1Maecenas, born of monarch ancestors,
2 The shield at once and glory of my life!
3 There are who joy them in the Olympic strife
4 And love the dust they gather in the course;
5 The goal by hot wheels shunned, the famous prize,
6 Exalt them to the gods that rule mankind;
7 This joys, if rabbles fickle as the wind
8 Through triple grade of honours bid him rise,
9 That, if his granary has stored away
10 Of Libya's thousand floors the yield entire;
11 The man who digs his field as did his sire,
12 With honest pride, no Attalus may sway
13 By proffered wealth to tempt Myrtoan seas,
14 The timorous captain of a Cyprian bark.
15 The winds that make Icarian billows dark
16 The merchant fears, and hugs the rural ease
17 Of his own village home; but soon, ashamed
18 Of penury, he refits his battered craft.
19 There is, who thinks no scorn of Massic draught,
20 Who robs the daylight of an hour unblamed,
21 Now stretched beneath the arbute on the sward,
22 Now by some gentle river's sacred spring;
23 Some love the camp, the clarion's joyous ring,
24 And battle, by the mother's soul abhorred.
25 See, patient waiting in the clear keen air,
26 The hunter, thoughtless of his delicate bride,
27 Whether the trusty hounds a stag have eyed,
28 Or the fierce Marsian boar has burst the snare.
29 To me the artist's meed, the ivy wreath
30 Is very heaven: me the sweet cool of woods,
31 Where Satyrs frolic with the Nymphs, secludes
32 From rabble rout, so but Euterpe's breath
33 Fail not the flute, nor Polyhymnia fly
34 Averse from stringing new the Lesbian lyre.
35 O, write my name among that minstrel choir,
36 And my proud head shall strike upon the sky!
2Enough of snow and hail at last
2 The sire has sent in vengeance down:
3 His bolts, at his own temple cast,
4 Appalled the town,
5 Appalled the lands, lest Pyrrha's time
6 Return, with all its monstrous sights,
7 When Proteus led his flocks to climb
8 The flattened heights,
9 When fish were in the elm-tops caught,
10 Where once the stock-dove used to bide,
11 And does were floating, all distraught,
12 Adown the tide.
13 Old Tiber, hurled in tumult back
14 From mingling with the Etruscan main,
15 Has threatened Numa's court with wrack
16 And Vesta's fane.
17 Roused by his Ilia's plaintive woes,
18 He vows revenge for guiltless blood,
19 And, spite of Jove, his banks overflows,
20 Uxorious flood.
21 Yes, Fame shall tell of civic steel
22 That better Persian lives had spilt,
23 To youths, whose minished numbers feel
24 Their parents' guilt.
25 What god shall Rome invoke to stay
26 Her fall? Can suppliance overbear
27 The ear of Vesta, turned away
28 From chant and prayer?
29 Who comes, commissioned to atone
30 For crime like ours? at length appear,
31 A cloud round your bright shoulders thrown,
32 Apollo seer!
33 Or Venus, laughter-loving dame,
34 Round whom gay Loves and Pleasures fly;
35 Or you, if slighted sons may claim
36 A parent's eye,
37 O weary with your long, long game,
38 Who love fierce shouts and helmets bright,
39 And Moorish warrior's glance of flame
40 Or ever he smite!
41 Or Maia's son, if now awhile
42 In youthful guise we see you here,
43 Caesar's avenger—such the style
44 You deign to bear;
45 Late be your journey home, and long
46 Your sojourn with Rome's family;
47 Nor let your wrath at our great wrong
48 Lend wings to fly.
49 Here take our homage, Chief and Sire;
50 Here wreathe with bay your conquering brow,
51 And bid the prancing Mede retire,
52 Our Caesar thou!
3Thus may Cyprus' heavenly queen,
2 Thus Helen's brothers, stars of brightest sheen,
3 Guide you! May the sire of wind
4 Each truant gale, save only Zephyr, bind!
5 So do thou, fair ship, that ow'st
6 Virgil, your precious freight, to Attic coast,
7 Safe restore your loan and whole,
8 And save from death the partner of my soul!
9 Oak and brass of triple fold
10 Encompassed sure that heart, which first made bold
11 To the raging sea to trust
12 A fragile bark, nor feared the Afric gust
13 With its Northern mates at strife,
14 Nor Hyads' frown, nor South-wind fury-rife,
15 Mightiest power that Hadria knows,
16 Wills he the waves to madden or compose.
17 What had Death in store to awe
18 Those eyes, that huge sea-beasts unmelting saw,
19 Saw the swelling of the surge,
20 And high Ceraunian cliffs, the seaman's scourge?
21 Heaven's high providence in vain
22 Has severed countries with the estranging main,
23 If our vessels ne'ertheless
24 With reckless plunge that sacred bar transgress.
25 Daring all, their goal to win,
26 Men tread forbidden ground, and rush on sin:
27 Daring all, Prometheus played
28 His wily game, and fire to man conveyed;
29 Soon as fire was stolen away,
30 Pale Fever's stranger host and wan Decay
31 Swept over earth's polluted face,
32 And slow Fate quickened Death's once halting pace.
33 Daedalus the void air tried
34 On wings, to humankind by Heaven denied;
35 Acheron's bar gave way with ease
36 Before the arm of labouring Hercules.
37 Nothing is there for man too high;
38 Our impious folly even would climb the sky,
39 Braves the dweller on the steep,
40 Nor lets the bolts of heavenly vengeance sleep.
4The touch of Zephyr and of Spring has loosened Winter's thrall;
2 The well-dried keels are wheeled again to sea:
3 The ploughman cares not for his fire, nor cattle for their stall,
4 And frost no more is whitening all the lea.
5 Now Cytherea leads the dance, the bright moon overhead;
6 The Graces and the Nymphs, together knit,
7 With rhythmic feet the meadow beat, while Vulcan, fiery red,
8 Heats the Cyclopian forge in Aetna's pit.
9 It is now the time to wreathe the brow with branch of myrtle green,
10 Or flowers, just opening to the vernal breeze;
11 Now Faunus claims his sacrifice among the shady treen,
12 Lambkin or kidling, which soever he please.
13 Pale Death, impartial, walks his round: he knocks at cottage-gate
14 And palace-portal. Sestius, child of bliss!
15 How should a mortal's hopes be long, when short his being's date?
16 Lo here! the fabulous ghosts, the dark abyss,
17 The void of the Plutonian hall, where soon as ever you go,
18 No more for you shall leap the auspicious die
19 To seat you on the throne of wine; no more your breast shall glow
20 For Lycidas, the star of every eye.
5What slender youth, besprinkled with perfume,
2 Courts you on roses in some grotto's shade?
3 Fair Pyrrha, say, for whom
4 Your yellow hair you braid,
5 So trim, so simple! Ah! how often shall he
6 Lament that faith can fail, that gods can change,
7 Viewing the rough black sea
8 With eyes to tempests strange,
9 Who now is basking in your golden smile,
10 And dreams of you still fancy-free, still kind,
11 Poor fool, nor knows the guile
12 Of the deceitful wind!
13 Woe to the eyes you dazzle without cloud
14 Untried! For me, they show in that fane
15 My dripping garments, vowed
16 To Him who curbs the main.
6Not I, but Varius:—he, of Homer's brood
2 A tuneful swan, shall bear you on his wing,
3 Your tale of trophies, won by field or flood,
4 Mighty alike to sing.
5 Not mine such themes, Agrippa; no, nor mine
6 To chant the Wrath that filled Pelides' breast,
7 Nor dark Ulysses' wanderings over the brine,
8 Nor Pelops' house unblest.
9 Vast were the task, I feeble; inborn shame,
10 And she, who makes the peaceful lyre submit,
11 Forbid me to impair great Caesar's fame
12 And yours by my weak wit.
13 But who may fitly sing of Mars arrayed
14 In adamant mail, or Merion, black with dust
15 Of Troy, or Tydeus' son by Pallas' aid
16 Strong against gods to thrust?
17 Feasts are my theme, my warriors maidens fair,
18 Who with pared nails encounter youths in fight;
19 Be Fancy free or caught in Cupid's snare,
20 Her temper still is light.
7Let others Rhodes or Mytilene sing,
2 Or Ephesus, or Corinth, set between
3 Two seas, or Thebes, or Delphi, for its king
4 Each famous, or Thessalian Tempe green;
5 There are who make chaste Pallas' virgin tower
6 The daily burden of unending song,
7 And search for wreaths the olive's rifled bower:
8 The praise of Juno sounds from many a tongue,
9 Telling of Argos' steeds, Mycenae's gold.
10 For me stern Sparta forges no such spell,
11 No, nor Larissa's plain of richest mould,
12 As bright Albunea echoing from her cell.
13 O headlong Anio! O Tiburnian groves,
14 And orchards saturate with shifting streams!
15 Look how the clear fresh south from heaven removes
16 The tempest, nor with rain perpetual teems!
17 You too be wise, my Plancus: life's worst cloud
18 Will melt in air, by mellow wine allayed,
19 Dwell you in camps, with glittering banners proud,
20 Or beneath your Tibur's canopy of shade.
21 When Teucer fled before his father's frown
22 From Salamis, they say his temples deep
23 He dipped in wine, then wreathed with poplar crown,
24 And told his comrades to lay their grief to sleep:
25 “Where Fortune bears us, than my sire more kind,
26 There let us go, my own, my gallant crew.
27 It is Teucer leads, it is Teucer breathes the wind;
28 No more despair; Apollo's word is true.
29 Another Salamis in kindlier air
30 Shall yet arise. Hearts, that have borne with me
31 Worse buffets! drown today in wine your care;
32 To-morrow we recross the wide, wide sea!”
8Lydia, by all above,
2 Why bear so hard on Sybaris, to ruin him with love?
3 What change has made him shun
4 The playing-ground, who once so well could bear the dust and sun?
5 Why does he never sit
6 On horseback in his company, nor with uneven bit
7 His Gallic courser tame?
8 Why dreads he yellow Tiber, as it would sully that fair frame?
9 Like poison loathes the oil,
10 His arms no longer black and blue with honourable toil,
11 He who formerly was known
12 For quoit or javelin often and often beyond the limit thrown?
13 Why skulks he, as they say
14 Did Thetis' son before the dawn of Ilion's fatal day,
15 For fear the manly dress
16 Should fling him into danger's arms, amid the
17 Lycian press?
9See, how it stands, one pile of snow,
2 Soracte! beneath the pressure yield
3 Its groaning woods; the torrents' flow
4 With clear sharp ice is all congealed.
5 Heap high the logs, and melt the cold,
6 Good Thaliarch; draw the wine we ask,
7 That mellower vintage, four-year-old,
8 From out the cellared Sabine cask.
9 The future trust with Jove; when he
10 Has stilled the warring tempests' roar
11 On the vexed deep, the cypress-tree
12 And aged ash are rocked no more.
13 O, ask not what the morn will bring,
14 But count as gain each day that chance
15 May give you; sport in life's young spring,
16 Nor scorn sweet love, nor merry dance,
17 While years are green, while sullen eld
18 Is distant. Now the walk, the game,
19 The whispered talk at sunset held,
20 Each in its hour, prefer their claim.
21 Sweet too the laugh, whose feigned alarm
22 The hiding-place of beauty tells,
23 The token, ravished from the arm
24 Or finger, that but ill rebels.
10Grandson of Atlas, wise of tongue,
2 O Mercury, whose wit could tame
3 Man's savage youth by power of song
4 And plastic game!
5 You sing I, herald of the sky,
6 Who gave the lyre its music sweet,
7 Hiding whatever might please your eye
8 In frolic cheat.
9 See, threatening you, poor guileless child,
10 Apollo claims, in angry tone,
11 His cattle;—all at once he smiled,
12 His quiver gone.
13 Strong in your guidance, Hector's sire
14 Escaped the Atridae, passed between
15 Thessalian tents and warders' fire,
16 Of all unseen,
17 You lay unspotted souls to rest;
18 Your golden rod pale spectres know;
19 Blest power! by all your brothers blest,
20 Above, below!
11Ask not (it is forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years,
2 Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers.
3 Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past,
4 Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our last;
5 This, that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend their strength against the shore.
6 Strain your wine and prove your wisdom; life is short; should hope be more?
7 In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebbed away.
8 Seize the present; trust tomorrow even as little as you may.
12What man, what hero, Clio sweet,
2 On harp or flute will you proclaim?
3 What god shall echo's voice repeat
4 In mocking game
5 To Helicon's sequestered shade,
6 Or Pindus, or on Haemus chill,
7 Where once the hurrying woods obeyed
8 The minstrel's will,
9 Who, by his mother's gift of song,
10 Held the fleet stream, the rapid breeze,
11 And led with blandishment along
12 The listening trees?
13 Whom praise we first? the sire on high,
14 Who gods and men unerring guides,
15 Who rules the sea, the earth, the sky,
16 Their times and tides.
17 No mightier birth may he beget;
18 No like, no second has he known;
19 Yet nearest to her sire's is set
20 Minerva's throne.
21 Nor yet shall Bacchus pass unsaid,
22 Bold warrior, nor the virgin foe
23 Of savage beasts, nor Phoebus, dread
24 With deadly bow.
25 Alcides too shall be my theme,
26 And Leda's twins, for horses he,
27 He famed for boxing; soon as gleam
28 Their stars at sea,
29 The lashed spray trickles from the steep,
30 The wind sinks down, the storm-cloud flies,
31 The threatening billow on the deep
32 Obedient lies.
33 Shall now Quirinus take his turn,
34 Or quiet Numa, or the state
35 Proud Tarquin held, or Cato stern,
36 By death made great?
37 Yes, Regulus and the Scaurian name,
38 And Paullus, who at Cannae gave
39 His glorious soul, fair record claim,
40 For all were brave.
41 Thee, Furius, and Fabricius, thee,
42 Rough Curius too, with untrimmed beard,
43 Your sires' transmitted poverty
44 To conquest reared.
45 Marcellus' fame, its up-growth hid,
46 Springs like a tree; great Julius' light
47 Shines, like the radiant moon amid
48 The lamps of night.
49 Dread Sire and Guardian of man's race,
50 To you, O Jove, the Fates assign
51 Our Caesar's charge; his power and place
52 Be next to thine.
53 Whether the Parthian, threatening Rome,
54 His eagles scatter to the wind.
55 Or follow to their eastern home
56 Cathay and Ind,
57 Your second let him rule below
58 Your car shall shake the realms above;
59 Your vengeful bolts shall overthrow
60 Each guilty grove.
13Telephus—you praise him still,
2 His waxen arms, his rosy-tinted neck;
3 Ah! and all the while I thrill
4 With jealous pangs I cannot, cannot check
5 See, my colour comes and goes,
6 My poor heart flutters, Lydia, and the dew,
7 Down my cheek soft stealing, shows
8 What lingering torments rack me through and through.
9 Oh, it is agony te see
10 Those snowwhite shoulders scarred in drunken fray,
11 Or those ruby lips, where he
12 Has left strange marks, that show how rough his play!
13 Never, never look to find
14 A faithful heart in him whose rage can harm
15 Sweetest lips, which Venus kind
16 Has tinctured with her quintessential charm.
17 Happy, happy; happy they
18 Whose living love, untroubled by all strife,
19 Binds them till the last sad day,
20 Nor parts apart but with parting life!
14O luckless bark! new waves will force you back
2 To sea. O, haste to make the haven yours!
3 Even now, a helpless wrack,
4 You drift, despoiled of oars;
5 The Afric gale has dealt your mast a wound;
6 Your sailyards groan, nor can your keel sustain,
7 Till lashed with cables round,
8 A more imperious main.
9 Your canvass hangs in ribbons, rent and torn;
10 No gods are left to pray to in fresh need.
11 A pine of Pontus born
12 Of noble forest breed,
13 You boast your name and lineage—madly blind
14 Can painted timbers quell a seaman's fear?
15 Beware! or else the wind
16 Makes you its mock and jeer.
17 Your trouble late made sick this heart of mine,
18 And still I love you, still am ill at ease.
19 O, shun the sea, where shine
20 The thick-sown Cyclades!
15When the false swain was hurrying over the deep
2 His Spartan hostess in the Idaean bark,
3 Old Nereus laid the unwilling winds asleep,
4 That all to Fate might hark,
5 Speaking through him:—“Home in ill hour you take
6 A prize whom Greece shall claim with troops untold,
7 Leagued by an oath your marriage tie to break
8 And Priam's kingdom old.
9 Alas! what deaths you launch on Dardan realm!
10 What tolls are waiting, man and horse to tire!
11 See! Pallas trims her aegis and her helm,
12 Her chariot and her ire.
13 Vainly shall you; in Venus' favour strong,
14 Your tresses comb, and for your dames divide
15 On peaceful lyre the several parts of song;
16 Vainly in chamber hide
17 From spears and Gnossian arrows, barbed with fate,
18 And battle's din, and Ajax in the chase
19 Unconquered; those adulterous locks, though late,
20 Shall gory dust deface.
21 Hark! it is the death-cry of your race! look back!
22 Ulysses comes, and Pylian Nestor grey;
23 See! Salaminian Teucer on your track,
24 And Sthenelus, in the fray
25 Versed, or with whip and rein, should need require,
26 No laggard. Merion too your eyes shall know
27 From far. Tydides, fiercer than his sire,
28 Pursues you, all aglow;
29 Him, as the stag forgets to graze for fright,
30 Seeing the wolf at distance in the glade,
31 And flies, high panting, you shall fly, despite
32 Boasts to your leman made.
33 What though Achilles' wrathful fleet postpone
34 The day of doom to Troy and Troy's proud dames,
35 Her towers shall fall, the numbered winters flown,
36 Wrapped in Achaenan flames.”
16O lovelier than the lovely dame
2 That bore you, sentence as you please
3 Those scurril verses, be it flame
4 Your vengeance craves, or Hadrian seas.
5 Not Cybele, nor he that haunts
6 Rich Pytho, worse the brain confounds,
7 Not Bacchus, nor the Corybants
8 Clash their loud gongs with fiercer sounds
9 Than savage wrath; nor sword nor spear
10 Appals it, no, nor ocean's frown,
11 Nor ravening fire, nor Jupiter
12 In hideous ruin crashing down.
13 Prometheus, forced, they say, to add
14 To his prime clay some favourite part
15 From every kind, took lion mad,
16 And lodged its gall in man's poor heart.
17 It was wrath that laid Thyestes low;
18 It is wrath that often destruction calls
19 On cities, and invites the foe
20 To drive his plough over ruined walls.
21 Then calm your spirit; I can tell
22 How once, when youth in all my veins
23 Was glowing, blind with rage, I fell
24 On friend and foe in ribald strains.
25 Come, let me change my sour for sweet,
26 And smile complacent as before:
27 Hear me my palinode repeat,
28 And give me back your heart once more.
17The pleasures of Lucretilis
2 Tempt Faunus from his Grecian seat;
3 He keeps my little goats in bliss
4 Apart from wind, and rain, and heat.
5 In safety rambling over the sward
6 For arbutes and for thyme they peer,
7 The ladies of the unfragrant lord,
8 Nor vipers, green with venom, fear,
9 Nor savage wolves, of Mars' own breed,
10 My Tyndaris, while Ustica's dell
11 Is vocal with the silvan reed,
12 And music thrills the limestone fell.
13 Heaven is my guardian; heaven approves
14 A blameless life, by song made sweet;
15 Come here, and the fields and groves
16 Their horn shall empty at your feet.
17 Here, sheltered by a friendiy tree,
18 In Teian measures you shall sing
19 Bright Circe and Penelope,
20 Love-smitten both by one sharp sting.
21 Here shall you quaff beneath the shade
22 Sweet Lesbian draughts that injure none,
23 Nor fear lest Mars the realm invade
24 Of Semele's Thyonian son,
25 Lest Cyrus on a foe too weak
26 Lay the rude hand of wild excess,
27 His passion on your chaplet wreak,
28 Or spoil your undeserving dress.
18Varus, are your trees in planting? put in none before the vine,
2 In the rich domain of Tibur, by the walls of Catilus;
3 There's a power above that hampers all that sober brains design,
4 And the troubles man is heir to thus are quelled, and only thus.
5 Who can talk of want or warfare when the wine is in his head,
6 Not of you, good father Bacchus, and of Venus fair and bright?
7 But should any dream of licence, there's a lesson may be read,
8 How it was wine that drove the Centaurs with the Lapithae to fight.
9 And the Thracians too may warn us; truth and falsehood, good and ill,
10 How they mix them, when the wine-god's hand is heavy on them laid!
11 Never, never, gracious Bacchus, may I move you against your will,
12 Or uncover what is hidden in the verdure of your shade!
13 Silence you your savage cymbals, and the Berecyntine horn;
14 In their train Self-love still follows, dully, desperately blind,
15 And Vain-glory, towering upwards in its emptyheaded scorn,
16 And the Faith that keeps no secrets, with a window in its mind.
19Cupid's mother, cruel dame,
2 And Semele's Theban boy, and Licence bold,
3 Bid me kindle into flame
4 This heart, by waning passion now left cold.
5 O, the charms of Glycera,
6 That hue, more dazzling than the Parian stone!
7 O, that sweet tormenting play,
8 That too fair face, that blinds when looked upon!
9 Venus comes in all her might,
10 Quits Cyprus for my heart, nor lets me tell
11 Of the Parthian, bold in flight,
12 Nor Scythian hordes, nor anything that breaks her spell.
13 Heap the grassy altar up,
14 Bring vervain, boys, and sacred frankincense;
15 Fill the sacrificial cup;
16 A victim's blood will soothe her vehemence.
20Not large my cups, nor rich my cheer,
2 This Sabine wine, which once I sealed,
3 That day the applauding theatre
4 Your welcome pealed,
5 Dear knight Maecenas! as it were fain
6 That your paternal river's banks,
7 And Vatican, in sportive strain,
8 Should echo thanks.
9 For you Calenian grapes are pressed,
10 And Caecuban; these cups of mine
11 Falernum's bounty never has blessed,
12 Nor Formian vine.
21Of Dian's praises, tender maidens, tell;
2 Of Cynthus' unshorn god, young striplings, sing;
3 And bright Latona, well
4 Beloved of Heaven's high king.
5 Sing her that streams and silvan foliage loves,
6 Whatever on Algidus' chill brow is seen,
7 In Erymanthian groves
8 Dark-leaved, or Cragus green.
9 Sing Tempe too, glad youths, in strain as loud,
10 And Phoebus' birthplace, and that shoulder fair,
11 His golden quiver proud
12 And brother's lyre to bear.
13 His arm shall banish Hunger, Plague, and War
14 To Persia and to Britain's coast, away
15 From Rome and Caesar far,
16 If you have zeal to pray.
22No need of Moorish archer's craft
2 To guard the pure and stainless liver;
3 He wants not, Fuscus, poisoned shaft
4 To store his quiver,
5 Whether he traverse Libyan shoals,
6 Or Caucasus, forlorn and horrent,
7 Or lands where far Hydaspes rolls
8 His fabled torrent.
9 A wolf, while roaming trouble-free
10 In Sabine wood, as fancy led me,
11 Unarmed I sang my Lalage,
12 Saw, and fled me.
13 Dire monster! in her broad oak woods
14 Fierce Daunia fosters none such other,
15 Nor Juba's land, of lion broods
16 The thirsty mother.
17 Place me where on the ice-bound plain
18 No tree is cheered by summer breezes,
19 Where Jove descends in sleety rain
20 Or sullen freezes;
21 Place me where none can live for heat,
22 Beneath Phoebus' very chariot plant me,
23 That smile so sweet, that voice so sweet,
24 Shall still enchant me.
23You fly me, Chloe, as over trackless hills
2 A young fawn runs her timorous dam to find,
3 Whom empty terror thrills
4 Of woods and whispering wind.
5 Whether it is Spring's first shiver, faintly heard
6 Through the light leaves, or lizards in the brake
7 The rustling thorns have stirred,
8 Her heart, her knees, they quake.
9 Yet I, who chase you, no grim lion am,
10 No tiger fell, to crush you in my gripe:
11 Come, learn to leave your dam.
12 For lover's kisses ripe.
24Why blush to let our tears unmeasured fall
2 For one so dear? Begin the mournful stave,
3 Melpomene, to whom the sire of all
4 Sweet voice with music gave.
5 And sleeps he then the heavy sleep of death,
6 Quintilius? Piety, twin sister dear
7 Of Justice! naked Truth! unsullied Faith!
8 When will you find his peer?
9 By many a good man wept, Quintilius dies;
10 By none than you, my Virgil, trulier wept:
11 Devout in vain, you chide the faithless skies,
12 Asking your loan ill-kept.
13 No, though more suasive than the bard of Thrace
14 You swept the lyre that trees were glad to hear,
15 Never should the blood revisit his pale face
16 Whom once with wand severe
17 Mercury has folded with the sons of night,
18 Untaught to prayer Fate's prison to unseal.
19 Ah, heavy grief! but patience makes more light
20 What sorrow may not heal.
25The wanton youths less violently shake your fastened windows with their redoubled knocks, nor do they rob you of your rest; and your door, which formerly moved its yielding hinges freely, now sticks lovingly to its threshold. Less and less often do you now hear: “My Lydia, do you sleep the live-long night, while I your lover am dying?” Now you are an old woman, it will be your turn to bewail the insolence of rakes, when you are neglected in a lonely alley, while the Thracian wind rages at the Interlunium: when that hot desire and lust, which is accustomed to render furious the dams of horses, shall rage about your ulcerous liver: not without complaint, that sprightly youth rejoice rather in the verdant ivy and growing myrtle, and dedicate sapless leaves to Eurus, the companion of winter.
26The Muses love me: fear and grief,
2 The winds may blow them to the sea;
3 Who quail before the wintry chief
4 Of Scythia's realm, is nothing to me.
5 What cloud over Tiridates lowers,
6 I care not, I. O, nymph divine
7 Of virgin springs, with sunniest flowers
8 A chaplet for my Lamia twine,
9 Pimplea sweet! my praise were vain
10 Without you. String this maiden lyre,
11 Attune for him the Lesbian strain,
12 O goddess, with your sister quire!
27What, fight with cups that should give joy?
2 It is barbarous; leave such savage ways
3 To Thracians. Bacchus, shamefaced boy,
4 Is blushing at your bloody frays.
5 The Median sabre! lights and wine!
6 Was stranger contrast ever seen?
7 Cease, cease this brawling, comrades mine,
8 And still upon your elbows lean.
9 Well, shall I take a toper's part
10 Of fierce Falernian? let our guest,
11 Megilla's brother, say what dart
12 Gave the death-wound that makes him blest.
13 He hesitates? no other hire
14 Shall tempt my sober brains. Whatever
15 The goddess tames you, no base fire
16 She kindles; it is some gentle fair
17 Allures you still. Come, tell me truth,
18 And trust my honour—That the name?
19 That wild Charybdis yours? Poor youth!
20 O, you deserved a better flame!
21 What wizard, what Thessalian spell,
22 What god can save you, hampered thus?
23 To cope with this Chimaera fell
24 Would task another Pegasus.
28The sea, the earth, the innumerable sand,
2 Archytas, you could measure; now, alas!
3 A little dust on Matine shore has spanned
4 That soaring spirit; vain it was to pass
5 The gates of heaven, and send your soul in quest
6 Over air's wide realms; for you had yet to die.
7 Yes, dead is Pelops' father, heaven's own guest,
8 And old Tithonus, rapt from earth to sky,
9 And Minos, made the council-friend of Jove;
10 And Panthus' son has yielded up his breath
11 Once more, though down he plucked the shield, to prove
12 His prowess under Troy, and bade grim death
13 Over skin and nerves alone exert its power,
14 Not he, you grant, in nature meanly read.
15 Yes, all “await the inevitable hour;”
16 The downward journey all one day must tread.
17 Some bleed, to glut the war-god's savage eyes;
18 Fate meets the sailor from the hungry brine;
19 Youth jostles age in funeral obsequies;
20 Each brow in turn is touched by Proserpine.
21 Me, too, Orion's mate, the Southern blast,
22 Whelmed in deep death beneath the Illyrian wave.
23 But grudge not, sailor, of driven sand to cast
24 A handful on my head, that owns no grave.
25 So, though the eastern tempests loudly threat
26 Hesperia's main, may green Venusia's crown
27 Be stripped, while you lie warm; may blessings yet
28 Stream from Tarentum's guard, great Neptune, down,
29 And gracious Jove, into your open lap!
30 What! shrink you not from crime whose punishment
31 Falls on your innocent children? it may hap
32 Imperious Fate will make yourself repent.
33 My prayers shall reach the avengers of all wrong;
34 No expiations shall the curse unbind.
35 Great though your haste, I would not task you long;
36 Thrice sprinkle dust, then scud before the wind.
29Your heart on Arab wealth is set,
2 Good Iccius: you would try your steel
3 On Saba's kings, unconquerd yet,
4 And make the Mede your fetters feel.
5 Come, tell me what barbarian fair
6 Will serve you now, her bridegroom slain?
7 What page from court with essenced hair
8 Will tender you the bowl you drain,
9 Well skilled to bend the Serian bow
10 His father carried? Who shall say
11 That rivers may not uphill flow,
12 And Tiber's self return one day,
13 If you would change Panaetius' works,
14 That costly purchase, and the clan
15 Of Socrates, for shields and dirks,
16 Whom once we thought a saner man?
30Come, Cnidian, Paphian Venus, come,
2 Your well-beloved Cyprus spurn,
3 Haste, where for you in Glycera's home
4 Sweet odours burn.
5 Bring too your Cupid, glowing warm,
6 Graces and Nymphs, unzoned and free,
7 And Youth, that lacking you lacks charm,
8 And Mercury.
31What blessing shall the bard entreat
2 The god he hallows, as he pours
3 The winecup? Not the mounds of wheat
4 That load Sardinian threshing floors;
5 Not Indian gold or ivory—no,
6 Nor flocks that over Calabria stray,
7 Nor fields that Liris, still and slow,
8 Is eating, unperceived, away.
9 Let those whose fate allows them train
10 Calenum's vine; let trader bold
11 From golden cups rich liquor drain
12 For wares of Syria bought and sold,
13 Heaven's favourite, sooth, for thrice a year
14 He comes and goes across the brine
15 Undamaged. I in plenty here
16 On endives, mallows, succory dine.
17 O grant me, Phoebus, calm content,
18 Strength unimpaird, a mind entire,
19 Old age without dishonour spent,
20 Nor unbefriended by the lyre!
32They call;—if anything in shady dell
2 We two have warbled, to remain
3 Long months or years, now breathe, my shell,
4 A Roman strain,
5 You, strung by Lesbos' minstrel hand,
6 The bard, who amid the clash of steel,
7 Or perhaps mooring to the strand
8 His battered keel,
9 Of Bacchus and the Muses sung,
10 And Cupid, still at Venus' side,
11 And Lycus, beautiful and young,
12 Dark-haired, dark-eyed.
13 O sweetest lyre, to Phoebus dear,
14 Delight of Jove's high festival,
15 Blest balm in trouble, hail and hear
16 Whenever I call!
33What, Albius! why this passionate despair
2 For cruel Glycera? why melt your voice
3 In dolorous strains, because the perjured fair
4 Has made a younger choice?
5 See, narrow-browed Lycoris, how she glows
6 For Cyrus! Cyrus turns away his head
7 To Pholoe's frown; but sooner gentle roes
8 Apulian wolves shall wed,
9 Than Pholoe to so mean a conqueror strike:
10 So Venus wills it; beneath her brazen yoke
11 She loves to couple forms and minds unlike,
12 All for a heartless joke.
13 For me sweet Love had forged a milder spell;
14 But Myrtale still kept me her fond slave,
15 More stormy she than the tempestuous swell
16 That crests Calabria's wave.
34My prayers were scant, my offerings few,
2 While witless wisdom fooled my mind;
3 But now I trim my sails anew,
4 And trace the course I left behind.
5 For lo! the sire of heaven on high,
6 By whose fierce bolts the clouds are riven,
7 Today through an unclouded sky
8 His thundering steeds and car has driven.
9 Even now dull earth and wandering floods,
10 And Atlas' limitary range,
11 And Styx, and Taenarus' dark abodes
12 Are reeling. He can lowliest change
13 And loftiest; bring the mighty down
14 And lift the weak; with whirring flight
15 Comes Fortune, plucks the monarch's crown,
16 And decks therewith some meaner wight.
35Lady of Antium, grave and stern!
2 O Goddess, who can lift the low
3 To high estate, and sudden turn
4 A triumph to a funeral show!
5 You the poor hind that tills the soil
6 Implores; their queen they own in thee,
7 Who in Bithynian vessel toil
8 Amid the vexed Carpathian sea.
9 You Dacians fierce, and Scythian hordes,
10 Peoples and towns, and Rome, their head,
11 And mothers of barbarian lords,
12 And tyrants in their purple dread,
13 Lest, spurned by you in scorn, should fall
14 The state's tall prop, lest crowds on fire
15 To arms, to arms! the loiterers call,
16 And thrones be tumbled in the mire.
17 Necessity precedes you still
18 With hard fierce eyes and heavy tramp:
19 Her hand the nails and wedges fill,
20 The molten lead and stubborn clamp.
21 Hope, precious Truth in garb of white,
22 Attend you still, nor quit your side
23 When with changed robes you take your flight
24 In anger from the homes of pride.
25 Then the false herd, the faithless fair,
26 Start backward; when the wine runs dry.
27 The jocund guests, too light to bear
28 An equal yoke, apart fly.
29 O shield our Caesar as he goes
30 To furthest Britain, and his band,
31 Rome's harvest! Send on Eastern foes
32 Their fear, and on the Red Sea strand!
33 O wounds that scarce have ceased to run!
34 O brother's blood! O iron time!
35 What horror have we left undone?
36 Has conscience shrunk from any crime?
37 What shrine has rapine held in awe?
38 What altar spared? O haste and beat
39 The blunted steel we yet may draw
40 On Arab and on Massagete!
36Bid the lyre and cittern play;
2 Enkindle incense, shed the victim's gore;
3 Heaven has watched over Numida,
4 And brings him safe from far Hispania's shore.
5 Now, returning, he bestows
6 On each dear comrade all the love he can;
7 But to Lamia most he owes,
8 By whose sweet side he grew from boy to man.
9 Note we in our calendar
10 This festal day with whitest mark from Crete:
11 Let it flow, the old wine-jar,
12 And ply to Salian time your restless feet.
13 Damalis tosses off her wine,
14 But Bassus sure must prove her match tonight.
15 Give us roses all to twine,
16 And parsley green, and lilies deathly white.
17 Every melting eye will rest
18 On Damalis' lovely face; but none may part
19 Damalis from our new-found guest;
20 She clings, and clings, like ivy, round his heart.
37Now drink we deep, now featly tread
2 A measure; now before each shrine
3 With Salian feasts the table spread;
4 The time invites us, comrades mine.
5 It was shame to broach, before today,
6 The Caecuban, while Egypt's dame
7 Threatened our power in dust to lay
8 And wrap the Capitol in flame,
9 Girt with her foul emasculate throng,
10 By Fortune's sweet new wine befooled,
11 In hope's ungoverned weakness strong
12 To hope for all; but soon she cooled,
13 To see one ship from burning 'scape;
14 Great Caesar taught her dizzy brain,
15 Made mad by Mareotic grape,
16 To feel the sobering truth of pain,
17 And gave her chase from Italy,
18 As after doves fierce falcons speed,
19 As hunters beneath Haemonia's sky
20 Chase the tired hare, so might he lead
21 The fiend enchained; she sought to die
22 More nobly, nor with woman's dread
23 Quailed at the steel, nor timorously
24 In her fleet ships to covert fled.
25 Amid her ruined halls she stood
26 Unblenched, and fearless to the end
27 Grasped the fell snakes, that all her blood
28 Might with the cold black venom blend,
29 Death's purpose flushing in her face;
30 Nor to our ships the glory gave,
31 That she, no vulgar dame, should grace
32 A triumph, crownless, and a slave.
38No Persian cumber, boy, for me;
2 I hate your garlands linden-plaited;
3 Leave winter's rose where on the tree
4 It hangs belated.
5 Wreath me plain myrtle; never think
6 Plain myrtle either's wear unfitting,
7 Yours as you wait, mine as I drink
8 In vine-bower sitting.