Showing posts with label horace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horace. Show all posts

23.2.11

Horatii Carmen 1.4


Winter is melting, its bitterness yielding to pleasing, breezy Springtime;
      slow winches drag dry vessels onto water.
And in the stables no longer rejoices a herd, nor ploughman by fire.
      Fields aren’t gleaming white with morning hoarfrost.
Now Cytherea is leading the choruses: Venus under bright moons
      and Nymphs accompanied by seemly Graces
thump Earth hard with rhythmical feet, as determined Vulcan goes back
      to work in bright hot forges of the Cyclops.
Now it is fitting to garland your shimmering head with verdant myrtle
      or flowers, which Earth, as it thaws, produces.
Now in the shadowy groves it is fitting to sacrifice to Faunus
      an ewe, if called for, or a kid, if favored.
Colorless Death kicks over the tables of beggars and the towers
      of kings alike. O blessed Sestius, how
 Life's brief span disallows us embarking on limitless endeavors!
      Now night's upon you pressing, now the fabled
Manes, and Pluto's diaphanous House, where as soon as you have entered,
      you neither will cast lots to see who drinks first
nor be able to marvel at slender Lycidas, who incites now
      all youths, and whom soon virgins will be hot for.

8.12.10

Horatii Carmen 3.13


for professor Raish



O Bandusian fount, clearer than crystal glass,
Meritorious of blossoms in sweet merlot,
Take this kid on the morrow
Whose head swells with an early horn

That would meet, in a clash, goats but alas, revered,
It will not; he will dye red hoary rivulets
Run with blood from the sprouted
Lineage of a playful flock.

The unbearable slow hour of eternity
Does not know how to touch you, who are proffering
Swift, sweet cold to the vagrant
Herd and plow-beaten cow as well.

Your nobility I make, singing verse of the
Hollows growing up oaks set in the empty stones
Whence loquacious nymphs come
Trickling down in a dance to you.