Crowning the cavern, whence
Thy babbling wavelets spring.
ODE XIV.
HERCULIS RITU.
Our Hercules, they told us, Rome,
Had sought the laurel Death bestows:
Now Glory brings him conqueror home
From Spaniard foes.
Proud of her spouse, the imperial fair
Must thank the gods that shield from death;
His sister too: — let matrons wear
The suppliant wreath
For daughters and for sons restored:
Ye youths and damsels newly wed,
Let decent awe restrain each word
Best left unsaid.
This day, true holyday to me,
Shall banish care: I will not fear
Rude broils or bloody death to see,
While Caesar’s here.
Quick, boy, the chaplets and the nard,
And wine, that knew the Marsian war,
If roving Spartacus have spared
A single jar.
And bid Nesera come and trill,
Her bright locks bound with careless art:
If her rough porter cross your will,
Why then depart.
Soon palls the taste for noise and fray,
When hair is white and leaves are sere:
How had I fired in life’s warm May,
In Plancus’ year!
ODE XV.
UXOR PAUPERIS IBYCI.
Wife of Ibycus the poor,
Let aged scandals have at length their bound:
Give your graceless doings o’er,
Ripe as you are for going underground.
YOU the maidens’ dance to lead,
And cast your gloom upon those beaming stars!
Daughter Pholoe may succeed,
But mother Chloris what she touches mars.
Young men’s homes your daughter storms,
Like Thyiad, madden’d by the cymbals’ beat:
Nothus’ love her bosom warms:
She gambols like a fawn with silver feet.
Yours should be the wool that grows
By fair Luceria, not the merry lute:
Flowers beseem not wither’d brows,
Nor wither’d lips with emptied wine-jars suit.
ODE XVI.
INCLUSAM DANAEN.
Full well had Danae been secured, in truth,
By oaken portals, and a brazen tower,
And savage watch-dogs, from the roving youth
That prowl at midnight’s hour:
But Jove and Venus mock’d with gay disdain
The jealous warder of that close stronghold:
The way, they knew, must soon be smooth and plain
When gods could change to gold.
Gold, gold can pass the tyrant’s sentinel,
Can shiver rocks with more resistless blow
Than is the thunder’s. Argos’ prophet fell,
He and his house laid low,
And all for gain. The man of Macedon
Cleft gates of cities, rival kings o’erthrew
By force of gifts: their cunning snares have won
Rude captains and their crew.
As riches grow, care follows: men repine
And thirst for more. No lofty crest I raise:
Wisdom that thought forbids, Maecenas mine,
The knightly order’s praise.
He that denies himself shall gain the more
From bounteous Heaven. I strip me of my pride,
Desert the rich man’s standard, and pass o’er
To bare Contentment’s side,
More proud as lord of what the great despise
Than if the wheat thresh’d on Apulia’s floor
I hoarded all in my huge granaries,
‘Mid vast possessions poor.
A clear fresh stream, a little field o’ergrown
With shady trees, a crop that ne’er deceives,
Pass, though men know it not, their wealth, that own
All Afric’s golden sheaves.
Though no Calabrian bees their honey yield
For me, nor mellowing sleeps the god of wine
In Formian jar, nor in Gaul’s pasture-field
The wool grows long and fine,
Yet Poverty ne’er comes to break my peace;
If more I craved, you would not more refuse.
Desiring less, I better shall increase
My tiny revenues,
Than if to Alyattes’ wide domains
I join’d the realms of Mygdon. Great desires
Sort with great wants. ’Tis best, when prayer obtains
No more than life requires.
ODE XVII.
AELI VETUSTO.
Aelius, of Lamus’ ancient name
(For since from that high parentage
The prehistoric Lamias came
And all who fill the storied page,
No doubt you trace your line from him,
Who stretch’d his sway o’er Formiae,
And Liris, whose still waters swim
Where green Marica skirts the sea,
Lord of broad realms), an eastern gale
Will blow to-morrow, and bestrew
The shore with weeds, with leaves the vale,
If rain’s old prophet tell me true,
The raven. Gather, while ’tis fine,
Your wood; to-morrow shall be gay
With smoking pig and streaming wine,
And lord and slave keep holyday.
ODE XVIII.
FAUNE, NYMPHARUM.
O wont the flying Nymphs to woo,
Good Faunus, through my sunny farm
Pass gently, gently pass, nor do
My younglings harm.
Each year, thou know’st, a kid must die
For thee; nor lacks the wine’s full stream
To Venus’ mate, the bowl; and high
The altars steam.
Sure as December’s nones appear,
All o’er the grass the cattle play;
The village, with the lazy steer,
Keeps holyday.
Wolves rove among the fearless sheep;
The woods for thee their foliage strow;
The delver loves on earth to leap,
His ancient foe.
ODE XIX.
QUANTUM DISTAT.
What the time from Inachus
To Codrus, who in patriot battle fell,
Who were sprung from Aeacus,
And how men fought at Ilion, — this you tell.
What the wines of Chios cost,
Who with due heat our water can allay,
What the hour, and who the host
To give us house-room, — this you will not say.
Ho, there! wine to moonrise, wine
To midnight, wine to our new augur too!
Nine to three or three to nine,
As each man pleases, makes proportion true.
Who the uneven Muses loves,
Will fire his dizzy brain with three times three;
Three once told the Grace approves;
She with her two bright sisters, gay and free,
Shrinks, as maiden should, from strife:
But I’m for madness. What has dull’d the fire
Of the Berecyntian fife?
Why hangs the flute in silence with the lyre?
Out on niggard-handed boys!
Rain showers of roses; let old Lycus hear,
Envious churl, our senseless noise,
And she, our neighbour, his ill-sorted fere.
You with your bright clustering hair,
Your beauty, Telephus, like evening’s sky,
Rhoda loves, as young, as fair;
I for my Glycera slowly, slowly die.
ODE XXI.
O NATE MECUM.
O born in Manlius’ year with me,
Whate’er you bring us, plaint or jest,
Or passion and wild r
evelry,
Or, like a gentle wine-jar, rest;
Howe’er men call your Massic juice,
Its broaching claims a festal day;
Come then; Corvinus bids produce
A mellower wine, and I obey.
Though steep’d in all Socratic lore
He will not slight you; do not fear.
They say old Cato o’er and o’er
With wine his honest heart would cheer.
Tough wits to your mild torture yield
Their treasures; you unlock the soul
Of wisdom and its stores conceal’d,
Arm’d with Lyaeus’ kind control.
’Tis yours the drooping heart to heal;
Your strength uplifts the poor man’s horn;
Inspired by you, the soldier’s steel,
The monarch’s crown, he laughs to scorn.
Liber and Venus, wills she so,
And sister Graces, ne’er unknit,
And living lamps shall see you flow
Till stars before the sunrise flit.
ODE XXII.
MONTIUM CUSTOS.
Guardian of hill and woodland, Maid,
Who to young wives in childbirth’s hour
Thrice call’d, vouchsafest sovereign aid,
O three-form’d power!
This pine that shades my cot be thine;
Here will I slay, as years come round,
A youngling boar, whose tusks design
The side-long wound.
ODE XXIII.
COELO SUPINAS.
If, Phidyle, your hands you lift
To heaven, as each new moon is born,
Soothing your Lares with the gift
Of slaughter’d swine, and spice, and corn,
Ne’er shall Scirocco’s bane assail
Your vines, nor mildew blast your wheat,
Ne’er shall your tender younglings fail
In autumn, when the fruits are sweet.
The destined victim ‘mid the snows
Of Algidus in oakwoods fed,
Or where the Alban herbage grows,
Shall dye the pontiff’s axes red;
No need of butcher’d sheep for you
To make your homely prayers prevail;
Give but your little gods their due,
The rosemary twined with myrtle frail.
The sprinkled salt, the votive meal,
As soon their favour will regain,
Let but the hand be pure and leal,
As all the pomp of heifers slain.
ODE XXIV.
INTACTIS OPULENTIOR.
Though your buried wealth surpass
The unsunn’d gold of Ind or Araby,
Though with many a ponderous mass
You crowd the Tuscan and Apulian sea,
Let Necessity but drive
Her wedge of adamant into that proud head,
Vainly battling will you strive
To ‘scape Death’s noose, or rid your soul of dread.
Better life the Scythians lead,
Trailing on waggon wheels their wandering home,
Or the hardy Getan breed,
As o’er their vast unmeasured steppes they roam;
Free the crops that bless their soil;
Their tillage wearies after one year’s space;
Each in turn fulfils his toil;
His period o’er, another takes his place.
There the step-dame keeps her hand
From guilty plots, from blood of orphans clean;
There no dowried wives command
Their feeble lords, or on adulterers lean.
Theirs are dowries not of gold,
Their parents’ worth, their own pure chastity,
True to one, to others cold;
They dare not sin, or, if they dare, they die.
O, whoe’er has heart and head
To stay our plague of blood, our civic brawls,
Would he that his name be read
“Father of Rome” on lofty pedestals,
Let him chain this lawless will,
And be our children’s hero! cursed spite!
Living worth we envy still,
Then seek it with strain’d eyes, when snatch’d from sight.
What can sad laments avail
Unless sharp justice kill the taint of sin?
What can laws, that needs must fail
Shorn of the aid of manners form’d within,
If the merchant turns not back
From the fierce heats that round the tropic glow,
Turns not from the regions black
With northern winds, and hard with frozen snow;
Sailors override the wave,
While guilty poverty, more fear’d than vice,
Bids us crime and suffering brave,
And shuns the ascent of virtue’s precipice?
Let the Capitolian fane,
The favour’d goal of yon vociferous crowd,
Aye, or let the nearest main
Receive our gold, our jewels rich and proud:
Slay we thus the cause of crime,
If yet we would repent and choose the good:
Ours the task to take in time
This baleful lust, and crush it in the bud.
Ours to mould our weakling sons
To nobler sentiment and manlier deed:
Now the noble’s first-born shuns
The perilous chase, nor learns to sit his steed:
Set him to the unlawful dice,
Or Grecian hoop, how skilfully he plays!
While his sire, mature in vice,
A friend, a partner, or a guest betrays,
Hurrying, for an heir so base,
To gather riches. Money, root of ill,
Doubt it not, still grows apace:
Yet the scant heap has somewhat lacking still.
ODE XXV.
QUO ME, BACCHE.
Whither, Bacchus, tear’st thou me,
Fill’d with thy strength? What dens, what forests these,
Thus in wildering race I see?
What cave shall hearken to my melodies,
Tuned to tell of Caesar’s praise
And throne him high the heavenly ranks among?
Sweet and strange shall be my lays,
A tale till now by poet voice unsung.
As the Evian on the height,
Housed from her sleep, looks wonderingly abroad,
Looks on Thrace with snow-drifts white,
And Rhodope by barbarous footstep trod,
So my truant eyes admire
The banks, the desolate forests. O great King
Who the Naiads dost inspire,
And Bacchants, strong from earth huge trees to wring!
Not a lowly strain is mine,
No mere man’s utterance. O, ’tis venture sweet
Thee to follow, God of wine,
Making the vine-branch round thy temples meet!
ODE XXVI.
VIRI PUELLIS.
For ladies’s love I late was fit,
And good success my warfare blest,
But now my arms, my lyre I quit,
And hang them up to rust or rest.
Here, where arising from the sea
Stands Venus, lay the load at last,
Links, crowbars, and artillery,
Threatening all doors that dared be fast.
O Goddess! Cyprus owns thy sway,
And Memphis, far from Thracian snow:
Raise high thy lash, and deal me, pray,
That haughty Chloe just one blow!
ODE XXVII.
IMPIOS PARRAE.
When guilt goes forth, let lapwings shrill,
And dogs and foxes great with young,
And wolves from far Lanuvian hill,
Give clamorous tongue:
Across the roadway dart the snake,
Frightening, like arrow loosed from string,
The horses. I, for friendship’s
sake,
Watching each wing,
Ere to his haunt, the stagnant marsh,
The harbinger of tempest flies,
Will call the raven, croaking harsh,
From eastern skies.
Farewell! — and wheresoe’er you go,
My Galatea, think of me:
Let lefthand pie and roving crow
Still leave you free.
But mark with what a front of fear
Orion lowers. Ah! well I know
How Hadria glooms, how falsely clear
The west-winds blow.
Let foemen’s wives and children feel
The gathering south-wind’s angry roar,
The black wave’s crash, the thunder-peal,
The quivering shore.
So to the bull Europa gave
Her beauteous form, and when she saw
The monstrous deep, the yawning grave,
Grew pale with awe.
That morn of meadow-flowers she thought,
Weaving a crown the nymphs to please:
That gloomy night she look’d on nought
But stars and seas.
Then, as in hundred-citied Crete
She landed,— “O my sire!” she said,
“O childly duty! passion’s heat
Has struck thee dead.
Whence came I? death, for maiden’s shame,
Were little. Do I wake to weep
My sin? or am I pure of blame,
And is it sleep
From dreamland brings a form to trick
My senses? Which was best? to go
Over the long, long waves, or pick
The flowers in blow?
O, were that monster made my prize,
How would I strive to wound that brow,
How tear those horns, my frantic eyes
Adored but now!
Shameless I left my father’s home;
Shameless I cheat the expectant grave;
O heaven, that naked I might roam
In lions’ cave!
Now, ere decay my bloom devour
Or thin the richness of my blood,
Fain would I fall in youth’s first flower,
The tigers’ food.
Hark! ’tis my father — Worthless one!
What, yet alive? the oak is nigh.
’Twas well you kept your maiden zone,
The noose to tie.
Complete Works of Horace (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) Page 34