Though Phoebus thrice in brazen mail
Should case her towers, they thrice should fall,
Storm’d by my Greeks: thrice wives should wail
Husband and son, themselves in thrall.”
— Such thunders from the lyre of love!
Back, wayward Muse! refrain, refrain
To tell the talk of gods above,
And dwarf high themes in puny strain.
ODE IV.
DESCENDE CAELO.
Come down, Calliope, from above:
Breathe on the pipe a strain of fire;
Or if a graver note thou love,
With Phoebus’ cittern and his lyre.
You hear her? or is this the play
Of fond illusion? Hark! meseems
Through gardens of the good I stray,
‘Mid murmuring gales and purling streams.
Me, as I lay on Vultur’s steep,
A truant past Apulia’s bound,
O’ertired, poor child, with play and sleep,
With living green the stock-doves crown’d —
A legend, nay, a miracle,
By Acherontia’s nestlings told,
By all in Bantine glade that dwell,
Or till the rich Forentan mould.
“Bears, vipers, spared him as he lay,
The sacred garland deck’d his hair,
The myrtle blended with the bay:
The child’s inspired: the gods were there.”
Your grace, sweet Muses, shields me still
On Sabine heights, or lets me range
Where cool Praeneste, Tibur’s hill,
Or liquid Baiae proffers change.
Me to your springs, your dances true,
Philippi bore not to the ground,
Nor the doom’d tree in falling slew,
Nor billowy Palinurus drown’d.
Grant me your presence, blithe and fain
Mad Bosporus shall my bark explore;
My foot shall tread the sandy plain
That glows beside Assyria’s shore;
‘Mid Briton tribes, the stranger’s foe,
And Spaniards, drunk with horses’ blood,
And quiver’d Scythians, will I go
Unharm’d, and look on Tanais’ flood.
When Caesar’s self in peaceful town
The weary veteran’s home has made,
You bid him lay his helmet down
And rest in your Pierian shade.
Mild thoughts you plant, and joy to see
Mild thoughts take root. The nations know
How with descending thunder He
The impious Titans hurl’d below,
Who rules dull earth and stormy seas,
And towns of men, and realms of pain,
And gods, and mortal companies,
Alone, impartial in his reign.
Yet Jove had fear’d the giant rush,
Their upraised arms, their port of pride,
And the twin brethren bent to push
Huge Pelion up Olympus’ side.
But Typhon, Mimas, what could these,
Or what Porphyrion’s stalwart scorn,
Rhoetus, or he whose spears were trees,
Enceladus, from earth uptorn,
As on they rush’d in mad career
‘Gainst Pallas’ shield? Here met the foe
Fierce Vulcan, queenly Juno here,
And he who ne’er shall quit his bow,
Who laves in clear Castalian flood
His locks, and loves the leafy growth
Of Lycia next his native wood,
The Delian and the Pataran both.
Strength, mindless, falls by its own weight;
Strength, mix’d with mind, is made more strong
By the just gods, who surely hate
The strength whose thoughts are set on wrong.
Let hundred-handed Gyas bear
His witness, and Orion known
Tempter of Dian, chaste and fair,
By Dian’s maiden dart o’erthrown.
Hurl’d on the monstrous shapes she bred,
Earth groans, and mourns her children thrust
To Orcus; Aetna’s weight of lead
Keeps down the fire that breaks its crust;
Still sits the bird on Tityos’ breast,
The warder of unlawful love;
Still suffers lewd Pirithous, prest
By massive chains no hand may move.
ODE V.
CAELO TONANTEM.
Jove rules in heaven, his thunder shows;
Henceforth Augustus earth shall own
Her present god, now Briton foes
And Persians bow before his throne.
Has Crassus’ soldier ta’en to wife
A base barbarian, and grown grey
(Woe, for a nation’s tainted life!)
Earning his foemen-kinsmen’s pay,
His king, forsooth, a Mede, his sire
A Marsian? can he name forget,
Gown, sacred shield, undying fire,
And Jove and Rome are standing yet?
’Twas this that Regulus foresaw,
What time he spurn’d the foul disgrace
Of peace, whose precedent would draw
Destruction on an unborn race,
Should aught but death the prisoner’s chain
Unrivet. “I have seen,” he said,
“Rome’s eagle in a Punic fane,
And armour, ne’er a blood-drop shed,
Stripp’d from the soldier; I have seen
Free sons of Rome with arms fast tied;
The fields we spoil’d with corn are green,
And Carthage opes her portals wide.
The warrior, sure, redeem’d by gold,
Will fight the bolder! Aye, you heap
On baseness loss. The hues of old
Revisit not the wool we steep;
And genuine worth, expell’d by fear,
Returns not to the worthless slave.
Break but her meshes, will the deer
Assail you? then will he be brave
Who once to faithless foes has knelt;
Yes, Carthage yet his spear will fly,
Who with bound arms the cord has felt,
The coward, and has fear’d to die.
He knows not, he, how life is won;
Thinks war, like peace, a thing of trade!
Great art thou, Carthage! mate the sun,
While Italy in dust is laid!”
His wife’s pure kiss he waved aside,
And prattling boys, as one disgraced,
They tell us, and with manly pride
Stern on the ground his visage placed.
With counsel thus ne’er else aread
He nerved the fathers’ weak intent,
And, girt by friends that mourn’d him, sped
Into illustrious banishment.
Well witting what the torturer’s art
Design’d him, with like unconcern
The press of kin he push’d apart
And crowds encumbering his return,
As though, some tedious business o’er
Of clients’ court, his journey lay
Towards Venafrum’s grassy floor,
Or Sparta-built Tarentum’s bay.
ODE VI.
DELICTA MAJORUM.
Your fathers’ guilt you still must pay,
Till, Roman, you restore each shrine,
Each temple, mouldering in decay,
And smoke-grimed statue, scarce divine.
Revering Heaven, you rule below;
Be that your base, your coping still;
’Tis Heaven neglected bids o’erflow
The measure of Italian ill.
Now Pacorus and Montaeses twice
Have given our unblest arms the foil;
Their necklaces, of mean device,
Smiling they deck with Roman spoil.
Our city, torn by faction’s throes,
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Dacian and Ethiop well-nigh razed,
These with their dreadful navy, those
For archer-prowess rather praised.
An evil age erewhile debased
The marriage-bed, the race, the home;
Thence rose the flood whose waters waste
The nation and the name of Rome.
Not such their birth, who stain’d for us
The sea with Punic carnage red,
Smote Pyrrhus, smote Antiochus,
And Hannibal, the Roman’s dread.
Theirs was a hardy soldier-brood,
Inured all day the land to till
With Sabine spade, then shoulder wood
Hewn at a stern old mother’s will,
When sunset lengthen’d from each height
The shadows, and unyoked the steer,
Restoring in its westward flight
The hour to toilworn travail dear.
What has not cankering Time made worse?
Viler than grandsires, sires beget
Ourselves, yet baser, soon to curse
The world with offspring baser yet.
ODE VII.
QUID FLES, ASTERIE.
Why weep for him whom sweet Favonian airs
Will waft next spring, Asteria, back to you,
Rich with Bithynia’s wares,
A lover fond and true,
Your Gyges? He, detain’d by stormy stress
At Oricum, about the Goat-star’s rise,
Cold, wakeful, comfortless,
The long night weeping lies.
Meantime his lovesick hostess’ messenger
Talks of the flames that waste poor Chloe’s heart
(Flames lit for you, not her!)
With a besieger’s art;
Shows how a treacherous woman’s lying breath
Once on a time on trustful Proetus won
To doom to early death
Too chaste Bellerophon;
Warns him of Peleus’ peril, all but slain
For virtuous scorn of fair Hippolyta,
And tells again each tale
That e’er led heart astray.
In vain; for deafer than Icarian seas
He hears, untainted yet. But, lady fair,
What if Enipeus please
Your listless eye? beware!
Though true it be that none with surer seat
O’er Mars’s grassy turf is seen to ride,
Nor any swims so fleet
Adown the Tuscan tide,
Yet keep each evening door and window barr’d;
Look not abroad when music strikes up shrill,
And though he call you hard,
Remain obdurate still.
ODE VIII.
MARTIIS COELEBS.
The first of March! a man unwed!
What can these flowers, this censer
Or what these embers, glowing red
On sods of green?
You ask, in either language skill’d!
A feast I vow’d to Bacchus free,
A white he-goat, when all but kill’d
By falling tree.
So, when that holyday comes round,
It sees me still the rosin clear
From this my wine-jar, first embrown’d
In Tullus’ year.
Come, crush one hundred cups for life
Preserved, Maecenas; keep till day
The candles lit; let noise and strife
Be far away.
Lay down that load of state-concern;
The Dacian hosts are all o’erthrown;
The Mede, that sought our overturn,
Now seeks his own;
A servant now, our ancient foe,
The Spaniard, wears at last our chain;
The Scythian half unbends his bow
And quits the plain.
Then fret not lest the state should ail;
A private man such thoughts may spare;
Enjoy the present hour’s regale,
And banish care.
ODE IX.
DONEC GRATUS ERAM.
HORACE.
While I had power to bless you,
Nor any round that neck his arms did fling
More privileged to caress you,
Happier was Horace than the Persian king.
LYDIA. While you for none were pining
Sorer, nor Lydia after Chloe came,
Lydia, her peers outshining,
Might match her own with Ilia’s Roman fame.
H. Now Chloe is my treasure,
Whose voice, whose touch, can make sweet music flow:
For her I’d die with pleasure,
Would Fate but spare the dear survivor so.
L. I love my own fond lover,
Young Calais, son of Thurian Ornytus:
For him I’d die twice over,
Would Fate but spare the sweet survivor thus.
H. What now, if Love returning
Should pair us ‘neath his brazen yoke once more,
And, bright-hair’d Chloe spurning,
Horace to off-cast Lydia ope his door?
L. Though he is fairer, milder,
Than starlight, you lighter than bark of tree,
Than stormy Hadria wilder,
With you to live, to die, were bliss for me.
ODE X.
EXTREMUM TANAIN.
Ah Lyce! though your drink were Tanais,
Your husband some rude savage, you would weep
To leave me shivering, on a night like this,
Where storms their watches keep.
Hark! how your door is creaking! how the grove
In your fair court-yard, while the wild winds blow,
Wails in accord! with what transparence Jove
Is glazing the driven snow!
Cease that proud temper: Venus loves it not:
The rope may break, the wheel may backward turn:
Begetting you, no Tuscan sire begot
Penelope the stern.
O, though no gift, no “prevalence of prayer,”
Nor lovers’ paleness deep as violet,
Nor husband, smit with a Pierian fair,
Move you, have pity yet!
O harder e’en than toughest heart of oak,
Deafer than uncharm’d snake to suppliant moans!
This side, I warn you, will not always brook
Rain-water and cold stones.
ODE XI.
MERCURI, NAM TE.
Come, Mercury, by whose minstrel spell
Amphion raised the Theban stones,
Come, with thy seven sweet strings, my shell,
Thy “diverse tones,”
Nor vocal once nor pleasant, now
To rich man’s board and temple dear:
Put forth thy power, till Lyde bow
Her stubborn ear.
She, like a three year colt unbroke,
Is frisking o’er the spacious plain,
Too shy to bear a lover’s yoke,
A husband’s rein.
The wood, the tiger, at thy call
Have follow’d: thou canst rivers stay:
The monstrous guard of Pluto’s hall
To thee gave way,
Grim Cerberus, round whose Gorgon head
A hundred snakes are hissing death,
Whose triple jaws black venom shed,
And sickening breath.
Ixion too and Tityos smooth’d
Their rugged brows: the urn stood dry
One hour, while Danaus’ maids were sooth’d
With minstrelsy.
Let Lyde hear those maidens’ guilt,
Their famous doom, the ceaseless drain
Of outpour’d water, ever spilt,
And all the pain
Reserved for sinners, e’en when dead:
Those impious hands, (could crime do more?)
Those impious hands had hearts to shed
Their bridegrooms’ gore!
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p; One only, true to Hymen’s flame,
Was traitress to her sire forsworn:
That splendid falsehood lights her name
Through times unborn.
“Wake!” to her youthful spouse she cried,
“Wake! or you yet may sleep too well:
Fly — from the father of your bride,
Her sisters fell:
They, as she-lions bullocks rend,
Tear each her victim: I, less hard
Than these, will slay you not, poor friend,
Nor hold in ward:
Me let my sire in fetters lay
For mercy to my husband shown:
Me let him ship far hence away,
To climes unknown.
Go; speed your flight o’er land and wave,
While Night and Venus shield you; go
Be blest: and on my tomb engrave
This tale of woe.”
ODE XII.
MISERARUM EST.
How unhappy are the maidens who with Cupid may not play,
Who may never touch the wine-cup, but must tremble all the day
At an uncle, and the scourging of his tongue!
Neobule, there’s a robber takes your needle and your thread,
Lets the lessons of Minerva run no longer in your head;
It is Hebrus, the athletic and the young!
O, to see him when anointed he is plunging in the flood!
What a seat he has on horseback! was Bellerophon’s as good?
As a boxer, as a runner, past compare!
When the deer are flying blindly all the open country o’er,
He can aim and he can hit them; he can steal upon the boar,
As it couches in the thicket unaware.
ODE XIII.
O FONS BANDUSIAE.
Bandusia’s fount, in clearness crystalline,
O worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow!
To-morrow shall be thine
A kid, whose crescent brow
Is sprouting all for love and victory.
In vain: his warm red blood, so early stirr’d,
Thy gelid stream shall dye,
Child of the wanton herd.
Thee the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired,
Forbears to touch: sweet cool thy waters yield
To ox with ploughing tired,
And lazy sheep afield.
Thou too one day shalt win proud eminence
‘Mid honour’d founts, while I the ilex sing
Complete Works of Horace (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) Page 33