacred awe the silent dead 
 Attend on each. 
 
 4 * ‘ Sacro digna silentio : 5 digna eo silentio quod in sacris 
 faciendis observatur — Ritter. 
 
 Book II, Ode 14. 
 
 Not though three hundred bullocks flame 
 Each year. 
 
 I have at last followed Ritter in taking trecenos as loosely 
 put for 365, a steer for each day in the year. The hyper- 
 bole, as he says, would otherwise be too extravagant. 
 
136 
 
 NOTES . 
 
 And richer spilth the pavement, stain. 
 
 “ Our vaults have wept 
 With drunken spilth of wine.” 
 
 Shakespeare, Timon of Athens. 
 
 Book II, Ode 18 . 
 
 Suns are hurrying suns a- west, 
 
 And newborn moons make speed to meet their end. 
 
 The thought seems to be that the rapid course of time, 
 hurrying men to the grave, proves the wisdom of content- 
 ment and the folly of avarice. My version formerly did 
 not express this, and I have altered it accordingly, while I 
 have rendered “ Novceque pergunt interire lunce” closely, 
 as Horace may perhaps have intended to speak of the 
 moons as hastening to their graves as men do. 
 
 Yet no hall that wealth £er plann d 
 Waits you more surely than the wider room 
 Traced by Death's yet greedier hand. 
 
 Fine is the instrumental ablative constructed with desti- 
 nata, which is itself an ablative agreeing with aula under- 
 stood. The rich man looks into the future, and makes 
 contracts which he may never live to see executed (v. 17 — 
 Tu secanda marmora Locas sub ipsum funus meantime 
 Death, more punctual than any contractor, more greedy 
 than any encroaching proprietor, has planned with his 
 measuring line a mansion of a different kind, which will 
 infallibly be ready when the day arrives. 
 
 Book II, Ode 20. 
 
 I, whom you call 
 Your friend , Maecenas. 
 
 With Ritter I have rendered according to the interpre- 
 
NOTES . 
 
 137 
 
 tation which makes dilecte Maecenas’ address to Horace 5 
 but it is a choice of evils. 
 
 Book III, Ode 1. 
 
 And lords of land 
 
 Affect the sea. 
 
 Terrm of course goes with fastidiosus , not with dominus. 
 Mine is a loose rendering, not a false interpretation. 
 
 Book III, Ode 2. 
 
 Her robes she keeps unsullied still. 
 
 The meaning is not that worth is not disgraced by de- 
 feat in contests for worldly honours, but that the honours 
 which belong to worth are such as the worthy never fail 
 to attain, such as bring no disgrace along with them, and 
 such as the popular breath can neither confer nor resume. 
 
 True men and thieves 
 Neglected Justice oft confounds. 
 
 “ The thieves have bound the true men/’ 
 
 Shakespeare, Henry IV, Act ii. Scene 2 ; 
 where see Steevens’ note. 
 
 Book III, Ode 3. 
 
 No more the adulterous guest can charm 
 The Spartan queen . 
 
 I have followed Ritter in constructing Laccence adulterce as 
 a dative with splendet ; but I have done so as a poetical 
 translator rather than as a commentator. 
 
138 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Book III, Ode 4. 
 
 Or if a graver note thou love , 
 
 With Phoebus’ cittern and his lyre. 
 
 I have followed Horace’s sense, not his words. I believe, 
 with Ritter, that the alternative is between the pipe as 
 accompanying the vox acuta , and the cithara or lyre as ac- 
 companying the vox gravis. Horace has specified the vox 
 acuta , and left the vox gravis to be inferred ; I have done 
 just the reverse. 
 
 iiie, as I lay on Vultur’s steep. 
 
 In this and the two following stanzas I have paraphrased 
 Horace, with a view to bring out what appears to be his 
 sense. There is, I think, a peculiar force in the word 
 fabulosce , standing as it does at the very opening of the 
 stanza, in close connection with me , and thus bearing the 
 weight of all the intervening words till the very end, 
 where its noun, palumbes , is introduced at last. Horace 
 says in effect, “ I, too, like other poets, have a legend of 
 my infancy.” Accordingly I have thrown the gossip of 
 the country-side into the form of an actual speech. Whe- 
 ther I am justified in heightening the marvellous by mak- 
 ing the stock-doves actually crown the child, instead of 
 merely laying branches upon him, I am not so sure 5 but 
 something more seems to be meant than the covering of 
 leaves, which the Children in the Wood, in our own legend, 
 receive from the robin. 
 
 Loves the leafy growth 
 Of Lycia next his native wood. 
 
 Some of my predecessors seem hardly to distinguish 
 between the Lycice dumeta and the natalem silvam of Delos, 
 Apollo’s attachment to both of which warrants the two 
 titles Delius et Patareus. I knew no better way of marking 
 
NOTES . 
 
 139 
 
 the distinction within the compass of a line and a half 
 than by making Apollo exhibit a preference where Horace 
 speaks of his likings as co-ordinate. 
 
 Strength mix'd with mind is made more strong. 
 
 “ Mixed ” is not meant as a precise translation of tern- 
 peratam, chastened or restrained, though “ to mix ” hap- 
 pens to be one of the shades of meaning of temper are. 
 
 Book III, Ode 5. 
 
 The fields we spoil' d with corn are green. 
 
 The later editors are right in not taking Marte nostro with 
 coli as well as with populata . As has been remarked to 
 me, the pride of the Roman is far more forcibly expressed 
 by the complaint that the enemy have been able to culti- 
 vate fields that Rome has ravaged than by the statement 
 that Roman captives have been employed to cultivate the 
 fields they had ravaged as invaders. The latter proposi- 
 tion, it is true, includes the former 5 but the new matter 
 draws off attention from the old, and so weakens it. 
 
 Who once to faithless foes has knelt. 
 
 “ Knelt” is not strictly accurate, expressing Bentley’s 
 dedidit rather than the common, and doubtless correct, 
 text, credidit. 
 
 And , girt by friends that mourn'd him , sped 
 
 The press of kin he push'd apart. 
 
 I had originally reversed amicos and propinquos, suppos- 
 ing it to be indifferent which of them was used in either 
 stanza. But a friend has pointed out to me that a distinc- 
 tion is probably intended between the friends who attended 
 Regulus and the kinsmen who sought to prevent his going. 
 
140 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Book III, Ode 8. 
 
 Lay down that load of state- concern. 
 
 I have translated generally ; but Horace’s meaning is 
 special, referring to Maecenas’ office of prefect of the city. 
 
 Book III, Ode 9. 
 
 Buttmann complains of the editors for specifying the in- 
 terlocutors as Horace and Lydia, which he thinks as in- 
 congruous as if in an English amcebean ode Collins were 
 to appear side by side with Phyllis. The remark may be 
 just as affects the Latin, though Ode 19 of the present 
 Book, and Odes 33 and 36 of Book I, might be adduced to 
 show that Horace does not object to mixing Latin and 
 Greek names in the same poem ; but it does not apply to 
 a translation, where to the English reader’s apprehension 
 Horace and Lydia will seem equally real, equally fanciful. 
 
 Book III, Ode 17. 
 
 Lamia was doubtless vain of his pedigree ; Horace accord- 
 ingly banters him good-humouredly by spending two 
 stanzas out of four in giving him his proper ancestral 
 designation. To shorten the address by leaving out a 
 stanza, as some critics and some translators have done, is 
 simply to rob Horace's trifle of its point. 
 
 Book III, Ode 23. 
 
 There is something harsh in the expression of the fourth 
 stanza of this Ode in the Latin. Tentare cannot stand 
 without an object, and to connect it, as the commentators 
 do, with deos is awkward. I was going to remark that 
 possibly some future Bentley would conjecture certare, or 
 litare , when I found that certare had been anticipated by 
 Peerlkamp, who, if not a Bentley, was a Bentleian. But it 
 would not be easy to account for the corruption, as the 
 
NOTES. 
 
 141 
 
 fact that the previous line begins with cervice would rather 
 have led to the change of tentare into certare than vice versa. 
 
 Book III, Ode 24. 
 
 Let Necessity but drive 
 Her wedge of adamant into that proud head. 
 
 I have translated this difficult passage nearly as it stands, 
 not professing to decide whether tops of buildings or 
 human heads are meant. Either is strange till explained ; 
 neither seems at present to be supported by any exact 
 parallel in ancient literature or ancient art. Necessity 
 with her nails has met us before in Ode 35 of Book I, and 
 Orelli describes an Etruscan work of art where she is re- 
 presented with that cognizance 5 but though the nail is an 
 appropriate emblem of fixity, we are apparently not told 
 where it is to be driven. The difficulty here is further 
 complicated by the following metaphor of the noose, which 
 seems to be a new and inconsistent image. 
 
 Book III, Ode 29. 
 
 Nor gaze on Tibur , never dried. 
 
 With Bitter I have connected semper udum (an interpre- 
 tation first suggested by Tate, who turned ne into ut ) ; but 
 I do not press it as the best explanation of the Latin. The 
 general effect of the stanza is the same either way. 
 
 Those piles , among the clouds at home. 
 
 I have understood molem generally of the buildings of 
 Rome, not specially of Maecenas’ tower. The parallel 
 passage in Yirg. HJn. i. 421 — 
 
 “ Miratur molem zHneas, magalia quondam , 
 
 Miratur portas strepitumque et strata viarum ” — 
 
 is in favour of the former view. 
 
142 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 What once the flying hour has brought. 
 
 I have followed Ritter doubtfully. Compare Virg. 
 Georg, i. 461, — 
 
 “ Quid vesper serus vehat.” 
 
 Shall waft my little boat ashore. 
 
 I have hardly brought out the sense of the Latin with 
 sufficient clearness. Horace says that if adversity comes 
 upon him he shall accept it, and be thankful for what is 
 left him, like a trader in a tempest, who, instead of wasting 
 time in useless prayers for the safety of his goods, takes 
 at once to the boat and preserves his life. 
 
 Book IV, Ode 2. 
 
 And spices strow 
 Before your train. 
 
 I had written “ And gifts bestow at every fane ; ” but 
 Ritter is doubtless right in explaining dabimus tura of the 
 burning of incense in the streets during the procession. 
 About the early part of the stanza I am less confident; 
 but the explanation which makes Antonius take part in 
 the procession as praetor, the reading adopted being Tuque 
 dum procedis , is perhaps the least of evils. 
 
 Book IV, Ode 3. 
 
 On soft JEolian airs his fame shall nourish. 
 
 Horace evidently means that the scenery of Tibur con- 
 tributes to the formation of lyric genius. It is Words- 
 worth’s doctrine in the germ ; though, if the author had 
 been asked what it involved, perhaps he would not have 
 gone further than Ritter, -who resolves it all into the con- 
 duciveness of a pleasant retreat to successful composition. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 143 
 
 Book IV, Ode 4. 
 
 I have deranged the symmetry of the two opening similes, 
 making the eagle the subject of the sentence in the first, 
 the kid in the second, an awkwardness which the Latin is 
 able to avoid by its power of distinguishing cases by in- 
 flexion. I trust, however, that it will not offend an Eng- 
 lish reader. 
 
 Whence in every field 
 
 They learned. 
 
 Horace seems to allude jokingly to some unseasonable 
 inquiry into the antiquity of the armour of these Alpine 
 tribes, which had perhaps been started by some less skil- 
 ful celebrator of the victory 5 at the same time that he 
 gratifies his love of lyrical commonplace by a parenthetical 
 digression in the style of Pindar. 
 
 And watchful potencies unweave 
 For them the tangled paths of war. 
 
 On the whole, Ritter seems right, after Acron, in un- 
 derstanding curve sagaces of the counsels of Augustus, whom 
 Horace compliments similarly in the Fourteenth Ode of 
 this Book, as the real author of his step-son’s victories. 
 He is certainly right in giving the stanza to Horace, not 
 to Hannibal. Even a courtly or patriotic Roman would 
 have shrunk from the bad taste of making the great his- 
 torical enemy of Italy conclude his lamentation over his 
 own and his country’s deep sorrow by a flattering pro- 
 phecy of the greatness of his antagonist’s family. 
 
 Book IV, Ode 9. 
 
 ’ Twixt worth and baseness , lapp'd in death , 
 
 What difference ? 
 
 I believe I have expressed Horace’s meaning, though he 
 
144 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 has chosen to express himself as if the two things com* 
 pared were dead worthlessness and uncelebrated worth. 
 By fixing the epithet sepultce to inertia he doubtless meant 
 to express that the natural and appropriate fate of worth- 
 lessness was to be dead, buried, and forgotten. But the 
 context shows that he was thinking of the effect of death 
 and its consequent oblivion on worth and worthlessness 
 alike, and contending that the poet alone could remedy 
 the undiscriminating and unjust award of destiny. 
 Throughout the first half of the Ode, however, Horace has 
 rather failed to mark the transitions of thought. He be- 
 gins by assuring himself and, by implication, those whom 
 he celebrates, of immortality, on the ground that the 
 greatest poets are not the only poets 5 he then exchanges 
 this thought for another, doubtless suggested by it, that 
 the heroes of poetry are not the only heroes, though the 
 very fact that there have been uncelebrated heroes is used 
 to show that celebration by a poet is everything. 
 
 Or bear your banners through the fight, 
 
 Scattering the foeman’s firm array. 
 
 It seems, on the whole, simpler to understand this of 
 actual victories obtained by Lollius as a commander, than 
 of moral victories obtained by him as a judge. There is 
 harshness in passing abruptly from the judgment-seat to 
 the battle-field ; but to speak of the judgment-seat as itself 
 the battle-field would, I think, be harsher still. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS: — PRINTED BY WHITT1NGHAM AND WILKINS, 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. 
 

 
 
 
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