Complete Works of Horace (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics)

by Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus

  EPODE XVI.

  TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE.

  Now is another age worn away by civil wars, and Rome herself falls by her own strength. Whom neither the bordering Marsi could destroy, nor the Etrurian band of the menacing Porsena, nor the rival valor of Capua, nor the bold Spartacus, and the Gauls perfideous with their innovations; nor did the fierce Germany subdue with its blue-eyed youth, nor Annibal, detested by parents; but we, an impious race, whose blood is devoted to perdition, shall destroy her: and this land shall again be possessed by wild beasts. The victorious barbarian, alas! shall trample upon the ashes of the city, and the horsemen shall smite it with the sounding hoofs; and (horrible to see!) he shall insultingly disperse the bones of Romulus, which [as yet] are free from the injuries of wind and sun. Perhaps you all in general, or the better part of you, are inquisitive to know, what may be expedient, in order to escape [such] dreadful evils. There can be no determination better than this; namely, to go wherever our feet will carry us, wherever the south or boisterous south-west shall summon us through the waves; in the same manner as the state of the Phocaeans fled, after having uttered execrations [against such as should return], and left their fields and proper dwellings and temples to be inhabited by boars and ravenous wolves. Is this agreeable? has any one a better scheme to advise? Why do we delay to go on ship-board under an auspicious omen? But first let us swear to these conditions — the stones shall swim upward, lifted from the bottom of the sea, as soon as it shall not be impious to return; nor let it grieve us to direct our sails homeward, when the Po shall wash the tops of the Matinian summits; or the lofty Apennine shall remove into the sea, or a miraculous appetite shall unite monsters by a strange kind of lust; Insomuch that tigers may delight to couple with hinds, and the dove be polluted with the kite; nor the simple herds may dread the brindled lions, and the he-goat, grown smooth, may love the briny main. After having sworn to these things, and whatever else may cut off the pleasing: hope of returning, let us go, the whole city of us, or at least that part which is superior to the illiterate mob: let the idle and despairing part remain upon these inauspicious habitations. Ye, that have bravery, away with effeminate grief, and fly beyond the Tuscan shore. The ocean encircling the land awaits us; let us seek the happy plains and prospering Islands, where the untilled land yearly produces corn, and the unpruned vineyard punctually flourishes; and where the branch of the never-failing olive blossoms forth, and the purple fig adorns its native tree: honey distills from the hollow oaks; the light water bounds down from the high mountains with a murmuring pace. There the she-goats come to the milk-pails of their own accord, and the friendly flock return with their udders distended; nor does the bear at evening growl about the sheepfold, nor does the rising ground swell with vipers; and many more things shall we, happy [Romans], view with admiration: how neither the rainy east lays waste the corn-fields with profuse showers, nor is the fertile seed burned by a dry glebe; the king of gods moderating both [extremes]. The pine rowed by the Argonauts never attempted to come hither; nor did the lascivious [Medea] of Colchis set her foot [in this place]: hither the Sidonian mariners never turned their sail-yards, nor the toiling crew of Ulysses. No contagious distempers hurt the flocks; nor does the fiery violence of any constellation scorch the herd. Jupiter set apart these shores for a pious people, when he debased the golden age with brass: with brass, then with iron he hardened the ages; from which there shall be a happy escape for the good, according to my predictions.

  EPODE XVII.

  DIALOGUE BETWEEN HORACE AND CANIDIA.

  Now, now I yield to powerful science; and suppliant beseech thee by the dominions of Proserpine, and by the inflexible divinity of Diana, and by the books of incantations able to call down the stars displaced from the firmament; O Canidia, at length desist from thine imprecations, and quickly turn, turn back thy magical machine. Telephus moved [with compassion] the grandson of Nereus, against whom he arrogantly had put his troops of Mysians in battle-array, and against whom he had darted his sharp javelins. The Trojan matrons embalmed the body of the man-slaying Hector, which had been condemned to birds of prey, and dogs, after king [Priam], having left the walls of the city, prostrated himself, alas! at the feet of the obstinate Achilles. The mariners of the indefatigable Ulysses, put off their limbs, bristled with the hard skins [of swine], at the will of Circe: then their reason and voice were restored, and their former comeliness to their countenances. I have suffered punishment enough, and more than enough, on thy account, O thou so dearly beloved by the sailors and factors. My vigor is gone away, and my ruddy complexion has left me; my bones are covered with a ghastly skin; my hair with your preparations is grown hoary. No ease respites me from my sufferings: night presses upon day, and day upon night: nor is it in my power to relieve my lungs, which are strained with gasping. Wherefore, wretch that I am, I am compelled to credit (what was denied, by me) that the charms of the Samnites discompose the breast, and the head splits in sunder at the Marsian incantations. What wouldst thou have more? O sea! O earth! I burn in such a degree as neither Hercules did, besmeared with the black gore of Nessus, nor the fervid flame burning In the Sicilian Aetna. Yet you, a laboratory of Colchian poisons, remain on fire, till I [reduced to] a dry ember, shall be wafted away by the injurious winds. What event, or what penalty awaits me? Speak out: I will with honor pay the demanded mulct; ready to make an expiation, whether you should require a hundred steers, or chose to be celebrated on a lying lyre. You, a woman of modesty, you, a woman of probity, shall traverse the stars, as a golden constellation. Castor and the brother of the great Castor, offended at the infamy brought on [their sister] Helen, yet overcome by entreaty, restored to the poet his eyes that were taken away from him. And do you (for it is in your power) extricate me from this frenzy; O you, that are neither defiled by family meanness, nor skillful to disperse the ashes of poor people, after they have been nine days interred. You have an hospitable breast, and unpolluted hands; and Pactumeius is your son, and thee the midwife has tended; and, whenever you bring forth, you spring up with unabated vigor.

  CANIDIA’S ANSWER.

  Why do you pour forth your entreaties to ears that are closely shut [against them]? The wintery ocean, with its briny tempests, does not lash rocks more deaf to the cries of the naked mariners. What, shall you, without being made an example of, deride the Cotyttian mysteries, sacred to unrestrained love, which were divulged [by you]? And shall you, [assuming the office] of Pontiff [with regard to my] Esquilian incantations, fill the city with my name unpunished? What did it avail me to have enriched the Palignian sorceress [with my charms], and to have prepared poison of greater expedition, if a slower fate awaits you than is agreeable to my wishes? An irksome life shall be protracted by you, wretch as you are, for this purpose, that you may perpetually be able to endure new tortures. Tantalus, the perfidious sire of Pelops, ever craving after the plenteous banquet [which is always before him], wishes for respite; Prometheus, chained to the vulture, wishes [for rest]; Sisyphus wishes to place the stone on the summit of the mountain: but the laws of Jupiter forbid. Thus you shall desire at one time to leap down from a high tower, at another to lay open your breast with the Noric sword; and, grieving with your tedious indisposition, shall tie nooses about your neck in vain. I at that time will ride on your odious shoulders; and the whole earth shall acknowledge my unexampled power. What shall I who can give motion to waxen images (as you yourself, inquisitive as you are, were convinced of) and snatch the moon from heaven by my incantations; I, who can raise the dead after they are burned, and duly prepare the potion of love, shall I bewail the event of my art having no efficacy upon you?

  EPODES (VERSE)

  Translated by Sir Theodore Martin

  CONTENTS

  EPODE I.

  EPODE II.

  EPODE III.

  EPODE IV.

  EPODE V.

  EPODE VI.

  EPODE VII.

  EPODE IX.

  EPODE X.

  EP
ODE XI.

  EPODE XIII.

  EPODE XIV.

  EPODE XV.

  EPODE XVI.

  EPODE XVII.

  Please note: Martin did not translate Epode VIII and XII. Please refer to the prose translation for this Epode.

  EPODE I.

  TO MÆCENAS.

  IF thou in thy Liburnians go

  Amid the bulwarked galleys of the foe,

  Resolved, my friend Maecenas, there

  All Cæsar’s dangers as thine own to share,

  What shall we do, whose life is gay

  Whilst thou art here, but sad with thee away?

  Obedient to thy will, shall we

  Seek ease, not sweet, unless ’tis shared by thee?

  Or shall we with such spirit share

  Thy toils, as men of gallant heart should bear?

  Bear them we will; and Alpine peak

  Scale by thy side, or Caucasus the bleak;

  Or follow thee with dauntless breast

  Into the farthest ocean of the West.

  And shouldst thou ask, how I could aid

  Thy task, unwarlike I, and feebly made?

  Near thee my fears, I answer, would

  Be less, than did I absent o’er them brood;

  As of her young, if they were left,

  The bird more dreads by snakes to be bereft,

  Than if she brooded on her nest,

  Although she could not thus their doom arrest.

  Gladly, in hopes your grace to gain,

  I’ll share in this or any fresh campaign!

  Not, trust me, that more oxen may,

  Yoked in my ploughshares, turn the yielding clay,

  Nor that, to ‘scape midsummer’s heat,

  My herds may to Leucanian pastures sweet

  From my Calabrian meadows change;

  Nor I erect upon the sunny range

  Of Tusculum, by Circe’s walls,

  A gorgeous villa’s far-seen marble halls!

  Enough and more thy bounty has

  Bestowed on me; I care not to amass

  Wealth, either, like old Chremes in the play,

  To hide in earth; or fool, like spendthrift heir, away!

  EPODE II.

  ALPHIUS.

  HAPPY the man, in busy schemes unskilled,

  Who, living simply, like our sires of old,

  Tills the few acres which his father tilled,

  Vexed by no thoughts of usury or gold;

  The shrilling clarion ne’er his slumber mars,

  Nor quails he at the howl of angry seas;

  He shuns the forum with its wordy jars,

  Nor at a great man’s door consents to freeze.

  The tender vine-shoots, budding into life,

  He with the stately poplar-tree doth wed,

  Lopping the fruitless branches with his knife,

  And grafting shoots of promise in their stead;

  Or in some valley, up among the hills,

  Watches his wandering herds-of lowing kine,

  Or fragrant jars with liquid honey fills,

  Or shears his silly sheep in sunny shine;

  Or when Autumnus o’er the smiling land

  Lifts up his head with rosy apples crowned,

  Joyful he plucks the pears, which erst his hand

  Graffed on the stem they’re weighing to the ground;

  Plucks grapes in noble clusters purple-dyed,

  A gift for thee, Priapus, and for thee,

  Father Sylvanus, where thou dost preside,

  Warding his bounds beneath thy sacred tree.

  Now he may stretch his careless limbs to rest,

  Where some old ilex spreads its sacred roof;

  Now in the sunshine lie, as likes him best,

  On grassy turf of close elastic woof.

  And streams the while glide on with murmurs low,

  And birds are singing ‘mong the thickets deep,

  And fountains babble, sparkling as they flow,

  And with their noise invite to gentle sleep.

  But when grim winter conies, and o’er his grounds

  Scatters its biting snows with angry roar,

  He takes the field, and with a cry of hounds

  Hunts down into the toils the foaming boar;

  Or seeks the thrush, poor starveling, to ensnare,

  In filmy net with bait delusive stored,

  Entraps the travelled crane, and timorous hare,

  Rare dainties these to glad his frugal board.

  Who amid joys like these would not forget

  The pangs which love to all its victims bears,

  The fever of the brain, the ceaseless fret,

  And all the heart’s lamentings and despairs?

  But if a chaste and blooming wife, beside,

  His cheerful home with sweet young blossoms fills,

  Like some stout Sabine, or the sunburnt bride

  Of the lithe peasant of the Apulian hills,

  Who piles the hearth with logs well dried and old

  Against the coming of her wearied lord,

  And, when at eve the cattle seek the fold,

  Drains their full udders of the milky hoard;

  And bringing forth from her well-tended store

  A jar of wine, the vintage of the year,

  Spreads an unpurchased feast, — oh then, not more

  Could choicest Lucrine oysters give me cheer,

  Or the rich turbot, or the dainty char,

  If ever to our bays the winter’s blast

  Should drive them in its fury from afar;

  Nor were to me a welcomer repast

  The Afric hen or the Ionic snipe,

  Than olives newly gathered from the tree,

  That hangs abroad its clusters rich and ripe,

  Or sorrel, that doth love the pleasant lea,

  Or mallows wholesome for the body’s need,

  Or lamb foredoomed upon some festal day

  In offering to the guardian gods to bleed,

  Or kidling which the wolf hath marked for prey.

  What joy, amidst such feasts, to see the sheep,

  Full of the pasture, hurrying homewards come,

  To see the wearied oxen, as they creep,

  Dragging the upturned ploughshare slowly home!

  Or, ranged around the bright and blazing hearth,

  To see the hinds, a house’s surest wealth,

  Beguile the evening with their simple mirth,

  And all the cheerfulness of rosy health!

  Thus spake the miser Alphius; and, bent

  Upon a country life, called in amain

  The money he at usury had lent;

  But ere the month was out, ’twas lent again.

  EPODE III.

  TO MÆCENAS.

  IF his old father’s throat any impious sinner

  Has cut with unnatural hand to the bone,

  Give him garlic, more noxious than hemlock, at dinner;

  Ye gods! The strong stomachs that reapers must own!

  With what poison is this that my vitals are heated?

  By viper’s blood — certes, it cannot be less —

  Stewed into the potherbs, can I have been cheated?

  Or Canidia, did she cook the damnable mess?

  When Medea was smit by the handsome sea-rover,

  Who in beauty outshone all his Argonaut band,

  This mixture she took to lard Jason all over,

  And so tamed the fire-breathing bulls to his hand.

  With this her fell presents she dyed and infected,

  On his innocent leman avenging the slight

  Of her terrible beauty, forsaken, neglected,

  And then on her car, dragon-wafted, took flight.

  Never star on Apulia, the thirsty and arid,

  Exhaled a more baleful or pestilent dew,

  And the gift, which invincible Hercules carried,

  Burned not to his bones more remorselessly through.

  Should you e’er
long again for such relish as this is,

  Devoutly I’ll pray, friend Mæcenas, I vow,

  With her hand that your mistress arrest all your kisses,

  And lie as far off as the couch will allow.

  EPODE IV.

  TO MENAS.

  SUCH hate as nature meant to be

  ‘Twixt lamb and wolf feel I for thee,

  Whose hide by Spanish scourge is tanned,

  And legs still bear the fetter’s brand!

  Though of your gold you strut, so rain,

  Wealth cannot change the knave in grain.

  How! See you not, when striding down

  The Via Sacra in your gown

  Good six ells wide, the passers there

  Turn on you with indignant stare?

  “This wretch,” such jibes your ear invade,

  “By the triumvir’s scourges flayed,