THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 The 
 
 Odes of Horace 
 
 ENGLISHED BY 
 
 WILLIAM HATHORN MILLS, M. A. 
 
 LBDEMB STREET & ZEUS COMPANY 
 
 BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 
 
 19X4
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1921 
 
 BY WILLIAM HATHORN MILLS 
 
 Reprinted January 1934
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 V\7ILLIAM HATHORN MILLS was 
 ** born at Orton Waterville, near Peter- 
 borough, England, on April 28, 1848. He 
 was educated at Haileybury School and 
 Pembroke College, Cambridge, of which he 
 was a Foundation Scholar, and Prizeman in 
 1867 for the best composition in Latin Verse. 
 He took an honor degree in the Classical 
 Tripos of 1870. 
 
 He was headmaster of Ruthin Grammar 
 School from 1875 to 1881, and continued his 
 scholastic work in Louth until 1895. 
 
 He was vicar of Kelstern 1892-95, rector 
 of Hackthorn 1895-1902, rector of North 
 Thoresby 1902-8, and rector of Rand 1908-9. 
 
 Thereafter, owing to poor health, he was 
 compelled to spend much of his time in a 
 milder climate than that of England, and in 
 1913 came to California to visit his son, Dr. 
 H. W. Mills. The climate suiting him per- 
 fectly, he ultimately made it his home. He 
 died at San Bernardino, California, on Sep- 
 tember 29, 1923, from angina pectoris. 
 
 He was the author of many books of 
 poetry, the best known of which are "Bal- 
 lads of Hellas" (first published in 1878 and 
 reprinted in 1922), "Calif ornica," "An Old 
 Man's Musings," "War Ballads and Verses," 
 and a metrical translation of the Odes of 
 Horace (1921). 
 
 Requiescat in Pace. 
 
 611117 
 
 UBRAKT
 
 Stet Capita Hum 
 
 WHETHER he sings of high romance, 
 Or hymns the everlasting Sire, 
 Or suits his lay to choral dance, 
 
 Or scourges forms of base desire, 
 Or paints the lady of his choice, 
 Horace is still a living Voice. 
 
 Your sweetly smiling Lalage, 
 Whose spirit turned a wolf to flight, 
 
 Your little farm by Tivoli, 
 
 Bandusia's fountain crystal -bright, 
 
 Your haunts, your hospitalities 
 
 Horace, theyVe all before our eyes. 
 
 Orbilius flogged you when at school; 
 
 You have our fullest sympathy, 
 For we remember a ferule, 
 
 That smote us oft and lustily; 
 Would it had gotten into us 
 A measure of your genius. 
 
 You sang how Regulus put aside 
 The crowds encumbering his return, 
 
 Refused his wife's kiss, and denied 
 Her plea with answer curt and stern; 
 
 "Rome must be saved; let cowards die" 
 
 We hear it yet that haught reply.
 
 How Paulus and how Cato died, 
 Too staunch to fly, too proud to yield; 
 
 How stout Marcellus turned the tide 
 Of war in many a foughten field; 
 
 How yeomen played heroic parts 
 
 You've stamped it all upon our hearts. 
 
 They left their farms to fight; they braved 
 All pains of death; and, if they fell, 
 
 What mattered it, so Rome were saved? 
 Her weal safeguarded, all was well. 
 
 The State must stand, tho' men may die 
 
 That was Old Rome's philosophy. 
 
 You made them household words the names 
 Of those who fought and fell for Rome 
 
 And you your memory lives, and claims 
 Place at their side in every home; 
 
 Your bones lie on a Roman hill, 
 
 Horace, but you are with us still.
 
 Puellis Idoneus 
 
 HORACE had many themes ; his rimes 
 At times clomb Helicon's peak; at times 
 His Muse just sported; 
 He sang of Gods, of mighty men, 
 Of wines, of rustic joys, of ten 
 Damsels he courted. 
 
 Jt seems he had a lot of flames 
 From first to last ; his list of names 
 
 Is gey an' long; 
 
 Were they real living demoiselles, 
 Or quite imaginary belles 
 
 Just pegs for song? 
 
 Some anyhow were real, and two 
 Adorned, as gentle souls and true, 
 His poetry 
 
 The kindly Cinara rapt, alas! 
 From earth untimely and the lass 
 Named Lalage.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In the preparation of these versions I consulted with 
 advantage Mr. Page's abbreviated edition of Horace. 
 But my debt of debts was to my memories of the days 
 when I sat at the feet of Arthur Gray Butler, Head- 
 Master of Haileybury School in the early Sixties. 
 My thanks are also due to several friends whose 
 encouragements have helped me to carry on the work 
 I had begun a somewhat arduous undertaking for a 
 septuagenarian in particular, to Professor L. J. Rich- 
 ardson, of the University of California, and Mr. J. C. 
 Rowell, Librarian Emeritus of the University Library. 
 Three of the Odes I did not care to translate, and have 
 therefore omitted them. W. H. M.
 
 M 
 
 Od. 1. 1 
 
 AECENAS, heir of ancient kings, my heart's dear 
 pride, my guardian : 
 
 In chariot-races some delight to gather dust Olympian, 
 Whom post, just missed by glowing wheels, and victory's 
 
 palm Palladian, 
 Make gods on earth ; thjs man exults if fickle mobs lift 
 
 him on high, 
 With threefold honours; that, if Libya's produce fills 
 
 his granary. 
 Attalic wealth would never move one, glad to hoe his 
 
 sire's domain, 
 To plough, a frightened mariner, in Cyprian galley, 
 
 Myrtos' main. 
 The merchant, scared by Afric's war with waves 
 
 Icarian, magnifies 
 Home's rural ease, but soon refits, unused to want, his 
 
 argosies. 
 There's one who scorns not Massic old, nor hours 
 
 snatched from the working day, 
 Stretched 'neath green arbutus, or where some sacred 
 
 fount's rills softly play. 
 Full many love what mothers hate, wars, camps, horns' 
 
 scream, and trumpets' blare. 
 The hunter keen, young bride forgot, still lingers in 
 
 the chilly air, 
 When his good hounds have viewed a hind or Marsian 
 
 boar has burst his nets' 
 Strong toils. Me ivy, meed of brows poetic, 'mid the 
 
 high Gods sets.
 
 10 
 
 Me the cool grove, and fleet Nymphs trooped with 
 
 Satyrs, sever from the throng, 
 If but Euterpe's flutes, and sweet Polymnia's harp, 
 
 cease not their song. 
 
 Rank me with lyric bards; my head shall smite the 
 stars, their choirs among. 
 
 Od.L 2 
 
 ENOUGH of snow and hailstones dire 
 The Sire has scattered, and with red 
 Right hand has hurled his bolts of fire 
 
 On sacred heights; then cowered in dread 
 City and nations, lest the time 
 
 When portents strange made Pyrrha plain, 
 And Porteus bade his sea-herds climb 
 
 High mountains, should return again : 
 When in the elm-tops roosting place 
 
 To doves familiar in their haste 
 Entangled, hung the fishy race, 
 
 And scared hinds swam the watery waste. 
 Tiber we saw, with fierce back-wash 
 
 Of tawny waves from Tuscany's 
 Banksides, upon his way to crash 
 
 King's works, and Vesta's sanctuaries. 
 Proclaiming vengeance for the fate 
 
 Of Ilia, too-complaining still, 
 He crossed his eastern marge in spate, 
 
 Uxorious stream, despite Jove's will. 
 Our youth, by parents' vices thinned, 
 
 Shall hear of swords, that better far
 
 11 
 
 Had smote the Mede, by kin unkinned 
 
 Whetted, alas ! for impious war. 
 What God should Rome invoke to stay 
 
 The ruin of our empire's weal? 
 What prayers should sacred Virgins pray 
 
 To Vesta, deaf to their appeal? 
 To whom will Jove assign the part 
 
 Of expiation? Come at length, 
 With aureoled shoulders, thou, who art 
 
 Augur of augurs, in thy strength, 
 Phoebus, we pray. Or, if it please 
 
 Thee, smiling Erycina, come 
 With Love and Laughter; or, if these 
 
 Thy children, Mars the race of Rome 
 So long forgot, are still thy care, 
 
 Quit war's too-wearying game, what tho* 
 Thou lov'st shouts, helms, and fiery glare 
 
 Of Moorish kern at blood-stained foe. 
 Or if, transformed, thou art content 
 
 Maia's winged Son, to image now 
 Young manhood, named, with thy consent, 
 
 Caesar's avenger O come thou ! 
 Slow to return to heaven, prolong 
 
 Among Quirinus' folk thy stay; 
 No breeze upbear thee, by the wrong 
 
 We do provoked, too soon away. 
 That men should call the Chief .and Sire 
 
 Choose that ; with triumphs cheer thy heart 
 And let thy rule's avenging ire, 
 
 Caesar, make Parthia's horsemen smart.
 
 12 
 
 Od. 1. 3 
 
 FOR this may Cyprus' Goddess-Queen, and Helens 
 brethren bright, 
 And the winds' Sire, releasing but lapyx from his 
 
 cave, 
 O ship, whose ward our Virgil is, direct your course 
 
 aright, 
 So, landing him on Attic shore, my being's half 
 
 you save. 
 His breast was armed with triple bronze and oak, 
 
 who to rude seas 
 First trusted his frail bark, nor feared squalls of 
 
 Sirocco fell, 
 
 Battling it out with Aquilo, nor rainy Hyades, 
 Nor Notus, arbiter whose will bids Hadria sink or 
 
 swell. 
 What death feared he, who saw dry-eyed the monsters 
 
 of the deep; 
 Saw the rough main, the Thunder-Heights of 
 
 infamous renown? 
 If impious galleons none the less o'er waves forbidden 
 
 leap, 
 In vain Heaven's wisdom parted lands by Ocean's 
 
 sundering frown. 
 Bold to endure all things, mankind rushed thro' all 
 
 wickedness ; 
 Prometheus bold brought fire to earth by fraud 
 
 unfortunate ; 
 
 Soon as the fire had left its heaven, strange fevers 
 and distress
 
 13 
 
 Swooped on the world, and death till then a distant 
 
 doom and late 
 Quickened its steps. Thus Daedalus, with wings to man 
 
 denied, 
 Tempted the void air ; Hercules by toil broke 
 
 Acheron's sway; 
 Naught is too hard for mortal men, who seek in 
 
 senseless pride 
 
 The skies : whose sin forbids Jove's ire to put his 
 bolts away. 
 
 Od. 1. 4 
 
 NOW loosed is Winter's cruel grip; now Spring and 
 Western wind 
 Bring welcome change; the windlass hauls dry keels 
 
 down to the sea; 
 No longer stalls make glad the herds, no longer fires 
 
 the hind ; 
 No longer stand the meadows white with hoar-frost's 
 
 argentry. 
 Beneath the moon now Cytherean Venus leads her 
 
 choirs ; 
 Graces and Nymphs, a comely troop, ring hand in 
 
 hand their ring; 
 Now this, now that, foot beats the ground; while 
 
 Cyclops' furnace-fires 
 Glow, as fierce Vulcan fans the flames, and bids the 
 
 hammers swing. 
 Now is it well to twine trim locks with myrtle, or 
 
 with flowers, 
 
 Brought forth by fields, now thawed, as from a store 
 of treasures hid;
 
 14 
 
 Now is it well to sacrifice to Faunus, in dim bowers 
 
 Of shady groves, a lamb maybe, or, if he will, a kid. 
 
 Marching with step impartial, Death's pale Presence 
 
 raps its call 
 At doors of rich and poor alike. Wealth, Sestius, 
 
 is yours; 
 But life's brief span cuts short the range of hope 
 
 for one and all; 
 And even now a gloom of night and storied Manes 
 
 lours 
 O'er you, and Pluto's shadowy halls expect your shade 
 
 anon. 
 Once there, no longer shall you cast the dice to 
 
 settle who 
 Shall rule the feast, nor count young Lycidas a 
 
 paragon. 
 
 Whom all the lads now worship and the lasses soon 
 shall woo. 
 
 Od.1.5 
 
 WfHAT scent-besprinkled stripling lad, 
 
 Pyrrha, would win your favour, where 
 Some grotto smiles with roses clad? 
 
 For whom bind you your golden hair, 
 Simple, yet dainty? Soon he'll weep, 
 
 How oft ! changed troth, changed deities, 
 And marvel, as the wind-lashed deep 
 
 Darkens, and threats his startled eyes, 
 Who in his folly counts you now 
 
 All gold, and hopes that free for aye 
 And kind you'll be, unwitting how 
 
 Your favours cheat. Unhappy they
 
 R 
 
 IS 
 
 On whom you smile untried. For me, 
 
 His temple-wall and tablet show 
 That to the God, who rules the sea, 
 
 I hung my drenched robes long ago. 
 
 Od. 1. 6 
 
 BY Varius, bird of Homer's strain, 
 Shall you be sung as hero wight, 
 Leader on land or on the main 
 
 Of troops victorious in the fight. 
 But we, Agrippa, may not tell 
 
 Your feats, nor staunch Achilles' wrath, 
 Nor chant the house of Pelops fell, 
 
 Nor sly Ulysses' sea-tossed path. 
 Too weak our strength for paean-hymn, 
 
 While honour, and a Muse who sways 
 A peaceful lyre, forbid to dim 
 
 Your fame and Caesar's with poor praise. 
 Mars mailed in adamant, Tydeus' son, 
 
 By Pallas matched with Gods in might, 
 And, black with dust of Ilion, 
 
 Meriones what pen could write 
 Of these? We tell of banquets; we 
 
 Sing lasses making fierce onset 
 On lads with pared nails, fancy-free, 
 
 Or, if love-fired, light-hearted yet. 
 
 Od. I. 7 
 
 HODES, Mytilene, Ephesus, or Corinth set where 
 
 two seas foam, 
 Thessalian Tempe, Bacchus' Thebes, or Delphi, seat 
 of Phoebus' pride,
 
 16 
 
 Others shall sing. Some only care to hymn chaste 
 
 Pallas' Attic home, 
 From first to last, and crown their brows with olives 
 
 plucked from every side. 
 In Juno's honour, most will tell of Argos' steeds, 
 
 Mycenae's gold. 
 Me Sparta staunch, Larisa's plains, never so thrilled 
 
 as echoing 
 Albuna's fount, and Anio's rush, orchards and groves 
 
 of Tibur's wold. 
 And restless rills. As Notus oft clears darkened 
 
 skies, nor loves to bring 
 Perpetual rains, so be you wise, Plancus, to drown life's 
 
 care and grief 
 In mellow wine, where ensigns light your camp, or 
 
 'neath your Tibur's shade. 
 Banished from Salamis and sire, yet Teucer bound 
 
 with poplar-leaf 
 His wine-moist brows, and bade his friends, a 
 
 sorrowing crowd, be undismayed. 
 "Whithersoever fate more kind than sire shall lead 
 
 us, friends, we'll fare; 
 None may despair, where Teucer guides and guards: 
 
 Apollo's truth has sworn 
 That a new Salamis shall rise elsewhere; with wine 
 
 now banish care; 
 
 Worse things we've known, brave hearts ; once more 
 we'll plough the main tomorrow morn."
 
 17 
 
 Od. I. 8 
 
 COME, Lydia, tell me why by all 
 The Gods I beg you you would lure 
 By love young Sybaris to his fall : 
 
 Why now he hates, who could endure 
 Sunshine and dust, the Field, nor rides, 
 
 In soldier's guise, among his peers: 
 Nor with toothed bit controls and guides 
 
 His Gallic steed's mouth; aye, and fears 
 Tiber. Why would he sooner risk 
 
 Venom than oil, who never now 
 Bears bruises, marks of strain of disc, 
 
 Or javelin, thrown a winning throw? 
 Why lies he hid, as Thetis' son 
 
 Lay hid ere Troy's sad fall, they say, 
 Lest man's attire should speed him on, 
 
 With Lycia's troops, to join the fray? 
 
 Od. I. 9 
 
 SEE you how white Soracte's hill 
 Stands in deep snow: how forests bow, 
 Strained by their burden; how the chill 
 
 Of frost has stayed the rivers' flow? 
 Break up the cold ; pile more and more 
 
 Logs on the hearth ; from your Sabine 
 Jar's depths, O Thaliarchus, pour 
 
 More generous draughts of ripe old wine. 
 Leave to the Gods all else; when they 
 
 Have lulled the storms whose battles thresh
 
 18 
 
 The ocean into boiling spray, 
 
 Naught frets cypress and aged ash. 
 Ask not the morrow's good or ill ; 
 
 Reckon it gain however chance 
 May shape each day; scorn not, while still 
 
 A boy, sweet loves ; scorn not the dance. 
 Life in its Spring, and crabbed eld 
 
 Far off that is the time; then hey 
 For Park, Square, whispered concerts held 
 
 At a set hour at close of day : 
 For the sweet laugh whose soft alarm 
 
 Tells in what nook the maid lies hid : 
 For the love-token snatched from arm, 
 
 Of fingers that but half-forbid. 
 
 Od.1.10 
 
 GRANDSON of Atlas eloquent, 
 Mercury, skilful to refine 
 Primaeval manners insolent 
 
 By speech and seemly discipline 
 Thee will I sing, of mighty Jove 
 
 Herald and of the gods, whose deft 
 Hand bent the lyre; adept, for love 
 
 Of fun, to steal and hide the theft. 
 Phoebus once threatened thee unless 
 
 His stolen beeves returned anon 
 Ah, naughty boy! scolded thee, yes, 
 
 Yet laughed his quiver too had gone. 
 With thee for guide rich Priam made 
 
 His way unseen past Atreus' sons, 
 Past Phthian fires, thro' the blockade 
 
 Of Troy-beleaguering legions.
 
 19 
 
 Kind souls find under thy convoy 
 Blest homes ; thy gold wand's waving gleam 
 
 Shepherds the shades who art the joy 
 Of gods inferne and gods supreme. 
 
 Od.I.ll 
 
 SEEK not to know such search were sin what 
 term, Leuconoe, 
 
 Of life the Gods, who rule our lives, have fixed for 
 you and me, 
 
 Nor try the tables that sum up Babel's astrology. 
 
 'Twere better how far better! to endure the utter- 
 most, 
 
 Whether Jove grants more winters, or this brings a 
 farewell frost, 
 
 That breaks the strength of waves that lash the rock- 
 bound Tuscan coast. 
 
 Be wise ; strain wines ; curtail far hopes to fit short 
 destiny; 
 
 E'en while we speak time, grudging time, has fled; 
 snatch eagerly 
 
 Each day, and trust the morrow's grace as little as 
 may be. 
 
 Od. 1. 12 
 
 CLIO, what man's, what hero's, fame 
 Art fain with shrill-toned pipe to sing, 
 Or lyre; what god's that so his name, 
 
 Flung back by echo's laugh, shall ring 
 Or in the shades of Helicon, 
 Or upon Pindus' heights, or chill
 
 20 
 
 Haemus, whence woods swept blindly on 
 
 At tuneful Orpheus' heels, whose skill, 
 His mother's grace, made his art strong 
 
 To stay torrent and hurricane 
 Made it a charm to draw along 
 
 The listening oaks that heard his strain? 
 Whose praise shall sooner claim my song 
 
 Than his, whom gods and men obey: 
 Whose seasons spin the world along, 
 
 Above, below, with tempering sway? 
 Naught greater than himself proceeds 
 
 From him ; naught next his being is, 
 Or like it; yet her mighty deeds 
 
 Give Pallas nearest rank to his. 
 I will not let thy prowess go, 
 
 Liber, unsung no, nor thy fame, 
 O Virgin huntress, nor thy bow, 
 
 Phoebus, whose shafts miss not their aim. 
 Alcides too, and Leda's sons 
 
 Famed cavalier, famed pugilist 
 I'll hymn to mariners twin suns 
 
 Of hope, for tumbling breakers whist, 
 Soon as their white stars shine, and fall 
 
 Back from the rocks ; rude tempests cease ; 
 Clouds flee; waves' threats subside, and all 
 
 Since such their will, is calm and peace. 
 What name comes next? I hesitate 
 
 Romulus, Numa's quiet sway, 
 Proud Tarquin's tyranny, Cato's fate 
 
 The death that is his fame for aye? 
 Regulus, Scaurus, Paulus wight, 
 
 All reckless of his mighty soul 
 When Carthage won, in words of light 
 
 Grateful I'll set on honour's roll.
 
 21 
 
 Fabricius, Curius unshorn, 
 
 Camillus these stern penury 
 Reared, sons of toil, and yeomen-born, 
 
 To be true sons of chivalry. 
 As thro' unnoticed ages grows 
 
 The tree, so grows Marcellus* fame 
 As moon 'mid lesser lights, so glows 
 
 The Julian star with brightest flame. 
 Father and guardian of our race, 
 
 Great Saturn's son, Fate gives to thee 
 Charge of great Caesar ; of thy grace, 
 
 Reign thou; let him vicegerent be. 
 Whether he breaks their threats and leads 
 
 In well-won triumph Parthia's hosts, 
 Or smites Seric and, Indian breeds, 
 
 Who dwell below the Orient's coasts, 
 Beneath thee let him rule the world 
 
 In justice, while thy ponderous car 
 Shakes heaven, and while thy lightnings hurled 
 
 On unchaste groves make holy war. 
 
 Od. 1. 13 
 
 Lydia, you praise the waxen arms 
 And rosy neck of Telephus, 
 Ah, then my heart swells with the fierce alarms 
 
 Of jealousy tumultuous. 
 Then reels my brain ; my colour comes and goes ; 
 
 Adown my cheeks tears steal and stray 
 Proofs of my inward anguish with what throes, 
 
 What smouldering fires, I dwine away. 
 Aye, for I burn when quarrels fired by wine 
 
 Have marred your shoulders' argentry;
 
 22 
 
 When your mad lover's teeth have set their sign 
 
 Upon your lips an infamy. 
 You would not hope, if but to me you list, 
 
 To keep him yours' whose brute offence 
 Scars lips on which Venus herself has kissed 
 
 Her grace her nectar's quintessence. 
 Thrice happy they, and more than thrice, by bond 
 
 Unbroken linked, whose union 
 A love, uplift all bickerings beyond, 
 
 Shall bind until life's day is done. 
 
 Od.1.14 
 
 SHIP of the State, new waves will bear 
 Thee back to sea. What doest thou ? Fight 
 To make the port; thy sides are bare 
 
 Of oars ah, seest thou not thy plight? 
 Sprung by the swift South wind thy mast 
 
 And sail-yards groan; thy straining back, 
 Unfrapped by ropes, can scarce outlast 
 
 The sea's too tyrannous attack. 
 Thy sails are all unsound ; thou hast 
 
 No gods whose guardiance thou mayst claim, 
 When swept by some fresh tempest-blast; 
 
 What tho' thou boasted race and fame, 
 As Pontic pine, and nobly born, 
 
 Gay poops bring mariners no cheer; 
 Beware lest thou become a scorn 
 
 A laughing-stock for winds to jeer. 
 Of late didst vex and tire my soul; 
 
 Now dear, dost still disturb my ease; 
 Prithee, avoid the seas that roll 
 
 Between the shining Cyclades.
 
 23 
 
 Od.1.15 
 
 WHAT time the treacherous shepherd o'er the deep 
 In Mysian bark his hostess Helen bare, 
 Then Nereus lulled the stormy winds" to sleep 
 
 Unwelcome, that he might, as seer, declare 
 His doom. "With evil omens home you take 
 
 Her, whom the armies of the Hellene name, 
 Sworn to lay waste Priam's old realm, and break 
 
 Your marriage-bond, shall, as one man, reclaim. 
 Ah me, what agonies threat man and steed! 
 
 What mischiefs for the Dardan race what dire 
 Ruin you stir! Pallas, to meet the need, 
 
 Gets ready helm, shield, chariots, battle-ire. 
 In vain, as counting Venus your ally, 
 
 You'll comb your locks and to lute's peaceful strain 
 Sing songs that women love ; in vain you'll fly 
 
 In nuptial room arrows of Gnossian cane, 
 And deadly spears, the battle's stour and boom, 
 
 The swift pursuit of Ajax all in vain 
 Your flights; for spite of all, tho' late your doom, 
 
 Your locks adulterous with dust you'll stain. 
 See you not on your trail Laertes' son, 
 
 Bane of your race, and Nestor, Pylos' sage? 
 Teucer of Salamis presses hard upon 
 
 Your heels, and Sthenelus, well skilled to wage 
 War, or, if steeds need rule, keen charioteer, 
 
 A dauntless pair. Aye, and you'll learn to know 
 Meriones. More than his sire's peer, 
 
 Lo, Diomede hunts you, raging, even now : 
 Whom you as a scared stag flies soon as he 
 
 Has spied a wolf, crouched on the vale's far side,
 
 24 
 
 Herbage forgot with panting gasps will flee. 
 
 Not this the life you promised to your bride. 
 The day of doom for Troy and Phrygian dames 
 
 Achilles' angry warships will delay. 
 After fixed winters' term, Achaian flames 
 
 Shall waste the homes of Ilion for aye." 
 
 Od. 1. 16 
 
 O FAIRER than your mother fair, 
 Put whatsoever end you please 
 To my lampoons no matter where, 
 
 In furnace or in Hadria's seas. 
 Not Dindymene no, nor he 
 
 Who sits upon his Pythian seat 
 So shakes priests' souls with ecstacy; 
 
 Not Liber ; not so fiercely beat 
 Their cymbals Corybants, as grim ire 
 
 Rages ; which fears nor Noric steel, 
 Nor wreckstrewn sea, nor savage fire, 
 
 Nor Jove's down-rush with flash and peal. 
 Prometheus, forced to add a part 
 
 Cut from each creature to our clay 
 Primaeval, grafted on our heart 
 T~ A mad lion's might so legends say. 
 
 Passions once laid Thyestes low 
 
 In ruin, and have come to be 
 Root-cause of utter overthrow 
 
 To lofty cities, presently 
 Ploughed under by some haughty foe. 
 
 Restrain your wrath; me, too, alas! 
 A hot heart tempted long ago, 
 
 In life's sweet youth ; mad that I was,
 
 25 
 
 I dashed off libels. Courtesy, 
 Not rudeness, now shall be my part, 
 
 If but, my taunts withdrawn, you'll be 
 My friend, and give me back your heart. 
 
 Od. 1. 17 
 
 LEAVING Lycaeus oft for sweet 
 Lucretilis, swift Faunus fends 
 Off rainy winds and summer's heat 
 
 Ever, and thus my goats befriends. 
 They seek, as thro' safe woods they rove 
 
 These wives of a malodorous spouse 
 Arbutus lurking in the grove, 
 
 And thyme, unscathed ; my kidlings browse 
 Fearless of Mars' wolves and green snakes, 
 
 What time, my Tyndaris, you bring 
 Your pipe that wakes the vales, and makes 
 
 Ustica's smooth escarpment ring. 
 Gods guard me; to the Gods are dear 
 
 My Muse, my piety; the land's 
 Honours its outpoured wealth shall here 
 
 From horn benignant fill your hands. 
 Here, in some far glen's sanctuary 
 
 From Dog-Star's heat, to Teian strain 
 You'll tell of chaste Penelope 
 
 And Circe bright, striving amain 
 For one man's love. Here 'neath the trees 
 
 Shall you drink cups from harmless jars 
 Of Lesbian ; nor shall Semele's 
 
 Thyoneus mix up brawls with Mars. 
 Nor shall you fear the wantonness 
 
 Of Cyrus, lest he rudely tear, 
 Poor little innocent, your dress, 
 
 And chaplet clinging to your hair.
 
 26 
 
 Od. 1. 18 
 
 SEE, VARUS, that you plant no tree before the sacred 
 vine 
 
 About our Tibur's kindly soil, where Catilus of eld 
 Founded his town, for Heaven has willed that all who 
 
 hate good wine 
 Should suffer, and not otherwise are gnawing cares 
 
 dispelled. 
 Who, after wine, on war's distress or poverty wastes 
 
 breath ? 
 
 Is not his talk of Bacchus and of Venus' loveliness? 
 And yet the fight, fought over cups by Centaurs to the 
 
 death 
 With Lapithae, bids none exceed the bounds of 
 
 soberness. 
 There's warning too in Euhius' wrath against the sots 
 
 of Thrace, 
 When drunkards make their lusts the law defining 
 
 Wrong and Right. 
 I'll not abuse, bright Bassareus, by tempting thee, thy 
 
 grace, 
 
 Nor drag the things, by leaves concealed as mys- 
 teries, to light. 
 Stay the fierce horns, the timbrels dear to Cybele, that 
 
 lead 
 Blind Love of Self self-blinded self-idolatry and 
 
 Pride 
 
 The Vanity that all too high uplifts its empty head, 
 And faithless Faith that publishes what glass itself 
 would hide.
 
 27 
 
 Od. 1. 19 
 
 THE cruel mother of the Loves, and Theban Semele's 
 winged Son, 
 And sportive License call me back to wars I fought 
 
 in bygone days. 
 It fires that sheen of Glycera's grace, more purely 
 
 bright than Parian stone! 
 It fires her pretty petulance : her face that dazzles 
 
 eyes that gaze! 
 Venus has flung herself on me from Cyprus, nor would 
 
 have me sing 
 Of Parthian fighting as he flies, of Scyths, of things 
 
 that matter not. 
 Place me a live turf here, my boys, vervain and 
 
 incense; aye, and bring 
 Two-year old wine. A victim slain, she'll come in 
 
 gentler mood, I wot. 
 
 Od. I. 20 
 
 WINE of a common Sabine brand 
 In moderate cups your thirst shall slake 
 Wine stored and sealed by my own hand 
 
 In an old jar of Grecian make, 
 When from the theatre rang out 
 
 Your praise, dear knight Maecenas, till 
 Your native banks returned the shout, 
 
 And echoes laughed from Vatican hill. 
 Then wine from a Calenian press, 
 
 And Caecuban, shall cheer your soul ; 
 Falernian grapes, I must confess, 
 
 And Formian, temper not my bowl.
 
 28 
 
 Od.1.21 
 
 YOUNG maidens, sing Diana's might; 
 Sing, boys, of Cynthius ever-young; 
 Of Leto, too, the heart's delight 
 
 Of Jove supreme, be anthems sung. 
 Sing, maidens, how Diana loves 
 
 Streams and the forest's leafery, 
 Or of dark Erymanthus' groves, 
 
 Or where green Cragus towers on high. 
 Praise Tempe, boys, and Delos where 
 
 Phoebus was born, with lay for lay; 
 Sing how his quivered shoulders bear 
 
 His brother's lyre, in twin display. 
 From princely Caesar and our State, 
 
 Moved by your prayer, he shall expel 
 War, famine, plague sad dooms of fate 
 
 To lands where Mede and Briton dwell. 
 
 Od. I. 22 
 
 WHOSE life is whole and pure of sin, 
 He needs no Moorish javelin, 
 Fuscus, nor bow, nor quiver-load 
 Of poisoned arrows for the road : 
 Whether he wills to voyage o'er 
 The boiling Syrtes, or explore 
 Rude Caucasus, or tracts untrod, 
 Washed by Hydaspes' storied flood. 
 For in a Sabine wood one day 
 I sang of Lalage; away 
 Went all my cares ; I wandered free ;
 
 29 
 
 A wolf saw me, and fled from me, 
 
 Nor harmed me such a monster as 
 
 Oak-groves of warlike Daunias 
 
 Breed not, and Juba's land may nurse 
 
 Lions, but rears not such a curse. 
 
 Set me where some dead desert sees 
 
 No tree refreshed by summer breeze 
 
 A quarter of the world that lies 
 
 In mists beneath unkindly skies : 
 
 Set me beneath the too near car 
 
 Of Phoebus, where no dwellings are, 
 
 Yet will I love my Lalage 
 
 Her sweet laugh, her sweet causerie. <, 
 
 Od. I. 23 
 
 CHLOE, you always fly from me 
 Just like a fawn, that heedlessly 
 
 Has lost, and seeks to find 
 On pathless hills its mother dear, 
 With many a vain and empty fear 
 
 Of leaves and whispering wind. 
 For whether the glad month of May 
 Has brought its frolic winds to play 
 
 And rustle thro' the trees, 
 Or lizards green have pushed their way 
 Thro' bramble-bushes, as they stray, 
 
 It quakes in heart and knees. 
 Yet my pursuit of you is not 
 That of a tigress fierce, or what 
 
 A desert lion's rage 
 
 Threatens; you need your mother's care 
 No longer, Chloe, for you are 
 
 Of marriageable age.
 
 30 
 
 Od.1.24 
 
 WHAT thought of shame could bound our fond 
 regret 
 
 For one so dear? Melpomene, whose cithern 
 And liquid voice are of the Sire Eterne, 
 
 Prompt us a dirge to pay our sorrow's debt. 
 
 What, can it be that on Quintilius weighs 
 Eternal sleep? Ah, who shall find his peer? 
 Good Faith and Right, twin sisters, Truth sincere, 
 
 And Honour can they ever match his praise? 
 
 True souls how many! wept his untimely end; 
 None more than you, my Virgil, who with vain 
 Prayers claim him of the high Gods, and complain 
 
 That not thus was he given you as a friend. 
 
 But even, if, with more persuasive art 
 Than Thracian Orpheus ever owned, you swayed 
 A lyre that trees obeyed, the empty shade 
 
 Would nevermore feel life-blood thrill its heart, 
 
 That Mercury, too deaf to hear our cry, 
 And roll back fate, has grimly waved below 
 To his dark flock. 'Tis hard; yet, even so, 
 
 Patience can ease what naught can remedy. 
 
 Od.1.25 
 
 (Omitted)
 
 31 
 
 Od. I. 26 
 
 THE Muses' friend, I'll cast all fear 
 And grief to wanton winds, to bear 
 
 Where Cretan billows roll, 
 Utterly careless what dread king 
 Rules 'neath the cold North, or what thing 
 
 Frights Tiridates* soul. 
 O thou, to whom fresh springs are dear, 
 Nymph of Pimplea's fountain clear, 
 
 Weave of thy grace a wreath; 
 Weave it for Lamia, my friend; 
 Weave it of sunny flowers that blend 
 
 Thy sweetness with their breath. 
 Honours that I can pay are naught, 
 Apart from thee the gracious thought 
 
 That tunes my new cithern; 
 Bid it with Lesbian quill the gift 
 Were worthy thee and thine uplift 
 
 This man to life eterne. 
 
 Od. I. 27 
 
 TO fight with goblets is a Thracian game; 
 For pleasure were they made for jollity; 
 Out on the barbarous custom ! Do not shame 
 
 With bloody brawls good Liber's modesty. 
 'Twixt Persian glaive and banquets brightly lit, 
 
 What an enormous gap ! Gap let it rest. 
 Stay, friends, your impious noise ; away with it, 
 
 And keep your elbows to your cushions prest. 
 What, am I too to drink a share today 
 
 Of strong Falernian? Then let yon boy,
 
 32 
 
 Opuntian Megilla's brother, say 
 
 What wound, what shaft, has been his fatal joy. 
 Unwilling are you? Well, not otherwise 
 
 Will I turn toper. Whatsoever Queen 
 You serve, she will not smirch you in our eyes, 
 
 For, if your love be wrong, it is not mean. 
 Come, trust your secret to safe ears and true. 
 
 Ah, hapless one, what an abyss of shame, 
 What a Charybdis, had inveigled you, 
 
 Poor boy and you worthy a better flame! 
 What witch, what wizard, with Thessalian drugs, 
 
 What God, will have the power to set you free? 
 Scarcely from this threefold Chimaera's hugs 
 
 Will Pegasus win you your liberty. 
 
 Od.1.28 
 
 "VOU measured ocean, earth, sands numberless, 
 * Archytas; now a little dust bestowed 
 Upon your ashes keeps you in duress 
 
 By Matine shore ; nor boots it that you rode 
 In spirit thro' the skies, and clomb the vault 
 
 Of heaven, for you were bound to die at last. 
 So too died Pelops' sire, tho' guest exalt 
 
 Of Gods; so into air Tithonus passed; 
 So Minos too, Jove's confidant; and so 
 
 Panthous' son in Tartarus yet stays 
 Perforce, to Orcus sent again, what tho' 
 
 The shield he claimed witnessed his Trojan days 
 Black death had naught of him but skin and nerves, 
 
 Who to your mind was an exponent high 
 Of Nature's truths. Once and for ever serves 
 
 Death's path; one night waits all humanity.
 
 33 
 
 Others the Furies give to glad Mars' eyes ; 
 
 The greedy sea on sailors' bones is fed; 
 Old lives and young make one long sacrifice ; 
 
 Persephone never spared a single head. 
 
 Me too slew Notus on the Illyrian sea 
 
 Notus of prone Orion comrade swift. 
 But you, O sailor, grudge not churlishly 
 
 My bones and head unburied a small gift 
 Of shifting sand. So may you ever be 
 
 Safe, tho' Venusia's woods be tempest-struck; 
 However Eurus threat the Western sea: 
 
 And Jove, its fount, grant you good meed of luck, 
 And Neptune, blest Tarentum's sure defence. 
 
 Think you it were a little thing to do 
 A deed would hurt your children's innocence? 
 
 Nay, on yourself may fall the vengeance due, 
 And haught requital. Not in vain I pray; 
 
 No expiation will your debt release; 
 Your haste, I guess, will brook this slight delay; 
 
 Cast but three casts of dust; then go in peace. 
 
 Od.L29 
 
 WHAT, Iccius? Is your heart now set 
 On Arabs' wealth, and would you wage 
 On Saba's kings, untamed as yet, 
 
 Fierce wars, and curb the Parthians' rage 
 By shackles? What barbarian fair, 
 
 Her lover slain, your beck shall bide? 
 What boy, from palace brought, with hair 
 
 Perfumed, shall stand your cup beside, 
 Once trained to bend the Seric bow, 
 
 His father bent? Who could deny
 
 34 
 
 That up steep mounts rivers may flow, 
 And Tiber turn back, when you try 
 
 To change for Spanish mail books bought 
 On all sides visions high of truth, 
 
 By Stoics and Socratics taught, 
 And break the promise of your youth? 
 
 od.i.3o .: 
 
 OF Cnidos and of Paphos Queen, 
 From thy loved Cypros, Venus, come, 
 And make the shrine, that Glycera's bene 
 
 And incense offer thee, thy home. 
 Bring too thy Codling of the heart, 
 
 Graces ungirt, thy company 
 Of Nymphs, and Youth, that lacks apart 
 From thee all charm, and Mercury. 
 
 Od. I. 31 
 
 WHAT does his bard ask of divine 
 Apollo in his new-built fane? 
 What as he pours cups of new wine? 
 
 Not rich Sardinia's wealth of grain : 
 Not India's gold or ivory: 
 
 Not hot Calabria's pastures, gay 
 With herds : not lands where quietly 
 
 Still Liris frets its silent way. 
 Let those, whose luck it is to own 
 
 Calenian vineyards, prune their vines, 
 That so some merchant of renown 
 
 May drink from golden cups their wines, 
 For Syrian wares. Heaven's favourite, he, 
 
 Because, forsooth, three times a year,
 
 35 
 
 Or four, he sails successfully 
 
 The Atlantic main. I have for cheer 
 
 My olives, chicory, mallows light. 
 Grant me, Apollo, for the rest, 
 
 Contentment, health, sound wits and bright, 
 An honoured eld, by music blest. 
 
 Od.1.32 
 
 T I 'HEY bid us sing. If aught, my lyre, 
 * We two have played in shelters dim, 
 Idly, come, prompt a Latin hymn, 
 
 Of which the years shall never tire. 
 
 Thee first the Lesbian, bold in war, 
 
 Tuned, who, as battles came and passed, 
 Or oft as he had moored at last 
 
 His storm-tossed bark on the wet shore, 
 
 Would sing of Liber, and the wise 
 Muses, of Venus, to whose arm 
 Ever the Boy clings, of the charm 
 
 Of Lycus' dark hair and dark eyes. 
 
 Pride of Apollo's heart, and dear 
 To Jove at banquets, solace blest 
 Of toil, whene'er I make request 
 
 Aright, be kind, my lyre, and hear. 
 
 Od. I. 33 
 
 THAT, Albius, too bitter memories 
 Of Glycera's unkindness may not break 
 Your heart, and prompt too mournful elegies 
 
 Telling why, for some younger lover's sake, 
 Her faith is falsed, think how Lycoris, fair 
 With narrow brows, for Cyrus burns, while he
 
 36 
 
 Turns to coy Pholoe; but roes will pair 
 
 Sooner with wolves Apulian, than will she 
 Sin for a lover whom she reckons vile. 
 
 So wills it Venus she, whose bronzen yoke 
 Joins forms and souls unequal all the while. 
 
 Aye, such her will, and such her cruel joke! 
 As for myself, what time a better fate 
 
 Sought me, I was enthralled by Myrtale, 
 The freedwoman a soul more passionate 
 
 Than waves that fret Calabria Hadria's sea. 
 
 Od. I. 34 . 
 
 A CHARY worshipper of Gods and rare, 
 When, expert in a mad philosophy, 
 I strayed, now must I put about, and bear 
 
 Up for the port I left, and once more try 
 Forsaken paths; for the Sky- Father, who 
 
 Is wont to part the thunder-clouds on high 
 With lightnings, lately drove thro' heaven's clear blue 
 
 His thundering steeds and flying car, whereby 
 The sluggish earth and wandering rivers, aye, 
 
 And Styx, and the abominable Hoe 
 Of Taenarus, and Atlas, boundary 
 
 Of the wide world, staggered, reel to and fro. 
 God can change heights for depths : can lower the 
 proud, 
 
 And raise the mean ; as Harpy on the wing, 
 From this man's head Fortune, with hurtlings loud, 
 
 Snatches his crown, to crown another king.
 
 37 
 
 Od. I. 35 
 
 GODDESS, who rulest Antium dear: 
 Who can'st from lowest depths uplift 
 Mortals, or change, by sudden shift, 
 
 Triumphal car to funeral bier, 
 
 Thee the poor rustic courts with bene 
 Urgent; who dares Carpathian sea 
 In bark Bithynian, worships thee, 
 
 Whoe'er he be, as Ocean's Queen. 
 
 States, cities, Latium's chivalry, 
 Fierce Dacian, nomad Scythian, 
 Mothers of kings barbarian, 
 
 Empurpled monarchs, bow to thee, 
 
 Lest in the dust thy proud foot lay 
 The Column of the State, and cry 
 Of thronging crowds bid laggards fly 
 
 To arms ! To arms ! and break their sway. 
 
 Before thee stalks stern Destiny; 
 Her bronzen hands hold grapples dread, 
 And beam-like nails, and molten lead, 
 
 And wedges fate's machinery. 
 
 Hope loves thee; aye, and clothed in white, 
 Faith, a rare Grace, nor quits thy side 
 Whene'er in wrath from homes of pride, 
 
 With changed attire, thou takest flight. 
 
 But faithless crowd, and perjured quean, 
 Fall back, and when the cask is dry, 
 But for its dregs, friends fickle fly, 
 
 To share the yoke too false, too mean. 
 
 Keep Caesar safe, what time he goes 
 To Britain, at the world's end set, 
 And our new levies, raised to threat
 
 38 
 
 The Indian seas and Eastern foes. 
 Shame on the scars set upon kin 
 
 By kin ! An iron age, what have we 
 
 Held sacred what impiety 
 Left unattempted? From what sin 
 Has fear of Heaven made Rome's youth flee? 
 
 What altars has it spared? Anneal 
 
 In a new forge our blunted steel, 
 For Arabs and Massagetae. 
 
 Od. 1.36 
 
 \\7lTH incense, lyre, and votive calf, will we 
 W Gladly appease the Gods of Numida 
 The Guardian Presences, whose ministry 
 
 Has brought him safe from far Hesperia. 
 Full many a kiss he shares with trusty feres ; 
 
 With Lamia most of all, remembering 
 How, in the long-ago of boyhood's years, 
 
 One leader led them both one school-boy king ; 
 And how they donned their togas side by side. 
 
 Let the fair day be marked with whitest chalk; 
 Let the broached amphora not grudge its pride, 
 
 And at the Salian romp let no foot baulk. 
 Nor let that toper, Damalis, surpass 
 
 Bassus at swallowing cupfuls Thracian-wise ; 
 Let roses, lilies, too short-lived, alas ! 
 
 And parsley green, grace the festivities. 
 All eyes will yearn for Damalis, but she 
 
 To her new paramour will stick, I wot : 
 Clinging to him as ivy clings to tree 
 
 Tendrils, whose clasp is as a lovers' knot.
 
 39 
 
 Od.1.37 .../ . 
 
 THUMPERS ! Let free foot beat the earth f 
 *-* To drink, dance, honour the sublime 
 Gods' seats with Salian feasts and mirth 
 
 Comrades, for this 'tis time, high time. 
 Ere this it had been sin to bring 
 
 Caecuban from forbears' store-room, 
 While the mad queen was purposing 
 
 Our Capitol's fall, our empire's doom. 
 She with her eunuch-horde, infect 
 
 With foul disease, in her mad pride, 
 Drunk with good fortune, could expect 
 
 Anything. But her madness died 
 When of her battleships scarce one 
 
 Escaped the flames, and Caesar's near 
 Pursuit pressed her, and stamped upon 
 
 Her wine-besotted brain true fear. 
 His triremes, as she fled, gave chase, . : 
 
 As falcon stoops to dove, as fleet . : 
 Hunter hunts hares in wintry Thrace, . .-. .-': 
 
 To catch and chain, in vengeance meet, . : 
 This fateful monster. Ah, but she ; ; . 
 
 Claimed nobler death, nor feared the, sword. 
 With woman's fear, nor secretly , . 
 
 Sailed off some distant coast toward. - : 
 She saw her home in ruins laid, .. , 
 
 Nor trembled ; resolute to take . . , 
 
 Its deadly poison, unafraid . 
 
 She grasped and held the deadly snake.. . ...
 
 40 
 
 The prouder for her will to die, 
 
 She grudged Rome's ships, this haughty dame, 
 That she, paraded to Rome's eye 
 
 A discrowned queen, should flaunt Rome's fame. 
 
 Od. I. 38 
 
 DISPLAYS, that Persians love, I hate ; 
 Lime-braided chaplets I detest; 
 It makes no matter where the late 
 
 Rose lingers; stay, my boy, your quest. 
 Just myrtle that's enough; don't think 
 
 To better it; it suits, as wreath, 
 You, as you serve, me, as I drink, 
 
 My wine this close-trained vine beneath. 
 
 Od.11.1 
 
 THE civil war, that in Metellus' year 
 Began its seeds, faults, phases : Fortune's game : 
 Chiefs' dangerous alliances : the smear 
 
 Of kindred blood on arms an impious shame 
 Not yet atoned that is your theme, a work 
 
 Beset by risks, by one continual threat; 
 Your feet are, as it were, on fires that lurk 
 
 'Neath treacherous ashes fires that smoulder yet. 
 Withdraw awhile your Muse of Tragedy 
 
 Austere from theatres, and then anon, 
 When you have shaped your public history, 
 
 You shall resume your noble theme upon 
 Buskin Cecropian star of oratory 
 
 For sad defendants, or in curial 
 Debates, my Pollio, whom your victory
 
 41 
 
 Delmatic crowned with bays perennial. 
 E'en now our ears with clarions' threatening blare 
 
 Are deafened; even now trumpets scream out 
 Their challenge; even now arms' fiery glare 
 
 Scares horse and horseman into headlong rout. 
 Aye, and I seem to hear of leaders wight 
 
 Befouled with dust ennobling: of the whole 
 Wide world, and all its things, in bloody fight 
 
 Subdued, save only Cato's stubborn soul. 
 Juno, and Afric's friendly deities, 
 
 Who left the land, as powerless to aid, 
 Or to avenge, offered in sacrifice 
 
 The victors' grandsons to Jugurtha's shade. 
 What plain is there but what, by Latin gore 
 
 Fattened, is witness, by the tombs it bears, 
 To impious battles, and the crash which tore 
 
 Down Italy, and rang in Parthian ears? 
 What gulf, what streams, world over, will you find 
 
 That know not of our wretched strife? What main 
 Has blood of Daunians not incarnadined? 
 
 What shore is unpolluted by its stain? 
 But lest, my sportive Muse, you should forget 
 
 Your jokes, and start a Cean dirge again, 
 Seek we some Dionaean grot, and let 
 
 A lighter quill temper your coming strain. 
 
 Od. II. 2 
 
 AS silver, hid in greedy earth, 
 Crispus Sallustius, has no sheen, 
 So metals have for you no worth, 
 
 Unless use makes their value seen. 
 For aye shall Proculeius' name 
 Be known for fatherly sympathy
 
 42 
 
 With brethren ; him eternal Fame 
 
 With tireless wing shall bear on high. 
 Larger you'ld make your empire's reach 
 
 Subduing self, than if, made one, 
 Gades and Libya aye, each 
 
 Carthage bowed down to you alone. 
 By self-indulgence dropsy grows, 
 
 Nor casts out thirst, till from the pale 
 Body the watery languor flows, 
 
 And from the veins the exciting bale. 
 Unlike the crowd, true Virtue parts 
 
 Prahates, throned on Cyrus' throne, 
 From the blest roll of happy hearts, 
 
 And bids the people's voice disown 
 False titles, granting honours true 
 
 Sure bays, abiding sovereignty 
 To him who, with heaped wealth in view, 
 
 Passes it, unregarded, by. 
 
 Od.11.3 
 
 REMEMBER, Dellius, doomed to die 
 Some day, to keep a level mind 
 When times are hard, nor pridefully 
 
 Exalt your horn when Fate seems kind 
 Aye, doomed to die, whether each dawn 
 
 Renews your griefs, or days of rest 
 Comfort you, couched on some far lawn, 
 
 With old Falernian of the best. 
 Why does white poplar interlace 
 
 With mighty pine its welcoming shade? 
 Why does fleet rivulet toil to race 
 
 Adown the maze its frets have made?
 
 43 
 
 Bid them bring hither wines, nards, blooms 
 
 Rose-blooms, sweet all too brief a space 
 While means and youth and the dark looms 
 
 Of the three Sisters grant us grace. 
 You'll leave parked hall and villa fair, 
 
 With yellow Tiber rolling by; 
 All that you bought you'll leave; your heir 
 
 Will own the wealth you heaped on high. 
 Rich scion of Inachus, or poor 
 
 And lowliest-born, with heaven's bare ceil 
 For roof no matter, Orcus dour 
 
 Will set on you his ruthless heel. 
 One bourn awaits us all ; each lot, 
 
 Tossed in the urn, or soon, or late, 
 Leaps forth, and doom that changes not 
 
 Exiles us on the bark of Fate. 
 
 Od. II. 4 
 
 LEST, Xanthias Phoceus, you should be ashamed 
 That a mere handmaid has become your queen, 
 Think how of yore the slave Briseis tamed 
 
 The proud Achilles, by her snowy sheen. 
 Ravished Tecmessa's beauty thrilled and won 
 
 Ajax, the son of Telamon, her lord; 
 E'en in his hour of triumph, Atreus' son 
 
 Was love-fired by a captive of his sword, 
 When the barbarians, worsted in the fray, 
 
 Had fall'n to their Thessalian conqueror, 
 And Hector's death left Troy an easier prey 
 
 To Hellas' hosts, all weary of the war. 
 Blonde Phyllis' parents may, for all you know, 
 
 Honour their son-in-law, as born of high
 
 44 
 
 Descent; of royal stock she is, I trow, 
 
 And mourns unjust Penates' injury. 
 Be sure that she, your mistress, has no strain 
 
 In her of lowborn rascaldom or shame: 
 That one so faithful, so averse from gain, 
 
 Was never born of womb, would smirch your name. 
 Heart-whole I praise her arms, her bonny face, 
 
 Her shapely ankles; spurn all jealous fears 
 Of one who, hurrying onward in life's race, 
 
 Has run the lustre closing forty years. 
 
 Od. II. 5 
 
 (Omitted) 
 
 Od. II. 6 
 
 SEPTIMIUS, who with me would fare 
 To Gades, or Cantabria yet 
 Untamed, or the rude Syrtes, where 
 
 The Moorish billows ever fret : 
 Be Tibur, by an Argive guest 
 
 Founded, the home of my old age 
 From war, from sea, from trails, a rest, 
 
 After life's weary pilgrimage. 
 But, if barred thence by fate accurst, 
 
 I'll seek Galaesus, pleasant aye 
 To skin-clad sheep, and fields that erst 
 
 Owned Dorian Phalanthus' sway. 
 That nook of all earth's nooks for me 
 
 Has charms, where with Hymettus vies 
 The honey, and each olive tree 
 
 From green Venafrum claims the prize.
 
 45 
 
 Jove grants a lingering springtime there, 
 
 And winters mild; there Aulon, host 
 Of fruitful Bacchus has small care 
 
 Of what Falernian grapes may boast. 
 That spot, those happy hills, desire 
 
 Our presence; there shall you commend, 
 With friendship's tear, beside his pyre, 
 
 The ashes of your poet-friend. 
 
 Od. II. 7 
 
 POMPEY, who faced with me in countless fights, 
 When Brutus led our war, supremest odds, 
 Who has restored you, with full civic rights, 
 
 To skies Italian, and your country's Gods, 
 O earliest of my comrades, at whose side 
 
 I often broke with wine the lingering 
 Day's irk, my temples wreathed with chaplet's pride, 
 
 My hair with Syrian unguent glistering? 
 With you I shared Philippi's headlong rout, 
 
 My shield, in haste ignoble, flung away, 
 When valour broke, and threatening boasts died out, 
 
 As chins rubbed shameful dust. Ah, well-a-day! 
 Me, in my terror, Mercury bore fast, 
 
 Veiled in thick mist, thoro' the grim mellay; 
 But you the battle-wave sucked back, and cast 
 
 With boiling surf again into the fray. 
 Pay then the feast that you are bound to pay 
 
 To Jove, and, wearied with the toils of war, 
 Come, and recline beneath my garden bay, 
 
 Nor spare the casks that wait you in my store. 
 Fill goblets bright with cheering Massic high ; 
 
 From urns capacious pour perfumery;
 
 46 
 
 Whose task is it to hurry up and tie 
 Chaplets of lissom parsley, or, maybe, 
 
 Of myrtle? Whom will Venus now declare 
 The master of the feast? My revelry 
 
 Shall match Edonians'. It is sweet, I swear, 
 When friends return, to revel furiously. 
 
 Od. II. 8 
 
 HAD punishment in any wyse, 
 Barine, judged your perjuries: 
 Had one black tooth or fingernail 
 Disfigured you by just entail, 
 I'd trust you ; but you bind upon 
 Your faithless head vows, and anon 
 Step forth more radiant for your pains, 
 The common darling of our swains. 
 You cheat and profit by each lie 
 Your mother's dust, the vasty sky, 
 Night's silent stars, the Gods, whose breath 
 Is life beyond the chill of death. 
 Venus herself laughs at all this ; 
 The simple Nymphs laugh too, ywis, 
 And Cupid fierce, on blood-stained stone 
 Whetting his fire-darts, one by one. 
 Aye, and to you too, as they grow 
 Up, all our lads as bondslaves bow; 
 And earlier suitors threat, but come 
 Back to their impious lady's home. 
 Mothers of striplings fear your smiles; 
 Thrifty old fathers dread your wiles; 
 And newly wed brides sadly say, 
 "Her breath will keep our grooms away."
 
 47 
 
 Od. II. 9 
 
 NOT always fall the clouds in rain 
 On roughened fields ; not without end 
 Do tempests vex the Caspian main 
 
 With gusts; nor, Valgius, my friend, 
 The whole year round stands motionless 
 
 Ice on Armenian plains, nor groan 
 Garganus' oaks beneath the stress 
 
 Of northern blasts that strip the roan. 
 But you with dirges day and night 
 
 Harp on lost Mystes; Vesper's rise 
 Checks not your love-plaints, nor his flight 
 
 From the swift sun, when night-time dies. 
 And yet thrice-aged Nestor stayed 
 
 His tears for loved Antilochus ; 
 Parents and Phrygian sisters made 
 
 Not endless moan for Troilus, 
 Their stripling lad ; cease, cease at length, 
 
 Your weak complaints, and rather hymn 
 Augustus Caesar how his strength 
 
 Has won fresh trophies how to him 
 Frost-bound Niphates bows, and how 
 
 The Parthian stream, with lowered pride, 
 Rolls smaller floods, and, lessened now, 
 
 Within strait bounds Geloni ride. 
 
 Od. II. 10 
 
 LICINIUS, would you live aright, 
 Tempt not the high seas evermore, 
 Nor, fearing tempests, in your fright 
 Too closely hug the dangerous shore.
 
 48 
 
 Who loves the golden mean is free 
 
 And safe from grime the grime a house 
 Harbours in eld; his modesty 
 
 Earns not the envy mansions rouse. 
 The mighty pine is oftenest 
 
 Storm-tossed ; the higher a turret's height, 
 The worse its fall; it is its crest, 
 
 The mountain's top, that lightnings smite. 
 A well-schooled heart, when things look black, 
 
 Hopes for a change : when all seems gay, 
 Fears change. Jove brings rude winters back ; 
 
 Aye, but he also ends their stay. 
 Bad luck today? Well, but how long 
 
 How many days will it be so? 
 Phoebus awakes his Muse to song 
 
 At times, nor always bends his bow. 
 In times of straitness manifest 
 
 A hero's heart ; shrink not, nor quail ; 
 Yet take in sail safety is best 
 
 Before too favouring a gale. 
 
 Od. II. 11 
 
 AT fierce Cantabrian, what the Scythian braves, 
 Parted by Hadria's intervening waves, 
 Plot, cease, Hirpinus Quinctius, to enquire, 
 Nor vex your soul with passionate desire 
 To sate life's little need. From one and all 
 The charm of beardless youth flies past recall, 
 As hoary eld withers the wanton heart, 
 And bids the sleep that comes at call depart. 
 Not always does the self-same glory grace 
 Spring-flowers, nor wears the blushing moon one face. 
 Why with the counsels of eternity
 
 49 
 
 Weary your soul, too small for things so high? 
 
 Why not, just as we are, at ease beneath 
 
 Tall plane-tree or this pine, with the sweet breath 
 
 Of roses in our gray locks, redolent 
 
 Of nard Assyrian, drink to our content 
 
 Wine, while we may? All gnawing cares are chased 
 
 By Euhius. What boy, with hastened haste, 
 
 Will quench the fire of our fiery 
 
 Falernian, from the brook that hurries by ? 
 
 Who from her home will draw that damsel shy, 
 
 Lyde? Come, bid her bring immediately 
 
 Her ivory lyre, with neatly knotted hair, 
 
 After the manner of a Spartan fair. 
 
 Od. 11.12 I 
 
 YOU would not wish that to my peaceful lyre 
 I should set songs of Hannibal, the dire, 
 Or fierce Numantia's long tale of war, 
 Or seas Sicilian red with Punic gore, 
 Or savage Lapithae, or Hylaeus flushed 
 With wine, or Earth's gigantic offspring, crushed 
 By Hercules' strong hand, at whose attack 
 Old Saturn's bright home quaked in fear of wrack, 
 Maecenas ; you yourself more worthily 
 Will tell of Caesar in prose history, 
 His fights and feats how thro' Rome's long parades- 
 With necks enchained proud kings passed to the shadef 
 For me, my Muse would have me sweetly praise 
 Licymnia, queen of love what sparkling rays 
 Flash from her eyes : how true her heart and leal 
 To mutual love its claim, and its appeal. 
 It misbecomes her not in any wyse 
 To dance in choirs, to bandy pleasantries,
 
 50 
 
 To reach out arms to maidens blithe and gay, 
 Who join the throng on Dian's festal day. 
 Would you for all that rich Achaemenes 
 Possessed : for Phrygian Mygdon's granaries : 
 For Arabs' homes, well stored with treasures fair, 
 Barter one tress of your Licymnia's hair, 
 When to your burning lips she bends awry 
 Her neck, or shuns, with easy coquetry, 
 Kisses, whose ravishment is more to her 
 Than you and she may be first ravisher? 
 
 Od. II. 13 ,. 
 
 ON an ill-omened day, accursed tree, 
 Did your first planter plant you, and profane 
 The hand that reared you to the infamy 
 
 Of country-side, and to descendants' bane. 
 I could believe that one so ruthless might 
 
 Have broke a parent's neck, and stained, maybe, 
 With blood of sleeping guest, slain in the night, 
 
 His inmost chamber ; Colchic poisons he 
 Handled, and whatsoever any one 
 
 Has anywhere planned of sin, who on my farm 
 Set you, curst trunk, to fall one day upon 
 
 A master's head, who never did you harm. 
 No man from hour to hour takes proper thought 
 
 What he should shun ; the Punic mariner 
 Fears the mad Bosphorus, but counts as naught 
 
 All other risks, no matter whence or where. 
 The soldier fears the shafts shot in swift flight 
 
 By Parthian foe ; the Parthian fears the gyves 
 And prison of Rome ; but, unforeseen, Death's might 
 
 Has ever snatched, aye, and will snatch, men's lives.
 
 51 
 
 How near were we to seeing upon her throne 
 
 Dark Proserpine, aye, and the judgment-seat 
 Of Aeacus, the separate Avalon, 
 
 Where roam the blest, and Sappho, with her sweet 
 Aeolian lyre arraigning Lesbos' maids, 
 
 And you, Alcaeus, with your golden quill 
 Sounding a fuller elegy to the shades, 
 
 Of exile's, war's, sea's, woes complaining still. 
 The shades stand wondering, as each poet sings 
 
 Songs worthy solemn silence; but, with ear 
 Keener to drink in tales of banished kings 
 
 And wars, a shouldering crowd throngs up to hear. 
 What wonder when, dazed by those melodies, 
 
 The hundred-headed beast drops his ears' threat, 
 And, in the hair of the Eumenides 
 
 Entwined and twist, their serpents cease to fret. 
 Prometheus, too, and Tantalus, the base, 
 
 In the sweet sound forget their agonies; 
 Nor does Orion longer care to chase 
 
 Lion that turns to fight, or lynx that flies. 
 
 Od. II. 14 
 
 AH, Postumus, my Postumus, the fleeting years roll 
 by; 
 
 Wrinkles and ever nearing eld stay not for piety: 
 Relentless they, relentless death's unconquered tyranny, 
 Ah no ; tho' with three hecatombs of bulls each day you 
 
 try 
 To soften Pluto's tearless heart, whose sad stream's 
 
 custody 
 
 Prisons thrice ample Geryon and Tityon, you must die. 
 For, friend, that river must be crossed by each and 
 
 every one
 
 52 
 
 Of all whom Earth's large bounty feeds and rears 
 
 beneath the sun : 
 
 By kings, by needy husbandmen, by every mother's son. 
 Vainly we seek to shun the risks and threats of bloody 
 
 war: 
 The rage of waves that swell and break where 
 
 Hadria's billows roar ; 
 Vainly we fear the autumnal blights that blow from 
 
 Afric's shore. 
 No soul may miss Cocytus' gloom the languid streams 
 
 that roil 
 Moaning along: the Danaid brides whose shame naught 
 
 can assoil : 
 
 Sisyphus, son of Aeolus, doomed to unending toil. 
 Earth, home, sweet wife these must you leave aye, 
 
 all that you hold dear; 
 And, of the trees that you, their short-lived master, 
 
 cherished here, 
 
 Only the hateful cypress shall at last attend your bier. 
 Your Caecuban a hundred keys once locked it in your 
 
 store 
 A better wine than sacred feasts into priests' goblets 
 
 pour 
 A worthier heir shall drink it, and its pride shall stain 
 
 the floor. 
 
 Od.II.15 
 
 SOON regal piles will leave no place 
 For farms ; soon crowds will flock to see 
 Fishponds that claim a larger space 
 
 Than Lucrine lake ; barren plane-tree 
 Will turn the elm out; presently 
 Will violets, myrtles, the whole round
 
 53 
 
 Of sweet flowers, shed their fragrancy 
 
 On oliveyards, once fruitful ground; 
 Dense laurels will, as shields upborne, 
 
 Stay the sun's darts. Far different 
 The use of Romulus, of unshorn 
 
 Cato, of ancient precedent. 
 Then private means were small ; the State 
 
 Was rich ; no private colonnade, 
 By ten-foot rods delineate, 
 
 Welcomed the cool North to its shade. 
 The casual sod might not be tossed 
 
 Aside ; cities and fanes alone 
 Might be adorned, at public cost 
 
 So said the law with fresh-hewn stone. 
 
 Od. 11. 16 
 
 REST is the sailor's prayer the boon 
 He craves, caught on the Aegean sea, 
 Soon as dark clouds have hid the moon, 
 
 And stars shine all uncertainly. 
 For rest prays Thrace, distract with war ; 
 
 For rest the quivered Parthians cry ; 
 For rest for what nor purple, nor 
 
 Rubies, nor gold, Grosphus, can buy. 
 Nor wealth, nor lictor's axe, can rout 
 
 The heart's tumultuous agonies, 
 Nor chase the cares that flit about 
 
 The fretted roofs of palaces. 
 He lives on little well, whose sire's 
 
 Saltcellar makes his scant board bright : 
 Whose slumbers light nor base desires 
 
 Of gain, nor fears disturb at night. 
 Why many aims with such brief span
 
 54 
 
 Of strength? Why, bent on change, should we 
 Seek other climes? An exiled man 
 
 Quits home; himself he cannot flee. 
 Care, morbid care, climbs bronze-beaked prows; 
 
 Horsed squadrons leave it not behind, 
 Swifter than stags ; nor swifter blows 
 
 The cloud-compelling South East wind. 
 Cheerful to face what is, be not 
 
 Careful at heart of what shall be. 
 With calm smile temper a hard lot; 
 
 There's no all-round felicity. 
 Untimely great Achilles died; 
 
 Of eld Tithonus dwined away; 
 And that, which Fortune has denied 
 
 To you, may come to me some day. 
 Round you a hundred herds of kine 
 
 Sicilian low ; to you a mare 
 Fit for the race-course neighs, and fine 
 
 The twice-dyed purple wools you wear, 
 Of Tyrian hues. A small estate : 
 
 A spirit of Hellene poetry, 
 Slender, to me an honest Fate 
 
 Has given, and scorn of jealousy. 
 
 Od.11.17 
 
 WHY fret me with laments? Nor I, 
 Nor Gods, would will that you should die, 
 Maecenas you, my fortune's stay, 
 And glory ere I pass away. 
 Should fate untimely bid you die 
 You, my soul's better half, ah, why 
 Should I, the other half, less dear
 
 55 
 
 Left but a remnant, linger here? 
 That day shall bring one death to both. 
 Whene'er you lead sure is my oath 
 As comrades side by side, we'll tread 
 The trail that's trodden by the dead. 
 Me nor Chimaera, breathing fire, 
 Shall wrench from you, nor Gyas' ire, 
 Resurgent with his hundred hands ; 
 So will the Fates; so Right demands. 
 For, whether Libra watches me, 
 Or Scorpios fell, the tyranny 
 Of my birth-hour, or, sign of bane, 
 The Goat, who rules the Western main, 
 Our stars in wondrous wyse agree; 
 You Jove's protecting brilliancy 
 Rescued from impious Saturn's hate, 
 And stayed the wings of rushing Fate, 
 When with the cheers of thronging crowd, 
 Thrice-given, the theatres were loud ; 
 Me the curst tree, that well nigh broke 
 My head, had slain, but that the stroke 
 Was stayed by Faunus, guardian true 
 Of Hermes' men. As offerings, you 
 Must give fat sheep and votive shrine ; 
 A humble lamb must serve for mine. 
 
 Od. II. 18 
 
 NO fretted ceil, with ivory inwrought 
 And gold, makes my small home look gay; 
 No slabs Hymettian rest on columns brought 
 
 From Afric quarries far away; 
 Nor has it been my luck to occupy, 
 Of Attalus an unknown heir,
 
 56 
 
 A palace ; nor do high-born clients ply 
 
 Me robes of Spartan purple fair. 
 But honour bright, aye, and a kindly vein 
 
 Of genius, are mine ; tho' scant 
 My means, a rich man courts me. I disdain 
 
 To pester Heaven for more, nor want 
 To irk my patron's soul with fresh appeals, 
 
 Content and happy with my one 
 And only Sabine farm. Day treads on heels 
 
 Of day, and new moons wane anon. 
 You on the grave's edge bargain evermore 
 
 For marbles to be hewn, build homes, 
 Of death unmindful, and would push the shore, 
 
 Where the rough sea on Baiae foams, 
 Outward, as all too straitened while the strand's 
 
 Unbroken line curtails your sway. 
 What of the fact that ever your rude hands 
 
 Tear neighbour's boundary-stones away: 
 That you o'erleap, a robber unabashed, 
 
 Your clients' landmarks? Out they go, 
 Bearing their household Gods, and babes unwashed, 
 
 Husband and wife, to want and woe. 
 And yet no hall more surely than the grave, 
 
 The bourn of Orcus, fixed by fate, 
 Awaits the lord of riches. Why, then, crave 
 
 More than fate grants, insatiate? 
 Impartial Earth opens her doors to poor 
 
 And rich alike, to prince and swain ; 
 Gold never bribed Orcus' assistant dour 
 
 To bring Prometheus back again. 
 He prisons Tantalus, the proud, and all 
 
 His race and kind ; called to release 
 Poor souls whose work is done, he hears the call, 
 
 And brings aye, and uncalled his peace.
 
 57 
 
 Od. II. 19 
 
 BACCHUS I saw, far rocks among 
 Believe it all posterity 
 Dictating hymns to a rapt throng 
 
 Satyrs goat-hoofed, and Nymphs anigh 
 The Satyrs all with pricked up ears. 
 
 Euoi ! My heart, filled with the God, 
 Beats furiously; my mind still fears; 
 
 Spare, Liber of the awful rod. 
 Euoi ! So may I now recall, 
 
 And picture, headstrong Thyiades, 
 Wine-springs, rivers of milk, the fall 
 
 Of honey-drops from hollow trees. 
 Mine too it is to tell how clomb 
 
 Thy bride to heaven, beatified : 
 How awful ruin wrecked the home 
 
 Of Pentheus : how Lycurgus died. 
 Thou rulest streams and barbarous seas ; 
 
 On far hills, bibulous, dost entwine 
 The hair of the Bistonides 
 
 With knotted snakes, disarmed by wine. 
 Thou, when the impious Giant-horde 
 
 Would scale Heaven's steep, the Sire's domain, 
 With lion's teeth and claws toward, 
 
 Did'st hurl fell Rhoetus back amain. 
 Called God of dance and sport and fun, 
 
 Thou wert esteemed unfit for arms; 
 Yet did'st thou bear thyself as one 
 
 For whom both war and peace have charms.
 
 58 
 
 To Cerberus, with horn of gold, 
 Thou wert as friend, whose tail, to greet 
 
 Thy coming, stroked thee : whose three fold 
 Tongue licked thy parting legs and feet. 
 
 Od.I1.20 
 
 NOT common and not weak the wing whereon, 
 A bard of twofold nature, I shall soar 
 Thro' the clear air; this earth I'll quit anon, 
 
 And leave its cities, lift for evermore 
 Beyond all envy. Child of poverty, 
 
 Yet called to hear, as friend, your last farewell, 
 Beloved Maecenas, I shall never die, 
 
 Nor brook restraint within the Stygian hell. 
 Now, even now, my legs put on rough skin; 
 
 Above, a white bird in the fashioning, 
 I take new shape; shoulders and hands begin 
 
 To wear a plumage smooth and glistering. 
 More famed than Daedalean Icarus, 
 
 Now shall I visit, as a tuneful swan, 
 Gaetulian Syrtes, shores where Bosphorus 
 
 Moans, Northern Steppes; Colchian, and Dacian, 
 Who fears the Marsian chivalry, yet tries 
 
 To hide his fear, Geloni over-sea, 
 Shall come to know me; Spaniard too, grown wise, 
 
 And they who drink the Rhone, shall learn of me. 
 Let no dishonouring wails, no elegies, 
 
 No dirges sad, insult my empty bier; 
 Speak softly; 'tis no time for noisy cries; 
 
 The rites that honour tombs are useless here.
 
 59 
 
 Od.111.1 
 
 I HATE and spurn the unhallowed throng; 
 Keep silence, all, while I dictate, 
 
 Priest of the Muses laureate, 
 To boys and girls new forms of song. 
 Kings claim their own flocks' fealty; 
 
 To Jove the kings themselves bow down, 
 
 Who rules the wide world by his frown, 
 And smote the Titans gloriously. 
 More widely one plants trees; whereas 
 
 One candidate of nobler birth 
 
 Enters the Field, another's worth 
 Stands in high fame ; another has 
 More numerous clients. All the same, 
 
 Ever and aye Necessity 
 
 Dooms high and low impartially; 
 The vasty urn shakes every name. 
 For him, o'er whom hangs the alarm 
 
 Of drawn sword, feasts of Sicily 
 
 Will have no sweets, the melody 
 Of birds and lute will have no charm 
 To bring back sleep. Sleep calm and bland 
 
 Scorns not the cots of labouring men, 
 
 Nor shady banks of stream, or glen, 
 Nor Tempe's vale by Zephyrs fanned. 
 What is enough that and no more 
 
 Who craves but this, nor rough sea frets, 
 
 Nor storms that, when Arcturus sets, 
 Or the Kid rises, rage and roar, 
 Nor hails that lash his vines, nor land 
 
 That cheats his hopes, while trees complain 
 
 Of stars that scorch the fields, of rain,
 
 60 
 
 Of the fierce grip of Winter's hand. 
 Huge moles, thrust out, narrow the sea 
 
 For fish, where the contractor's band, 
 
 And owner, weary of the land, 
 Cast chips into the masonry. 
 But Fear and Menace climb as high, 
 
 As climbs the lord twin frets of mind 
 
 On bronze-beaked trireme, and behind 
 Rider, sits black Anxiety. 
 But, if nor Phrygian stone nor dress 
 
 Sheeny as stars, nor vineries 
 
 Falernian, nor Achaemenes' 
 Perfumes, can soften his distress, 
 Why build with portals of desire 
 
 A hall, new-planned to threat the sky? 
 
 Why change my Sabine snuggery 
 For wealth whose burdens fret and tire? 
 
 Od.UI.2 
 
 HPOUGHENED by war let every lad 
 *- Learn to bear hardness, and be glad ; 
 As horseman let him wield a spear 
 Whose thrust shall be the Parthian's fear. 
 Out in the air, at danger's call, 
 His life be lived ; from enemy wall 
 Let warring tyrant's consort aye, 
 And daughter grown, see him, and sigh, 
 Lest her dear prince, untrained to fight, 
 Should dare this lion's dangerous might, 
 That, fired by battle-rage, for aye 
 Ramps thro' the fiercest of the fray. 
 To die for Homeland is a sweet 
 And gracious thing; on flying feet
 
 61 
 
 Death presses hard, nor spares to smite 
 
 Poltroons' weak knees and backs affright. 
 
 Virtue, secure from shameful rout, 
 
 With honours all-unstained shines out; 
 
 Nor takes, nor drops, authority 
 
 To suit the crowd's oft-changing cry. 
 
 Opening to deathless souls the skies, 
 
 Virtue forbidden pathways tries; 
 
 Scorning dank earth, and gatherings 
 
 Of mobs, she mounts on soaring wings. 
 
 A faith that keeps a secret hid 
 
 Claims sure reward ; I shall forbid 
 
 A man, who blabs one mystery 
 
 Of Ceres' rites, to lodge with me, 
 
 Or board my skiff. Saints have been sent 
 
 With sinners to one banishment 
 
 By slighted Jove; Vengeance is halt, 
 
 But, following, rarely makes a fault. 
 
 Od. III. 3 
 
 WHO loves the Right, whose will is resolute, 
 His purpose naught can shake nor rage of brutt 
 Mob bidding him work evil ; not the eye 
 Of threatening despot; not the tyranny 
 Of Auster, lord of Hadria's restless sea: 
 Not Jove's great hand, red with artillery; 
 A shattered world, falling in ruins, might 
 Crush him ; his dauntless soul it will not fright. 
 Thus Pollux and Alcmene's roaming son 
 Up to the flaming heights of heaven won ; 
 Thus, seated at their side, Augustus sips 
 The nectar of the Gods with radiant lips. 
 Thus, Father Bacchus, as in homage due
 
 62 
 
 To thy deserts, tigers unbroken drew 
 
 Thy car; thus in the chariot of Mars 
 
 Quirinus rose o'er Acheron to the stars, 
 
 When to the Gods in council came the word 
 
 Of Juno gracious speech, and gladly heard 
 
 "O Ilion, Ilion, by a judge obscene, 
 
 A wretch accursed, and by a foreign quean, 
 
 Rolled in the dust aye, dammed and unforgiven 
 
 Since false Laomedon broke faith with Heaven, 
 
 By me and chaste Minerva reprobate, 
 
 People and perjured king one folk, one fate! 
 
 Aye, but no longer does the guest infame 
 
 Trick himself out for Sparta's harlot-dame; 
 
 No longer Priam's faithless house beats back, 
 
 With Hector's aid, Achaia's fierce attack; 
 
 Prolonged by our disputes, the weary war's 
 
 Offence is over now; forthwith to Mars 
 
 Will I give up my anger, and my hate 
 
 Toward my grandson, whom his earth-born mate, 
 
 The Trojan priestess, bare. To him will I 
 
 Grant entrance where on shining couches lie 
 
 The blessed; nectar shall he quaff, and find 
 
 Among the untroubled Gods his rank assigned. 
 
 The wide world thro', so long as angry seas 
 
 Part Rome and Ilion, wheresoe'er they please, 
 
 Let Trojan exiles lord it, safe and blest; 
 
 So long as herds leap o'er the tombs, where rest 
 
 Priam and Paris, and wolves, scathless, hide 
 
 Their younglings, let the Capitol, in its pride, 
 
 Stand glorious and let the might and awe 
 
 Of Rome rule conquered Medes, and be their law. 
 
 Feared far and wide, let her extend her sway 
 
 To earth's remotest bounds, where Africa 
 
 And Europe face the intervening main,
 
 63 
 
 And Nile inundant floods the Egyptian plain. 
 
 Let her be rather bold to scorn the gold 
 
 That earth conceals 'tis better hid than bold 
 
 To gather it up with greedy hands that seize 
 
 All sacred things for human usages. 
 
 Whatever limits bound the world, her war 
 
 Shall compass them, exultant to explore 
 
 Where sunflames hold their maddest revelry, 
 
 Where dews are rains, and fog-banks cloak the sky. 
 
 But to Quirinus' braves I prophesy 
 
 This future on the terms that piety 
 
 Too great, and self -trust, seek not to restore 
 
 Dead Troy the Troy their forebears built of yore. 
 
 The fate of Troy, with evil augury 
 
 Reborn, shall once again spell tragedy, 
 
 When I, Jove's queen and sister, lead the foe 
 
 Whose conquering hosts achieve her overthrow. 
 
 Tho' thrice the bronzen wall from ruins rose, 
 
 By Phoebus built, thrice would Achaian blows, 
 
 My champions', fell it; thrice would captive wife 
 
 Wail lord and sons, slain in the battle-strife." 
 
 Such songs as these suit not my sportive lyre ; 
 
 Whither, my Muse, would'st soar? Stay thy desire 
 
 Headstrong to tell what the high Gods may say, 
 
 And shrink a theme sublime with lowly lay. 
 
 Od. 111. 4 
 
 COME down from heaven, royal Calliope ; 
 Breathe on the pipe a deathless melody, 
 Or sing a song sing it with clarion voice, 
 Or to Apollo's lute-strings thine the choice. 1 st 
 Hear ye her strain? Or does a frenzy kind 
 Mock me? I seem to hear it, and to wind
 
 64 
 
 My way thro' holy groves, where 'neath the trees 
 
 Play peasant streamlets and a kindly breeze. 
 
 Me on Apulian Vultur, past the line 
 
 That bounds Apulia, my nurse langsyne, 
 
 The storied doves of Venus strewed with green 
 
 Leaves, as I slept, play-tired, the sleep serene 
 
 Of boyhood, as a sign a prodigy 
 
 For all whom Acherontia's aerie, 
 
 Or Bantia's glades, shelter, and them whose toil 
 
 Ploughs the rich tilths of low Forentum's soil. 
 
 They marvelled how it was I slept unscathed 
 
 By deadly snakes and bears : how I was swathed 
 
 With sacred bays, and myrtles' kind embrace 
 
 A child inspired by Heaven's peculiar grace. 
 
 Aye, and as yours, ye Muses yours for aye 
 
 I climb my Sabine hill, or make my way 
 
 To favourite haunts Praeneste's chilly height, 
 
 Or Tibur's slopes or Baiae, clear and bright. 
 
 Because your sweet choirs love me as their own, 
 
 Your fountains too, no death has struck me down 
 
 Not sad Philippi's rout, not the curst tree, 
 
 Not Palinurus on Sicilian sea. 
 
 With you beside me, as a seaman, I 
 
 Will brave mad Bosphorus right willingly; 
 
 With you, as traveller, will wander o'er 
 
 The burning sands of far Assyria's shore. 
 
 The stranger-hating Britons will I greet: 
 
 The Concani who drink, and count it sweet, 
 
 The blood of horses : the Geloni armed 
 
 With quivers: Scythia's river all unharmed. 
 
 You too to mighty Caesar, soon as he 
 
 Has settled in the towns where they would be 
 
 His war-worn troops, and from his toils would cease, 
 
 Give, in some grot Pierian, welcome peace.
 
 65 
 
 Gentle your counsel ; gracious too, I trow, 
 
 Your joy in its acceptance; this we know 
 
 Know it as knowing how it was with him, 
 
 Who smote the impious Titan hordes with grim 
 
 Descending bolt who sways the windy sea 
 
 And sluggish earth : whose one sole empery 
 
 Rules earth's abodes and realms of sad duress, 
 
 Mortals and Gods alike, in righteousness. 
 
 Great had Jove's fear been when the giant brood, 
 
 Proud of their frightful arms, against him stood; 
 
 And when the brothers strove to fix upon 
 
 Shady Olympus lofty Pelion. 
 
 But what availed Typhon what the strong hand 
 
 Of Mimas, or Porphyrion's threatening stand: 
 
 What Rhoetus, or Enceladus, the stark 
 
 Hurler of uptorn trees, with heaven for mark, 
 
 When Pallas' sounding aegis barred the way? 
 
 Here stood fierce Vulcan, greedy for the fray, 
 
 Dame Juno there, and he, whose shoulders now 
 
 Bear, and shall ever bear, his mighty bow: 
 
 Who with Castalia's waters dewy-bright 
 
 Bathes his long locks: who holds, as of birthright, 
 
 All Lycia's woods and brakes Phoebus, adored 
 
 As Delos' glory, and as Patara's lord. 
 
 Force lacking counsel falls by its own weight; 
 
 Force temperate the Gods make yet more great 
 
 The Gods who hate the strength that would defy 
 
 Their righteous will, and plot iniquity. 
 
 Gyas, the hundred-handed, seals as true 
 
 These maxims : infamous Orion too, 
 
 For foul assault on chaste Minerva known, 
 
 And by her virgin arrows smitten down. 
 
 On her own monsters heaped, with many a wail 
 
 Earth weeps her sons hurled down to Orcus pale
 
 66 
 
 By thunder-bolts, whose fires, haste as they will 
 To eat thro' Aetna's pile, are prisoners still. 
 The jailor- vulture, lechery's penalty, 
 Still guards the lustful Tityos ceaselessly, 
 And gnaws his liver ; chains three hundred hold 
 Pirithous captive, for love over-bold. 
 
 Od. 111. 5 
 
 THAT Jove is lord of all above 
 His thunders and his lightnings show ; 
 Persia and Britain tamed shall prove 
 
 Augustus demigod here below. 
 That ever a soldier Crassus led 
 
 Should wed ah Senate ! ah the sin ! 
 A barbarous mate to shame his bed, 
 
 And grow old with her hostile kin, 
 A Marsian as a Mede king's kern, 
 
 Aye, or Apulian, dead to pride 
 Of name, shields, garb, Vesta eterne, 
 
 Tho' Jove and Rome unscathed abide ! 
 'Twas fear of this made Regulus 
 
 Reject base terms of peace with scorn, 
 Inferring precedents ruinous 
 
 To generations yet unborn, 
 If prisoners were not left to die 
 
 Unpitied. "Punic shrines display," 
 Quoth he, "our eagles have not I 
 
 Seen them seen weapons snatched away 
 From warriors' unresisting hands 
 
 Seen on free backs arms twist askew, 
 Gates left unbarred, and enemy lands, 
 
 Swept by our war, now tilled anew?
 
 67 
 
 Ransomed by gold, doubtless, a man 
 
 Returns the bolder ! Ah, 'tis loss 
 Added to foul disgrace ; for can 
 
 Dyed wool regain its native gloss? 
 Nor does true valour, once expelled, 
 
 Care to replace poltroonery. 
 Free the snared stag from toils that held 
 
 It captive will it fight? Will he, 
 Who to a treacherous foeman knelt, 
 
 Be brave, and in a second strife, 
 Crush him who on his shoulders felt 
 
 The thongs, nor fought, but clung to life? 
 He, knowing not whence true life is won, 
 
 Confounded peace with war. O shame ! 
 O mighty Carthage, throned upon 
 
 The wrecks of Italy's fair fame !" 
 His chaste wife's kiss, the lads he loved, 
 
 He put aside, in outlaw's wyse 
 So runs the tale and all unmoved 
 
 Bent sternly down his manly eyes; 
 Till by new counsel he made strong 
 
 The Fathers' wavering will, and straight 
 Went forth, his sorrowing friends among, 
 
 A glorious exile, to his fate. 
 He knew what tortures were in store 
 
 For him, and yet he pushed his way 
 Thro' troops of hindering kinsfolk, nor, 
 
 Tho' crowds beset him, brooked delay, 
 As tho', some clients' law-suit tried 
 
 And won, he sought a holiday 
 By green Venafro's country-side, 
 
 Or Dorian Taranto's bay.
 
 68 
 
 Od. 111. 6 
 
 FOR sins of ancestors will you atone, 
 Roman, what tho' the sins were not your own, 
 Till you repair the high Gods' sanctuaries, 
 Their tottering fanes, their smoke-grimed images. 
 You rule the world because to heaven you bow. 
 Hence nations rise and fall ; often ere now, 
 Angered by man's neglects, the Gods have hurled 
 Distress and anguish on the Western world. 
 Once and again Monaeses and the horde 
 Of Pacorus have broke pur unblest sword, 
 And, booty-laden, add with grinning glee 
 To their few tores our captured finery. 
 Dacian and Aethiop have well nigh wracked 
 Our city, with its civil wars distract 
 The Aethiop, by sea no puny foe : 
 The Dacian, master of the twanging bow. 
 Fruitful in crime, the ages as they ran 
 First fouled the marriage-bond, the home, the clan ; 
 Thence sprang a flood of ill a flood that broke 
 In on our hapless country and our folk. 
 The girl grows up to learn the Ionic dance, 
 And, even now, with stage-tricks would enhance 
 Her charms, who dreams, her inmost heart within, 
 Of loves unlawful aye, and hugs her sin. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Not from such parents sprang the youth who dyed 
 
 With Punic blood the ocean far and wide : 
 
 Whose war broke Pyrrhus, and redoubtable 
 
 Antoichus, and Hannibal, the fell. 
 
 Nay, 'twas a brood, stalwart and masculine, 
 
 Of yeomen-soldiers lads who with Sabine
 
 69 
 
 Spades turned the clods, and, as stern mothers bid, 
 Shouldered their piles of faggots, kid by kid, 
 To bring them home what time the sun should shift 
 The shadows, and from weary oxen lift 
 Their yokes, with parting chariot speeding on 
 The friendly hour when the day's work is done. 
 What has it not debased, this present curse? 
 Our parents' age, than our grandparents' worse, 
 Has brought us forth, who shall beget, ah shame! 
 Children yet more unworthy Rome's great name. 
 
 Od. 111. 7 
 
 WHY weep, Asterie, your swain 
 Constant and leal, whom Zephyrs clear 
 With the new spring will bring again 
 
 To you, enriched with Thynian gear, 
 Gyges? He, driven by Southern gales 
 
 To far-off Oricum, when rose 
 The Goat's mad star, sleepless bewails 
 
 Thro' chilly nights his wants and woes. 
 And yet his hostess, love-sick dame, 
 
 Sends messages that Chloe sighs, 
 Poor soul, with love like yours aflame, 
 
 And artful tempts him manywise. 
 She tells how a false wife of yore 
 
 Urged Proetus, credulous husband, on, 
 By charges false, to slay before 
 
 His time too chaste Bellerophon : 
 How Peuels 'scaped death-penalty 
 
 Hardly, who fled, wise heart and pure, 
 Magnesian Hippolyte, 
 
 And brings up tales with sinful lure, 
 In vain ; than rocks Icarian
 
 70 
 
 More deaf, he hears the words heart-whole. 
 Beware you, lest your neighbour-man 
 
 Enipeus over-please your soul; 
 Tho' never another cavalier 
 
 On Martian sward attracts such gaze, 
 Nor Tuscan Tiber knows his peer 
 
 Of all who swim its watery ways. 
 At nightfall close your doors, nor eye 
 
 The streets below what time you hear 
 Flute's plaintive notes, and to the cry, 
 
 That calls you cruel, turn deaf ear. 
 
 Od. 111. 8 
 
 MARCH has come in. You would find out 
 What I, a bachelor, am about 
 What mean these flowers, these incense-bowls, 
 These live sods topped with kindled coals. 
 You doubt, tho' Roman tales you know, 
 And Greek. Well, Liber claims a vow 
 Feast and white goat vowed when the tree, 
 That fell, all but demolished me. 
 Each year this festal day shall see 
 Its pitch-sealed cork drawn faithfully 
 From out a jar that, cellared here, 
 First drank the smoke in' Tullus' year. 
 For my escape, and for my sake, 
 A hundred cups, Maecenas take ; 
 Keep the lamps lit till dawn of day; 
 Clamour and brawls Avaunt ! Away ! 
 Dismiss all public cares ; no more 
 Will Dacian Costiso wage war; 
 The hostile Parthians' civic strife 
 Hurts only their own country's life.
 
 71 
 
 In Spain our old Cantabrian foe 
 
 Obeys the might that laid him low 
 
 At last; the Scythians think to slack ,, . 
 
 Their bows, and from their plains fall back. 
 
 Here just a citizen, abate 
 
 Thoughts over-anxious for the State ; 
 
 Care-free, enjoy for this brief hour 
 
 The sweet of life ; forget the sour. 
 
 Od. III. 9 
 
 . \ 
 
 He. V\7HILE you were happy in my love, 
 
 VV And no more favoured swain might fling 
 Round your white neck his arms, I throve, 
 
 More blest than any Persian king. . 
 She. While yet you had no other flame, 
 
 Ere Chloe ousted Lydia, 
 I, Lydia, throve a maid of fame, 
 
 Who outshone Roman Ilia. 
 He. Chloe of Thrace is now my queen, 
 
 Skilled in the lyre's sweet strains; for whom 
 I'll never fear to die, I ween, 
 
 If but fate lift my true life's doom. 
 She. Me, Ornytus' son, Calais, 
 
 The Thurine, fires, who am his joy; 
 For whom I'd die twice o'er, ywis, 
 
 If but the fates will spare my boy. 
 He. What if with yoke that shall abide 
 
 Old love knots sundered hearts once more? 
 What if blonde Chloe's cast aside, 
 And Lydia scorned re-opes her door?
 
 72 
 
 She. Tho' he is brighter than a star, 
 
 And you than cork are lighter aye, 
 Than boisterous Hadria rougher far. 
 With you I'd live; with you I'd die. 
 
 Od. III. 10 
 
 (Omitted) 
 
 Od. HI. 11 
 
 I PRAY thee, Mercury since by thee 
 Inspired Amphion's song moved stones 
 And thee, O Shell, whose psaltery 
 
 Can sound forth Music's seven tones 
 Not tuneful once, nor sweet, but now 
 
 Welcome to fane and rich man's board 
 Prompt me a strain, whose charm shall bow 
 
 Lyde's proud ears my suit toward : 
 Who, as a filly three years old 
 
 In the wide fields, frolics, and fears 
 A touch, a maiden pure for bold 
 
 Wooer as yet too young in years. 
 Thou canst draw tigers after thee, 
 
 And woods; the torrent's rush canst stay; 
 Before thy music's witchery 
 
 The vast Hall's warder-hound gave way 
 Aye, Cerberus, tho' his frightful head 
 
 Is girt with snakes a hundred strong; 
 Tho' foul his breath, and slime, like shed 
 
 Gore, dribbles from his triple tongue. 
 Nay e'en Ixion, forced to smile. 
 
 And Tityos, laughed against the grain;
 
 73 
 
 The urn stood empty for a while, 
 
 While Danaids heard thy soothing strain. 
 Let Lyde hear what sin disgraced 
 
 Those virgins: what their well-known fate; 
 How all the water runs to waste 
 
 From the urn's bottom : how, tho' late, 
 In Orcus sin's reward is sure. 
 
 Ah impious what could mortal hand 
 Do worse? who, impious, could endure 
 
 To slay their grooms with cruel brand. 
 One out of all the band alone, 
 
 Worthy the marriage torch, to sire 
 Forsworn was greatly false, and won 
 
 A fame that lives while years expire: 
 Who roused her young groom in the night 
 
 "Up, lest a sleep, whence fearest naught, 
 A long sleep, whelm thee; cheat by flight 
 
 My sire's and wicked sisters' thought, 
 Who, as she-lions tear their prey 
 
 Of calves, are tearing woe is me ! 
 Each her own mate ; kinder than they, 
 
 I will not smite or prison thee. 
 Me let my sire load with rude chains 
 
 Because my lad I would not slay; 
 Me let his fleet to the domains 
 
 Of far Numidia bear away. 
 Go thou where feet and breezes take 
 
 Thee ; night is kind and Venus nigh. 
 So farewell, for my memory's sake, 
 
 Grave on my tomb an elegy."
 
 74 
 
 Od. 111. 12 
 
 POOR girls ! We may not give our love free play, 
 Or drown in wine our sense of hurt and wrong, 
 Or, if we do, must bear, as best we may, 
 
 The deadly lashes of an uncle's tongue. 
 Venus' winged cherub steals your wicker-tray, 
 
 Poor Neobule; the bright radiancy 
 Of Liparaean Hebrus takes away 
 
 The webs of throng Minerva's industry, 
 When he has bathed, returning from the lists, 
 
 In Tiber's flood his shoulders oiled; as knight, 
 A greater than Bellerophon ; quick fists, 
 
 Quick feet, give him the palm in race or fight. 
 Skilled he to shoot in the open stags that rush 
 
 Forth, when the herd is driven from its lay; 
 And swift to meet the boar, couched in the brush 
 
 Of some dense thicket, as it breaks away. 
 
 Od. 111.13 
 
 FOUNT of Bandusia, crystal-clear 
 Aye, clearer worthy flowers and wine, 
 
 Tomorrow shall a kid be thine 
 Upon whose front young horns appear, 
 That threat love-battles presently. 
 
 In vain they threat, for with red blood 
 
 This scion of a lustful brood 
 Shall stain thy stream's fresh purity. 
 The flaming Dog-Star's spell of heat 
 
 Touches thee not ; to weary ox, 
 
 Tired of the plough, and wandering flocks,
 
 75 
 
 Thou art refreshment cool and sweet. 
 Thou shalt be of the founts men call 
 
 Famous, when of the oak I tell 
 
 That crowns the hollow rocks, whence well 
 Thy babbling waters to their fall. 
 
 Od. III. 14 
 
 /CAESAR, of whom we lately spoke 
 ^-^ As bent on bays, like Hercules, 
 That death must buy, returns, good folk, 
 
 Home from his Spanish victories. 
 Proud of your peerless lord, do you. 
 
 His wife, after due prayer and rite, 
 Come forth our brave chief's sister too, 
 
 And, with thanksgiving fillets bright, 
 Mothers of girls and youths restored 
 
 Safe to their homes ; ye lads, and ye, 
 Lasses new-wed, utter no word 
 
 Today of evil augury. 
 This day, truly a feast for me, 
 
 Will chase black cares ; I will not dread, 
 While Caesar holds the world in fee, 
 
 Tumult, or stroke shall strike me dead. 
 Boy, fetch me unguents, flowers, and bring 
 
 Wine that recalls the Marsian war, 
 If anywhere that wandering 
 
 Rogue Spartacus passed by a jar. 
 And bid clear-voiced Neaera knot 
 
 Her perfumed hair without delay, 
 And come ; but if the porter's not 
 
 Friendly, and hinders, come away.
 
 76 
 
 Gray hairs tame tempers, once, I fear, 
 Too keen on brawls and quarrelings ; 
 
 Had I youth's fire, as in the year 
 Of Plancus, I'd not brook such things. 
 
 Od.III.15 
 
 of poor Ibycus, have done 
 At last with your depravity, 
 And infamous pursuits, as one 
 
 To whom a timely death draws nigh. 
 No longer sport young girls among, 
 
 Nor cloud their brightness starry-clear; 
 What misbecomes not Pholoe young, 
 
 Becomes not Chloris old and sere. 
 More fitly storms your girl the halls 
 
 Of youth, like Thyiad, by drum-bray 
 Maddened, whom love of Nothus calls 
 
 To wanton like a roe at play. 
 Far-famed Luceria's wools agree 
 
 Best with your years; not red new-blown 
 Roses: not jars drained to the lee: 
 
 Not citterns for you are a crone. 
 
 Od. III. 16 
 
 BRONZE tower, stout doors, and surly guard 
 Of watchful dogs, had safely barred 
 Against assaults of midnight love 
 Fair Danae's prison, had not Jove 
 And Venus mocked Acrisius' care, 
 Tis jealous wardship, well aware 
 That to the God in golden shower
 
 77 
 
 Broad way and safe would ope the tower. 
 Thro' bodyguards, thro' masonry, 
 Gold makes its way more potently 
 Than lepin-bolt; 'twas lucre brought 
 The Argive augur's house to naught. 
 By bribes the man of Macedon 
 Qeft open city-gates, and won 
 The fall of rival monarchies; 
 Even rude admirals have their price. 
 Increase of wealth and greed bring on 
 Care, from self-gloriation 
 Rightly I've shrunk unto this hour, 
 Maecenas, knighthood's pride and flower. 
 The more a man himself denies, 
 The more kind Heaven to him supplies ; 
 Homely I seek camps of content, 
 Deserting wealth's environment, 
 Prouder, as master of my small 
 Farm, than as famed to garner all 
 Apulia's fruits of industry, 
 In plenty, yet in scarcity. 
 A rivulet clear, a wood of few 
 Acres, my small crop's promise true, 
 Give me a lot that, hid from him, 
 Makes Afric praetor's fame look dim. 
 Tho' bees Calabrian bring not in 
 Honey, nor wine in Formian bin 
 Mellows, nor sheep on Gallic lea 
 Fatten, and grow thick wool, for me, 
 Yet from harsh poverty I'm free; 
 If more I craved, you"d give it me; 
 Curtailed wants would more happily 
 Enlarge my income than if I
 
 78 
 
 Blent the dominions of Mygdon 
 And Alyattes into one. 
 Want much, lack much ; happy is he 
 To whom Heaven grants sufficiency. 
 
 Od. III. 17 
 
 SPRUNG, noble Aelius, from Lamus old 
 (Since, as folk say, 'twas he who gave their name 
 
 To early Lamiae, and the annals hold 
 
 The proofs of this the entire clan can claim 
 Descent from him who was, 'tis said, first king 
 
 Of Formiae, and of the country-side, 
 Where on Marica's coasts, meandering, 
 
 Slow Liris swims, lord of dominions wide), 
 Tomorrow will the East Wind bring a blast, 
 
 Shall strew with useless weed the shore, with leaves 
 The woods, unless the aged crow's forecast, 
 
 Its prophecy of coming rain, deceives 
 Our ears. Get in, then, while the weather's fine, 
 
 Dry wood ; tomorrow will you chase away 
 Your Genius' cares with sucking pig and wine, 
 
 Making, with all your household, holiday. 
 
 od. in. is 
 
 w< 
 
 r OOER of flying Nymphs, whene'er, 
 
 My homestead's sunny fields among, 
 You come and go, be debonair, 
 
 Faunus, nor do my nurslings wrong, 
 If, as your due, a kidling dies : 
 If filled your bowl, to Venus dear,
 
 79 
 
 With wine : if from your altar rise 
 
 Abundant odours year by year. 
 The cattle in the pastures play, 
 
 What time December's Nones for you 
 Return, and all make holiday, 
 
 Village and kine one merry crew. 
 A wolf roams 'mid the lambs ; they heed 
 
 Him not; for you the woodland tree 
 Scatters its leaves ; the digger freed 
 
 Thrice stamps on hated earth his glee. 
 
 Od. III. 19 
 
 YDU tell what years part Inachus 
 From Codrus, patriot to the death: 
 What was the line of Aeacus: 
 
 What wars raged Ilion's walls beneath; 
 But price of Chian : at whose cost 
 
 The baths are warmed : the hour to flee 
 Pelignian cold : who is the host 
 
 All this you leave in mystery. 
 To the new moon charge bumpers, boy, 
 
 To midnight, to our augur new, 
 Murena ; for each toast employ 
 
 Three or four ladlefuls as due. 
 Who holds the odd-numbered Muses dear, 
 
 A crazed bard, will with three times three 
 Ladles make merry, but, for fear 
 
 Of strife, the Graces' trinity, 
 Unrobed, makes three the bound. But we 
 
 Would fain be mad. Why stays the flute 
 Its Berecynthian revelry? 
 
 Why hang the lyre and Pan-pipe mute?
 
 I hate close fists; strew roses; let 
 
 Crossgrained old Lycus hear our mad 
 Din ; let it make his Amoret 
 
 Ill-matched, his neighbour lady, glad. 
 You with your long locks fair to see: 
 
 You, Telephus, who like Vesper shine, 
 Rhode, fit mate, seeks; as for me, 
 
 I slowly burn for Glycera mine. 
 
 Od. III. 20 
 
 GEE you not, Pyrrhus, at what risk you steal 
 ^ Her cubs from a Gaetulian lioness? 
 Soon, very soon, as robber, will you feel 
 
 Her wrath, and know flight's terror and distress, 
 What time she comes, thro' ranks that seek to bar 
 
 Her way, to claim Nearchus, her delight 
 To settle whose shall be the spoils of war, 
 
 Her prize or rather yours a famous fight. 
 Meantime, they say, while she whets her fierce fangs, 
 
 And you are getting out your arrows fleet, 
 He, on whose will the battle's issue hangs, 
 
 Tramples upon the palm with naked feet, 
 While on his shoulders and his scented hair, 
 
 That round about them falls, plays, as it wills, 
 A soft, refreshing breeze as Nireus fair, 
 
 Or Ganymede, rapt up from Ida's rills. 
 
 Od. III. 21 
 
 OBORN with me in Manlius' year, 
 Good jar, whatever gifts you bear 
 Jokes, quarrels, strife, mad loves, light sleep 
 To whatsoever end you keep
 
 81 
 
 '>< 
 
 Choice Massic, come, for to yourself 
 You owe the move, down from your shelf, 
 On this glad day; for mellower brands 
 Corvinus calls ; his wish commands. 
 Steeped in the Schools' philosophy, 
 He's yet no boor to pass you by. 
 Why, oftentimes so we are told : 
 Wine warmed stern 'Cato's soul of old. 
 You rack dull wits full tenderly, 
 Unveil hid wisdom's mystery, 
 And straight the wise man's cares depart, 
 As gay Lyaeus glads his heart. 
 Hope cheers the anxious by your gift; 
 The weakling's horn on high you lift; 
 Heartened by you he laughs at fear 
 Of diademed kings, of sword and spear. j 
 
 Liber, and Venus, if she's good : 
 The Graces' close-knit sisterhood, 
 And live lamps still shall lead you on 
 While Dawn is bidding stars begone. 
 
 Od. III. 22 
 
 VIRGIN, who wear'st a threefold form of threefold 
 majesty, 
 Warden of woods and hills, who, as invoked with 
 
 threefold cry, 
 
 Dost hear, and save from death, young wives in child- 
 birth's agony, 
 
 Thine be the pine that overhangs my villa, so that I, 
 At each year's end, may offer it, in cheerful fealty, 
 The blood of a young boar that plans the stroke that 
 strikes awry.
 
 82 
 
 Od.lll.23 
 
 IF upturned hands to heaven you lift 
 When the new moon is born, 
 And charm your Lares with a gift 
 
 Of incense, and new corn, 
 And a fat swine, then yours shall be 
 A fair lot, rustic Phidyle. 
 Your fruitful vine shall mock the pest 
 
 Of Afric's windy heat; 
 No blighting mildew shall infest 
 
 Your crops ; your nurslings sweet 
 Shall brave the sickly months, nor fear 
 The menace of the autumnal year. 
 The victim which, doomed to pay vows, 
 
 'Mid oaks and holm-oaks feeds 
 On snowy Algidus, or grows 
 
 Fat upon Alban meads, 
 Shall with its neck's blood stain one day 
 The axes which Rome's pontiffs sway. 
 It is not laid on you to press, 
 
 By costly sacrifice 
 Of many sheep, prayer and address 
 
 On your small deities; 
 It's yours to crown them quietly 
 With myrtle frail and rosemary. 
 If pure your hand, when it is laid 
 
 The altar's face upon, 
 Not by a costly victim made 
 
 More coaxing, it has won 
 Your House-Gods' grace by the appeal 
 
 Of crackling salt and pious meat.
 
 83 
 
 Od. HI. 24 
 
 THO' wealthier than all Araby 
 With untouched stores, and rich Indies, 
 With quarried stones you occupy 
 
 All that is land, and public seas, 
 Natheless, if grim Necessity 
 
 Nails with steel nails each pinnacle, 
 Your soul from fear you will not free, 
 
 Nor 'scape Death's toils his halter fell. 
 Better the life of Scyths, who scour 
 
 The steppes, whose waggons bear afield 
 Their shifting homes, and Getae dour, 
 
 For whom unmeasured acres yield 
 Free crops of corn: who till their land 
 
 But for a year ; each worker does 
 His share; that done, another hand 
 
 Relieves him; thus the shared work goes. 
 Kind is stepmother's face toward 
 
 Stepchildren motherless, kind her sway; 
 The dowried wife rules not her lord, 
 
 Nor heeds what sleek adulterers say. 
 Their dowry great is innocence 
 
 Of parents, and pledged chastity 
 That shrinks from taint ; to whom offence 
 
 Is sin, with death for penalty. 
 Who wills to end the deaths that shame 
 
 Our civic madness, and to bear 
 Beneath his statues the proud name, 
 
 "Father of Cities," let him dare 
 To curb wild license, and for fame 
 
 Look to the future, for our spite
 
 84 
 
 Hates living worth O wicked shame! 
 
 To miss it when it's lost to sight. 
 What boot laments, if penalty 
 
 Cuts not the crime short? Of what worth 
 Are laws without morality, 
 
 If not that quarter of the earth 
 That's fenced by heat, nor that which lies 
 
 Nearest the North Wind, where deep snow 
 Crusts the earth's surface, terrifies 
 
 The merchant : if skilled sailors plow 
 The boisterous seas : if the disgrace 
 
 Of poverty bids men consent 
 To aught, and do aught mean and base, 
 
 And shun true Virtue's steep ascent ? 
 Or to the Capitol bear we, 
 
 Summoned by crowds' applauding call, 
 Or plunge we in the nearest sea, 
 
 Gems, jewels, useless gold, of all 
 That's worst the source, if we repent 
 
 Us truly of our grievous sin. 
 We must stub up each element 
 
 Of base desire, must discipline 
 Too tender souls with more severe 
 
 Studies; untrained, the high-born boy 
 Can't sit a horse; he turns with fear 
 
 From hunting ; handier with a toy 
 With Grecian hoop, if you desire, 
 
 Or, if you like, with dice, despite 
 The law. What wonder, when his sire 
 
 To guest and partner breaks his plight, 
 Keen to snatch gain for worthless son? 
 
 Certes base lucre multiplies 
 Itself, and yet the prize, when won, 
 
 Lacks something lacks what satisfies.
 
 85 
 
 Od. III. 25 
 
 "WHITHER, O Bacchus, bearest me inspired? 
 
 " Into what groves, what grottoes, am I now 
 Hurried, by new thoughts swept along and fired? 
 
 What caves shall hear me meditating how 
 I may exalt great Caesar's fame for aye 
 
 To Jove's high council, and the starry skies? 
 My song shall be sublime and new, a lay 
 
 None other yet has sung. Not otherwise 
 Than Euhiad, in nightlong revelry 
 
 Upon the hills, is ravished as her eye 
 Scans Hebrus, snow-white Thrace, and Rhodope, 
 
 By foot barbarian, traversed, so am I 
 Entranced, what time, by visions borne along, 
 
 I gaze on quiet groves and riverside. 
 O Lord of Naiads, and Bacchantes, strong 
 
 To overturn tall ash-trees' towering pride, 
 Naught petty, naught unworthy its high due, 
 
 Not death itself, shall touch this song of mine. 
 'Tis a sweet risk, Lenaean, to ensue 
 
 The God who wreathes his brows with pliant 
 vine. 
 
 Od. 111. 26 
 
 TIME was when, as a Cupid's knight, 
 I fought, not all ingloriously, 
 Love's battles ; now my panoply 
 Armour and lyre, too tired to fight 
 I'll hang upon this temple-wall, 
 
 That on her left guards Venus ; let
 
 86 
 
 Rope-torches, crowbars, bows, that threat 
 Closed doors, hang by them, one and all. 
 Goddess, who rulest Cyprus blest, 
 And, from Sithonian snow-storms free, 
 Memphis, with uplift whip, prithee, 
 Touch, just for once, proud Chloe's breast. 
 
 Od. III. 27 
 
 LET omens ill attend the way 
 Of impious souls to-whooing owl 
 And pregnant bitch, or wolf blue-grey, 
 
 Down-rushing from Lanuvium's knowl, 
 And vixen bred ; or let their start 
 
 Be broken off by slantwise run 
 Of serpent swift as flying dart, 
 
 That scares their team; but I, for one 
 For whom I fear, an augur wise, 
 
 Or e'er the rain-seer bird divine 
 Reseeks the marsh, from the sunrise. 
 
 Will call the crow to speak a sign. 
 May you be happy wheresoe'er, 
 
 My Galatea, you may go; 
 Forget me not, nor woodpecker, 
 
 Upon your left, nor wandering crow, 
 Forbid you. But you see with what 
 
 Tempests Orion sets e'en now; 
 What Hadria's dark gulf is, and that 
 
 lapyx clear can sin, I know. 
 May enemy wife and family 
 
 Feel rising Auster's blind outbreaks, 
 And Ocean's black ferocity, 
 
 And shores that furious wave-beat shakes.
 
 87 
 
 Thus risked Europa her fair life 
 
 On treacherous bull, and, seeing the sea 
 With monsters thronged, with perils rife, 
 
 Paled at her own audacity. 
 Lately intent on flowering leas, 
 
 And wont to wreathe the chaplets due 
 To Nymphs, she now saw naught but seas 
 
 Boundless, and stars the dim night thro*. 
 Soon as she reached Crete with its host 
 
 Of towns, a hundred strong, "O, sire J" 
 She cried, "O name of daughter lost! 
 
 O duty slain by mad desire ! 
 Whence came I whither? One death were 
 
 For virgins' sin light penalty. 
 Wail I, awake, as wrong-doer, 
 
 Foul deed, or does a phantasy 
 Vain mock my innocence in sleep, 
 
 With dream from ivory gateway flown? 
 Better was it to cross the deep, 
 
 Or gather flowerets freshly blown? 
 Should any yield that beast infame 
 
 To my just wrath I'd strive I vow 
 To break its horns; with sword I'd maim 
 
 The monster loved so well but now. 
 Shameless I left my father's home : 
 
 Shameless stay Orcus. O if ear 
 Divine can hear I fain would roam 
 
 Where lions my bare flesh would tear 
 Ere from fair cheeks the bloom has died 
 
 Decayed ere ebbs life's ruddy blood 
 From victim young in beauty's pride 
 
 Gladly I'd be fierce tigers' food. 
 'Europa vile,' cries far away 
 
 My sire, 'death beckons ; with your zone,-
 
 'Twas well you brought it with you may 
 
 You break your neck, hung from this roan. 
 O if rocks deadly sharp and high 
 
 Cliff please you more, trust the wind's 
 
 wings, 
 Unless you rather wish to ply 
 
 A slave-girl's task you, sprung from kings, 
 A concubine, to foreign dame 
 
 Abandoned.' " As she made lament, 
 Venus with smile perfidious came 
 
 Up, and her son with bow unbent. ' 
 So soon as she had mocked enow, 
 
 "Cease," cried she, "from your passionate 
 Complaints, when the loathed bull shall bow 
 
 His horns for you to mutilate. 
 Unconquered Jove's wife unaware 
 
 You are; sob not; great is your fame; 
 Learn to bear well a fate so fair, 
 
 For half the world shall wear your name." 
 
 Od.III.28 
 
 YV7HAT could I better do on Neptune's day? 
 
 Lyde, be quick and broach the Caecuban 
 Hid in your store, and with me make foray 
 
 On wisdom's fortress that's my present plan. 
 Midday is past ; you see how Phoebus' car 
 
 Sinks ; yet as tho' the flying day stood still, 
 You pause, as loth to bring the lingering jar, 
 
 That erst the year of Bibulus bade you fill. 
 Now will we sing in turn of Neptune I, 
 
 And green-haired Nereids ; your part shall be 
 To sing to your curved lyre Latona, aye., 
 .And flying Cynthia's fierce artillery.
 
 89 
 
 Lastly the Cnidian queen shall be our theme, 
 Who holds the shining Cyclades in fee, 
 
 And visits Paphos' isle with swans for team; 
 Night too shall have her meed of elegy. 
 
 Od. III. 29 
 
 OF Tuscan kings, Maecenas, heir, 
 An unbroached jar of mellow wine, 
 Rose-blooms, and balsam for your hair 
 
 Of ben-nuts, wait you here, langsyne 
 Expectant; haste, nor watch for aye 
 
 Wet Tibur, Aefula's hillside, 
 And the far wolds where erst held sway 
 
 Telegonus, the parricide. 
 Come, leave your plenty's irk and bore, 
 
 Your palace with its skyey dome; 
 Nor marvel longer at the roar 
 
 And smoke and pomp of wealthy Rome. * 
 Full oft a welcome change to meals 
 
 Simple, in humble cots, that know 
 Nor purple rugs, nor awninged ceils, 
 
 Has smoothed a rich man's anxious brow. 
 Now shining out the sire of fair 
 
 Andromeda unveils his rays ; 
 Now Procyon and the mad Lion glare 
 
 Frenzied, as suns bring back dry days. 
 Now, weary with his weary flock, 
 
 The shepherd seeks the shady rill, 
 And thickets of Silvanus shock, 
 
 And, breathless now, the bank is still.
 
 90 
 
 How best the State may stand and hold 
 
 Its own, you ponder ; fear, too, what 
 Bactra, by Cyrus ruled of old, 
 
 Seres, and rebel Tanais plot. 
 All wisely Heaven in darkest night 
 
 Enshrouds the event that is to be, 
 And mocks if mortal men despite 
 
 Its sanctions : order equably 
 What is ; all else sweeps on amain, 
 
 Like stream that down mid-channel now 
 Falls calm into the Tuscan main, 
 
 Now rolls down stones worn by its flow, 
 And uptorn rocks, and homes, and herd, 
 
 Together, while each neighbouring wood, 
 And hill, rings, as still brooks are stirred 
 
 To fury by the furious flood. 
 Lord of himself, and happy, will 
 
 He be, who can from day to day 
 Say, "I have lived ; let Jove fulfill 
 
 Tomorrow's sky with leaden-grey 
 Clouds or with shine, he can't undo 
 
 What has been done, nor make as naught, 
 No, nor reforge and shape anew, 
 
 What once the flying hour has brought." 
 Exultant in her cruel trade, 
 
 Playing her rude game ceaselessly, 
 Fortune shifts honours, fickle jade, 
 
 Kind, now to others, now to me. 
 I praise her present; if she flap 
 
 Her wings, pay back without ado
 
 91 
 
 Her gifts, use virtue as my wrap, 
 
 And poverty undowried woo. 
 Not mine, if stormy Afric bows 
 
 The groaning mast, to fly to prayers 
 Abject, and bargain with shrill vows 
 
 That Cyprian and Tyrian wares 
 May not enrich the greedy seas. 
 
 At such a time in light pair-oar, 
 Sped by twin Pollux and by breeze, 
 
 I'll cross the Aegean safe to shore. 
 
 Od. III. 30 
 
 LO, I have reared a monument that bronze shall not 
 outlast, 
 More lofty than the pyramids that despots piled of 
 
 yore; 
 Its strength defies devouring rain, defies the ungoverned 
 
 blast 
 Of Aquilo, the wind that blows from where the North 
 
 seas roar; 
 It shall survive when the unnumbered tale of years is 
 
 past, 
 When days and months have ceased to be, and Time 
 
 shall be no more. 
 There's that in me which shall not die; that which is 
 
 most of me 
 Shall win where the death-goddess has no part nor 
 
 lot; my fame 
 Shall grow with increase ever new as the ages yet 
 
 to be 
 
 Uplift their voice in praise of me, and magnify my 
 name,
 
 92 
 
 While up the Capitol shall climb, in solemn company, 
 Pontiff and they whose silent care guards Vesta's 
 
 holy flame. 
 
 It shall be said of me, who, where Ofanto storms along 
 Raging, and where o'er arid realms ruled Daunus in 
 
 old days, 
 Waxed strong from low estate, that I, first of all sons 
 
 of song, 
 
 Married to modes of Italy Aeolia's lyric lays. 
 Be proud of right, Melpomene, and, for to thee belong 
 The honours, will to crown my brow with great 
 Apollo's bays. 
 
 Od.lF.l 
 
 \WHAT, Venus, would'st thou now recall 
 Wars long abandoned? Spare, I pray. 
 I am not what I was as thrall 
 
 Of kindly Cinara. Cease to sway, 
 O sweet Loves' cruel mother, one, 
 
 Who, with his fiftieth year anigh, 
 Bends not to thy mild rule; begone 
 
 Whither young gallants' coaxing cry 
 Recalls thee. Timelier wilt thou 
 
 Revel with glistering swans to fire 
 Young Paulus Maximus, I trow, 
 
 If fitting heart be thy desire. 
 For as high-born and fair to see, 
 
 No silent champion at the Bar, 
 Graced with a hundred graces, he 
 
 Will bear thy standards wide and far: 
 Who, when he shall have mocked, in pride 
 
 Of power, a rival's bribery,
 
 93 
 
 In marble, Alban lakes beside, 
 
 'Neath cedar roof will image thee. 
 There shall abundant incense greet 
 
 Thy nostrils ; Berecynthian flute 
 And lyre for thee shall blend their sweet 
 
 Music, nor shall Pan-pipe be mute. 
 Twice every day shall lads and gay 
 
 Young lasses celebrate thy might, 
 And shake the earth, in Salian way, 
 
 With threefold beat of feet snow-white. 
 Naught cheers me now nor lass, nor lad, 
 
 Nor wistful hope of love that shall 
 Match mine, nor brows, with flowerets clad 
 
 Fresh-blown, nor bouts convivial. 
 But why, ah Ligurinus, why 
 
 Steal down my cheeks rare tear-drops? 
 
 Whence 
 The breaks that silence shamefully 
 
 My tongue, and halt its eloquence? 
 Fast now I hold thee in my dreams ; 
 
 In dreams now chase thee o'er the sward 
 Of Mars' great Field, now thro' the stream's 
 
 Swift flood O cruel heart, and hard ! 
 
 Od. IF. 2 
 
 O seeks to rival Pindar, he 
 Upsoars on wings waxed with the skill, 
 Julus, of Daedalus, and will 
 Name with his name some glassy sea. 
 As stream that down the mountain's steep, 
 Above its banks by rains uplift, 
 Rushes, so surges Pindar swift
 
 94 
 
 With boundless flood, with utterance deep. 
 
 Worthy Apollo's bays is he, 
 Whether in dithyrambs bold he pours 
 Forth words new-formed, or song that wars 
 
 Against all laws of poetry; 
 
 Whether he hymns Gods, or acclaims 
 Kings born of Gods, whose valour slew 
 The Centaurs righteous doom and due 
 
 And quenched Chimaera's fearsome flames; 
 
 Or tells of heroes glorified 
 By palm Olympian, of steed, 
 Of boxer, bringing to them a meed 
 
 A hundred statues could not side; 
 
 Or, wailing bridegroom rapt away 
 From weeping bride, exalts on high 
 His strength, soul, golden courtesy, 
 
 And grudges Orcus' gloom its prey. 
 
 Strong is the breeze that lifts the swan 
 Dircaean, Antony, what time 
 To heights of cloud-land it would climb. 
 
 I, as a Matine bee drones on, 
 
 Culling the thyme's sweets toilfully 
 By watery Tibur's groves and braes, 
 Fashion, a humble bard, my lays 
 
 With pains of strenuous industry. 
 
 A poet, you, of nobler quill 
 
 Shall sing of Caesar when, with well 
 Earned bays enwreathed, he leads the fell 
 
 Sygambri down the Sacred Hill; 
 
 Than whom Fate and kind deities 
 Have given naught better, naught that is 
 Greater, to earth, nor will, ywis,
 
 95 
 
 Give, tho' the Golden Age re-rise. 
 
 Of feasts and games your song shall be 
 Our thanks for answered prayers that gave 
 Back to our arms Augustus brave 
 
 And Forum from all law-suits free. 
 
 Then too my voice, if not in vain 
 Its utterance, shall come in, and say, 
 Full-toned, "O fair, O happy day !" 
 
 For joy that Caesar's home again. 
 
 And, as you lead the way, we'll raise, 
 Not once alone, our triumph-shout, 
 Ho Triumph! all will peal it out, 
 
 And offer Heaven incense in praise. 
 
 Your debt ten bulls, as many cows, 
 Shall quit; a calf will set me free 
 A youngling weaned, that on lush lea 
 
 Grows to its strength to pay my vows, 
 
 Whose brow, with hornlets newly grown, 
 Copies the young moon's crescent rays, 
 At its third rise ; it shows a blaze, 
 
 A birth-mark; elsewhere' tis red-roan. 
 
 Od. IV. 3 
 
 HE on whose birth, Melpomene, 
 Thou once for all hast set thine eye, 
 Thy placid gaze, shall never be 
 A boxer, famed for mastery 
 In Isthmian games; no fiery steeds 
 
 Shall draw him in Achaean car 
 
 To victory, nor shall mighty deeds 
 
 Display him, as a man of war,
 
 96 
 
 To Rome's heart, crowned with Delian bays, 
 
 Because he cast proud tyrants down. 
 But Tibur's thickly wooded braes, 
 
 And streams, shall rear him to renown, 
 With lyric song. As for rewards, 
 
 To me poetic rank the youth 
 Of Rome, of cities queen, accords, 
 
 And blunted now is envy's tooth. 
 Muse of the golden lyre, whose art 
 
 Tempers its strings to harmony: 
 Who could'st, were it thy will, impart 
 
 To voiceless fish the swan's clear cry: 
 That as Rome's minstrel-bard I'm hailed 
 
 By passers' fingers lift to me : 
 My breath, and, if I have not failed 
 
 To charm, my charm 'tis all of thee ! 
 
 Od. IV. 4 
 
 LIKE as the bird that bears on high 
 Jove's bolts, by heaven's Lord, as its meed, 
 Made king of birds, for loyalty 
 
 Proved upon fair-haired Ganymede; 
 Him youth and native grit of old 
 
 Drove from the nest or e'er he knew 
 Toil, and Spring winds, when clouds had rolled 
 
 By, sent him forth on ventures new, 
 Half fearful ; soon, with rushing stoop 
 
 To sheepfolds, he would strike his prey, 
 On struggling snakes anon to swoop, 
 
 Urged by the lust of feast and fray; 
 Or, as a fawn that, having quit 
 
 Its red dam's dugs for lavish grass,
 
 97 
 
 Sees lion-cub newly weaned sees it 
 
 To die by its young fangs, alas ! 
 So saw the Vindelicians 
 
 'Neath Alps of Raetia Drusus' war, 
 When, conquered by a young man's plans, 
 
 Troops, that had conquered long and far 
 Who arm with Amazonian 
 
 Axe their right hands have armed them so 
 Always ; when came the use I can 
 
 Not say ; not all things may one know 
 Felt what a mind, a temper, taught 
 
 In fostering home to bear its part, 
 Could do : how on the Neros wrought 
 
 Augustus' care his father's heart. 
 Brave souls spring from the brave and true; 
 
 Ever in steers, in colts, there is 
 The mettle of their sires, nor do 
 
 Fierce eagles breed soft doves, ywis. 
 But teaching trains the force innate ; 
 
 Right culture firms the heart; whene'er 
 Morals decay, faults vitiate 
 
 What is by nature good and fair. 
 What to the Neros Rome you owe 
 
 Metaurns' flood attests for aye, 
 And Hasdrubal your vanquished foe, 
 
 And Latium's fair and cloudless day, 
 That first smiled with kind victory 
 
 Since the dread African, Rome's bane, 
 Like flame thro' pines, swept Italy, 
 
 As Enrus sweeps Sicilian main. 
 Thenceforth with labours prosperous 
 
 Rome's youth grew strong, and temples 
 wrecked
 
 98 
 
 By Punic onslaught impious, 
 
 Beheld their Gods again erect. 
 Quoth treacherous Hannibal at length 
 
 "As stags, the prey of fierce wolves, we 
 Chase wantonly a foe whose strength 
 
 'Tis triumph rare to foil and flee. 
 The race, that from Troy's cinders bore 
 
 Bravely across the Tuscan sea 
 Thro' storms to the Ausonian shore 
 
 Its Gods, babes, manhood's chivalry 
 As, lopped by axe in dark-leaved wood 
 
 Of shady Algidus, holm-oak 
 Thro' scathes, thro' wounds, draws hardihood 
 
 And courage from the iron's stroke. 
 Not stronger grew 'gainst Hercules 
 
 The Hydra maimed, as hard bestead 
 He chafed ; not greater prodigies 
 
 Echion's Thebes and Colchis bred. 
 Plunged in the depths, it rises more 
 
 Resplendent; grapple it, it will bring 
 Down proudly unscathed conqueror, 
 
 And wage wars for its wives to sing. 
 No haughty messengers shall I 
 
 Now send to Carthage ; fallen is all 
 Our hope : fallen our fortune, aye, 
 
 Our name dead with dead Hasdrubal. 
 Naught shall the Claudian hands not do, 
 
 By Jove's kind favour evermore 
 Protected : by shrewd counsels too 
 
 Brought safely thro* the risks of war."
 
 99 
 
 Od. IF. 5 
 
 BY grace of kind Gods born, best champion 
 Of Romulus' race, too long you stay from home; 
 Upon your promise to return anon 
 
 Our sacred Council rests; keep it, and come. 
 Give to your country back, dear Chief, your light, 
 
 For, when upon our folk your face has shone, 
 Like Spring, the very sunshine seems more bright, 
 
 Aye, and more pleasantly the days pass on. 
 Even as a mother, when her boy, delayed 
 
 By South Wind's jealous breath, beyond the sea 
 Carpathian lingers, from his dear home stayed 
 
 More than a year, recalls him ceaselessly 
 By vows, by prayers, by divinations, nor, 
 
 A-watch for him, from winding coast-line turns 
 Her eyes, so with heart-longings evermore 
 
 His country for her absent Caesar yearns. 
 In safety roam our oxen over leas, 
 
 By Ceres and by kind Prosperity 
 Fattened; our sailors fly o'er peaceful seas; 
 
 Faith shrinks from blame as from an infamy; 
 Adulteries never smirch homes' fair renown; 
 
 Custom and Law have chased the impiety; 
 Children like husbands are our matrons' crown; 
 
 Hard on offence presses the penalty. 
 Who would fear Persians, or chill Scythia's hordes, 
 
 Or shaggy Germany's war-loving breeds: 
 Who would reck aught of fierce Hiberia's swords, 
 
 While Caesar's life is safe : while Caesar leads ? 
 Each on his own hills sees the sunlight fail ; 
 
 To "marriageable elm" he weds his vine;
 
 100 
 
 This done, his wine recalls him, soon to hail 
 
 You at his second course as all divine. 
 With wine from goblets poured, with many a prayer, 
 
 He honours you, and to his deities 
 He adds your Lar, as Greece, mindful of their 
 
 Exploits, hails Castor and great Hercules. 
 Long may you give, good Chief, such festival 
 
 Days to Hesperia thus, while yet the day 
 Is whole, and we athirst: thus, when we all 
 
 Have well drunk, and the sun has set, we pray. 
 
 Od.lF.6 
 
 GOD, by whose will the vaunting word 
 Of Niobe was her children's knell: 
 Whom Tityos knew, and Phthia's lord, 
 
 Before whose might Troy all but fell, 
 A peerless warrior, but for thee 
 
 No match, tho', as the Sea-Queen's son, 
 Fighting with spear tremendous, he 
 
 Shook the tall towers of Ilion. 
 He, as a pine by keen axe thrown, 
 
 Or cypress felled by East Wind's gust, 
 Fell great and greatly, and laid down 
 
 His haughty neck in Trojan dust. 
 Not he, in horse, feigned offering 
 
 To Pallas' honour, would betray 
 Trojans untimely revelling, 
 
 And Priam's hall with dancers gay, 
 But, stern to foes ta'en openly, 
 
 He'd burn with Greek fires ah, the sit 
 Of it! small boys, yet infants, aye, 
 
 And babes their mothers' wombs within;
 
 101 
 
 Had not, by kindly Venus' prayers 
 
 And thine impelled, the Sire most High 
 Granted Aeneas and his heirs 
 
 Walls traced with happier augury. 
 Of sweet Thalia's psaltery 
 
 Master, who lav'st thy flowing hair 
 In Xanthus, beardless Way-God, be 
 
 The Daunian Muse's pride thy care. 
 My genius is of Phoebus' dower, 
 
 Aye, and my art; he gives to me 
 My poet's name. O virgins' flower, 
 
 And boys of noble ancestry, 
 Wards of the Delian Goddess, who 
 
 Stays flying stags and lynxes fleet, 
 Be to the Lesbian measures true, 
 
 And mark my thumb's controlling beat, 
 Duly exalting Leto's son, 
 
 Duly the Night-Queen's crescent light, 
 Who brings full crops, and hurries on 
 
 The months' career their onward flight. 
 "Trained to the modes" anon you'll say 
 
 As bride "of Horace, poet-seer, 
 On our centennial holiday 
 
 I sang a song Gods loved to hear." 
 
 Od. IF. 7 
 
 THE snows have fled ; returns to every mead 
 Its grass, its crown of leaves to every tree ; 
 Earth changes with the change ; at lessened speed, 
 
 Within their banks the rivers seek the sea. 
 The Graces and the Nymphs with never a fear 
 All naked dance the happy hours away;
 
 102 
 
 Look not for things immortal warns the year, 
 
 Aye, and the hour that steals the gracious day. 
 West winds abate the frosts ; summer anon 
 
 Tramples on Spring, itself to disappear 
 As Autumn sheds its fruits ; then, Autumn gone, 
 
 Winter comes back to close the working-year. 
 Yet, fast as moons wane in the sky, as fast 
 
 They wax ; but we, poor mortals, when we fare 
 Whither Aeneas, Tullus, Ancus passed, 
 
 Are naught but dust here, naught but shadows there. 
 Who knows whether the gods who reign above 
 
 Add a new day's span to the sum of this? 
 Live while you live; that which the soul you love, 
 
 Your self, enjoys, your greedy heir will miss. 
 Once you are dead, once Minos, judge of men, 
 
 Has fixed by doom august your destiny, 
 Not rank, Torquatus, shall restore you then; 
 
 Not eloquence ; not even piety. 
 Dian despite, Hippolytus remains, 
 
 Chaste tho' he was, hidden in nether gloom; 
 Nor can the love of Theseus break the chains 
 
 That hold Peirithous in dark Lethe's tomb. 
 
 Od.IF.8 
 
 GLADLY I'd give my boon companions, 
 To suit their tastes, goblets and bronzes rare, 
 And tripods, prizes of Greek champions, 
 
 Nor, Censorinus, would you get least share, 
 That is, if with such gems my house were filled, 
 
 Such as Parrhasius or Scopas wrought, 
 The one in stone, with paints the other, skilled 
 To image God or man, as genius taught.
 
 103 
 
 / 
 
 But I have no such store, nor have such things 
 
 Aught that your fortunes lack, or tempers crave ; 
 In song is your delight; as offerings 
 
 Songs we can give, and tell what worth they have. 
 Not marbles graven with records of proud feats, 
 
 Whereby return their breath to warriors dead 
 And life : not Hannibal's hurried retreats, 
 
 No, nor his threats' recoil on his own head, 
 More gloriously manifest his praise 
 
 Who won from conquered Africa a name, 
 Than the Calabrian Muses ; nor, if lays 
 
 Were silent, would you get your meed of fame. 
 What would the son of Mars and Ilia be, 
 
 If jealous silence buried Romulus, 
 And his deserts? Not his integrity 
 
 Alone from Stygian waves snatched Aeacus, 
 And raised him in blest isles to deity, 
 
 Nay, but great poets' voices too and grace. 
 Who praise deserves, the Muse forbids to die. 
 
 With heaven she blesses. Thus she make a place 
 For Hercules where high Jove feasts the blest; 
 
 Thus the Tyndaridae, bright luminaries, 
 Snatch from profoundest depths ships storm-distrest; 
 
 Thus Liber satisfies his votaries. 
 
 Od. IF. 9 
 
 LEST you should fancy that the songs which I, 
 By Aufidus' far-sounding waters sprung, 
 With modes of art till then unknown, have sung 
 Songs to be married to the lyre will die, 
 Think that, if to Maeonian Homer pride 
 
 Of place belongs, yet Pindar's song remains; 
 The Cean Muse, Alcaeus' warlike strains,
 
 104 
 
 Stesichorus' stately epics, still abide. 
 Time has not rased Anacreon's minstrelsy, 
 
 His merry songs; still breathes the love, still burn 
 
 The fires, entrusted to her sad cithern 
 By the Aeolian maid in years gone by. 
 Not Spartan Helen only has admired 
 
 A gay gallant's tressed locks, his broidery 
 
 Of gold, his princely pomp, his company, 
 And with the vision has been passion-fired. 
 Not first did Teucer from Cydonian bow 
 
 Shoot shafts ; not only once has Ilion 
 
 Been sacked; not huge Idomeneus alone, 
 Or Sthenelus waged warfare long ago 
 Worthy the Muses' song; not first did haught 
 
 Hector and keen Deiphobus await, 
 
 And meet, fierce blows in combats passionate 
 For innocent wives and tender children fought. 
 Before the age of Agamemnon wight 
 
 Lived many a hero, but unwept, unknown, 
 
 Because no sacred bard hymned their renown, 
 They, one and all, lie whelmed in endless night 
 'Twixt valour hid and buried cowardice 
 
 Small is the difference ; never will I, 
 
 In what I write, pass you unhonoured by, 
 In silence, Lollius, nor in any wyse 
 Suffer green-eyed oblivion to wear 
 
 Your many deeds away, unchecked by song. 
 
 Yours is the statesman's soul, upright and strong, 
 Or in misfortune, or in fortune fair : 
 Of greedy guile avenger stern, unmoved 
 
 By all-seducing gold's attraction, 
 
 A consul it, not of one year alone,
 
 105 
 
 But ever when, as judge true and approved, 
 It has set Right before expediency: 
 
 Has scorned offenders' bribes with proud disdain: 
 
 Has thro' opposing ranks cloven amain 
 Its way, its stedfast march, to victory. 
 Not rightly will you speak of him as blest 
 
 Whose wealth is many things ; more truly he 
 
 Can claim the title, "Blest/' who, skilled to see 
 What wisdom bids, uses at wisdom's hest 
 The gifts of heaven : can bear hard poverty : 
 
 Who dreads far worse than death dishonour's brand; 
 
 No coward he, who for his motherland 
 And comrades dear would never fear to die. 
 
 Od.W.lO 
 
 HARD-HEARTED yet, and strong with strength of 
 of Venus' gifts of grace, 
 When grows to your despair thick down upon your 
 
 proud young face, 
 
 And when the hair is cut that now about your shoul- 
 ders flows, 
 And when the hue that now transcends the scarlet of 
 
 the rose, 
 Changed, Ligurinus, shall have made your face a 
 
 shaggy mask, 
 Then, as the glass reflects the change, you'll cry, 
 
 "Ah me," and ask, 
 "Why had I not the mind that now is mine in young- 
 
 sterhood : 
 Or why return not my fresh cheeks to match my 
 
 present mood?"
 
 106 
 
 Od. IF. 11 . 
 
 I HAVE a cask of Alban, more 
 Than nine years old; my garden-ground; 
 Phyllis, of parsley have good store, 
 
 For chaplets meet; ivy abounds 
 Sprays that show out your beauty's sheen, 
 
 Binding your hair; the house looks good 
 With silver plate; with vervain green, 
 
 The altar claims a slain lamb's blood. 
 All hands are busy; to and fro 
 
 Run boys and girls in companies; 
 The fire-flames flicker as they go 
 
 Upward, and black smoke-eddies rise. 
 What joys invite you ? Well, the Ides 
 
 Claim your attendance, be it known 
 Mid-April's feast-day that divides 
 
 The month that Venus counts her own : 
 Rightly a feast for me, well nigh 
 
 More sacred than my birth's event, 
 For from this anniversary 
 
 Maecenas tells his life's ascent. 
 You long for Telephus, a lad 
 
 Not of your class ; a wealthy maid 
 Has snapped him up, and holds him, glad 
 
 To be her prisoner saucy jade. 
 From greed's ambitions Phaethon 
 
 Consumed deters ; the tale that tells 
 How Pegasus flung Bellerophon, 
 
 Scorning his earth-born rider, spells 
 Warning to you that you should choose 
 
 Meet things : should cut too venturesome
 
 107 
 
 Hopes down as sinful : should refuse 
 A mate unequal. Come, then, come, 
 
 Last of my loves, for not again 
 Shall I love woman ; learn my lays, 
 
 That your dear voice may lilt each strain; 
 All gloom, all troubles, song allays. 
 
 Od.IF.12 
 
 BREEZES from Thrace, that come with Spring 
 To fill our sails, now calm the waves; 
 
 Unfed by snows, no longer raves 
 The stream; frost is no longer king. 
 Now nests the unhappy bird that must 
 
 For ever mourn Itys a shame 
 
 Eternal, she, to Cecrops' name, 
 Whose crime avenged Kings' barbarous lust. 
 Our failings' warders sing their loves 
 
 To Pan-pipe's music on green swards, 
 
 And gladden him whose favour guards 
 Arcadia's flocks, and dark hill-groves. 
 Virgil, the days are thirsty days, 
 
 But, if you want Calenian, then, 
 
 As client of young noblemen, 
 Bring with you nard ; he drinks who pays. 
 A box will draw a cask, my friend, 
 
 Now in Sulpician stores laid up ; 
 
 There's hope, fresh hope, in every cup, 
 And of all bitter cares an end. 
 If on these joys you're keen, then come 
 
 Quick with the stuff ; I don't incline 
 
 To soak you gratis with my wine,
 
 108 
 
 As might a rich man in full home. 
 
 Quick, quit your usury. Time is fleet. 
 Think, while you may, of funeral flames, 
 And blend brief folly with your aims; 
 
 Folly, in folly's hour, is sweet. 
 
 Od.lF.13 
 
 LYCE, the Gods have heard my prayer ; 
 They've heard it, Lyce; you grow ok- 
 And yet you wish to pose as fair, 
 
 And drink and wanton brazen-bold. 
 Drunken, you woo with quavering tongu^ 
 
 Unwilling Cupid ; ah, but he 
 Keeps watch on the fair cheeks of young 
 
 Chia, queen of the psaltery. 
 Past withered oaks he wings his flight 
 
 Ruthless, and you, yes you, he flies 
 Because tan teeth, hair snowy-white, 
 
 And wrinkles, smirch you in his eyei. 
 Nor Coan silks, nor jewelry, 
 
 Bring back the years of youth and prime . 
 Years stored in public history, 
 
 And sealed therein by winged Time. 
 Your beauty, radiance, grace what deatt 
 
 Has chased them? What is there to se^. 
 Of what you were of her whose breath 
 
 Breathed love : who stole my heart from m^, 
 A presence after Cinara's blest, 
 
 Winsome, renowned where is it? Where) 
 But fate gave Cinara at the best 
 
 Few years; having intent to spare
 
 109 
 
 i 
 Lyce to rival an old crow, 
 
 That ardent swains, coming to view 
 Your beauty's torch, might see it now 
 
 Fallen to ash, and laugh at you. 
 
 Od. IF. 14 
 
 AT zeal of Senate or of people may 
 With fitting meed of honours eternize, 
 Augustus, your all-worthiness for aye, 
 
 By graven inscriptions and State-histories? 
 Prince of all princes mightiest, wheresoe'er 
 
 The sun illumes earth's peoples with his light, 
 Whom the Vindelici, untaught to bear 
 
 Rome's yoke, have lately learnt to know your might 
 In war, for Drusus, with your soldiery, 
 
 With more than mere requital, overthrew 
 Fiercely the turbulent Genauni, aye, 
 
 And swiftly marching Brenni strongholds too 
 Perched on the awful Alps. This warfare won, 
 
 The elder Nero clashed in furious fight 
 With the gigantic Raeti, and anon 
 
 Put them, with happy auspices, to flight. 
 A gallant sight he was, as gallantly 
 
 With mighty shocks his battle smote amain 
 Hearts freely dedicate to liberty 
 
 Or death well nigh as Auster sweeps the main 
 Tameless, what time the Pleiads' choir on high 
 
 Disparts the clouds eager to thrust his way 
 Thro' enemy ranks, and ride his fiery 
 
 Steed thro' the heat and fury of the fray. 
 As bull-like Aufidus, whose waters pass 
 
 Apulian Daunus' realm, rolls in his pride,
 
 no 
 
 What time he fumes, and, fuming, plots, alas ! 
 
 A flood whose waves shall waste the countryside, 
 So Qaudius overwhelmed with rush far-sped 
 
 The mailed barbarians' hosts, as, mowing down 
 Front ranks and rear, he strewed the battle-stead 
 
 With slain, and won, unscathed, the victor's crown. 
 You gave the troops, you gave the plan, yours were 
 
 The favouring auspices, for on the day 
 That Alexandria humbly opened her 
 
 Harbours and empty palace, as your prey, 
 On this same day, three lustres passed, Good Speed, 
 
 Which gave unbroken victory to your hands, 
 Has added this renown, and longed-for meed 
 
 Of glory, to your earlier commands. 
 You the Cantabrian, whom none could tame 
 
 Before : you Parthian, Indian, Scythian 
 Nomad, revere you of the Italian name, 
 
 And sovereign Rome, abiding Guardian. 
 The Nile and Hister, streams that hide their springs. 
 
 Tigris' fast-flowing flood: your beck abide; 
 Aye, and the monster-teeming Main that flings 
 
 On far Britannia's shore its breakers' pride. 
 You claim the allegiance of the Gallic land, 
 
 That fears not death, of rough Hiberia too; 
 The blood-thirsty Sygambri, to your hand 
 
 Brought, lay aside their arms, and reverence you. 
 
 Od. IV. 15 
 
 PHOEBUS with lyre forbade me, fain 
 To tell of captured fort and fray, 
 To sail upon the Tuscan main 
 
 My little bark. Caesar, your sway 
 Has brought back plenty to our land : 
 Has given, from Parthian doors reta'en,
 
 Ill 
 
 Our standards to our Jove; your hand 
 
 Has closed Quirinal Janus' fane 
 In peace : has curbed the wild abuse 
 
 Of lawless license : has removed 
 Faults, and recalled to us the use 
 
 Of virtues that our fathers loved, 
 Whence grew to strength the Latin name 
 
 The imperial majesty, that won 
 For Italy a world-wide fame, 
 
 From setting unto rising sun. 
 While Caesar rules nor civic raves, 
 
 Nor force, shall banish our repose, 
 No, nor the rage that forges glaives, 
 
 And brings unhappy towns to blows. 
 The Julian law none shall defy 
 
 Not they who drink the Danube's flood, 
 Not Getae, Seres, slippery 
 
 Persians, not Tanais' savage brood. 
 And we on common days and high, 
 
 'Mid rites to merry Liber paid, 
 With children and with matrons by, 
 
 After devotions duly made, 
 Will sing, as forbears wont to do, 
 
 Leaders who lived brave lives and fair, 
 To Lydian flute Anchises too, 
 
 And Troy, and kindly Venus' heir. 
 
 The Secular Hymn 
 
 T)HOEBUS and Dian, woodland Queen, 
 *- Glory of heaven's resplendent sheen, 
 Worshipped and worshipful for aye, 
 Grant us the boons we seek to-day: 
 On which the Sibyl's runes require 
 That boys and girls, a holy choir,
 
 112 
 
 Shall sing unto the Gods who care 
 
 For our seven hills a hymn of prayer. 
 
 Kind Sun, whose chariot on its way 
 
 Opens and closes every day: 
 
 Who risest different yet the same, 
 
 May'st never view what shrinks Rome's fame ! 
 
 Who openest ripe wombs of thy right 
 
 Full gently, Ilithyia hight, 
 
 Or, if thou wilt, Lucina, bless 
 
 Our mothers, as birth's Patroness. 
 
 Goddess, bring up our youth, and speed 
 
 That which the Fathers have decreed 
 
 Wedlock anent the law whereby 
 
 Marriage creates the family, 
 
 That each fixed cycle, covering 
 
 Ten times eleven years, may bring 
 
 Anthems and games, thronged in daylight 
 
 Three times, and three times in the night. 
 
 Ye Fates, whose prophecies are sure, 
 
 As promised may the pledge endure 
 
 By grace of our great Land-Mark's stay! 
 
 Add new to old good speed, we pray. 
 
 With crops and herds rich, may our land 
 
 Bid Ceres crowned with wheat-ears stand; 
 
 May Jove with many a favouring breeze, 
 
 And kindly rains, bless our increase. 
 
 Gentle and kind, with bow laid by, 
 
 Apollo, hear our striplings' cry; 
 
 Queen of the stars, with crescent brows, 
 
 O Luna, hear our maidens' vows. 
 
 If Rome is yours, and Ilion bore 
 
 The folk who won the Etruscan shore 
 
 A remnant, called to Lares new 
 
 And homes, and safely brought thereto 
 
 For whom, unscathed when Ilion flamed,
 
 113 
 
 Outliving Troy, Aeneas, named 
 
 The Good, to give them more than they 
 
 Had lost, carved out an open way, 
 
 To docile youth grant honesty, 
 
 Ye Gods, to eld tranquility; 
 
 Give to the Romuleian race 
 
 Offspring, and means, and every grace. 
 
 What Venus' and Anchises' heir 
 
 Asks, with white steers to plead his prayer, 
 
 That give him : let him crush each foe 
 
 In arms, but spare a foe laid low. 
 
 By sea and land before his power, 
 
 And Alban axes, Parthians cower; 
 
 Now Indians, Scyths, once insolent, 
 
 Wait upon his arbitrament. 
 
 Now Faith and Peace and Chivalry 
 
 Return with pristine Modesty; 
 
 Virtue ignored dares re-appear, 
 
 And Plenty with full horn is here. 
 
 Surely as Phoebus, archer-seer. 
 
 Adorned with radiant bow, and dear 
 
 To the nine Muses he whose skill 
 
 Healthgiving heals limbs tired and ill 
 
 Sees Palatine heights with kind face, 
 
 He lengthens out a lustre's space, 
 
 And on to aeons of success, 
 
 Rome's weal and Latium's happiness, 
 
 Diana too, whom Aventine 
 
 Hill and Mount Algidus enshrine, 
 
 Heeds our Fifteen Priests' prayers, and hears 
 
 Our children's vows with gracious ears. 
 
 That Jove and all the Gods assent 
 
 We bear back home hope confident, 
 
 And sure the chorus trained to praise 
 
 Phoebus and Dian with glad lays.
 
 114 
 
 VARIAE LECTIONES 
 I, 24, line 12 
 
 That not thus did you bid them keep your friend. 
 I, 24, 20 
 
 . . . naught may remedy. 
 I, 37, lines 30-32 
 
 She grudged Rome's galleys, haughty dame, 
 That she, reft of her royalty, 
 
 In triumph led, should flaunt Rome's fame. 
 Ill, 13, line 13 
 
 The fame of famous fountains shall 
 Be thine, 
 
 III, 23, lines 25-30 
 
 A giftless hand a hand not made 
 
 By victim of great price 
 More coaxing on the altar laid, 
 
 As offering sacrifice, 
 
 Soothes angered House-Gods by the appeal 
 Of crackling salt and pious meal. 
 
 IV, 7, line 22 
 
 By flaming doom has fixed your destiny, 
 IV, 13, line 4 
 
 Whose swelling brows young horns uprear, 
 Secular Hymn, lines 26-27 
 
 As ye once promised and may your 
 
 Pledge stand thro' our firm Landmark's stay 
 
 W. H. M.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 FEB26 1357 
 
 FED 4 1963 
 
 
 i 
 
 w 
 
 w* 
 
 JUN26 
 
 I.D/URL 
 
 07 19 89 
 
 Form L9-42m-8,'49(B5573)444 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 3 1158 00978 8448 
 
 il 
 
 001410603 3