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The Works of Horace
Page 2
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THE SECOND BOOK OF THE ODES OF HORACE.
ODE I.
TO ASINIUS POLLIO.
You are treating of the civil commotion, which began from the
consulship of Metelius, and the causes, and the errors, and the
operations of the war, and the game that fortune played, and the
pernicious confederacy of the chiefs, and arms stained with blood
not yet expiated—a work full of danger and hazard: and you are
treading upon fires, hidden under deceitful ashes: let therefore the
muse that presides over severe tragedy, be for a while absent from
the theaters; shortly, when thou hast completed the narrative of the
public affairs, you shall resume your great work in the tragic style
of Athens, O Pollio, thou excellent succor to sorrowing defendants
and a consulting senate; [Pollio,] to whom the laurel produced
immortal honors in the Dalmatian triumph. Even now you stun our ears
with the threatening murmur of horns: now the clarions sound; now
the glitter of arms affrights the flying steeds, and dazzles the
sight of the riders. Now I seem to hear of great commanders
besmeared with, glorious dust, and the whole earth subdued, except
the stubborn soul of Cato. Juno, and every other god propitious to
the Africans, impotently went off, leaving that land unrevenged; but
soon offered the descendants of the conquerors, as sacrifices to the
manes of Jugurtha. What plain, enriched by Latin blood, bears not
record, by its numerous sepulchres, of our impious battles, and of
the sound of the downfall of Italy, heard even by the Medes? What
pool, what rivers, are unconscious of our deplorable war? What sea
have not the Daunian slaughters discolored? What shore is unstained
by our blood? Do not, however, rash muse, neglecting your jocose
strains, resume the task of Caean plaintive song, but rather with me
seek measures of a lighter style beneath some love-sequestered
grotto.
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ODE II.
TO CRISPUS SALLUSTIUS.
O Crispus Sallustius, thou foe to bullion, unless it derives
splendor from a moderate enjoyment, there is no luster in money
concealed in the niggard earth. Proculeius shall live an extended
age, conspicuous for fatherly affection to brothers; surviving fame
shall bear him on an untiring wing. You may possess a more extensive
dominion by controlling a craving disposition, than if you could
unite Libya to the distant Gades, and the natives of both the
Carthages were subject to you alone. The direful dropsy increases by
self-indulgence, nor extinguishes its thirst, unless the cause of
the disorder has departed from the veins, and the watery languor
from the pallid body. Virtue, differing from the vulgar, excepts
Phraates though restored to the throne of Cyrus, from the number of
the happy; and teaches the populace to disuse false names for
things, by conferring the kingdom and a safe diadem and the
perpetual laurel upon him alone, who can view large heaps of
treasure with undazzled eye.
ODE III.
TO QUINTUS DELLIUS.
O Dellius, since thou art born to die, be mindful to preserve a
temper of mind even in times of difficulty, as well an restrained
from insolent exultation in prosperity: whether thou shalt lead a
life of continual sadness, or through happy days regale thyself with
Falernian wine of the oldest date, at case reclined in some grassy
retreat, where the lofty pine and hoary poplar delight to interweave
their boughs into a hospitable shade, and the clear current with
trembling surface purls along the meandering rivulet. Hither order
[your slaves] to bring the wine, and the perfumes, and the too
short-lived flowers of the grateful rose, while fortune, and age;
and the sable threads of the three sisters permit thee. You must
depart from your numerous purchased groves; from your house also,
and that villa, which the yellow Tiber washes, you must depart: and
an heir shall possess these high-piled riches. It is of no
consequence whether you are the wealthy descendant of ancient
Inachus, or whether, poor and of the most ignoble race, you live
without a covering from the open air, since you are the victim of
merciless Pluto. We are all driven toward the same quarter: the lot
of all is shaken in the urn; destined sooner or later to come forth,
and embark us in [Charon's] boat for eternal exile.
ODE IV.
TO XANTHIAS PHOCEUS.
Let not, O Xanthias Phoceus, your passion for your maid put you out
of countenance; before your time, the slave Briseis moved the
haughty Achilles by her snowy complexion. The beauty of the captive
Tecmessa smote her master, the Telamonian Ajax; Agamemnon, in the
midst of victory, burned for a ravished virgin: when the barbarian
troops fell by the hands of their Thessalian conqueror, and Hector,
vanquished, left Troy more easily to be destroyed by the Grecians.
You do not know that perchance the beautiful Phyllis has parents of
condition happy enough to do honor to you their son-in-law.
Certainly she must be of royal race, and laments the
unpropitiousness of her family gods. Be confident, that your beloved
is not of the worthless crowd; nor that one so true, so unmercenary,
could possibly be born of a mother to be ashamed of. I can commend
arms, and face, and well-made legs, quite chastely: avoid being
jealous of one, whose age is hastening onward to bring its eighth
mastrum to a close.
ODE V.
Not yet is she fit to be broken to the yoke; not yet is she equal to
the duties of a partner, nor can she support the weight of the bull
impetuously rushing to enjoyment. Your heifer's sole inclination is
about verdant fields, one while in running streams soothing the
grievous heat; at another, highly delighted to frisk with the
steerlings in the moist willow ground. Suppress your appetite for
the immature grape; shortly variegated autumn will tinge for thee
the lirid clusters with a purple hue. Shortly she shall follow you;
for her impetuous time runs on, and shall place to her account those
years of which it abridges you; shortly Lalage with a wanton
assurance will seek a husband, beloved in a higher degree than the
coy Pholoe, or even Chloris; shining as brightly with her fair
shoulder, as the spotless moon upon the midnight sea, or even the
Gnidian Gyges, whom if you should intermix in a company of girls,
the undiscernible difference occasioned by his flowing locks and
doubtful countenance would wonderfully impose even on sagacious
strangers.
ODE VI.
TO SEPTIMUS.
Septimus, who art ready to go with me, even to Gades, and to the
Cantabrian, still untaught to bear our yoke, and the inhospitable
Syrtes, where the Mauritanian wave perpetually boils. O may Tibur,
founded by a Grecian colony, be the habitation of my old age! There
let there be an end to my fatigues by sea, and land, and war; whence
if the cruel fates debar me, I will seek the river of Galesus,
delightful for sheep covered with skins, and the countries reigned
over by Lacedaemonian Phalantus. That corner of the world smiles in
my eye beyond all others; where the honey yields not to the
Hymettian, and the olive rivals the verdant Venafrian: where the
temperature of the air produces a long spring and mild winters, and
Aulon friendly to the fruitful vine, envies not the Falernian
grapes. That place, and those blest heights, solicit you and me;
there you shall bedew the glowing ashes of your poet friend with a
tear due [to his memory].
ODE VII.
TO POMPEIUS VARUS.
O thou, often reduced with me to the last extremity in the war which
Brutus carried on, who has restored thee as a Roman citizen, to the
gods of thy country and the Italian air, Pompey, thou first of my
companions; with whom I have frequently broken the tedious day in
drinking, having my hair, shining with the Syrian maiobathrum,
crowned [with flowers]! Together with thee did I experience the
[battle of] Phillippi and a precipitate flight, having shamefully
enough left my shield; when valor was broken, and the most daring
smote the squalid earth with their faces. But Mercury swift conveyed
me away, terrified as I was, in a thick cloud through the midst of
the enemy. Thee the reciprocating sea, with his tempestuous waves,
bore back again to war. Wherefore render to Jupiter the offering
that is due, and deposit your limbs, wearied with a tedious war,
under my laurel, and spare not the casks reserved for you. Fill up
the polished bowls with care-dispelling Massic: pour out the
perfumed ointments from the capacious shells. Who takes care to
quickly weave the chaplets of fresh parsely or myrtle? Whom shall
the Venus pronounce to be master of the revel? In wild carouse I
will become frantic as the Bacchanalians. 'Tis delightful to me to
play the madman, on the reception of my friends.
ODE VIII.
TO BARINE.
If any punishment, Barine, for your violated oath had ever been of
prejudice to you: if you had become less agreeable by the blackness
of a single tooth or nail, I might believe you. But you no sooner
have bound your perfidious head with vows, but you shine out more
charming by far, and come forth the public care of our youth. It is
of advantage to you to deceive the buried ashes of your mother, and
the silent constellations of the night, together with all heaven,
and the gods free from chill death. Venus herself, I profess, laughs
at this; the good-natured nymphs laugh, and cruel Cupid, who is
perpetually sharpening his burning darts on a bloody whetstone. Add
to this, that all our boys are growing up for you; a new herd of
slaves is growing up; nor do the former ones quit the house of their
impious mistress, notwithstanding they often have threatened it. The
matrons are in dread of you on account of their young ones; the
thrifty old men are in dread of you; and the girls but just married
are in distress, lest your beauty should slacken [the affections of]
their husbands.
ODE IX.
TO TITUS VALGIUS.
Showers do not perpetually pour down upon the rough fields, nor do
varying hurricanes forever harass the Caspian Sea; nor, my friend
Valgius, does the motionless ice remain fixed throughout all the
months, in the regions of Armenia; nor do the Garganian oaks
[always] labor under the northerly winds, nor are the ash-trees
widowed of their leaves. But thou art continually pursuing Mystes,
who is taken from thee, with mournful measures: nor do the effects
of thy love for him cease at the rising of Vesper, or when he flies
the rapid approach of the sun. But the aged man who lived three
generations, did not lament the amiable Antilochus all the years of
his life: nor did his parents or his Trojan sisters perpetually
bewail the blooming Troilus. At length then desist from thy tender
complaints; and rather let us sing the fresh trophies of Augustus
Caesar, and the Frozen Niphates, and the river Medus, added to the
vanquished nations, rolls more humble tides, and the Gelonians
riding within a prescribed boundary in a narrow tract of land.
ODE X.
TO LICINIUS MURENA.
O Licinius, you will lead a more correct course of life, by neither
always pursuing the main ocean, nor, while you cautiously are in
dread of storms, by pressing too much upon the hazardous shore.
Whosoever loves the golden mean, is secure from the sordidness of an
antiquated cell, and is too prudent to have a palace that might
expose him to envy, if the lofty pine is more frequently agitated
with winds, and high towers fall down with a heavier ruin, and
lightnings strike the summits of the mountains. A well-provided
breast hopes in adversity, and fears in prosperity. 'Tis the same
Jupiter, that brings the hideous winters back, and that takes them
away. If it is ill with us now, it will not be so hereafter. Apollo
sometimes rouses the silent lyric muse, neither does he always bend
his bow. In narrow circumstances appear in high spirits, and
undaunted. In the same manner you will prudently contract your
sails, which are apt to be too much swollen in a prosperous gale.
ODE XI.
TO QUINTIUS HIRPINUS.
O Quintius Hirpinus, forbear to be inquisitive what the Cantabrian,
and the Scythian, divided from us by the interposed Adriatic, is
meditating; neither be fearfully solicitous for the necessaries of a
life, which requires but a few things. Youth and beauty fly swift
away, while sapless old age expels the wanton loves and gentle
sleep. The same glory does not always remain to the vernal flowers,
nor does the ruddy moon shine with one continued aspect; why,
therefore, do you fatigue you mind, unequal to eternal projects? Why
do we not rather (while it is in our power) thus carelessly
reclining under a lofty plane-tree, or this pine, with our hoary
locks made fragrant by roses, and anointed with Syrian perfume,
indulge ourselves with generous wine? Bacchus dissipates preying
cares. What slave is here, instantly to cool some cups of ardent
Falernian in the passing stream? Who will tempt the vagrant wanton
Lyde from her house? See that you bid her hasten with her ivory
lyre, collecting her hair into a graceful knot, after the fashion of
a Spartan maid.
ODE XII.
TO MAECENAS.
Do not insist that the long wars of fierce Numantia, or the
formidable Annibal, or the Sicilian Sea impurpled with Carthaginian
blood, should be adapted to the tender lays of the lyre: nor the
cruel Lapithae, nor Hylaeus excessive in wine and the earth born
youths, subdued by Herculean force, from whom the splendid
habitation of old Saturn dreaded danger. And you yourself, Maecenas,
with more propriety shall recount the battles of Caesar, and the
necks of haughty kings led in triumph through the streets in
historical prose. It was the muse's will that I should celebrate the
sweet strains of my mistress Lycimnia, that I should celebrate her
bright darting eyes, and her breast laudably faithful to mutual
love: who can with a grace introduce her foot into the dance, or,
sporting, contend in raillery, or join arms with the bright virgins
on the celebrated Diana's festival. Would you, [Maecenas,] change
one of Lycimnia's tresses for all the rich Achaemenes possessed, or
the Mygdonian wealth of fertile Phrygia, or all the dwellings of the
Arabians replete with treasures? Especially when she turns her neck
to meet your burning kisses, or with a gentle cruelty denies, what
she would more delight to have ravished than the petitioner—or
sometimes eagerly anticipates to snatch them her self.
ODE XIII.
TO A TREE.
O tree, he planted thee on an unlucky day whoever did it first, and
with an impious hand raised thee for the destruction of posterity,
and the scandal of the village. I could believe that he had broken
his own father's neck, and stained his most secret apartments with
the midnight blood of his guest. He was wont to handle Colchian
poisons, and whatever wickedness is anywhere conceived, who planted
in my field thee, a sorry log; thee, ready to fall on the head of
thy inoffensive master. What we ought to be aware of, no man is
sufficiently cautious at all hours. The Carthaginian sailor
thoroughly dreads the Bosphorus; nor, beyond that, does he fear a
hidden fate from any other quarter. The soldier dreads the arrows
and the fleet retreat of the Parthian; the Parthian, chains and an
Italian prison; but the unexpected assault of death has carried off,
and will carry off, the world in general. How near was I seeing the
dominions of black Proserpine, and Aeacus sitting in judgment; the
separate abodes also of the pious, and Sappho complaining in her
Aeohan lyre of her own country damsels; and thee, O Alcaeus,
sounding in fuller strains on thy golden harp the distresses of
exile, and the distresses of war. The ghosts admire them both, while
they utter strains worthy of a sacred silence; but the crowded
multitude, pressing with their shoulders, imbibes, with a more
greedy ear, battles and banished tyrants. What wonder? Since the
many headed monster, astonished at those lays, hangs down his sable
ears; and the snakes, entwined in the hair of the furies, are
soothed. Moreover, Prometheus and the sire of Pelops are deluded
into an insensibility of their torments, by the melodious sound: nor
is Orion any longer solicitous to harass the lions, or the fearful
lynxes.
ODE XIV.
TO POSTUMUS.
Alas! my Postumus, my Postumus, the fleeting years gilde on; nor
will piety cause any delay to wrinkles, and advancing old age, and
insuperable death. You could not, if you were to sacrifice every
passing day three hundred bulls, render propitious pitiless Pluto,
who confines the thrice-monstrous Geryon and Tityus with the dismal
Stygian stream, namely, that stream which is to be passed over by
all who are fed by the bounty of the earth, whether we be kings or
poor ninds. In vain shall we be free from sanguinary Mars, and the
broken billows of the hoarse Adriatic; in vain shall we be
apprehensive for ourselves of the noxious South, in the time of
autumn. The black Cocytus wandering with languid current, and the
infamous race of Danaus, and Sisyphus, the son of the Aeolus, doomed
to eternal toil, must be visited; your land and house and pleasing
wife must be left, nor shall any of those trees, which you are
nursing, follow you, their master for a brief space, except the
hated cypresses; a worthier heir shall consume your Caecuban wines
now guarded with a hundred keys, and shall wet the pavement with the
haughty wine, more exquisite than what graces pontifical
entertainment.
ODE XV.
AGAINST THE LUXURY OF THE ROMANS.
The palace-like edifices will in a short time leave but a few acres
for the plough; ponds of wider extent than the Lucrine lake will be
every where to be seen; and the barren plane-tree will supplant the
elms. Then banks of violets, and myrtle groves, and all the tribe of
nosegays shall diffuse their odors in the olive plantations, which
were fruitful to their preceding master. Then the laurel with dense
boughs shall exclude the burning beams. It was not so prescribed by
the institutes of Romulus, and the unshaven Cato, and ancient
custom. Their private income was contracted, while that of the
community was great. No private men were then possessed of galleries
measured by ten-feet rules, which collected the shady northern
breezes; nor did the laws permit them to reject the casual turf [for
their own huts], though at the same time they obliged them to
ornament in the most sumptuous manner, with new stone, the buildings
of the public, and the temples of the gods, at a common expense.
ODE XVI.
TO GROSPHUS.
O Grosphus, he that is caught in the wide Aegean Sea; when a black
tempest has obscured the moon, and not a star appears with steady
light for the mariners, supplicates the gods for repose: for repose,
Thrace furious in war; the quiver-graced Medes, for repose neither
purchasable by jewels, nor by purple, nor by gold. For neither regal
treasures nor the consul's officer can remove the wretched tumults
of the mind, nor the cares that hover about splendid ceilings. That
man lives happily on a little, who can view with pleasure the
old-fashioned family salt-cellar on his frugal board; neither
anxiety nor sordid avarice robs him of gentle sleep. Why do we,
brave for a short season, aim at many things? Why do we change our
own for climates heated by another sun? Whoever, by becoming an
exile from his country, escaped likewise from himself? Consuming
care boards even brazen-beaked ships: nor does it quit the troops of
horsemen, for it is more fleet than the stags, more fleet than the
storm-driving east wind. A mind that is cheerful in its present
state, will disdain to be solicitous any further, and can correct
the bitters of life with a placid smile. Nothing is on all hands
completely blessed. A premature death carried off the celebrated
Achilles; a protracted old age wore down Tithonus; and time perhaps
may extend to me, what it shall deny to you. Around you a hundred
flocks bleat, and Sicilian heifers low; for your use the mare, fit
for the harness, neighs; wool doubly dipped in the African
purple-dye, clothes you: on me undeceitful fate has bestowed a small
country estate, and the slight inspiration of the Grecian muse, and
a contempt for the malignity of the vulgar.
ODE XVII.
TO MAECENAS.
Why dost thoti kill me with thy complaints? 'Tis neither agreeable
to the gods, nor to me, that thou shouldest depart first, O
Maecenas, thou grand ornament and pillar of my affairs. Alas! if an
untimely blow hurry away thee, a part of my soul, why do I the other
moiety remain, my value lost, nor any longer whole? That [fatal] day
shall bring destruction upon us both. I have by no means taken a
false oath: we will go, we will go, whenever thou shalt lead the
way, prepared to be fellow-travelers in the last journey. Me nor the
breath of the fiery Chimaera, nor hundred-handed Gyges, were he to
rise again, shall ever tear from thee: such is the will of powerful
Justice, and of the Fates. Whether Libra or malignant Scorpio had
the ascendant at my natal hour, or Capricon the ruler of the western
wave, our horoscopes agree in a wonderful manner. Thee the benign
protection of Jupiter, shining with friendly aspect, rescued from
the baleful influence of impious Saturn, and retarded the wings of
precipitate destiny, at the time the crowded people with resounding
applauses thrice hailed you in the theatre: me the trunk of a tree,
falling upon my skull, would have dispatched, had not Faunus, the
protector of men of genius, with his right hand warded off the blow.
Be thou mindful to pay the victims and the votive temple; I will
sacrifice an humble lamb.
ODE XVIII.
AGAINST AVARICE AND LUXURY.
Nor ivory, nor a fretted ceiling adorned with gold, glitters in my
house: no Hymettian beams rest upon pillars cut out of the extreme
parts of Africa; nor, a pretended heir, have I possessed myself of
the palace of Attalus, nor do ladies, my dependants, spin Laconian
purple for my use. But integrity, and a liberal vein of genius, are
mine: and the man of fortune makes his court to me, who am but poor.
I importune the gods no further, nor do I require of my friend in
power any larger enjoyments, sufficiently happy with my Sabine farm
alone. Day is driven on by day, and the new moons hasten to their
wane. You put out marble to be hewn, though with one foot in the
grave; and, unmindful of a sepulcher, are building houses; and are
busy to extend the shore of the sea, that beats with violence at
Baiae, not rich enough with the shore of the mainland. Why is it,
that through avarice you even pluck up the landmarks of your
neighbor's ground, and trespass beyond the bounds of your clients;
and wife and husband are turned out, bearing in their bosom their
household gods and their destitute children? Nevertheless, no court
more certainly awaits its wealthy lord, than the destined limit of
rapacious Pluto. Why do you go on? The impartial earth is opened
equally to the poor and to the sons of kings; nor has the life-guard
ferryman of hell, bribed with gold, re-conducted the artful
Prometheus. He confines proud Tantalus; and the race of Tantalus, he
condescends, whether invoked or not, to relieve the poor freed from
their labors.
ODE XIX.
ON BACCHUS.
A DITHYRAMBIC, OR DRINKING SONG.
I saw Bacchus (believe it, posterity) dictating strains among the
remote rocks, and the nymphs learning them, and the ears of the
goat-footed satyrs all attentive. Evoe! my mind trembles with recent
dread, and my soul, replete with Bacchus, has a tumultuous joy, Evoe!
spare me, Bacchus; spare me, thou who art formidable for thy
dreadful thyrsus. It is granted me to sing the wanton Bacchanalian
priestess, and the fountain of wine, and rivulets flowing with milk,
and to tell again of the honeys distilling from the hollow trunks.
It is granted me likewise to celebrate the honor added to the
constellations by your happy spouse, and the palace of Pentheus
demolished with no light ruin, and the perdition of Thracian.
Lycurgus. You command the rivers, you the barbarian sea. You, moist
with wine, on lonely mountain-tops bind the hair of your Thracian
priestesses with a knot of vipers without hurt. You, when the
impious band of giants scaled the realms of father Jupiter through
the sky, repelled Rhoetus, with the paws and horrible jaw of the
lion-shape [you had assumed]. Thou, reported to be better fitted for
dances, and jokes and play, you were accounted insufficient for
fight; yet it then appeared, you, the same deity, was the mediator
of peace and war. Upon you, ornamented with your golden horn,
Orberus innocently gazed, gently wagging his tail; and with his
triple tongue licked your feet and legs, as you returned.
ODE XX.
TO MAECENAS.
I, a two-formed poet, will be conveyed through the liquid air with
no vulgar or humble wing; nor will I loiter upon earth any longer;
and superior to envy, I will quit cities. Not I, even I, the blood
of low parents, my dear Maecenas, shall die; nor shall I be
restrained by the Stygian wave. At this instant a rough skin settles
upon my ankles, and all upwards I am transformed into a white bird,
and the downy plumage arises over my fingers and shoulders. Now, a
melodious bird, more expeditious than the Daepalean Icarus, I will
visit the shores of the murmuring Bosphorus, and the Gzetulean
Syrtes, and the Hyperborean plains. Me the Colchian and the Dacian,
who hides his fear of the Marsian cohort, land the remotest
Gelonians, shall know: me the learned Spaniard shall study, and he
that drinks of the Rhone. Let there be no dirges, nor unmanly
lamentations, nor bewailings at my imaginary funeral; suppress your
crying, and forbear the superfluous honors of a sepulcher.
More History
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