# bib

id: horace-works_01
title: horace-works_01
txt: ./txt/horace-works_01.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_01.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  TO MAECENAS Maecenas, descended from royal ancestors, O both my protection and my darling honor! There are those whom it delights to have collected Olympic dust in the chariot race; and[ whom] the goal nicely avoided by the glowing wheels, and the noble palm, exalts, lords of the earth, to the gods. This man, if a crowd of the capricious Quirites strive to raise him to the highest dignities; another, if he has stored up in his own granary whatsoever is swept from the Libyan thrashing floors: him who delights to cut with the hoe his patrimonial fields, you could never tempt, for all the wealth of Attalus,[ to become] a timorous sailor and cross the Myrtoan sea in a Cyprian bark. Ivy, the reward of learned brows, equals me with the gods above: the cool grove, and the light dances of nymphs and satyrs, distinguish me from the crowd; if neither Euterpe withholds her pipe, nor Polyhymnia disdains to tune the Lesbian lyre. But, if you rank me among the lyric poets, I shall tower to the stars with my exalted head.


id: horace-works_02
title: horace-works_02
txt: ./txt/horace-works_02.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_02.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Enough of snow and dreadful hail has the Sire now sent upon the earth, and having hurled[ his thunderbolts] with his red right hand against the sacred towers, he has terrified the city; he has terrified the nations, lest the grievous age of Pyrrha, complaining of prodigies till then unheard of, should return, when Proteus drove all his[ marine] herd to visit the lofty mountains; and the fishy race were entangled in the elm top, which before was the frequented seat of doves; and the timorous deer swam in the overwhelming flood. of too long continuance: or if thou, the winged son of gentle Maia, by changing thy figure, personate a youth upon earth, submitting to be called the avenger of Caesar; late mayest thou return to the skies, and long mayest thou joyously be present to the Roman people; nor may an untimely blast transport thee from us, offended at our crimes. Here mayest thou rather delight in magnificent triumphs, and to be called father and prince: nor suffer the Parthians with impunity to make incursions, you, O Caesar, being our general.


id: horace-works_03
title: horace-works_03
txt: ./txt/horace-works_03.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_03.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE III. TO THE SHIP, IN WHICH VIRGIL WAS ABOUT TO SAIL TO ATHENS So may the goddess who rules over Cyprus; so may the bright stars, the brothers of Helen; and so may the father of the winds, confining all except Iapyx, direct thee, O ship, who art intrusted with Virgil; my prayer is, that thou mayest land him safe on the Athenian shore, and preserve the half of my soul. In vain has God in his wisdom divided the countries of the earth by the separating ocean, if nevertheless profane ships bound over waters not to be violated. The race of man presumptuous enough to endure everything, rushes on through forbidden wickedness. After fire was stolen from the celestial mansions, consumption and a new train of fevers settled upon the earth, and the slow approaching necessity of death, which, till now, was remote, accelerated its pace.


id: horace-works_04
title: horace-works_04
txt: ./txt/horace-works_04.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_04.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODE IV. ODE IV. TO SEXTIUS Severe winter is melted away beneath the agreeable change of spring and the western breeze; and engines haul down the dry ships. And neither does the cattle any longer delight in the stalls, nor the ploughman in the fireside; nor are the meadows whitened by hoary frosts. Now Cytherean Venus leads off the dance by moonlight; and the comely Graces, in conjunction with the Nymphs, shake the ground with alternate feet; while glowing Vulcan kindles the laborious forges of the Cyclops. Now it is fitting to encircle the shining head either with verdant myrtle, or with such flowers as the relaxed earth produces. Now likewise it is fitting to sacrifice to Faunus in the shady groves, whether he demand a lamb, or be more pleased with a kid. Pale death knocks at the cottages of the poor, and the palaces of kings, with an impartial foot. O happy Sextius!


id: horace-works_05
title: horace-works_05
txt: ./txt/horace-works_05.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_05.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODE V. ODE V. TO PYRRHA What dainty youth, bedewed with liquid perfumes, caresses you, Pyrrha, beneath the pleasant grot, amid a profusion of roses? For whom do you bind your golden hair, plain in your neatness? Alas! how often shall he deplore your perfidy, and the altered gods; and through inexperience be amazed at the seas, rough with blackening storms who now credulous enjoys you all precious, and, ignorant of the faithless gale, hopes you will be always disengaged, always amiable! Wretched are those, to whom thou untried seemest fair? The sacred wall[ of Neptune ''s temple] demonstrates, by a votive tablet, that I have consecrated my dropping garments to the powerful god of the sea.


id: horace-works_07
title: horace-works_07
txt: ./txt/horace-works_07.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_07.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Other poets shall celebrate the famous Rhodes, or Mitylene, or Ephesus, or the walls of Corinth, situated between two seas, or Thebes, illustrious by Bacchus, or Delphi by Apollo, or the Thessalian Tempe. As the clear south wind often clears away the clouds from a lowering sky, now teems with perpetual showers; so do you, O Plancus, wisely remember to put an end to grief and the toils of life by mellow wine; whether the camp, refulgent with banners, possess you, or the dense shade of your own Tibur shall detain you. When Teucer fled from Salamis and his father, he is reported, notwithstanding, to have bound his temples, bathed in wine, with a poplar crown, thus accosting his anxious friends:" O associates and companions, we will go wherever fortune, more propitious than a father, shall carry us.


id: horace-works_08
title: horace-works_08
txt: ./txt/horace-works_08.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_08.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE VIII. TO LYDIA Lydia, I conjure thee by all the powers above, to tell me why you are so intent to ruin Sybaris by inspiring him with love? Why hates he the sunny plain, though inured to bear the dust and heat? Why does he neither, in military accouterments, appear mounted among his equals; nor manage the Gallic steed with bitted reins? Why fears he to touch the yellow Tiber? Why shuns he the oil of the ring more cautiously than viper ''s blood? Why neither does he, who has often acquired reputation by the quoit, often by the javelin having cleared the mark, any longer appear with arms all blackandblue by martial exercises? Why is he concealed, as they say the son of the seagoddess Thetis was, just before the mournful funerals of Troy; lest a manly habit should hurry him to slaughter, and the Lycian troops?


id: horace-works_09
title: horace-works_09
txt: ./txt/horace-works_09.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_09.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODE IX. ODE IX. TO THALIARCHUS You see how Soracte stands white with deep snow, nor can the laboring woods any longer support the weight, and the rivers stagnate with the sharpness of the frost. Dissolve the cold, liberally piling up billets on the hearth; and bring out, O Thaliarchus, the more generous wine, four years old, from the Sabine jar. Leave the rest to the gods, who having once laid the winds warring with the fervid ocean, neither the cypresses nor the aged ashes are moved. Avoid inquiring what may happen tomorrow; and whatever day fortune shall bestow on you, score it up for gain; nor disdain, being a young fellow, pleasant loves, nor dances, as long as illnatured hoariness keeps off from your blooming age.


id: horace-works_100
title: horace-works_100
txt: ./txt/horace-works_100.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_100.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES IV. ODE XII. The unhappy bird, that piteotisly bemoans Itys, and is the eternal disgrace of the house of Cecrops( because she wickedly revenged the brutal lusts of kings), now builds her nest. The time of year, O Virgil, has brought on a drought: but if you desire to quaff wine from the Calenian press, you, that are a constant companion of young noblemen, must earn your liquor by[ bringing some] spikenard: a small box of spikenard shall draw out a cask, which now lies in the Sulpician storehouse, bounteous in the indulgence of fresh hopes and efficacious in washing away the bitterness of cares. To which joys if you hasten, come instantly with your merchandize: I do not intend to dip you in my cups scotfree, like a man of wealth, in a house abounding with plenty.


id: horace-works_101
title: horace-works_101
txt: ./txt/horace-works_101.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_101.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES IV. ODE XIII. The gods have heard my prayers, O Lyce; Lyce, the gods have heard my prayers, you are become an old woman, and yet you would fain seem a beauty; and you wanton and drink in an audacious manner; and when drunk, solicit tardy Cupid, with a quivering voice. He basks in the charming cheeks of the blooming Chia, who is a proficient on the lyre. Now neither Coan purples nor sparkling jewels restore those years, which winged time has inserted in the public annals. Whither is your beauty gone? or whither your bloom? Whither your graceful deportment? Happy next to Cynara, and distinguished for an aspect of graceful ways: but the fates granted a few years only to Cynara, intending to preserve for a long time Lyce, to rival in years the aged raven: that the fervid young fellows might see, not without excessive laughter, that torch,[ which once so brightly scorched,] reduced to ashes.


id: horace-works_102
title: horace-works_102
txt: ./txt/horace-works_102.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_102.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  O thou, wherever the sun illuminates the habitable regions, greatest of princes, whom the Vindelici, that never experienced the Roman sway, have lately learned how powerful thou art in war! The elder of the Neros soon after fought a terrible battle, and, under your propitious auspices, smote the ferocious Rhoeti: how worthy of admiration in the field of battle,[ to see] with what destruction he oppressed the brave, hearts devoted to voluntary death: just as the south wind harasses the untameable waves, when the dance of the Pleiades cleaves the clouds;[ so is he] strenuous to annoy the troops of the enemy, and to drive his eager steed through the midst of flames. For on that day, when the suppliant Alexandria opened her ports, and deserted court, fortune, propitious to you in the third lustrum, has put a happy period to the war, and has ascribed praise and wishedfor honor to the victories already obtained.


id: horace-works_103
title: horace-works_103
txt: ./txt/horace-works_103.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_103.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Phoebus chid me, when I was meditating to sing of battles And conquered cities on the lyre: that I might not set my little sails along the Tyrrhenian Sea. Your age, O Caesar, has both restored plenteous crops to the fields, and has brought back to our Jupiter the standards torn from the proud pillars of the Parthians; and has shut up[ the temple] of Janus[ founded by] Romulus, now free from war; and has imposed a due discipline upon headstrong licentiousness, and has extirpated crimes, and recalled the ancient arts; by which the Latin name and strength of Italy have increased, and the fame and majesty of the empire is extended from the sun ''s western bed to the east. While Caesar is guardian of affairs, neither civil rage nor violence shall disturb tranquillity; nor hatred which forges swords, and sets at variance unhappy states.


id: horace-works_104
title: horace-works_104
txt: ./txt/horace-works_104.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_104.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  TO MAECENAS Thou wilt go, my friend Maecenas, with Liburian galleys among the towering forts of ships, ready at thine own[ hazard] to undergo any of Caesar ''s dangers. Whether shall I, at your command, pursue my ease, which can not be pleasing unless in your company? Or shall I endure this toil with such a courage, as becomes effeminate men to bear? I will bear it? While I am your companion, I shall be in less anxiety, which takes possession of the absent in a greater measure. Not only this, but every other war, shall be cheerfully embraced by me for the hope of your favor;[ and this,] not that my plows should labor, yoked to a greater number of mine own oxen; or that my cattle before the scorching dogstar should change the Calabrian for the Lucanian pastures: neither that my white countrybox should equal the Circaean walls of lofty Tusculum.


id: horace-works_105
title: horace-works_105
txt: ./txt/horace-works_105.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_105.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  But if a chaste wife, assisting on her part[ in the management] of the house, and beloved children( such as is the Sabine, or the sunburned spouse of the industrious Apulian), piles up the sacred hearth with old wood, just at the approach of her weary husband; and, shutting up the fruitful cattle in the woven hurdles, milks dry their distended udders: and, drawing this year ''s wine out of a wellseasoned cask, prepares the unbought collation: not the Lucrine oysters could delight me more, nor the turbot, nor the scar, should the tempestuous winter drive any from the eastern floods to this sea: not the turkey, nor the Asiatic wildfowl, can come into my stomach more agreeably, than the olive gathered from the richest branches from the trees, or the sorrel that loves the meadows, or mallows salubrious for a sickly body, or a lamb slain at the feast of Terminus, or a kid rescued from the wolf.


id: horace-works_106
title: horace-works_106
txt: ./txt/horace-works_106.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_106.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPODES. ODE III. TO MAECENAS If any person at any time with an impious hand has broken his aged father ''s neck, let him eat garlic, more baneful than hemlock. the hardy bowels of the mowers! What poison is this that rages in my entrails? Has viper ''s blood, infused in these herbs, deceived me? Or has Canidia dressed this baleful food? Never did the steaming influence of any constellation so raging as this rest upon the thirsty Appulia: neither did the gift[ of Dejanira] burn hotter upon the shoulders of laborious Hercules. But if ever, facetious Maecenas, you should have a desire for any such stuff again, I wish that your girl may oppose her hand to your kiss, and lie at the furthest part of the bed.


id: horace-works_108
title: horace-works_108
txt: ./txt/horace-works_108.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_108.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  While the boy made these complaints with a faltering voice, he stood with his bandages of distinction taken from him, a tender frame, such as might soften the impious breasts of the cruel Thracians; Canidia, having interwoven her hair and uncombed head with little vipers, orders wild figtrees torn up from graves, orders funeral cypresses and eggs besmeared with the gore of a loathsome toad, and feathers of the nocturnal screechowl, and those herbs, which lolchos, and Spain, fruitful in poisons, transmits, and bones snatched from the mouth of a hungry bitch, to be burned in Colchian flames. O ye faithful witnesses to my proceedings, Night and Diana, who presidest over silence, when the secret rites are celebrated: now, now be present, now turn your anger and power against the houses of our enemies, while the savage wild beasts lie hid in the woods, dissolved in sweet repose; let the dogs of Suburra( which may be matter of ridicule for every body) bark at the aged profligate, bedaubed with ointment, such as my hands never made any more exquisite.


id: horace-works_109
title: horace-works_109
txt: ./txt/horace-works_109.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_109.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPODES. ODE VI. AGAINST CASSIUS SEVERUS O cur, thou coward against wolves, why dost thou persecute innocent strangers? Why do you not, if you can, turn your empty yelpings hither, and attack me, who will bite again? For, like a Molossian, or tawny Laconian dog, that is a friendly assistant to shepherds, I will drive with erected ears through the deep snows every brute that shall go before me. You, when you have filled the grove with your fearful barking, you smell at the food that is thrown to you. Have a care, have a care; for, very bitter against bad men, I exert my ready horns uplift; like him that was rejected as a soninlaw by the perfidious Lycambes, or the sharp enemy of Bupalus. What, if any cur attack me with malignant tooth, shall I, without revenge, blubber like a boy?


id: horace-works_10
title: horace-works_10
txt: ./txt/horace-works_10.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_10.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODE X. ODE X. TO MERCURY Mercury, eloquent grandson of Atlas, thou who artful didst from the savage manners of the early race of men by oratory, and the institution of the graceful Palaestra: I will celebrate thee, messenger of Jupiter and the other gods, and parent of the curved lyre; ingenious to conceal whatever thou hast a mind to, in jocose theft. While Apollo, with angry voice, threatened you, then but a boy, unless you would restore the oxen, previously driven away by your fraud, he laughed,[ when he found himself] deprived of his quiver[ also]. Moreover, the wealthy Priam too, on his departure from Ilium, under your guidance deceived the proud sons of Atreus, and the Thessalian watchlights, and the camp inveterate agaist Troy. You settle the souls of good men in blissful regions, and drive together the airy crowd with your golden rod, acceptable both to the supernal and infernal gods.


id: horace-works_110
title: horace-works_110
txt: ./txt/horace-works_110.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_110.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPODES. ODE VII. TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE Whither, whither, impious men are you rushing? Or why are the swords drawn, that were[ so lately] sheathed? Is there too little of Roman blood spilled upon land and sea? [And this,] not that the Romans might burn the proud towers of envious Carthage, or that the Britons, hitherto unassailed, might go down the sacred way bound in chains: but that, agreeably to the wishes of the Parthians, this city may fall by its own might. This custom[ of warfare] never obtained even among either wolves or savage lions, unless against a different species. Does blind phrenzy, or your superior valor, or some crime, hurry you on at this rate? This is the case: a cruel fatality and the crime of fratricide have disquieted the Romans, from that time when the blood of the innocent Remus, to be expiated by his descendants, was spilled upon the earth.


id: horace-works_111
title: horace-works_111
txt: ./txt/horace-works_111.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_111.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPODES. ODE VIII. UPON A WANTON OLD WOMAN Can you, grown rank with lengthened age, ask what unnerves my vigor? When your teeth are black, and old age withers your brow with wrinkles: and your back sinks between your staring hipbones, like that of an unhealthy cow. But, forsooth! your breast and your fallen chest, full well resembling a brokenbacked horse, provoke me; and a body flabby, and feeble knees supported by swollen legs. May you be happy: and may triumphal statues adorn your funeral procession; and may no matron appear in public abounding with richer pearls. What follows, because the Stoic treatises sometimes love to be on silken pillows? Are unlearned constitutions the less robust? Or are their limbs less stout? But for you to raise an appetite, in a stomach that is nice, it is necessary that you exert every art of language.


id: horace-works_112
title: horace-works_112
txt: ./txt/horace-works_112.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_112.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  When, O happy Maecenas, shall I, overjoyed at Caesar ''s being victorious, drink with you under the stately dome( for so it pleases Jove) the Caecuban reserved for festal entertainments, while the lyre plays a tune, accompanied with flutes, that in the Doric, these in the Phrygian measure? As lately, when the Neptunian admiral, driven from the sea, and his navy burned, fled, after having menaced those chains to Rome, which, like a friend, he had taken off from perfidious slaves. Indignant at this the Gauls turned two thousand of their cavalry, proclaiming Caesar; and the ships of the hostile navy, going off to the left, lie by in port. He either seeks Crete, famous for her hundred cities, ready to sail with unfavorable winds; or the Syrtes, harassed by the south; or else is driven by the uncertain sea. It is my pleasure to dissipate care and anxiety for Caesar ''s danger with delicious wine.


id: horace-works_113
title: horace-works_113
txt: ./txt/horace-works_113.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_113.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPODES. ODE X. AGAINST MAEVIUS The vessel that carries the loathsome Maevius, makes her departure under an unlucky omen. Be mindful, O south wind, that you buffet it about with horrible billows. May the gloomy east, turning up the sea, disperse its cables and broken oars. Let the north arise as mighty as when be rives the quivering oaks on the lofty mountains; nor let a friendly star appear through the murky night, in which the baleful Orion sets: nor let him be conveyed in a calmer sea, than was the Grecian band of conquerors, when Pallas turned her rage from burned Troy to the ship of impious Ajax. But if, extended along the winding shore, you shall delight the cormorants as a dainty prey, a lascivious hegoat and an ewelamb shall be sacrificed to the Tempests.


id: horace-works_114
title: horace-works_114
txt: ./txt/horace-works_114.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_114.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  TO PECTIUS It by no means, O Pectius, delights me as heretofore to write Lyric verses, being smitten with cruel love: with love, who takes pleasure to inflame me beyond others, either youths or maidens. This is the third December that has shaken the[ leafy] honors from the woods, since I ceased to be mad for Inachia. I repent too of the entertainments, at which both a languishing and silence and sighs, heaved from the bottom of my breast, discovered the lover. Wherefore, if a generous indignation boil in my breast, insomuch as to disperse to the winds these disagreeable applications, that give no ease to the desperate wound; the shame[ of being overcome] ending, shall cease to contest with rivals of such a sort. "When I, with great gravity, had applauded these resolutions in your presence, being ordered to go home, I was carried with a wandering foot to posts, alas! to me not friendly, and alas!


id: horace-works_115
title: horace-works_115
txt: ./txt/horace-works_115.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_115.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPODES. ODE XII. TO A WOMAN WHOSE CHARMS WERE OVER What would you be at, you woman fitter for the swarthy monsters? Why do you send tokens, why billetdoux to me, and not to some vigorous youth, and of a taste not nice? For I am one who discerns a polypus, or fetid ramminess, however concealed, more quickly than the keenest dog the covert of the boar. What sweatiness, and how rank an odor every where rises from her withered limbs! She attacks even my loathings in the most angry terms:--"You are always less dull with Inachia than me :in her company you are threefold complaisance; but you are ever unprepared to oblige me in a single instance. Even so that there was not one in company, among gentlemen of your own rank, whom his own wife admired preferably to you: oh, unhappy me, whom you fly, as the lamb dreads the fierce wolves, or the shegoats the lions!"


id: horace-works_116
title: horace-works_116
txt: ./txt/horace-works_116.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_116.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPODES. ODE XIII. TO A FRIEND A horrible tempest has condensed the sky, and showers and snows bring down the atmosphere: now the sea, now the woods bellow with the Thracian North wind. Let us, my friends, take occasion from the day; and while our knees are vigorous, and it becomes us, let old age with his contracted forehead become smooth. Do you produce the wine, that was pressed in the consulship of my Torquatus. Forbear to talk of any other matters. The deity, perhaps, will reduce these[ present evils], to your former[ happy] state by a propitious change. Now it is fitting both to be bedewed with Persian perfume, and to relieve our breasts of dire vexations by the lyre, sacred to Mercury. There[ then] by wine and music, sweet consolations, drive away every symptom of hideous melancholy."


id: horace-works_117
title: horace-works_117
txt: ./txt/horace-works_117.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_117.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPODES. ODE XIV. TO MAECENAS You kill me, my courteous Maecenas, by frequently inquiring, why a soothing indolence has diffused as great a degree of forgetfulness on my inmost senses, as if I had imbibed with a thirsty throat the cups that bring on Lethean slumbers. For the god, the god prohibits me from bringing to a conclusion the verses I promised[ you, namely those] iambics which I had begun. In the same manner they report that Anacreon of Teios burned for the Samian Bathyllus; who often lamented his love to an inaccurate measure on a hollow lyre. You are violently in love yourself; but if a fairer flame did not burn besieged Troy, rejoice in your lot. Phryne, a freedwoman, and not content with a single admirer, consumes me.


id: horace-works_118
title: horace-works_118
txt: ./txt/horace-works_118.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_118.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  It was night, and the moon shone in a serene sky among the lesser stars; when you, about to violate the divinity of the great gods, swore[ to be true] to my requests, embracing me with your pliant arms more closely than the lofty oak is clasped by the ivy; that while the wolf should remain an enemy to the flock, and Orion, unpropitious to the sailors, should trouble the wintery sea, and while the air should fan the unshorn locks of Apollo,[ so long you vowed] that this love should be mutual. O Neaera, who shall one day greatly grieve on account of my merit: for, if there is any thing of manhood in Horace, he will not endure that you should dedicate your nights continually to another, whom you prefer; and exasperated, he will look out for one who will return his love; and though an unfeigned sorrow should take possession of you, yet my firmness shall not give way to that beauty which has once given me disgust.


id: horace-works_119
title: horace-works_119
txt: ./txt/horace-works_119.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_119.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  After having sworn to these things, and whatever else may cut off the pleasing: hope of returning, let us go, the whole city of us, or at least that part which is superior to the illiterate mob: let the idle and despairing part remain upon these inauspicious habitations. There the shegoats come to the milkpails of their own accord, and the friendly flock return with their udders distended; nor does the bear at evening growl about the sheepfold, nor does the rising ground swell with vipers; and many more things shall we, happy[ Romans], view with admiration: how neither the rainy east lays waste the cornfields with profuse showers, nor is the fertile seed burned by a dry glebe; the king of gods moderating both[ extremes]. Jupiter set apart these shores for a pious people, when he debased the golden age with brass: with brass, then with iron he hardened the ages; from which there shall be a happy escape for the good, according to my predictions.


id: horace-works_11
title: horace-works_11
txt: ./txt/horace-works_11.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_11.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODE XI. ODE XI. TO LEUCONOE Inquire not, Leuconoe( it is not fitting you should know) ,how long a term of life the gods have granted to you or to me: neither consult the Chaldean calculations. How much better is it to bear with patience whatever shall happen! Whether Jupiter have granted us more winters, or[ this as] the last, which now breaks the Etrurian waves against the opposing rocks. Be wise; rack off your wines, and abridge your hopes[ in proportion] to the shortness of your life. While we are conversing, envious age has been flying; seize the present day, not giving the least credit to the succeeding one.


id: horace-works_120
title: horace-works_120
txt: ./txt/horace-works_120.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_120.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Now, now I yield to powerful science; and suppliant beseech thee by the dominions of Proserpine, and by the inflexible divinity of Diana, and by the books of incantations able to call down the stars displaced from the firmament; O Canidia, at length desist from thine imprecations, and quickly turn, turn back thy magical machine. My vigor is gone away, and my ruddy complexion has left me; my bones are covered with a ghastly skin; my hair with your preparations is grown hoary. And shall you,[ assuming the office] of Pontiff[ with regard to my] Esquilian incantations, fill the city with my name unpunished? I at that time will ride on your odious shoulders; and the whole earth shall acknowledge my unexampled power.


id: horace-works_121
title: horace-works_121
txt: ./txt/horace-works_121.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_121.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Phoebus, and thou Diana, sovereign of the woods, ye illustrious ornaments of the heavens, oh ever worthy of adoration, and ever adored, bestow what we pray for at this sacred season: at which the Sibylline verses have given directions, that select virgins and chaste youths should sing a hymn to the deities, to whom the seven hills[ of Rome] are acceptable. Phoebus, the god of augury, and conspicuous for his shining bow, and dear to the nine muses, who by his salutary art soothes the wearied limbs of the body; if he, propitious, surveys the Palatine altars-may he prolong the Roman affairs, and the happy state of Italy to another lustrum, and to an improving age. We, the choir taught to sing the praises of Phoebus and Diana, bear home with us a good and certain hope, that Jupiter, and all the other gods, are sensible of these our supplications.


id: horace-works_122
title: horace-works_122
txt: ./txt/horace-works_122.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_122.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  How comes it to pass, Maecenas, that no one lives content with his condition, whether reason gave it him, or chance threw it in his way[ but] praises those who follow different pursuits?" O happy merchants!" says the soldier, oppressed with years, and now broken down in his limbs through excess of labor. Thus the little ant( for she is an example), of great industry, carries in her mouth whatever she is able, and adds to the heap which she piles up, by no means ignorant and not careless for the future. Does no one, after the miser ''s example, like his own station, but rather praise those who have different pursuits; and pines, because his neighbor ''s shegoat bears a more distended udder: nor considers himself in relation to the greater multitude of poor; but labors to surpass, first one and then another? Hence it is, that we rarely find a man who can say he has lived happy, and content with his past life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest.


id: horace-works_123
title: horace-works_123
txt: ./txt/horace-works_123.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_123.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Bad men, when they avoid certain vices, fall into their opposite extremes. If you ask him why he wickedly consumes the noble estate of his grandfather and father in tasteless gluttony, buying with borrowed money all sorts of dainties; he answers, because he is unwilling to be reckoned sordid, or of a mean spirit: he is praised by some, condemned by others. But if he had a mind to be good and generous, as far as his estate and reason would direct him, and as far as a man might be liberal with moderation; he would give a sufficiency, not what would bring upon himself ruin and infamy. However, he hugs himself in this one[ consideration]; this he delights in, this he extols:" I meddle with no matron." Just as Marsaeus, the lover of Origo, he who gives his paternal estate and seat to an actress, says," I never meddle with other men ''s wives.


id: horace-works_124
title: horace-works_124
txt: ./txt/horace-works_124.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_124.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  There was nothing uniform in that fellow; frequently would he run along, as one flying from an enemy; more frequently[ he walked] as if he bore[ in procession] the sacrifice of Juno: he had often two hundred slaves, often but ten: one while talking of kings and potentates ,every thing that was magnificent; at another--"Let me have a threelegged table, and a cellar of clean salt, and a gown which, though coarse, may be sufficient to keep out the cold." Had you given ten hundred thousand sesterces to this moderate man who was content with such small matters, in five days '' time there would be nothing in his bags. But he is so good, that no man can be better; but he is your friend; but an immense genius is concealed under this unpolished person of his.


id: horace-works_125
title: horace-works_125
txt: ./txt/horace-works_125.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_125.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Fannius is a happy man, who, of his own accord, has presented his manuscripts and picture[ to the Palatine Apollo]; when not a soul will peruse my writings, who am afraid to rehearse in public, on this account, because there are certain persons who can by no means relish this kind[ of satiric writing], as there are very many who deserve censure. All these are afraid of verses, they hate poets." He has hay on his horn,[ they cry;] avoid him at a great distance: if he can but raise a laugh for his own diversion, he will not spare any friend: and whatever he has once blotted upon his paper, he will take a pleasure in letting all the boys and old women know, as they return from the bakehouse or the lake." But, come on, attend to a few words on the other side of the question.


id: horace-works_126
title: horace-works_126
txt: ./txt/horace-works_126.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_126.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Having left mighty Rome, Aricia received me in but a middling inn: Heliodorus the rhetorician ,most learned in the Greek language, was my fellowtraveller: thence we proceeded to ForumAppi, stuffed with sailors and surly landlords. While the waterman and a passenger, wellsoaked with plenty of thick wine, vie with one another in singing the praises of their absent mistresses: at length the passenger being fatigued, begins to sleep; and the lazy waterman ties the halter of the mule, turned out agrazing, to a stone, and snores, lying flat on his back. Then, having dined we crawled on three miles; and arrive under Anxur, which is built up on rocks that look white to a great distance. From this place the villa of Cocceius, situated above the Caudian inns, which abounds with plenty, receives us. Lastly, he asked, how he ever came to run away; such a lank meager fellow, for whom a pound of corn[ aday] would be ample.


id: horace-works_127
title: horace-works_127
txt: ./txt/horace-works_127.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_127.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  You persuade yourself, with truth, that before the dominions of Tullius, and the reign of one born a slave, frequently numbers of men descended from ancestors of no rank, have both lived as men of merit, and have been distinguished by the greatest honors: [while] on the other hand Laevinus, the descendant of that famous Valerius, by whose means Tarquinius Superbus was expelled from his kingdom, was not a farthing more esteemed[ on account of his family, even] in the judgment of the people, with whose disposition you are well acquainted; who often foolishly bestow honors on the unworthy, and are from their stupidity slaves to a name: who are struck with admiration by inscriptions and statues.


id: horace-works_128
title: horace-works_128
txt: ./txt/horace-works_128.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_128.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  He humorously describes a squabble betwixt Rupilius and Persius. In what manner the mongrel Persius revenged the filth and venom of Rupilius, surnamed King, is I think known to all the blind men and barbers. If discord sets two cowards to work; or if an engagement happens between two that are not of a match, as that of Diomed and the Lycian Glaucus; the worst man will walk off,[ buying his peace] by voluntarily sending presents), when Brutus held as praetor the fertile Asia, this pair, Rupilius and Persius, encountered; in such a manner, that[ the gladiators] Bacchius and Bithus were not better matched. But the Grecian Persius, as soon as he had been well sprinkled with Italian vinegar, bellows out: O Brutus, by the great gods I conjure you, who are accustomed to take off kings, why do you not dispatch this King?


id: horace-works_129
title: horace-works_129
txt: ./txt/horace-works_129.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_129.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Now one may live in the Esquiliae,[ since it is made] a healthy place; and walk upon an open terrace, where lately the melancholy passengers beheld the ground frightful with white bones; though both the thieves and wild beasts accustomed to infest this place, do not occasion me so much care and trouble, as do[ these hags], that turn people ''s minds by their incantations and drugs. These I can not by any means destroy nor hinder, but that they will gather bones and noxious herbs, as soon as the fleeting moon has shown her beauteous face. in what manner, speaking alternately with Sagana, the ghosts uttered dismal and piercing shrieks; and how by stealth they laid in the earth a wolf ''s beard, with the teeth of a spotted snake; and how a great blaze flamed forth from the waxen image?


id: horace-works_12
title: horace-works_12
txt: ./txt/horace-works_12.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_12.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  What man, what hero, O Clio, do you undertake to celebrate on the harp, or the shrill pipe? But what can I sing prior to the usual praises of the Sire, who governs the affairs of men and gods; who[ governs] the sea, the earth, and the whole world with the vicissitudes of seasons? I will sing also of Hercules, and the sons of Leda, the one illustrious for his achievements on horseback, the other on foot; whose clearshining constellation as soon as it has shone forth to the sailors, the troubled surge falls down from the rocks, the winds cease, the clouds vanish, and the threatening waves subside in the sea-because it was their will. O thou son of Saturn, author and preserver of the human race, the protection of Caesar is committed to thy charge by the Fates: thou shalt reign supreme, with Caesar for thy second.


id: horace-works_130
title: horace-works_130
txt: ./txt/horace-works_130.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_130.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  A certain person, known to me by name only, runs up; and, having seized my hand," How do you do, my dearest fellow?" " Tolerably well," say I," as times go; and I wish you every thing you can desire. Meanwhile he kept prating on any thing that came uppermost, praised the streets, the city; and, when I made him no answer;" You want terribly," said he," to get away; I perceived it long ago; but you effect nothing. I shall still stick close to you; I shall follow you hence: Where are you at present bound for?" "There is no need for your being carried so much about: I want to see a person, who is unknown to you: he lives a great way off across the Tiber, just by Caesar ''s gardens." "I have nothing to do, and I am not lazy; I will attend you thither.


id: horace-works_131
title: horace-works_131
txt: ./txt/horace-works_131.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_131.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  What should hinder me likewise, when I am reading the works of Lucilius, from inquiring whether it be his[ genius], or the difficult nature of his subject, that will not suffer his verses to be more finished, and to run more smoothly than if some one, thinking it sufficient to conclude a something of six feet, be fond of writing two hundred verses before he eats, and as many after supper? Let it be allowed, I say, that Lucilius was a humorous and polite writer; that he was also more correct than[ Ennius], the author of a kind of poetry[ not yet] well cultivated, nor attempted by the Greeks, and[ more correct likewise] than the tribe of our old poets: but yet he, if he had been brought down by the Fates to this age of ours, would have retrenched a great deal from his writings: he would have pruned off every thing that transgressed the limits of perfection; and, in the composition of verses, would often have scratched his head, and bit his nails to the quick.


id: horace-works_132
title: horace-works_132
txt: ./txt/horace-works_132.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_132.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  There are some persons to whom I seem too severe in[ the writing of] satire, and to carry it beyond proper bounds: another set are of opinion, that all I have written is nerveless, and that a thousand verses like mine may be spun out in a day. when Lucilius had the courage to be the first in composing verses after this manner, and to pull off that mask, by means of which each man strutted in public view with a fair outside, though foul within; was Laelius, and he who derived a well deserved title from the destruction of Carthage, offended at his wit, or were they hurt at Metellus being lashed, or Lupus covered over with his lampoons? But however, that forewarned you may be upon your guard, lest in ignorance of our sacred laws should bring you into trouble,[ be sure of this] if any person shall make scandalous verses against a particular man, an action lies, and a sentence.


id: horace-works_133
title: horace-works_133
txt: ./txt/horace-works_133.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_133.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  What and how great is the virtue to live on a little( this is no doctrine of mine, but what Ofellus the peasant, a philosopher without rules and of a homespun wit, taught me), learn, my good friends, not among dishes and splendid tables; when the eye is dazzled with the vain glare, and the mind, intent upon false appearances, refuses[ to admit] better things; but here, before dinner, discuss this point with me. In the first place, you will enjoy good health; for you may believe how detrimental a diversity of things is to any man, when you recollect that sort of food, which by its simplicity sat so well upon your stomach some time ago. He who has used his mind and highswollen body to redundancies; or he who, contented with a little and provident for the future, like a Wise man in time of peace, shall make the necessary preparations for war?


id: horace-works_134
title: horace-works_134
txt: ./txt/horace-works_134.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_134.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  For when, my affairs being desperate, I had a mind to throw myself into the river, having covered my head[ for that purpose], he fortunately was at my elbow; and[ addressed me to this effect]: Take care, how do any thing unworthy of yourself; a false shame, says he, afflicts you, who dread to be esteemed a madman among madmen. If to conduct one ''s affairs badly be the part of a madman; and the reverse, that of a man well in his senses; brain of Perillius( believe me), who orders you[ that sum of money], which you can never repay, is much more unsound[ than yours]. Whoever grows pale with evil ambition, or the love of money: whoever is heated with luxury, or gloomy superstition, or any other disease of the mind, I command him to adjust his garment and attend: hither, all of ye, come near me in order, while I convince you that you are mad.


id: horace-works_135
title: horace-works_135
txt: ./txt/horace-works_135.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_135.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  If a visitor should come unexpectedly upon you in the evening, lest the tough old hen prove disagreeable to his palate, you must learn to drown it in Falernian wine mixed[ with water]: this will make it tender. Nor is it enough to sweep away a parcel of fishes from the expensive stalls,[ while he remains] ignorant for what sort stewed sauce is more proper, and what being roasted, the sated guest will presently replace himself on his elbow. To waste one ''s care upon one thing, is by no means sufficient; just as if any person should use all his endeavors for this only, that the wine be not bad; quite careless what oil he pours upon his fish. Learned Catius, entreated by our friendship and the gods, remember to introduce me to an audience[ with this great man], whenever you shall go to him.


id: horace-works_136
title: horace-works_136
txt: ./txt/horace-works_136.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_136.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  If a thrush, or any[ nice] thing for your own private[ eating], shall be given you; it must wing way to that place, where shines a great fortune, the possessor being an old man: delicious apples, and whatever dainties your wellcultivated ground brings forth for you, let the rich man, as more to be reverenced than your household god, taste before him: and, though he be perjured, of no family, stained with his brother ''s blood, a runaway; if he desire it, do not refuse to go along with him, his companion on the outer side. If an affair, either of little or great consequence, shall be contested at any time at the bar; whichever of the parties live wealthy without heirs, should he be a rogue, who daringly takes the law of a better man, be thou his advocate: despise the citizen, who is superior in reputation, and[ the justness of] his cause, if at home he has a son or a fruitful wife.


id: horace-works_137
title: horace-works_137
txt: ./txt/horace-works_137.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_137.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  The seventh year approaching to the eighth is now elapsed, from the time that Maecenas began to reckon me in the number of his friends; only thus far, as one he would like to take along with him in his chariot, when he went a journey, and to whom he would trust such kind of trifles as these:" What is the hour?" "Is Gallina, the Thracian, a match for[ the gladiator] Syrus?" "The cold morning air begins to pinch those that are ill provided against it;"--and such thingsas are well enough intrusted to a leaky ear. "Does any disheartening report spread from the rostrum through the streets, whoever comes in my way consults me[ concerning it]:" Good sir, have you( for you must know, since you approach nearer the gods) heard any thing relating to the Dacians?" "Nothing at all for my part,"[ I reply].


id: horace-works_138
title: horace-works_138
txt: ./txt/horace-works_138.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_138.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Priscus, frequently observed with three rings, sometimes with his left hand bare, lived so irregularly that he would change his robe every hour; from a magnificent edifice, he would on a sudden hide himself in a place, whence a decent freedman could scarcely come out in a decent manner; one while he would choose to lead the life of a rake at Rome, another while that of a teacher at Athens; born under the evil influence of every Vertumnus. Are you my superior, subjected as you are, to the dominion of so many things and persons, whom the praetor ''s rod, though placed on your head three or four times over, can never free from this wretched solicitude?


id: horace-works_139
title: horace-works_139
txt: ./txt/horace-works_139.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_139.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  These once removed, one slave, tucked high with a purple cloth, wiped the maple table, and a second gathered up whatever lay useless, and whatever could offend the guests; swarthy Hydaspes advances like an Attic maid with Ceres '' sacred rites, bearing wines of Caecubum; Alcon brings those of Chios, undamaged by the sea. I was highest, and next me was Viscus Thurinus, and below, if I remember, was Varius; with Servilius Balatro, Vibidius, whom Maecenas had brought along with him, unbidden guests. Vibidius and Balatro, all following their example, pour whole casks into Alliphanians; the guests of the lowest couch did no hurt to the flagons. While Vibidius is inquiring of the slaves, whether the flagon was also broken, because cups were not brought when he called for them; and while a laugh is continued on feigned pretences, Balatro seconding it; you Nasidienus, return with an altered countenance, as if to repair your illfortune by art.


id: horace-works_13
title: horace-works_13
txt: ./txt/horace-works_13.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_13.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XIII. TO LYDIA O Lydia, when you commend Telephus '' rosy neck, and the waxen arms of Telephus, alas! my inflamed liver swells with bile difficult to be repressed. Then neither is my mind firm, nor does my color maintain a certain situation: and the involuntary tears glide down my cheek, proving with what lingering flames I am inwardly consumed. I am on fire, whether quarrels rendered immoderate by wine have stained your fair shoulders; or whether the youth, in his fury, has impressed with his teeth a memorial on your lips. If you will give due attention to my advice, never expect that he will be constant, who inhumanly wounds those sweet kisses, which Venus has imbued with the fifth part of all her nectar. O thrice and more than thrice happy those, whom an indissoluble connection binds together; and whose love, undivided by impious complainings, does not separate them sooner than the last day!


id: horace-works_140
title: horace-works_140
txt: ./txt/horace-works_140.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_140.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  The poet renounces all verses of a ludicrous turn, and resolves to apply himself wholly to the study of philosophy, which teaches to bridle the desires, and to postpone every thing to virtue. "O citizens, citizens, money is to be sought first; virtue after riches:" this the highest Janus from the lowest inculcates; young men and old repeat these maxims, having their bags and accountbooks hung on the left arm. If the man of wealth has said," No bay in the world outshines delightful Baiae," the lake and the sea presently feel the eagerness of their impetuous master: to whom, if a vicious humor gives the omen,[ he will cry,]--"tomorrow, workmen, ye shall convey hence your tools to Teanum." Has he in his hall the genial bed? In a word, the wise man is inferior to Jupiter alone, is rich, free, honorable, handsome, lastly, king of kings; above all, he is sound, unless when phlegm is troublesome.


id: horace-works_141
title: horace-works_141
txt: ./txt/horace-works_141.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_141.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  You are well acquainted with the songs of the Sirens, and Circe ''s cups: of which, if he had foolishly and greedily drunk along with his attendants, he had been an ignominious and senseless slave under the command of a prostitute: he had lived a filthy dog, or a hog delighting in mire.We are a mere number and born to consume the fruits of the earth; like Penelope ''s suitors, useless drones; like Alcinous'' youth, employed above measure in pampering their bodies; whose glory was to sleep till mid day, and to lull their cares to rest by the sound of the harp. But, if you will not when you are in health, you will be forced to take exercise when you are in a dropsy; and unless before day you call for a book with a light, unless you brace your mind with study and honest employments, you will be kept awake and tormented with envy or with love.


id: horace-works_142
title: horace-works_142
txt: ./txt/horace-works_142.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_142.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPISTLES I. EPISTLE III. I long to know, Julius Florus, in what regions of the earth Claudius, the stepson of Augustus, is waging war. In this too I am anxious-who takes upon himself to write the military achievements of Augustus? What is Titius about, who shortly will be celebrated by every Roman tongue; who dreaded not to drink of the Pindaric spring, daring to disdain common waters and open streams: how does he do? Whether you edge your tongue for[ pleading] causes, or whether you prepare to give counsel in the civil law, or whether you compose some lovely poem; you will bear off the first prize of the victorious ivy. Let us, both small and great, push forward in this work, in this pursuit: if to our country, if to ourselves we would live dear. You must also write me word of this, whether Munatiua is of as much concern to you as he ought to be?


id: horace-works_143
title: horace-works_143
txt: ./txt/horace-works_143.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_143.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPISTLE IV. EPISTLE IV. TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS He declares his accomplishments; and, after proposing the thought of death, converts it into an occasion of pleasantry. Albius, thou candid critic of my discourses, what shall I say you are now doing in the country about Pedum? Writing what may excel the works of Cassius Parmensis; or sauntering silently among the healthful groves, concerning yourself about every thing worthy a wise and good man? You were not a body without a mind. What greater blessing could a nurse solicit for her beloved child, than that he might be wise, and able to express his sentiments; and that respect, reputation, health might happen to him in abundance, and decent living, with a neverfailing purse? [Thus] the hour, which shall not be expected, will come upon you an agreeable addition. When you have a mind to laugh, you shall see me fat and sleek with good keeping, a hog of Epicurus '' herd.


id: horace-works_144
title: horace-works_144
txt: ./txt/horace-works_144.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_144.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  If you can repose yourself as my guest upon Archias '' couches, and are not afraid to make a whole meal on all sorts of herbs from a moderate dish; I will expect you, Torquatus, at my house about sun set. You shall drink wine poured into the vessel in the second consulship of Taurus, produced between the fenny Minturnae and Petrinum of Sinuessa. I, who am both the proper person and not unwilling, am charged to take care of these matters; that no dirty covering on the couch, no foul napkin contract your nose into wrinkles; and that the cup and the dish may show you to yourself; that there be no one to carry abroad what is said among faithful friends; that equals may meet and be joined with equals I will add to you Butra, and Septicius, and Sabinus, unless a better entertainment and a mistress more agreeable detain him.


id: horace-works_145
title: horace-works_145
txt: ./txt/horace-works_145.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_145.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  To admire nothing is almost the one and only thing, Numicius, which can make and keep a man happy. He that dreads the reverse of these, admires them almost in the same way as he that desires them; fear alike disturbs both ways: an unforeseen turn of things equally terrifies each of them :let a man rejoice or grieve, desire or fear; what matters it-if, whatever he perceives better or worse than his expectations, with downcast look he be stupefied in mind and body? Let the wise man bear the name of fool, the just of unjust; if he pursue virtue itself beyond proper bounds. If he who feasts well, lives well; it is day, let us go whither our appetite leads us: let us fish, let us hunt, as did some time Gargilius: who ordered his toils, huntingspears, slaves, early in the morning to pass through the crowded forum and the people: that one mule among many, in the sight of the people, might return loaded with a boar purchased with money.


id: horace-works_146
title: horace-works_146
txt: ./txt/horace-works_146.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_146.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Philip, active and strong, and famed for pleading causes, while returning from his employment about the eighth hour, and now of a great age, complaining that the Carinae were too far distant from the forum; spied, as they say, a person clean shaven in a barber ''s empty shed, composedly paring his own nails with a knife." Demetrius,"[ says he,]( this slave dexterously received his master ''s orders,)" go inquire, and bring me word from what house, who he is, of what fortune, who is his father, or who is his patron. He pleads to Philip his employment, and the confinement of his business, in excuse for not having waited upon him in the morning; and afterward, for not seeing him first." Expect that I will excuse you on this condition, that you sup with me today." "As you please."" Then you will come after the ninth hour: now go: strenuously increase your stock.


id: horace-works_147
title: horace-works_147
txt: ./txt/horace-works_147.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_147.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  My muse at my request, give joy and wish success to Celsus Albinovanus, the attendant and the secretary of Nero. If he shall inquire, what I am doing, say that I, though promising many and fine things, yet live neither well[ according to the rules of strict philosophy], nor agreeably; not because the hail has crushed my vines, and the heat has nipped my olives; nor because my herds are distempered in distant pastures; but because, less sound in my mind than in my whole body, I will hear nothing, learn nothing which may relieve me, diseased as I am; that I am displeased with my faithful physicians, am angry with my friends for being industrious to rouse me from a fatal lethargy; that I pursue things which have done me hurt, avoid things which I am persuaded would be of service, inconstant as the wind, at Rome am in love with Tibur, at Tibur with Rome.


id: horace-works_148
title: horace-works_148
txt: ./txt/horace-works_148.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_148.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPISTLE IX. EPISTLE IX. TO CLAUDIUS TIBERIUS NERO; He recommends Septimius to him. Of all the men in the world Septimius surely, O Claudius, knows how much regard you have for me. For when he requests, and by his entreaties in a manner compels me, to undertake to recommend and introduce him to you, as one worthy of the confidence and the household of Nero, who is wo nt to choose deserving objects, thinking I discharge the office of an intimate friend; he sees and knows better than myself what I can do. So, avoiding the reproach of a greater fault, I have put in for the prize of townbred confidence. If then you approve of modesty being superseded at the pressing entreaties of a friend, enrol this person among your retinue, and believe him to be brave and good.


id: horace-works_149
title: horace-works_149
txt: ./txt/horace-works_149.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_149.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  He praises a country before a city life, as more agreeable to nature, and more friendly to liberty. We, who love the country, salute Fuscus that loves the town; in this point alone[ being] much unlike, but in other things almost twins, of brotherly sentiments: whatever one denies the other too[ denies]; we assent together: like old and constant doves, you keep the nest; I praise the rivulets, the rocks overgrown with moss, and the groves of the delightful country. If we must live suitably to nature, and a plot of ground is to be first sought to raise a house upon, do you know any place preferable to the blissful country? So he who, afraid of poverty, forfeits his liberty, more valuable than mines, avaricious wretch, shall carry a master, and shall eternally be a slave, for not knowing how to use a little.


id: horace-works_14
title: horace-works_14
txt: ./txt/horace-works_14.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_14.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XIV. TO THE ROMAN STATE O ship, new waves will bear you back again to sea. Bravely seize the port. Do you not perceive, that your sides are destitute of oars, and your mast wounded by the violent south wind, and your mainyards groan, and your keel can scarcely support the impetuosity of the waves without the help of cordage? You have not entire sails; nor gods, whom you may again invoke, pressed with distress: notwithstanding you are made of the pines of Pontus, and as the daughter of an illustrious wood, boast your race, and a fame now of no service to you. Look to yourself, unless you are destined to be the sport of the winds. O thou, so lately my trouble and fatigue, but now an object of tenderness and solicitude, mayest thou escape those dangerous seas which flow among the shining Cyclades.


id: horace-works_150
title: horace-works_150
txt: ./txt/horace-works_150.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_150.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  But neither he who comes to Rome from Capua, bespattered with rain and mire, would wish to live in an inn; nor does he, who has contracted a cold, cry up stoves and bagnios as completely furnishing a happy life: nor, if the violent south wind has tossed you in the deep, will you therefore sell your ship on the other side of the Aegean Sea. On a man sound in mind Rhodes and beautiful Mitylene have such an effect, as a thick cloak at the summer solstice, thin drawers in snowy weather,[ bathing in] the Tiber in winter, a fire in the month of August. While it is permitted, and fortune preserves a benign aspect, let absent Samos, and Chios, and Rhodes, be commended by you here at Rome.


id: horace-works_151
title: horace-works_151
txt: ./txt/horace-works_151.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_151.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPISTLES I. EPISTLE XII. Leader the appearance of praising the man ''s parsimony, he archly ridicules it; introduces Grosphus to him, and concludes with a few articles of news concerning the Roman affairs. O Iccius, if you rightly enjoy the Sicilian products, which you collect for Agrippa, it is not possible that greater affluence can be given you by Jove. for that man is by no means poor, who has the use or everything, he wants. The proceeds of friendship are cheap, when good men want any thing. But that you may not be ignorant in what situation the Roman affairs are; the Cantabrians have fallen by the valor of Agrippa, the Armenians by that of Claudius Nero: Phraates has, suppliant on his knees, admitted the laws and power of Caesar.


id: horace-works_152
title: horace-works_152
txt: ./txt/horace-works_152.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_152.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  EPISTLES I. EPISTLE XIII. As on your setting out I frequently and fully gave you instructions, Vinnius, that you would present these volumes to Augustus sealed up if he shall be in health, if in spirits, finally, if he shall ask for them: do not offend out of zeal to me, and industriously bring an odium upon my books[ by being] an agent of violent officiousness. If haply the heavy load of my paper should gall you, cast it from you, rather than throw down your pack in a rough manner where you are directed to carry it, and turn your paternal name of Asina into a jest, and make yourself a common story. As soon as you have achieved your enterprise, and arrived there, you must keep your burden in this position; lest you happen to carry my bundle of books under your arm, as a clown does a lamb, or as drunken Pyrrhia[ in the play does] the balls of pilfered wool, or as a tribeguest his slippers with his fuddlingcap.


id: horace-works_153
title: horace-works_153
txt: ./txt/horace-works_153.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_153.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Steward of my woodlands and little farm that restores me to myself, which you despise,[ though formerly] inhabited by five families, and wo nt to send five good senators to Varia: let us try, whether I with more fortitude pluck the thorns out of my mind, or you out of my ground: and whether Horace or his estate be in a better condition. When you were a drudge at every one ''s beck, you tacitly prayed for the country: and now,[ being appointed] my steward, you wish for the city, the shows, and the baths. For what you reckon desert and inhospitable wilds, he who is of my way of thinking calls delightful places; and dislikes what you esteem pleasant.


id: horace-works_154
title: horace-works_154
txt: ./txt/horace-works_154.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_154.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  It is your part, Vala, to write to me( and mine to give credit to your information) what sort of a winter is it at Velia, what the air at Salernum, what kind of inhabitants the country consists of, and how the road is( for Antonius Musa[ pronounces] Baiae to be of no service to me; yet makes me obnoxious to the place, when I am bathed in cold water even in the midst of the frost[ by his prescription]. In fact, I am just such another myself; for, when matters are a little deficient, I commend, the snug and homely fare, of sufficient resolution amid mean provisions; but, if any thing be offered better and more delicate, I, the same individual, cry out, that ye are wise and alone live well, whose wealth and estate are conspicuous from the elegance of your villas.


id: horace-works_155
title: horace-works_155
txt: ./txt/horace-works_155.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_155.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Ask me not, my best Quinctius, whether my farm maintains its master with cornfields, or enriches him with olives, or with fruits, or meadow land, or the elm tree clothed with vines: the shape and situation of my ground shall be described to you at large. Long ago, all Rome has proclaimed you happy: but I am apprehensive, lest you should give more credit concerning yourself to any one than yourself; and lest you should imagine a man happy, who differs from the wise and good; or, because the people pronounce you sound and perfectly well, lest you dissemble the lurking fever at mealtimes, until a trembling seize your greased hands. To be sure-I like to be called a wise and good man, as well as you. Who then is a good man? "I am a good man, and thrifty: your Sabine friend denies, and contradicts the fact.


id: horace-works_156
title: horace-works_156
txt: ./txt/horace-works_156.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_156.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Though, Scaeva, you have sufficient prudence of your own, and well know how to demean yourself toward your superiors ;[yet] hear what are the sentiments of your old crony, who himself still requires teaching, just as if a blind man should undertake to show the way: however see, if even I can advance any thing, which you may think worth your while to adopt as your own. This[ conduct of mine] is better and far more honorable; that a horse may carry and a great man feed me, pay court to the great: you beg for refuse, an inferior to the[ poor] giver; though you pretend you are in want of nothing. " As for Aristippus, every complexion of life, every station and circumstance sat gracefully upon him, aspiring in general to greater things, yet equal to the present: on the other hand, I shall be much surprised, if a contrary way of life should become[ this cynic], whom obstinacy clothes with a double rag.


id: horace-works_157
title: horace-works_157
txt: ./txt/horace-works_157.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_157.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Amphion is thought to have given way to his brother ''s humors; so do you yield to the gentle dictates of your friend in power: as often as he leads forth his dogs into the fields and his cattle laden with Aetolian nets, arise and lay aside the peevishness of your unmannerly muse, that you may sup together on the delicious fare purchased by your labor; an exercise habitual to the manly Romans, of service to their fame and life and limbs: especially when you are in health, and are able either to excel the dog in swiftness, or the boar in strength.


id: horace-works_158
title: horace-works_158
txt: ./txt/horace-works_158.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_158.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  He shows the folly of some persons who would imitate; and the envy of others who would censure him. Ever since Bacchus enlisted the brainsick poets among the Satyrs and the Fauns, the sweet muses have usually smelt of wine in the morning. Homer, by his excessive praises of wine, is convicted as a booser: father Ennius himself never sallied forth to sing of arms, unless in drink. The tongue that imitated Timagenes was the destruction of the Moor, while he affected to be humorous, and attempted to seem eloquent. The example that is imitable in its faults, deceives[ the ignorant]. You must not, however, crown me with a more sparing wreath, because I was afraid to alter the measure and structure of his verse: for the manly Sappho governs her muse by the measures of Archilochus, so does Alcaeus; but differing from him in the materials and disposition[ of his lines], neither does he seek for a fatherinlaw whom he may defame with his fatal lampoons, nor does he tie a rope for his betrothed spouse in scandalous verse.


id: horace-works_159
title: horace-works_159
txt: ./txt/horace-works_159.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_159.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  In vain he endeavors to retain his book, desirous of getting abroad; tells it what trouble it is to undergo, and imparts some things to be said of him to posterity. Your disregarded adviser shall then laugh[ at you]: as he, who in a passion pushed his refractory ass over the precipice. But when the abating warmth of the sun shall attract more ears, you shall tell them, that I was the son of a freedman, and extended my wings beyond my nest; so that, as much as you take away from my family, you may add to my merit: that I was in favor with the first men in the state, both in war and peace; of a short stature, gray before my time, calculated for sustaining heat, prone to passion, yet so as to be soon appeased.


id: horace-works_15
title: horace-works_15
txt: ./txt/horace-works_15.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_15.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  When the perfidious shepherd( Paris) carried off by sea in Trojan ships his hostess Helen, Nereus suppressed the swift winds in an unpleasant calm, that he might sing the dire fates." With unlucky omen art thou conveying home her, whom Greece with a numerous army shall demand back again, having entered into a confederacy to dissolve your nuptials, and the ancient kingdom of Priam. What a destruction art thou preparing for the Trojan nation! In vain, looking fierce through the patronage of Venus, will you comb your hair, and run divisions upon the effeminate lyre with songs pleasing to women. the time will come, though late, when thou shalt defile thine adulterous hairs in the dust. Dost thou not see the son of Laertes, fatal to thy nation, and Pylian Nestor, Salaminian Teucer, and Sthenelus skilled in fight( or if there be occasion to manage horses, no tardy charioteer), pursue thee with intrepidity? Meriones also shalt thou experience.


id: horace-works_160
title: horace-works_160
txt: ./txt/horace-works_160.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_160.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  But this your people, wise and just in one point( for preferring you to our own, you to the Grecian heroes), by no means estimate other things with like proportion and measure: and disdain and detest every thing, but what they see removed from earth and already gone by; such favorers are they of antiquity, as to assert that the Muses[ themselves] upon Mount Alba, dictated the twelve tables, forbidding to trangress, which the decemviri ratified; the leagues of our kings concluded with the Gabii, or the rigid Sabines; the records of the pontifices, and the ancient volumes of the augurs.


id: horace-works_161
title: horace-works_161
txt: ./txt/horace-works_161.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_161.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  O Florus, faithful friend to the good and illustrious Nero, if by chance any one should offer to sell you a boy born at Tibur and Gabii, and should treat with you in this manner;" This[ boy who is] both goodnatured and wellfavored from head to foot, shall become and be yours for eight thousand sesterces; a domestic slave, ready in his attendance at his master ''s nod; initiated in the Greek language, of a capacity for any art; you may shape out any thing with[ such] moist clay; besides, he will sing in an artless manner, but yet entertaining to one drinking. Whence, as soon as[ the battle of] Philippi dismissed me in an abject condition, with my wings clipped, and destitute both of house and land, daring poverty urged me on to the composition of verses: but now, having more than is wanted, what medicines would be efficacious enough to cure my madness, if I did not think it better to rest than to write verses.


id: horace-works_162
title: horace-works_162
txt: ./txt/horace-works_162.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_162.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  As leaves in the woods are changed with the fleeting years; the earliest fall off first: in this manner words perish with old age, and those lately invented nourish and thrive, like men in the time of youth. How much more to the purpose he, who attempts nothing improperly?" Sing for me, my muse, the man who, after the time of the destruction of Troy, surveyed the manners and cities of many men." He meditates not[ to produce] smoke from a flash, but out of smoke to elicit fire, that he may thence bring forth his instances of the marvelous with beauty,[ such as] Antiphates, Scylla, the Cyclops, and Charybdis. Sometimes a play, that is showy with commonplaces, and where the manners are well marked, though of no elegance, without force or art, gives the people much higher delight and more effectually commands their attention, than verse void of matter, and tuneful trifles.


id: horace-works_16
title: horace-works_16
txt: ./txt/horace-works_16.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_16.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XVI. O daughter, more charming than your charming mother ,put what end you please to my insulting iambics; either in the flames, or, if you choose it, in the Adriatic. It is reported that Prometheus was obliged to add to that original clay[ with which he formed mankind], some ingredient taken from every animal, and that he applied the vehemence of the raging lion to the human breast. It was rage that destroyed Thyestes with horrible perdition; and has been the final cause that lofty cities have been entirely demolished, and that an insolent army has driven the hostile plowshare over their walls. An ardor of soul attacked me also in blooming youth, and drove me in a rage to the writing of swiftfooted iambics.


id: horace-works_17
title: horace-works_17
txt: ./txt/horace-works_17.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_17.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XVII. The wandering wives of the unsavory husband seek the hidden strawberrytrees and thyme with security through the safe grove: nor do the kids dread the green lizards, or the wolves sacred to Mars; whenever, my Tyndaris, the vales and the smooth rocks of the sloping Ustica have resounded with his melodious pipe. The gods are my protectors. My piety and my muse are agreeable to the gods. Here, in a sequestered vale, you shall avoid the heat of the dogstar; and, on your Anacreontic harp, sing of Penelope and the frail Circe striving for one lover; here you shall quaff, under the shade, cups of unintoxicating Lesbian. Nor shall the raging son of Semele enter the combat with Mars; and unsuspected you shall not fear the insolent Cyrus, lest he should savagely lay his intemperate hands on you, who are by no means a match for him; and should rend the chaplet that is platted in your hair, and your inoffensive garment.


id: horace-works_18
title: horace-works_18
txt: ./txt/horace-works_18.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_18.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XVIII. TO VARUS O Varus, you can plant no tree preferable to the sacred vine, about the mellow soil of Tibur, and the walls of Catilus. For God hath rendered every thing cross to the sober; nor do biting cares disperse any otherwise[ than by the use of wine]. Who, after wine, complains of the hardships of war or of poverty? Who does not rather[ celebrate] thee, Father Bacchus, and thee, comely Venus? Nevertheless, the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithae, which was fought in their cups, admonishes us not to exceed a moderate use of the gifts of Bacchus. And Bacchus himself admonishes us in his severity to the Thracians; when greedy to satisfy their lusts, they make little distinction between right and wrong. O beauteous Bacchus, I will not rouse thee against thy will, nor will I hurry abroad thy[ mysteries, which are] covered with various leaves.


id: horace-works_19
title: horace-works_19
txt: ./txt/horace-works_19.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_19.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XIX. TO GLYCERA The cruel mother of the Cupids, and the son of the Theban Gemele, and lascivious ease, command me to give back my mind to its deserted loves. The splendor of Glycera, shining brighter than the Parian marble, inflames me: her agreeable petulance, and her countenance, too unsteady to be beheld, inflame me. Venus, rushing on me with her whole force, has quitted Cyprus; and suffers me not to sing of the Scythians, and the Parthian, furious when his horse is turned for flight, or any subject which is not to the present purpose. Here, slaves, place me a live turf; here, place me vervains and frankincense, with a flagon of twoyearold wine. She will approach more propitious, after a victim has been sacrificed.


id: horace-works_20
title: horace-works_20
txt: ./txt/horace-works_20.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_20.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODE XX. ODE XX. TO MAECENAS My dear knight Maecenas, you shall drink[ at my house] ignoble Sabine wine in sober cups, which I myself sealed up in the Grecian cask, stored at the time, when so loud an applause was given to you in the amphitheatre, that the banks of your ancestral river, together with the cheerful echo of the Vatican mountain, returned your praises. You[ when you are at home] will drink the Caecuban, and the grape which is squeezed in the Calenian press; but neither the Falernian vines, nor the Formian hills, season my cups.


id: horace-works_21
title: horace-works_21
txt: ./txt/horace-works_21.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_21.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXI. ON DIANA AND APOLLO Ye tender virgins, sing Diana; ye boys, sing Apollo with his unshorn hair, and Latona passionately beloved by the supreme Jupiter. Ye( virgins), praise her that rejoices in the rivers, and the thick groves, which project either from the cold Algidus, or the gloomy woods of Erymanthus, or the green Cragus. Ye boys, extol with equal praises Apollo ''s Delos, and his shoulder adorned with a quiver, and with his brother Mercury ''s lyre. He, moved by your intercession, shall drive away calamitous war, and miserable famine, and the plague from the Roman people and their sovereign Caesar, to the Persians and the Britons.


id: horace-works_22
title: horace-works_22
txt: ./txt/horace-works_22.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_22.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXII. TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS The man of upright life and pure from wickedness, O Fuscus, has no need of the Moorish javelins, or bow, or quiver loaded with poisoned darts. Whether he is about to make his journey through the sultry Syrtes, or the inhospitable Caucasus, or those places which Hydaspes, celebrated in story, washes. For lately, as I was singing my Lalage, and wandered beyond my usual bounds, devoid of care, a wolf in the Sabine wood fled from me, though I was unarmed: such a monster as neither the warlike Apulia nourishes in its extensive woods, nor the land of Juba, the drynurse of lions, produces. Place me in those barren plains, where no tree is refreshed by the genial air; at that part of the world, which clouds and an inclement atmosphere infest. Place me under the chariot of the too neighboring sun, in a land deprived of habitations;[ there] will I love my sweetlysmiling, sweetlyspeaking Lalage.


id: horace-works_23
title: horace-works_23
txt: ./txt/horace-works_23.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_23.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXIII. TO CHLOE You shun me, Chloe, like a fawn that is seeking its timorous mother in the pathless mountains, not without a vain dread of the breezes and the thickets: for she trembles both in her heart and knees, whether the arrival of the spring has terrified by its rustling leaves, or the green lizards have stirred the bush. But I do not follow you, like a savage tigress, or a Gaetulian lion, to tear you to pieces. Therefore, quit your mother, now that you are mature for a husband.


id: horace-works_24
title: horace-works_24
txt: ./txt/horace-works_24.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_24.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXIV. TO VIRGIL What shame or bound can there be to our affectionate regret for so dear a person? O Melpomene, on whom your father has bestowed a clear voice and the harp, teach me the mournful strains. Does then perpetual sleep oppress Quinctilius? To whom when will modesty, and uncorrupt faith the sister of Justice, and undisguised truth, find any equal? He died lamented by many good men, but more lamented by none than by you, my Virgil. You, though pious, alas! in vain demand Quinctilius back from the gods, who did not lend him to us on such terms. What, though you could strike the lyre, listened to by the trees, with more sweetness than the Thracian Orpheus; yet the blood can never return to the empty shade, which Mercury, inexorable to reverse the fates, has with his dreadful Caduceus once driven to the gloomy throng.


id: horace-works_25
title: horace-works_25
txt: ./txt/horace-works_25.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_25.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXV. TO LYDIA The wanton youths less violently shake thy fastened windows with their redoubled knocks, nor do they rob you of your rest; and your door, which formerly moved its yielding hinges freely, now sticks lovingly to its threshold. Less and less often do you now hear:" My Lydia, dost thou sleep the livelong night, while I your lover am dying? "Now you are an old woman, it will be your turn to bewail the insolence of rakes, when you are neglected in a lonely alley, while the Thracian wind rages at the Interlunium: when that hot desire and lust, which is wo nt to render furious the dams of horses, shall rage about your ulcerous liver: not without complaint, that sprightly youth rejoice rather in the verdant ivy and growing myrtle, and dedicate sapless leaves to Eurus, the companion of winter.


id: horace-works_26
title: horace-works_26
txt: ./txt/horace-works_26.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_26.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXVI. TO AELIUS LAMIA A friend to the Muses, I will deliver up grief and fears to the wanton winds, to waft into the Cretan Sea; singularly careless, what king of a frozen region is dreaded under the pole, or what terrifies Tiridates. O sweet muse, who art delighted with pure fountains, weave together the sunny flowers, weave a chaplet for my Lamia. Without thee, my praises profit nothing. To render him immortal by new strains, to render him immortal by the Lesbian lyre, becomes both thee and thy sisters.


id: horace-works_27
title: horace-works_27
txt: ./txt/horace-works_27.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_27.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXVII. TO HIS COMPANIONS To quarrel over your cups, which were made for joy, is downright Thracian. Away with the barbarous custom, and protect modest Bacchus from bloody frays. How immensely disagreeable to wine and candles is the sabre of the Medes! O my companions, repress your wicked vociferations, and rest quietly on bended elbow. Would you have me also take my share of stout Falernian? Let the brother of Opuntian Megilla then declare, with what wound he is blessed, with what dart he is dying.--What, do you refuse? I will not drink upon any other condition. Whatever kind of passion rules you, it scorches you with the flames you need not be ashamed of, and you always indulge in an honorable, an ingenuous love. Come, whatever is your case, trust it to faithful ears. in what a Charybdis art thou struggling, O youth, worthy of a better flame!


id: horace-works_28
title: horace-works_28
txt: ./txt/horace-works_28.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_28.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  The[ want of the] scanty present of a little sand near the Mantinian shore, confines thee, O Archytas, the surveyor of sea and earth, and of the innumerable sand: neither is it of any advantage to you, to have explored the celestial regions, and to have traversed the round world in your imagination, since thou wast to die. Thus also did the father of Pelops, the guest of the gods, die; and Tithonus likewise was translated to the skies, and Minos, though admitted to the secrets of Jupiter; and the Tartarean regions are possessed of the son of Panthous, once more sent down to the receptacle of the dead; notwithstanding, having retaken his shield from the temple, he gave evidence of the Trojan times, and that he had resigned to gloomy death nothing but his sinews and skin; in your opinion, no inconsiderable judge of truth and nature.


id: horace-works_29
title: horace-works_29
txt: ./txt/horace-works_29.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_29.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXIX. TO ICCIUS O Iccius, you now covet the opulent treasures of the Arabians, and are preparing vigorous for a war against the kings of Saba, hitherto unconquered, and are forming chains for the formidable Mede. What barbarian virgin shall be your slave, after you have killed her betrothed husband? What boy from the court shall be made your cupbearer, with his perfumed locks, skilled to direct the Seric arrows with his father ''s bow? Who will now deny that it is probable for precipitate rivers to flow back again to the high mountains, and for Tiber to change his course, since you are about to exchange the noble works of Panaetius, collected from all parts, together with the whole Socratic family, for Iberian armor, after you had promised better things?


id: horace-works_30
title: horace-works_30
txt: ./txt/horace-works_30.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_30.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXX. TO VENUS O Venus, queen of Gnidus and Paphos, neglect your favorite Cyprus, and transport yourself into the beautiful temple of Glycera, who is invoking you with abundance of frankincense. Let your glowing son hasten along with you, and the Graces with their zones loosed, and the Nymphs, and Youth possessed of little charm without you and Mercury.


id: horace-works_32
title: horace-works_32
txt: ./txt/horace-works_32.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_32.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXXII. TO HIS LYRE We are called upon. If ever, O lyre, in idle amusement in the shade with thee, we have played anything that may live for this year and many, come on, be responsive to a Latin ode, my dear lyre-first tuned by a Lesbian citizen, who, fierce in war, yet amid arms, or if he had made fast to the watery shore his tossed vessel, sung Bacchus, and the Muses, and Venus, and the boy, her everclose attendant, and Lycus, lovely for his black eyes and jetty locks. O thou ornament of Apollo, charming shell, agreeable even at the banquets of supreme Jove! O thou sweet alleviator of anxious toils, be propitious to me, whenever duly invoking thee!


id: horace-works_33
title: horace-works_33
txt: ./txt/horace-works_33.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_33.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXXIII. TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS Grieve not too much, my Albius, thoughtful of cruel Glycera; nor chant your mournful elegies, because, as her faith being broken, a younger man is more agreeable, than you in her eyes. A love for Cyrus inflames Lycoris, distinguished for her little forehead: Cyrus follows the rough Pholoe; but shegoats shall sooner be united to the Apulian wolves, than Pholoe shall commit a crime with a base adulterer. Such is the will of Venus, who delights in cruel sport, to subject to her brazen yokes persons and tempers ill suited to each other. As for myself, the slaveborn Myrtale, more untractable than the Adriatic Sea that forms the Calabrian gulfs, entangled me in a pleasing chain, at the very time that a more eligible love courted my embraces.


id: horace-works_35
title: horace-works_35
txt: ./txt/horace-works_35.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_35.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXXV. Thee the poor countryman solicits with his anxious vows; whosoever plows the Carpathian Sea with the Bithynian vessel, importunes thee as mistress of the ocean. Necessity, thy minister, alway marches before thee, holding in her brazen hand huge spikes and wedges, nor is the unyielding clamp absent, nor the melted lead. Thee Hope reverences, and rare Fidelity robed in a white garment; nor does she refuse to bear thee company, howsoever in wrath thou change thy robe, and abandon the houses of the powerful. Friends, too faithless to bear equally the yoke of adversity, when casks are exhausted, very dregs and all, fly off. Preserve thou Caesar, who is meditating an expedition against the Britons, the furthest people in the world, and also the new levy of youths to be dreaded by the Eastern regions, and the Red Sea. Alas! From what have our youth restrained their hands, out of reverence to the gods?


id: horace-works_36
title: horace-works_36
txt: ./txt/horace-works_36.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_36.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXXVI. This is a joyful occasion to sacrifice both with incense and music of the lyre, and the votive blood of a heifer to the gods, the guardians of Numida; who, now returning in safety from the extremest part of Spain, imparts many embraces to his beloved companions, but to none more than his dear Lamia, mindful of his childhood spent under one and the same governor, and of the gown, which they changed at the same time. Let not this joyful day be without a Cretan mark of distinction; let us not spare the jar brought forth[ from the cellar]; nor, Salianlike, let there be any cessation of feet; nor let the toping Damalis conquer Bassus in the Thracian Amystis; nor let there be roses wanting to the banquet, nor the evergreen parsley, nor the shortlived lily. All the company will fix their dissolving eyes on Damalis; but she, more luxuriant than the wanton ivy, will not be separated from her new lover.


id: horace-works_37
title: horace-works_37
txt: ./txt/horace-works_37.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_37.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  But scarcely a single ship preserved from the flames bated her fury; and Caesar brought down her mind, inflamed with Egyptian wine, to real fears, close pursuing her in her flight from Italy with his galleys( as the hawk pursues the tender doves, or the nimble hunter the hare in the plains of snowy Aemon), that he might throw into chains this destructive monster[ of a woman]; who, seeking a more generous death, neither had an effeminate dread of the sword, nor repaired with her swift ship to hidden shores. She was able also to look upon her palace, lying in ruins, with a countenance unmoved, and courageous enough to handle exasperated asps, that she might imbibe in her body the deadly poison, being more resolved by having pre meditated her death: for she was a woman of such greatness of soul, as to scorn to be carried off in haughty triumph, like a private person, by rough Liburnians.


id: horace-works_38
title: horace-works_38
txt: ./txt/horace-works_38.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_38.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES I. ODE XXXVIII. TO HIS SERVANT Boy, I detest the pomp of the Persians; chaplets, which are woven with the rind of the linden, displease me; give up the search for the place where the latter rose abides. It is my particular desire that you make no laborious addition to the plain myrtle ;for myrtle is neither unbecoming you a servant, nor me, while I quaff under this mantling vine.


id: horace-works_39
title: horace-works_39
txt: ./txt/horace-works_39.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_39.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  You are treating of the civil commotion, which began from the consulship of Metelius, and the causes, and the errors, and the operations of the war, and the game that fortune played, and the pernicious confederacy of the chiefs, and arms stained with blood not yet expiated-a work full of danger and hazard: and you are treading upon fires, hidden under deceitful ashes: let therefore the muse that presides over severe tragedy, be for a while absent from the theaters; shortly, when thou hast completed the narrative of the public affairs, you shall resume your great work in the tragic style of Athens, O Pollio, thou excellent succor to sorrowing defendants and a consulting senate;[ Pollio,] to whom the laurel produced immortal honors in the Dalmatian triumph. What plain, enriched by Latin blood, bears not record, by its numerous sepulchres, of our impious battles, and of the sound of the downfall of Italy, heard even by the Medes?


id: horace-works_41
title: horace-works_41
txt: ./txt/horace-works_41.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_41.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES II. ODE III. TO QUINTUS DELLIUS O Dellius, since thou art born to die, be mindful to preserve a temper of mind even in times of difficulty, as well an restrained from insolent exultation in prosperity: whether thou shalt lead a life of continual sadness, or through happy days regale thyself with Falernian wine of the oldest date, at case reclined in some grassy retreat, where the lofty pine and hoary poplar delight to interweave their boughs into a hospitable shade, and the clear current with trembling surface purls along the meandering rivulet. Hither order [your slaves] to bring the wine, and the perfumes, and the too shortlived flowers of the grateful rose, while fortune, and age; and the sable threads of the three sisters permit thee. You must depart from your numerous purchased groves; from your house also, and that villa, which the yellow Tiber washes, you must depart: and an heir shall possess these highpiled riches.


id: horace-works_42
title: horace-works_42
txt: ./txt/horace-works_42.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_42.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODE IV. ODE IV. TO XANTHIAS PHOCEUS Let not, O Xanthias Phoceus, your passion for your maid put you out of countenance; before your time, the slave Briseis moved the haughty Achilles by her snowy complexion. The beauty of the captive Tecmessa smote her master, the Telamonian Ajax; Agamemnon, in the midst of victory, burned for a ravished virgin: when the barbarian troops fell by the hands of their Thessalian conqueror, and Hector, vanquished, left Troy more easily to be destroyed by the Grecians. You do not know that perchance the beautiful Phyllis has parents of condition happy enough to do honor to you their soninlaw. Certainly she must be of royal race, and laments the unpropitiousness of her family gods. Be confident, that your beloved is not of the worthless crowd; nor that one so true, so unmercenary, could possibly be born of a mother to be ashamed of.


id: horace-works_43
title: horace-works_43
txt: ./txt/horace-works_43.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_43.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Not yet is she fit to be broken to the yoke; not yet is she equal to the duties of a partner, nor can she support the weight of the bull impetuously rushing to enjoyment. Your heifer ''s sole inclination is about verdant fields, one while in running streams soothing the grievous heat; at another, highly delighted to frisk with the steerlings in the moist willow ground. Shortly she shall follow you; for her impetuous time runs on, and shall place to her account those years of which it abridges you; shortly Lalage with a wanton assurance will seek a husband, beloved in a higher degree than the coy Pholoe, or even Chloris; shining as brightly with her fair shoulder, as the spotless moon upon the midnight sea, or even the Gnidian Gyges, whom if you should intermix in a company of girls, the undiscernible difference occasioned by his flowing locks and doubtful countenance would wonderfully impose even on sagacious strangers.


id: horace-works_45
title: horace-works_45
txt: ./txt/horace-works_45.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_45.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES II. ODE VII. TO POMPEIUS VARUS O thou, often reduced with me to the last extremity in the war which Brutus carried on, who has restored thee as a Roman citizen, to the gods of thy country and the Italian air, Pompey, thou first of my companions; with whom I have frequently broken the tedious day in drinking, having my hair, shining with the Syrian maiobathrum, crowned[ with flowers]! Together with thee did I experience the[ battle of] Phillippi and a precipitate flight, having shamefully enough left my shield; when valor was broken, and the most daring smote the squalid earth with their faces. Thee the reciprocating sea, with his tempestuous waves, bore back again to war. Wherefore render to Jupiter the offering that is due, and deposit your limbs, wearied with a tedious war, under my laurel, and spare not the casks reserved for you.


id: horace-works_46
title: horace-works_46
txt: ./txt/horace-works_46.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_46.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES II. ODE VIII. TO BARINE If any punishment, Barine, for your violated oath had ever been of prejudice to you: if you had become less agreeable by the blackness of a single tooth or nail, I might believe you. But you no sooner have bound your perfidious head with vows, but you shine out more charming by far, and come forth the public care of our youth. Add to this, that all our boys are growing up for you; a new herd of slaves is growing up; nor do the former ones quit the house of their impious mistress, notwithstanding they often have threatened it. The matrons are in dread of you on account of their young ones; the thrifty old men are in dread of you; and the girls but just married are in distress, lest your beauty should slacken[ the affections of] their husbands.


id: horace-works_47
title: horace-works_47
txt: ./txt/horace-works_47.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_47.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Showers do not perpetually pour down upon the rough fields, nor do varying hurricanes forever harass the Caspian Sea; nor, my friend Valgius, does the motionless ice remain fixed throughout all the months, in the regions of Armenia; nor do the Garganian oaks[ always] labor under the northerly winds, nor are the ashtrees widowed of their leaves. But thou art continually pursuing Mystes, who is taken from thee, with mournful measures: nor do the effects of thy love for him cease at the rising of Vesper, or when he flies the rapid approach of the sun. At length then desist from thy tender complaints; and rather let us sing the fresh trophies of Augustus Caesar, and the Frozen Niphates, and the river Medus, added to the vanquished nations, rolls more humble tides, and the Gelonians riding within a prescribed boundary in a narrow tract of land.


id: horace-works_48
title: horace-works_48
txt: ./txt/horace-works_48.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_48.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODE X. TO LICINIUS MURENA O Licinius, you will lead a more correct course of life, by neither always pursuing the main ocean, nor, while you cautiously are in dread of storms, by pressing too much upon the hazardous shore. Whosoever loves the golden mean, is secure from the sordidness of an antiquated cell, and is too prudent to have a palace that might expose him to envy, if the lofty pine is more frequently agitated with winds, and high towers fall down with a heavier ruin, and lightnings strike the summits of the mountains. A wellprovided breast hopes in adversity, and fears in prosperity.'' Tis the same Jupiter, that brings the hideous winters back, and that takes them away. In narrow circumstances appear in high spirits, and undaunted. In the same manner you will prudently contract your sails, which are apt to be too much swollen in a prosperous gale.


id: horace-works_49
title: horace-works_49
txt: ./txt/horace-works_49.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_49.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODE XI. ODE XI. TO QUINTIUS HIRPINUS O Quintius Hirpinus, forbear to be inquisitive what the Cantabrian, and the Scythian, divided from us by the interposed Adriatic, is meditating; neither be fearfully solicitous for the necessaries of a life, which requires but a few things. Youth and beauty fly swift away, while sapless old age expels the wanton loves and gentle sleep. The same glory does not always remain to the vernal flowers, nor does the ruddy moon shine with one continued aspect; why, therefore, do you fatigue you mind, unequal to eternal projects? Why do we not rather( while it is in our power) thus carelessly reclining under a lofty planetree, or this pine, with our hoary locks made fragrant by roses, and anointed with Syrian perfume, indulge ourselves with generous wine? Bacchus dissipates preying cares. Who will tempt the vagrant wanton Lyde from her house?


id: horace-works_50
title: horace-works_50
txt: ./txt/horace-works_50.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_50.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES II. ODE XII. And you yourself, Maecenas, with more propriety shall recount the battles of Caesar, and the necks of haughty kings led in triumph through the streets in historical prose. It was the muse ''s will that I should celebrate the sweet strains of my mistress Lycimnia, that I should celebrate her bright darting eyes, and her breast laudably faithful to mutual love: who can with a grace introduce her foot into the dance, or, sporting, contend in raillery, or join arms with the bright virgins on the celebrated Diana ''s festival. Would you,[ Maecenas,] change one of Lycimnia ''s tresses for all the rich Achaemenes possessed, or the Mygdonian wealth of fertile Phrygia, or all the dwellings of the Arabians replete with treasures? Especially when she turns her neck to meet your burning kisses, or with a gentle cruelty denies, what she would more delight to have ravished than the petitioner-or sometimes eagerly anticipates to snatch them her self.


id: horace-works_51
title: horace-works_51
txt: ./txt/horace-works_51.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_51.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES II. ODE XIII. O tree, he planted thee on an unlucky day whoever did it first, and with an impious hand raised thee for the destruction of posterity, and the scandal of the village. He was wo nt to handle Colchian poisons, and whatever wickedness is anywhere conceived, who planted in my field thee, a sorry log; thee, ready to fall on the head of thy inoffensive master. The Carthaginian sailor thoroughly dreads the Bosphorus; nor, beyond that, does he fear a hidden fate from any other quarter. How near was I seeing the dominions of black Proserpine, and Aeacus sitting in judgment; the separate abodes also of the pious, and Sappho complaining in her Aeohan lyre of her own country damsels; and thee, O Alcaeus, sounding in fuller strains on thy golden harp the distresses of exile, and the distresses of war.


id: horace-works_53
title: horace-works_53
txt: ./txt/horace-works_53.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_53.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  The palacelike edifices will in a short time leave but a few acres for the plough; ponds of wider extent than the Lucrine lake will be every where to be seen; and the barren planetree will supplant the elms. Then banks of violets, and myrtle groves, and all the tribe of nosegays shall diffuse their odors in the olive plantations, which were fruitful to their preceding master. Then the laurel with dense boughs shall exclude the burning beams. Their private income was contracted, while that of the community was great. No private men were then possessed of galleries measured by tenfeet rules, which collected the shady northern breezes; nor did the laws permit them to reject the casual turf[ for their own huts], though at the same time they obliged them to ornament in the most sumptuous manner, with new stone, the buildings of the public, and the temples of the gods, at a common expense.


id: horace-works_54
title: horace-works_54
txt: ./txt/horace-works_54.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_54.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  TO GROSPHUS O Grosphus, he that is caught in the wide Aegean Sea; when a black tempest has obscured the moon, and not a star appears with steady light for the mariners, supplicates the gods for repose: for repose, Thrace furious in war; the quivergraced Medes, for repose neither purchasable by jewels, nor by purple, nor by gold. For neither regal treasures nor the consul ''s officer can remove the wretched tumults of the mind, nor the cares that hover about splendid ceilings. Consuming care boards even brazenbeaked ships: nor does it quit the troops of horsemen, for it is more fleet than the stags, more fleet than the stormdriving east wind. Around you a hundred flocks bleat, and Sicilian heifers low; for your use the mare, fit for the harness, neighs; wool doubly dipped in the African purpledye, clothes you: on me undeceitful fate has bestowed a small country estate, and the slight inspiration of the Grecian muse, and a contempt for the malignity of the vulgar.


id: horace-works_55
title: horace-works_55
txt: ./txt/horace-works_55.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_55.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES II. ODE XVII. TO MAECENAS Why dost thoti kill me with thy complaints?'' Tis neither agreeable to the gods, nor to me, that thou shouldest depart first, O Maecenas, thou grand ornament and pillar of my affairs. if an untimely blow hurry away thee, a part of my soul, why do I the other moiety remain, my value lost, nor any longer whole? I have by no means taken a false oath: we will go, we will go, whenever thou shalt lead the way, prepared to be fellowtravelers in the last journey. Me nor the breath of the fiery Chimaera, nor hundredhanded Gyges, were he to rise again, shall ever tear from thee: such is the will of powerful Justice, and of the Fates. Be thou mindful to pay the victims and the votive temple; I will sacrifice an humble lamb.


id: horace-works_56
title: horace-works_56
txt: ./txt/horace-works_56.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_56.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODE XVIII. Nor ivory, nor a fretted ceiling adorned with gold, glitters in my house: no Hymettian beams rest upon pillars cut out of the extreme parts of Africa; nor, a pretended heir, have I possessed myself of the palace of Attalus, nor do ladies, my dependants, spin Laconian purple for my use. But integrity, and a liberal vein of genius, are mine: and the man of fortune makes his court to me, who am but poor. Why is it, that through avarice you even pluck up the landmarks of your neighbor ''s ground, and trespass beyond the bounds of your clients; and wife and husband are turned out, bearing in their bosom their household gods and their destitute children? The impartial earth is opened equally to the poor and to the sons of kings; nor has the lifeguard ferryman of hell, bribed with gold, re conducted the artful Prometheus.


id: horace-works_57
title: horace-works_57
txt: ./txt/horace-works_57.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_57.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES II. ODE XIX. ON BACCHUS; A DITHYRAMBIC, OR DRINKING SONG I saw Bacchus( believe it, posterity) dictating strains among the remote rocks, and the nymphs learning them, and the ears of the goatfooted satyrs all attentive. my mind trembles with recent dread, and my soul, replete with Bacchus, has a tumultuous joy, Evoe! spare me, Bacchus; spare me, thou who art formidable for thy dreadful thyrsus. It is granted me to sing the wanton Bacchanalian priestess, and the fountain of wine, and rivulets flowing with milk, and to tell again of the honeys distilling from the hollow trunks. It is granted me likewise to celebrate the honor added to the constellations by your happy spouse, and the palace of Pentheus demolished with no light ruin, and the perdition of Thracian. You, moist with wine, on lonely mountaintops bind the hair of your Thracian priestesses with a knot of vipers without hurt.


id: horace-works_58
title: horace-works_58
txt: ./txt/horace-works_58.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_58.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODE XX. ODE XX. TO MAECENAS I, a twoformed poet, will be conveyed through the liquid air with no vulgar or humble wing; nor will I loiter upon earth any longer; and superior to envy, I will quit cities. Not I, even I, the blood of low parents, my dear Maecenas, shall die; nor shall I be restrained by the Stygian wave. At this instant a rough skin settles upon my ankles, and all upwards I am transformed into a white bird, and the downy plumage arises over my fingers and shoulders. Now, a melodious bird, more expeditious than the Daepalean Icarus, I will visit the shores of the murmuring Bosphorus, and the Gzetulean Syrtes, and the Hyperborean plains. Me the Colchian and the Dacian, who hides his fear of the Marsian cohort, land the remotest Gelonians, shall know: me the learned Spaniard shall study, and he that drinks of the Rhone.


id: horace-works_59
title: horace-works_59
txt: ./txt/horace-works_59.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_59.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  It happens that one man, arranges trees, in regular rows, to a greater extent than another; this man comes down into the Campus[ Martius] as a candidate of a better family; another vies with him for morals and a better reputation; a third has a superior number of dependants; but Fate, by the impartial law of nature, is allotted both to the conspicuous and the obscure; the capacious urn keeps every name in motion. Him, who desires but a competency, neither the tempestuous sea renders anxious, nor the malign violence of Arcturus setting, or of the rising Kid; not his vineyards beaten down with hail, and a deceitful farm; his plantations at one season blaming the rains, at another, the influence of the constellations parching the grounds, at another, the severe winters. Since then nor Phrygian marble, nor the use of purple more dazzling than the sun, nor the Falernian vine, nor the Persian nard, composes a troubled mind, why should I set about a lofty edifice with columns that excite envy, and in the modern taste?


id: horace-works_60
title: horace-works_60
txt: ./txt/horace-works_60.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_60.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE II. AGAINST THE DEGENERACY OF THE ROMAN YOUTH Let the robust youth learn patiently to endure pinching want in the active exercise of arms; and as an expert horseman, dreadful for his spear, let him harass the fierce Parthians; and let him lead a life exposed to the open air, and familiar with dangers. It is sweet and glorious to die for one ''s country; death even pursues the man that flies from him; nor does he spare the trembling knees of effeminate youth, nor the coward back. Virtue, unknowing of base repulse, shines with immaculate honors; nor does she assume nor lay aside the ensigns of her dignity, at the veering of the popular air. Virtue, throwing open heaven to those who deserve not to die, directs her progress through paths of difficulty, and spurns with a rapid wing grovelling cowards and the slippery earth.


id: horace-works_61
title: horace-works_61
txt: ./txt/horace-works_61.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_61.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Not the rage of the people pressing to hurtful measures, not the aspect of a threatening tyrant can shake from his settled purpose the man who is just and determined in his resolution; nor can the south wind, that tumultuous ruler of the restless Adriatic, nor the mighty hand of thundering Jove; if a crushed world should fall in upon him, the ruins would strike him undismayed. As long as the extensive sea rages between Troy and Rome, let them, exiles, reign happy in any other part of the world: as long as cattle trample upon the tomb of Priam and Paris, and wild beasts conceal their young ones there with impunity, may the Capitol remain in splendor, and may brave Rome be able to give laws to the conquered Medes.


id: horace-works_62
title: horace-works_62
txt: ./txt/horace-works_62.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_62.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Me, when a child, and fatigued with play, in sleep the woodland doves, famous in story, covered with green leaves in the Apulian Vultur, just without the limits of my native Apulia; so that it was matter of wonder to all that inhabit the nest of lofty Acherontia, the Bantine Forests, and the rich soil of low Ferentum, how I could sleep with my body safe from deadly vipers and ravenous bears; how I could be covered with sacred laurel and myrtle heaped together, though a child, not animated without the[ inspiration of the] gods. We are aware how he, who rules the inactive earth and the stormy main, the cities also, and the dreary realms[ of hell], and alone governs with a righteous sway both gods and the human multitude, how he took off the impious Titans and the gigantic troop by his falling thunderbolts.


id: horace-works_63
title: horace-works_63
txt: ./txt/horace-works_63.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_63.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  And has( O[ corrupted] senate, and degenerate morals!) the Marsian and Apulian, unmindful of the sacred bucklers, of the[ Roman] name and gown, and of eternal Vesta, grown old in the lands of hostile fathersinlaw, Jupiter and the city being in safety? I have beheld, said he, the Roman standards affixed to the Carthaginian temples, and their arms taken away from our soldiers without bloodshed. If the hind, disentangled from the thickset toils, ever fights, then indeed shall he be valorous, who has intrusted himself to faithless foes; and he shall trample upon the Carthaginians in a second war, who dastardly has felt the thongs with his arms tied behind him, and has been afraid of death. He( Regulus) is reported to have rejected the embrace of his virtuous wife and his little sons like one degraded; and to have sternly fixed his manly countenance on the ground, until, as an adviser, by his counsel he confirmed the wavering senators, and amid his weeping friends hastened away, a glorious exile.


id: horace-works_64
title: horace-works_64
txt: ./txt/horace-works_64.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_64.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE VI. Thou shalt atone, O Roman, for the sins of your ancestors, though innocent, till you shall have repaired the temples and tottering shrines of the gods, and their statues, defiled with sooty smoke. Thou boldest sway, because thou bearest thyself subordinate to the gods; to this source refer every undertaking; to this, every event. The gods, because neglected, have inflicted many evils on calamitous Italy. The times, fertile in wickedness, have in the first place polluted the marriage state, and[ thence] the issue and families. The marriageable virgin delights to be taught the Ionic dances, and even at this time is trained up in[ seductive] arts, and cherishes unchaste desires from her very infancy. What does not wasting time destroy?


id: horace-works_65
title: horace-works_65
txt: ./txt/horace-works_65.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_65.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE VII. TO ASTERIE Why, O Asterie, do you weep for Gyges, a youth of inviolable constancy, whom the kindly zephyrs will restore to you in the beginning of the Spring, enriched with a Bithynian cargo? Driven as far as Oricum by the southern winds, after[ the rising] of the Goat ''s tempestuous constellation, he sleepless passes the cold nights in abundant weeping[ for you]; but the agent of his anxious landlady slyly tempts him by a thousand methods, informing him that[ his mistress], Chloe, is sighing for him, and burns with the same love that thou hast for him. Though no other person equally skillful to guide the steed, is conspicuous in the course, nor does any one with equal swiftness swim down the Etrurian stream, yet secure your house at the very approach of night, nor look down into the streets at the sound of the doleful pipe; and remain inflexible toward him, though he often upbraid thee with cruelty.


id: horace-works_66
title: horace-works_66
txt: ./txt/horace-works_66.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_66.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE VIII. TO MAECENAS O Maecenas, learned in both languages, you wonder what I, a single man, have to do on the calends of March; what these flowers mean, and the censer replete with frankincense, and the coals laid upon the live turf. Take, my Maecenas, a hundred cups on account of the safety of your friend, and continue the wakeful lamps even to daylight: all clamor and passion be far away. Postpone your political cares with regard to the state: the army of the Dacian Cotison is defeated; the troublesome Mede is quarreling with himself in a horrible[ civil] war: the Cantabrian, our old enemy on the Spanish coast, is subject to us, though conquered by a longdisputed victory: now, too, the Scythians are preparing to quit the field with their imbent bows. Neglectful, as a private person, forbear to be too solicitous lest the community in any wise suffer, and joyfully seize the boons of the present hour, and quit serious affairs.


id: horace-works_67
title: horace-works_67
txt: ./txt/horace-works_67.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_67.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE IX. As long as thou hadst not a greater flame for any other, nor was Lydia below Chloe[ in thine affections], I Lydia, of distinguished fame, flourished more eminent than the Roman Ilia. The Thracian Chloe now commands me, skillful in sweet modulations, and a mistress of the lyre; for whom I would not dread to die, if the fates would spare her, my surviving soul. Calais, the son of the Thurian Ornitus, inflames me with a mutual fire; for whom I would twice endure to die, if the fates would spare my surviving youth. What if Chloe with her golden locks be shaken off, and the door again open to slighted Lydia. Though he is fairer than a star, thou of more levity than a cork, and more passionate than the blustering Adriatic; with thee I should love to live, with thee I would cheerfully die.


id: horace-works_68
title: horace-works_68
txt: ./txt/horace-works_68.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_68.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE X. TO LYCE O Lyce, had you drunk from the remote Tanais, in a state of marriage with tome barbarian, yet you might be sorry to expose me, prostrate before your obdurate doors, to the north winds that have made those places their abode. Do you hear with what a noise your gate, with what[ a noise] the grove, planted about your elegant buildings, rebellows to the winds? And how Jupiter glazes the settled snow with his bright influence? Lay aside disdain, offensive to Venus, lest your rope should run backward, while the wheel is revolving. Your Tyrrhenian father did not beget you to be as inaccessible as Penelope to your wooers. O though neither presents, nor prayers, nor the violettinctured paleness of your lovers, nor your husband smitten with a musical courtezan, bend you to pity; yet[ at length] spare your suppliants, you that are not softer than the sturdy oak, nor of a gentler disposition than the African serpents.


id: horace-works_69
title: horace-works_69
txt: ./txt/horace-works_69.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_69.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  O Mercury, for under thy instruction the ingenious Amphion moved rocks by his voice, you being his tutor; and though my harp, skilled in sounding, with seven strings, formerly neither vocal nor pleasing, but now agreeable both to the tables of the wealthy and the temples[ of the gods]; dictate measures to which Lyde may incline her obstinate ears, who, like a filly of three years old, plays and frisks about in the spacious fields, inexperienced in nuptial loves, and hitherto unripe for a brisk husband. Impious! (for what greater impiety could they have committed?) Impious! who could destroy their bridegrooms with the cruel sword! One out of the many, worthy of the nuptial torch, was nobly false to her perjured parent, and a maiden illustrious to all posterity; she, who said to her youthful husband," Arise!


id: horace-works_70
title: horace-works_70
txt: ./txt/horace-works_70.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_70.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XII. TO NEOBULE It is for unhappy maidens neither to give indulgence to love, nor to wash away cares with delicious wine; or to be dispirited out of dread of the lashes of an uncle ''s tongue. The winged boy of Venus, O Neobule, has deprived you of your spindle and your webs, and the beauty of Hebrus from Lipara of inclination for the labors of industrious Minerva, after he has bathed his anointed shoulders in the waters of the Tiber; a better horseman than Bellerophon himself, neither conquered at boxing, nor by want of swiftness in the race: he is also skilled to strike with his javelin the stags, flying through the open plains in frightened herd, and active to surprise the wild boar lurking in the deep thicket.


id: horace-works_71
title: horace-works_71
txt: ./txt/horace-works_71.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_71.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XIII. TO THE BANDUSIAN FOUNTAIN O thou fountain of Bandusia, clearer than glass, worthy of delicious wine, not unadorned by flowers; tomorrow thou shalt be presented with a kid, whose forehead, pouting with new horns, determines upon both love and war in vain; for this offspring of the wanton flock shall tinge thy cooling streams with scarlet blood. The severe season of the burning dogstar can not reach thee; thou affordest a refreshing coolness to the oxen fatigued with the ploughshare, and to the ranging flock. Thou also shalt become one of the famous fountains, through my celebrating the oak that covers the hollow rock, whence thy prattling rills descend with a bound.


id: horace-works_72
title: horace-works_72
txt: ./txt/horace-works_72.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_72.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XIV. Augustus Caesar, O ye people, who was lately said, like another Hercules, to have sought for the laurel to be purchased only by death, revisits his domestic gods, victorious from the Spanish shore. Let the matron( Livia), to whom her husband alone is dear, come forth in public procession, having first performed her duty to the just gods; and( Octavia), the sister of our glorious general; the mothers also of the maidens and of the youths just preserved from danger, becomingly adorned with supplicatory fillets. This day, to me a real festival, shall expel gloomy cares: I will neither dread commotions, nor violent death, while Caesar is in possession of the earth. And bid the tuneful Neaera make haste to collect into a knot her auburn hair; but if any delay should happen from the surly porter, come away.


id: horace-works_73
title: horace-works_73
txt: ./txt/horace-works_73.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_73.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XV. TO CHLORIS. You wife of the indigent Ibycus, at length put an end to your wickedness, and your infamous practices. Cease to sport among the damsels, and to diffuse a cloud among bright constellations, now on the verge of a timely death. If any thing will become Pholoe, it does not you Chloris, likewise. Your daughter with more propriety attacks the young men ''s apartments, like a Bacchanalian roused up by the rattling timbrel. The love of Nothus makes her frisk about like a wanton shegoat. The wool shorn near the famous Luceria becomes you now antiquated: not musical instruments, or the damask flower of the rose, or hogsheads drunk down to the lees.


id: horace-works_74
title: horace-works_74
txt: ./txt/horace-works_74.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_74.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  TO MAECENAS A brazen tower, and doors of oak, and the melancholy watch of wakeful dogs, had sufficiently defended the imprisoned Danae from midnight gallants, had not Jupiter and Venus laughed at Acrisius, the anxious keeper of the immured maiden:[ for they well knew] that the way would be safe and open, after the god had transformed himself into a bribe. As much more as any man shall deny himself, so much more shall he receive from the gods. Though neither the Calabrian bees produce honey, nor wine ripens to age for me in a Formian cask, nor rich fleeces increase in Gallic pastures; yet distressful poverty is remote; nor, if I desired more, would you refuse to grant it me. Much is wanting to those who covet much.'' Tis well with him to whom God has given what is necessary with a sparing hand.


id: horace-works_75
title: horace-works_75
txt: ./txt/horace-works_75.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_75.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XVII. TO AELIUS LAMIA O Aelius, who art nobly descended from the ancient Lamus( forasmuch as they report, that both the first of the Lamian family had their name hence, and all the race of the descendants through faithful records derives its origin from that founder, who is said to have possessed, as prince, the Formian walls, and Liris gliding on the shores of Marica-an extensive potentate). Tomorrow a tempest sent from the east shall strew the grove with many leaves, and the shore with useless seaweed, unless that old prophetess of rain, the raven, deceives me. Pile up the dry wood, while you may; tomorrow you shall indulge your genius with wine, and with a pig of two months old, with your slaves dismissed from their labors.


id: horace-works_76
title: horace-works_76
txt: ./txt/horace-works_76.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_76.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XVIII. TO FAUNUS; A HYMN O Faunus, thou lover of the flying nymphs, benignly traverse my borders and sunny fields, and depart propitious to the young offspring of my flocks; if a tender kid fall[ a victim] to thee at the completion of the year, and plenty of wines be not wanting to the goblet, the companion of Venus, and the ancient altar smoke with liberal perfume. All the cattle sport in the grassy plain, when the nones of December return to thee; the village keeping holiday enjoys leisure in the fields, together with the oxen free from toil. The wolf wanders among the fearless lambs; the wood scatters its rural leaves for thee, and the laborer rejoices to have beaten the hated ground in triple dance.


id: horace-works_77
title: horace-works_77
txt: ./txt/horace-works_77.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_77.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XIX. TO TELEPHUS How far Codrus, who was not afraid to die for his country, is removed from Inachus, and the race of Aeacus, and the battles also that were fought at sacred Troy--[these subjects] you descant upon; but at what price we may purchase a hogshead of Chian; who shall warm the water[ for bathing]; who finds a house: and at what hour I am to get rid of these Pelignian colds, you are silent. The enraptured bard, who delights in the oddnumbered muses, shall call for brimmers thrice three. Why is the pipe hung up with the silent lyre? Let the envious Lycus hear the jovial noise; and let our fair neighbor, illsuited to the old Lycus,[ hear it.] The ripe Rhode aims at thee, Telephus, smart with thy bushy locks; at thee, bright as the clear evening star; the love of my Glycera slowly consumes me.


id: horace-works_78
title: horace-works_78
txt: ./txt/horace-works_78.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_78.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XX. TO PYRRHUS Do you not perceive, O Pyrrhus, at what hazard yon are taking away the whelps from a Gutulian lioness? In a little while you, a timorous ravisher, shall fly from the severe engagement, when she shall march through the opposing band of youths, re demanding her beauteous Nearchus; a grand contest, whether a greater share of booty shall fall to thee or to her! In the mean time, while you produce your swift arrows, she whets her terrific teeth; while the umpire of the combat is reported to have placed the palm under his naked foot, and refreshed his shoulder, overspread with his perfumed locks, with the gentle breeze: just such another was Nireus, or he that was ravished from the watery Ida.


id: horace-works_79
title: horace-works_79
txt: ./txt/horace-works_79.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_79.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XXI. O thou goodly cask, that wast brought to light at the same time with me in the consulship of Manlius, whether thou containest the occasion of complaint, or jest, or broils and maddening amours, or gentle sleep; under whatever title thou preservest the choice Massic, worthy to be removed on an auspicious day; descend, Corvinus bids me draw the mellowest wine. The virtue even of old Cato is recorded to have been frequently warmed with wine. Thou appliest a gentle violence to that disposition, which is in general of the rougher cast: Thou revealest the cares and secret designs of the wise, by the assistance of merry Bacchus. Thee Bacchus, and Venus, if she comes in goodhumor, and the Graces loth to dissolve the knot[ of their union], and living lights shall prolong, till returning Phoebus puts the stars to flight.


id: horace-works_80
title: horace-works_80
txt: ./txt/horace-works_80.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_80.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XXII. TO DIANA O virgin, protectress of the mountains and the groves, thou threeformed goddess, who thrice invoked, hearest young women in labor, and savest them from death; sacred to thee be this pine that overshadows my villa, which I, at the completion of every year, joyful will present with the blood of a boarpig, just meditating his oblique attack.


id: horace-works_81
title: horace-works_81
txt: ./txt/horace-works_81.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_81.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XXIII. TO PHIDYLE My rustic Phidyle, if you raise your suppliant hands to heaven at the new moon, and appease the household gods with frankincense, and this year ''s fruits, and a ravening swine; the fertile vine shall neither feel the pestilential southwest, nor the corn the barren blight, or your dear brood the sickly season in the fruitbearing autumn. For the destined victim, which is pastured in the snowy Algidus among the oaks and holm trees, or thrives in the Albanian meadows, with its throat shall stain the axes of the priests. It is not required of you, who are crowning our little gods with rosemary and the brittle myrtle, to propitiate them with a great slaughter of sheep. If an innocent hand touches a clear, a magnificent victim does not pacify the offended Penates more acceptably, than a consecrated cake and crackling salt.


id: horace-works_82
title: horace-works_82
txt: ./txt/horace-works_82.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_82.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Though, more wealthy than the unrifled treasures of the Arabians and rich India, you should possess yourself by your edifices of the whole Tyrrhenian and Apulian seas; yet, if cruel fate fixes its adamantine grapples upon the topmost roofs, you shall not disengage your mind from dread, nor your life from the snares of death. Their dower is the high virtue of their parents, and a chastity reserved from any other man by a steadfast security; and it, is forbidden to sin, or the reward is death. O if there be any one willing to remove our impious slaughters, and civil rage; if he be desirous to be written FATHER OF THE STATE, on statues[ erected to him], let him dare to curb insuperable licentiousness, and be eminent to posterity; since we( O injustice!) detest virtue while living, but invidiously seek for her after she is taken out of our view.


id: horace-works_83
title: horace-works_83
txt: ./txt/horace-works_83.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_83.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XXV. TO BACCHUS; A DITHYRAMBIC Whither, O Bacchus, art thou hurrying me, replete with your influence? Into what groves, into what recesses am I driven, actuated with uncommon spirit? In what caverns, meditating the immortal honor of illustrious Caesar, shall I be heard enrolling him among the stars and the council of Jove? I will utter something extraordinary, new, hitherto unsung by any other voice. Thus the sleepless Bacchanal is struck with enthusiasm, casting her eyes upon Hebrus, and Thrace bleached with snow, and Rhodope traversed by the feet of barbarians. How am I delighted in my rambles, to admire the rocks and the desert grove! O lord of the Naiads and the Bacchanalian women, who are able with their hands to overthrow lofty ashtrees; nothing little, nothing low, nothing mortal will I sing. Charming is the hazard, O Bacchus, to accompany the god, who binds his temples with the verdant vineleaf.


id: horace-works_84
title: horace-works_84
txt: ./txt/horace-works_84.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_84.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XXVI. TO VENUS I lately lived a proper person for girls, and campaigned it not without honor; but now this wall, which guards the left side of[ the statue] of seaborn Venus, shall have my arms and my lyre discharged from warfare. Here, here, deposit the shining flambeaux, and the wrenching irons, and the bows, that threatened the resisting doors. O thou goddess, who possessest the blissful Cyprus, and Memphis free from Sithonian snow, O queen, give the haughty Chloe one cut with your highraised lash.


id: horace-works_85
title: horace-works_85
txt: ./txt/horace-works_85.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_85.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Thus too Europa trusted her fair side to the deceitful bull, and bold as she was, turned pale at the sea abounding with monsters, and the cheat now become manifest. If any one now would deliver up to me in my anger this infamous bull, I would do my utmost to tear him to pieces with steel, and break off the horns of the monster, lately so much beloved. O if any of the gods hear this, I wish I may wander naked among lions: before foul decay seizes my comely cheeks, and moisture leaves this tender prey ,I desire, in all my beauty, to be the food of tigers." "Base Europa," thy absent father urges," why do you hesitate to die? Presently, when she had sufficiently rallied her," Refrain( she cried) from your rage and passionate chidings, since this detested bull shall surrender his horns to be torn in pieces by you.


id: horace-works_86
title: horace-works_86
txt: ./txt/horace-works_86.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_86.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XXVIII. TO LYDE What can I do better on the festal day of Neptune? Quickly produce, Lyde, the hoarded Caecuban, and make an attack upon wisdom, ever on her guard. You perceive the noontide is on its decline; and yet, as if the fleeting day stood still, you delay to bring out of the storehouse the loitering cask,[ that bears its date] from the consul Bibulus. We will sing by turns, Neptune, and the green locks of the Nereids; you, shall chant, on your wreathed lyre, Latona and the darts of the nimble Cynthia; at the conclusion of your song, she also[ shall be celebrated], who with her yoked swans visits Gnidos, and the shining Cyclades, and Paphos: the night also shall be celebrated in a suitable lay.


id: horace-works_87
title: horace-works_87
txt: ./txt/horace-works_87.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_87.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  What remains goes on in the manner of the river, at one time calmly gliding in the middle of its channel to the Tuscan Sea, at another, rolling along corroded stones, and stumps of trees, forced away, and cattle, and houses, not without the noise of mountains and neighboring woods, when the merciless deluge enrages the peaceful waters. That man is master of himself and shall live happy, who has it in his power to say," I have lived today: tomorrow let the Sire invest the heaven, either with a black cloud, or with clear sunshine; nevertheless, he shall not render ineffectual what is past, nor undo or annihilate what the fleeting hour has once carried off. Then the gale and the twin Pollux will carry me safe in the protection of a skiff with two oars, through the tumultuous Aegean Sea."


id: horace-works_88
title: horace-works_88
txt: ./txt/horace-works_88.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_88.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES III. ODE XXX. ON HIS OWN WORKS I have completed a monument more lasting than brass, and more sublime than the regal elevation of pyramids, which neither the wasting shower, the unavailing north wind, nor an innumerable succession of years, and the flight of seasons, shall be able to demolish. I shall not wholly die; but a great part of me shall escape Libitina. I shall continualy be renewed in the praises of posterity, as long as the priest shall ascend the Capitol with the silent[ vestal] virgin. Where the rapid Aufidus shall murmur, and where Daunus, poorly supplied with water, ruled over a rustic people, I, exalted from a low degree, shall be acknowledged as having originally adapted the Aeolic verse to Italian measures. Melpomene, assume that pride which your merits have acquired, and willingly crown my hair with the Delphic laurel.


id: horace-works_89
title: horace-works_89
txt: ./txt/horace-works_89.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_89.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  TO VENUS After a long cessation, O Venus, again are you stirring up tumults? Forbear, O cruel mother of soft desires, to bend one bordering upon fifty, now too hardened for soft commands: go, whither the soothing prayers of youths, invoke you. There the youths, together with the tender maidens, twice a day celebrating your divinity, shall, Salianlike, with white foot thrice shake the ground. As for me, neither woman, nor youth, nor the fond hopes of mutual inclination, nor to contend in wine, nor to bind my temples with fresh flowers, delight me[ any longer]. Thee in my dreams by night I clasp, caught[ in my arms] ;thee flying across the turf of the Campus Martius; thee I pursue, O cruel one, through the rolling waters.


id: horace-works_90
title: horace-works_90
txt: ./txt/horace-works_90.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_90.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Like a river pouring down from a mountain, which sudden rains have increased beyond its accustomed banks, such the deepmouthed Pindar rages and rushes on immeasurable, sure to merit Apollo ''s laurel, whether he rolls down newformed phrases through the daring dithyrambic, and is borne on in numbers exempt from rule: whether he sings the gods, and kings, the offspring of the gods, by whom the Centaurs perished with a just destruction,[ by whom] was quenched the flame of the dreadful Chimaera; or celebrates those whom the palm,[ in the Olympic games] at Elis, brings home exalted to the skies, wrestler or steed, and presents them with a gift preferable to a hundred statues: or deplores some youth, snatched[ by death] from his mournful bride-he elevates both his strength, and courage, and golden morals to the stars, and rescues him from the murky grave.


id: horace-works_91
title: horace-works_91
txt: ./txt/horace-works_91.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_91.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  ODES IV. ODE III. TO MELPOMENE Him, O Melpomene, upon whom at his birth thou hast once looked with favoring eye, the Isthmian contest shall not render eminent as a wrestler; the swift horse shall not draw him triumphant in a Grecian car; nor shall warlike achievement show him in the Capitol, a general adorned with the Delian laurel, on account of his having quashed the proud threats of kings: but such waters as flow through the fertile Tiber, and the dense leaves of the groves, shall make him distinguished by the Aeolian verse. The sons of Rome, the queen of cities, deign to rank me among the amiable band of poets; and now I am less carped at by the tooth of envy. O muse, regulating the harmony of the gilded shell! O thou, who canst immediately bestow, if thou please, the notes of the swan upon the mute fish!


id: horace-works_92
title: horace-works_92
txt: ./txt/horace-works_92.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_92.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Like as the winged minister of thunder( to whom Jupiter, the sovereign of the gods, has assigned the dominion over the fleeting birds, having experienced his fidelity in the affair of the beauteous Ganymede), early youth and hereditary vigor save impelled from his nest unknowing of toil; and the vernal winds, the showers being now dispelled, taught him, still timorous, unwonted enterprises: in a little while a violent impulse dispatched him, as an enemy against the sheepfolds, now an appetite for food and fight has impelled him upon the reluctant serpents;--or as a shegoat, intent on rich pastures, has beheld a young lion but just weaned from the udder of his tawny dam, ready to be devoured by his newlygrown tooth: such did the Rhaeti and the Vindelici behold Drusus carrying on the war under the Alps; whence this people derived the custom, which has always prevailed among them, of arming their right hands with the Amazonian ax, I have purposely omitted to inquire: (neither is it possible to discover everything.) But those troops, which had been for a long while and extensively victorious, being subdued by the conduct of a youth, perceived what a disposition, what a genius rightly educated under an auspicious roof, what the fatherly affection of Augustus toward the young Neros, could effect.


id: horace-works_93
title: horace-works_93
txt: ./txt/horace-works_93.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_93.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Restore, O excellent chieftain, the light to thy country; for, like the spring, wherever thy countenance has shone, the day passes more agreeably for the people, and the sun has a superior lustre. As a mother, with vows, omens, and prayers, calls for her son( whom the south wind with adverse gales detains from his sweet home, staying more than a year beyond the Carpathian Sea), nor turns aside her looks from the curved shore; in like manner, inspired with loyal wishes, his country seeks for Caesar. This is our language, when we are sober at the early day; this is our language, when we have well drunk, at the time the sun is beneath the ocean.


id: horace-works_94
title: horace-works_94
txt: ./txt/horace-works_94.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_94.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Thou god, whom the offspring of Niobe experienced as avenger of a presumptuous tongue, and the ravisher Tityus, and also the Thessalian Achilles, almost the conqueror of lofty Troy, a warrior superior to all others, but unequal to thee; though, son of the seagoddess, Thetis, he shook the Dardanian towers, warring with his dreadful spear. He, as it were a pine smitten with the burning ax, or a cypress prostrated by the east wind, fell extended far, and reclined his neck in the Trojan dust. oh!) would have burned speechless babes with Grecian fires, even him concealed in his mother ''s womb: had not the father of the gods, prevailed upon by thy entreaties and those of the beauteous Venus, granted to the affairs of Aeneas walls founded under happier auspices. Shortly a bride you will say:" I, skilled in the measures of the poet Horace, recited an ode which was acceptable to the gods, when the secular period brought back the festal days."


id: horace-works_95
title: horace-works_95
txt: ./txt/horace-works_95.txt
cache: ./cache/horace-works_95.txt
extension: .txt
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  ODES IV. ODE VII. TO TORQUATUS The snows are fled, the herbage now returns to the fields, and the leaves to the trees. That you are not to expect things permanent, the year, and the hour that hurries away the agreeable day, admonish us. The colds are mitigated by the zephyrs: the summer follows close upon the spring, shortly to die itself, as soon as fruitful autumn shall have shed its fruits: and anon sluggish winter returns again. Who knows whether the gods above will add to this day ''s reckoning the space of tomorrow? Every thing, which you shall indulge to your beloved soul, will escape the greedy hands of your heir. When once, Torquatus, you shall be dead, and Minos shall have made his awful decisions concerning you; not your family, not you eloquence, not your piety shall restore you.


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  ODES IV. ODE VIII. O Censorinus, liberally would I present my acquaintance with goblets and beautiful vases of brass; I would present them with tripods, the rewards of the brave Grecians: nor would you bear off the meanest of my donations, if I were rich in those pieces of art, which either Parrhasius or Scopas produced; the latter in statuary, the former in liquid colors, eminent to portray at one time a man, at another a god. What would the son of Mars and Ilia be, if invidious silence had stifled the merits of Romulus? Thus laborious Hercules has a place at the longedfor banquets of Jove:[ thus] the sons of Tyndarus, that bright constellation, rescue shattered vessels from the bosom of the deep:[ and thus] Bacchus, his temples adorned with the verdant vinebranch, brings the prayers of his votaries to successful issues.


id: horace-works_97
title: horace-works_97
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  TO MARCUS LOLLIUS Lest you for a moment imagine that those words will be lost, which I, born on the farresounding Aufidus, utter to be accompanied with the lyre, by arts hitherto undivulged-If Maeonian Homer possesses the first rank, the Pindaric and Cean muses, and the menacing strains of Alcaeus, and the majestic ones of Stesichorus, are by no means obscure: neither, if Anacreon long ago sportfully sung any thing, has time destroyed it: even now breathes the love and live the ardors of the Aeolian maid, committed to her lyre. Many brave men lived before Agamemnon: but all of them, unlamented and unknown, are overwhelmed with endless obscurity, because they were destitute of a sacred bard. I will not[ therefore], O Lollius, pass you over in silence, uncelebrated in my writings, or suffer envious forgetfulness with impunity to seize so many toils of thine.


id: horace-works_98
title: horace-works_98
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  ODE X. ODE X. TO LIGURINUS O cruel still, and potent in the endowments of beauty, when an unexpected plume shall come upon your vanity, and those locks, which now wanton on your shoulders, shall fall off, and that color, which is now preferable to the blossom of the damask rose, changed, O Ligurinus, shall turn into a wrinkled face;[ then] will you say( as often as you see yourself,[ quite] another person in the looking glass), Alas! why was not my present inclination the same, when I was young? Or why do not my cheeks return, unimpaired, to these my present sentiments?


id: horace-works_99
title: horace-works_99
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  ODE XI. ODE XI. Phyllis, I have a cask full of Abanian wine, upward of nine years old; I have parsley in my garden, for the weaving of chaplets, I have a store of ivy, with which, when you have bound your hair, you look so gay: the house shines cheerfully With plate: the altar, bound with chaste vervain, longs to be sprinkled[ with the blood] of a sacrificed lamb: all hands are busy: girls mingled with boys fly about from place to place: the flames quiver, rolling on their summit the sooty smoke. A rich and buxom girl hath possessed herself of Telephus, a youth above your rank; and she holds him fast by an agreeable fetter. Come then, thou last of my loves( for hereafter I shall burn for no other woman), learn with me such measures, as thou mayest recite with thy lovely voice: our gloomy cares shall be mitigated with an ode.


