1Bid the unhallowed crowd avaunt!
2 Keep holy silence; strains unknown
3 Till now, the Muses' hierophant,
4 I sing to youths and maids alone.
5 Kings over their flocks the sceptre wield;
6 Even kings beneath Jove's sceptre bow:
7 Victor in giant battle-field,
8 He moves all nature with his brow.
9 This man his planted walks extends
10 Beyond his peers; an older name
11 One to the people's choice commends;
12 One boasts a more unsullied fame;
13 One plumes him on a larger crowd
14 Of clients. What are great or small?
15 Death takes the mean man with the proud;
16 The fatal urn has room for all.
17 When guilty Pomp the drawn sword sees
18 Hung over her, richest feasts in vain
19 Strain their sweet juice her taste to please;
20 No lutes, no singing birds again
21 Will bring her sleep. Sleep knows no pride;
22 It scorns not cots of village hinds,
23 Nor shadow-trembling river-side,
24 Nor Tempe, stirred by western winds.
25 Who, having competence, has all,
26 The tumult of the sea defies,
27 Nor fears Arcturus' angry fall,
28 Nor fears the Kid-star's sullen rise,
29 Though hail-storms on the vineyard beat,
30 Though crops deceive, though trees complain,
31 One while of showers, one while of heat,
32 One while of winter's barbarous reign.
33 Fish feel the narrowing of the main
34 From sunken piles, while on the strand
35 Contractors with their busy train
36 Let down huge stones, and lords of land
37 Affect the sea: but fierce Alarm
38 Can clamber to the master's side:
39 Black Cares can up ihe galley swarm,
40 And close behind the horseman ride.
41 If Phrygian marbles soothe not pain,
42 Nor star-bright purple's costliest wear,
43 Nor vines of true Falernian strain,
44 Nor Achaemenian spices rare,
45 Why with rich gate and pillard range
46 Upbuild new mansions, twice as high,
47 Or why my Sabine vale exchange
48 For more laborious luxury?
2To suffer hardness with good cheer,
2 In sternest school of warfare bred,
3 Our youth should learn; let steed and spear
4 Make him one day the Parthian's dread;
5 Cold skies, keen perils, brace his life.
6 I think I see from rampired town
7 Some battling tyrant's matron wife,
8 Some maiden, look in terror down,—
9 “Ah, my dear lord, untrained in war!
10 O tempt not the infuriate mood
11 Of that fell lion I see! from far
12 He plunges through a tide of blood!“
13 What joy, for fatherland to die!
14 Death's darts even flying feet overtake,
15 Nor spare a recreant chivalry,
16 A back that cowers, or loins that quake.
17 True Virtue never knows defeat:
18 Her robes she keeps unsullied still,
19 Nor takes, nor quits, her curule seat
20 To please a people's veering will.
21 True Virtue opens heaven to worth:
22 She makes the way she does not find:
23 The vulgar crowd, the humid earth,
24 Her soaring pinion leaves behind.
25 Sealed lips have blessings sure to come:
26 Who drags Eleusis' rite today,
27 That man shall never share my home,
28 Or join my voyage: roofs give way
29 And boats are wrecked: true men and thieves
30 Neglected Justice often confounds:
31 Though Vengeance halt, she seldom leaves
32 The wretch whose flying steps she hounds.
3The man of firm and righteous will,
2 No rabble, clamorous for the wrong,
3 No tyrant's brow, whose frown may kill,
4 Can shake the strength that makes him strong:
5 Not winds, that chafe the sea they sway,
6 Nor Jove's right hand, with lightning red:
7 Should Nature's pillared frame give way,
8 That wreck would strike one fearless head.
9 Pollux and roving Hercules
10 Thus won their way to Heaven's proud steep,
11 Amid whom Augustus, couched at ease,
12 Dyes his red lips with nectar deep.
13 For this, great Bacchus, tigers drew
14 Your glorious car, untaught to slave
15 In harness: thus Quirinus flew
16 On Mars' winged steeds from Acheron's wave,
17 When Juno spoke with Heaven's assent:
18 “O Ilium, Ilium, wretched town!
19 The judge accurst, incontinent,
20 And stranger dame have dragged you down.
21 Pallas and I, since Priam's sire
22 Denied the gods his pledged reward,
23 Had doomed them all to sword and fire,
24 The people and their perjured lord.
25 No more the adulterous guest can charm
26 The Spartan queen: the house forsworn
27 No more repels by Hector's arm
28 My warriors, baffled and outworn:
29 Hushed is the war our strife made long:
30 I welcome now, my hatred o'er,
31 A grandson in the child of wrong,
32 Him whom the Trojan priestess bore.
33 Receive him, Mars! the gates of flame
34 May open: let him taste forgiven
35 The nectar, and enrol his name
36 Among the peaceful ranks of Heaven.
37 Let the wide waters sever still
38 Ilium and Rome, the exiled race
39 May reign and prosper where they will:
40 So but in Paris' burial-place
41 The cattle sport, the wild beasts hide
42 Their cubs, the Capitol may stand
43 All bright, and Rome in warlike pride
44 Over Media stretch a conqueror's hand.
45 Aye, let her scatter far and wide
46 Her terror, where tbe land-locked waves
47 Europe from Afric's shore divide,
48 Where swelling Nile the grain-field laves—
49 Of strength more potent to disdain
50 Hid gold, best buried in the mine,
51 Than gather it with hand profane,
52 That for man's greed would rob a shrine.
53 Whatever the bound to earth ordained,
54 There let her reach the arm of power,
55 Travelling, where raves the fire unreined,
56 And where the storm-cloud and the shower.
57 Yet, warlike Roman, know your doom,
58 Nor, drunken with a conqueror's joy,
59 Or blind with duteous zeal, presume
60 To build again ancestral Troy.
61 Should Troy revive to hateful life,
62 Her star again should set in gore,
63 While I, Jove's sister and his wife,
64 To victory led my host once more.
65 Though Phoebus thrice in brazen mail
66 Should case her towers, they thrice should fall,
67 Stormed by my Greeks: thrice wives should wail
68 Husband and son, themselves in thrall.”—
69 Such thunders from the lyre of love!
70 Back, wayward Muse! refrain, refrain
71 To tell the talk of gods above,
72 And dwarf high themes in puny strain.
4Come down, Calliope, from above:
2 Breathe on the pipe a strain of fire:
3 Or if a graver note you love,
4 With Phoebus' cittern and his lyre.
5 You hear her? or is this the play
6 Of fond illusion? Hark! meseems
7 Through gardens of the good I stray,
8 Amid murmuring gales and purling streams.
9 Me, as I lay on Vultur's steep,
10 A truant past Apulia's bound,
11 Overtired, poor child, with play and sleep,
12 With living green the stock-doves crowned—
13 A legend, no, a miracle,
14 By Acherontia's nestlings told,
15 By all in Bantine glade that dwell,
16 Or till the rich Forentan mould.
17 “Bears, vipers, spared him as he lay,
18 The sacred garland decked his hair,
19 The myrtle blended with the bay:
20 The child's inspired: the gods were there.”
21 Your grace, sweet Muses, shields me still
22 On Sabine heights, or lets me range
23 Where cool Praeneste, Tibur's hill,
24 Or liquid Baiae proffers change.
25 Me to your springs, your dances true,
26 Philippi bore not to the ground,
27 Nor the doomed tree in falling slew,
28 Nor billowy Palinurus drowned.
29 Grant me your presence, blithe and fain
30 Mad Bosporus shall my bark explore;
31 My foot shall tread the sandy plain
32 That glows beside Assyria's shore;
33 Amid Briton tribes, the stranger's foe,
34 And Spaniards, drunk with horses' blood,
35 And quivered Scythians, will I go
36 Unharmed, and look on Tanais' flood.
37 When Caesar's self in peaceful town
38 The weary veteran's home has made,
39 You bid him lay his helmet down
40 And rest in your Pierian shade.
41 Mild thoughts you plant, and joy to see
42 Mild thoughts take root. The nations know
43 How with descending thunder he
44 The impious Titans hurled below,
45 Who rules dull earth and stormy seas,
46 And towns of men, and realms of pain,
47 And gods, and mortal companies,
48 Alone, impartial in his reign.
49 Yet Jove had feared the giant rush,
50 Their upraised arms, their port of pride,
51 And the twin brothers bent to push
52 Huge Pelion up Olympus' side.
53 But Typhon, Mimas, what could these,
54 Or what Porphyrion's stalwart scorn,
55 Rhoetus, or he whose spears were trees,
56 Enceladus, from earth uptorn,
57 As on they rushed in mad career
58 Against Pallas' shield? Here met the foe
59 Fierce Vulcan, queenly Juno here,
60 And he who never shall quit his bow,
61 Who laves in clear Castalian flood
62 His locks, and loves the leafy growth
63 Of Lycia next his native wood,
64 The Delian and the Pataran both.
65 Strength, mindless, falls by its own weight;
66 Strength, mixed with mind, is made more strong
67 By the just gods, who surely hate
68 The strength whose thoughts are set on wrong.
69 Let hundred-handed Gyas bear
70 His witness, and Orion known
71 Tempter of Dian, chaste and fair,
72 By Dian's maiden dart overthrown.
73 Hurled on the monstrous shapes she bred,
74 Earth groans, and mourns her children thrust
75 To Orcus; Aetna's weight of lead
76 Keeps down the fire that breaks its crust;
77 Still sits the bird on Tityos' breast,
78 The warder of Unlawful love;
79 Still suffers lewd Pirithous, prest
80 By massive chains no hand may move.
5Jove rules in heaven, his thunder shows;
2 Henceforth Augustus earth shall own
3 Her present god, now Briton foes
4 And Persians bow before his throne.
5 Has Crassus' soldier ta'en to wife
6 A base barbarian, and grown grey
7 (Woe, for a nation's tainted life!)
8 Earning his foemen-kinsmen's pay,
9 His king, indeed, a Mede, his sire
10 A Marsian? can he name forget,
11 Gown, sacred shield, undying fire,
12 And Jove and Rome are standing yet?
13 It was this that Regulus foresaw,
14 What time he spurned the foul disgrace
15 Of peace, whose precedent would draw
16 Destruction on an unborn race,
17 Should anything but death the prisoner's chain
18 Unrivet. “I have seen,” he said,
19 “Rome's eagle in a Punic fane,
20 And armour, never a blood-drop shed,
21 Stripped from the soldier; I have seen
22 Free sons of Rome with arms fast tied;
23 The fields we spoiled with grain are green,
24 And Carthage opes her portals wide.
25 The warrior, sure, redeemed by gold,
26 Will fight the bolder! Aye, you heap
27 On baseness loss. The hues of old
28 Revisit not the wool we steep;
29 And genuine worth, expelled by fear,
30 Returns not to the worthless slave.
31 Break but her meshes, will the deer
32 Assail you? then will he be brave
33 Who once to faithless foes has knelt;
34 Yes, Carthage yet his spear will fly,
35 Who with bound arms the cord has felt,
36 The coward, and has feared to die.
37 He knows not, he, how life is won;
38 Thinks war, like peace, a thing of trade!
39 Great are you, Carthage! mate the sun,
40 While Italy in dust is laid!”
41 His wife's pure kiss he waved aside,
42 And prattling boys, as one disgraced,
43 They tell us, and with manly pride
44 Stern on the ground his visage placed.
45 With counsel thus never else aread
46 He nerved the fathers' weak intent,
47 And, girt by friends that mourned him, sped
48 Into illustrious banishment.
49 Well witting what the torturer's art
50 Designed him, with like unconcern
51 The press of kin he pushed apart
52 And crowds encumbering his return,
53 As though, some tedious business o'er
54 Of clients' court, his journey lay
55 Towards Venafrum's grassy floor,
56 Or Sparta-built Tarentum's bay.
6Your fathers' guilt you still must pay,
2 Till, Roman, you restore each shrine,
3 Each temple, 'mouldering in decay,
4 And smoke-grimed statue, scarce divine.
5 Revering Heaven, you rule below;
6 Be that your base, your coping still;
7 It is Heaven neglected bids overflow
8 The measure of Italian ill.
9 Now Pacorus and Monaeses twice
10 Have given our unblest arms the foil;
11 Their necklaces, of mean device;
12 Smiling they deck with Roman spoil.
13 Our city, torn by faction's throes,
14 Dacian and Ethiop well-nigh razed,
15 These with their dreadful navy, those
16 For archer-prowess rather praised.
17 An evil age formerly debased
18 The marriage-bed, the race, the home;
19 From there rose the flood whose waters waste
20 The nation and the name of Rome.
21 Not such their birth, who stained for us
22 The sea with Punic carnage red,
23 Struck Pyrrhus, struck Antiochus,
24 And Hannibal, the Roman's dread.
25 Theirs was a hardy soldier-brood,
26 Inured all day the land to till
27 With Sabine spade, then shoulder wood
28 Hewn at a stern old mother's will,
29 When sunset lengthened from each height
30 The shadows, and unyoked the steer,
31 Restoring in its westward flight
32 The hour to toilworn labour dear.
33 What has not cankering Time made worse?
34 Viler than grandsires, sires beget
35 Ourselves, yet baser, soon to curse
36 The world with offspring baser yet.
7Why weep for him whom sweet Favonian airs
2 Will waft next spring, Asteria, back to you,
3 Rich with Bithynia's wares,
4 A lover fond and true,
5 Your Gyges? He, detained by stormy stress
6 At Oricum, about the Goat-star's rise,
7 Cold, wakeful, comfortless,
8 The long night weeping lies.
9 Meantime his lovesick hostess' messenger
10 Talks of the flames that waste poor Chloe's heart
11 (Flames lit for you, not her!)
12 With a besieger's art;
13 Shows how a treacherous woman's lying breath
14 Once on a time on trustful Proetus won
15 To doom to early death
16 Too chaste Bellerophon;
17 Warns him of Peleus' peril, all but slain
18 For virtuous scorn of fair Hippolyta,
19 And tells again each tale
20 That ever led heart astray.
21 In vain; for deafer than Icarian seas
22 He hears, untainted yet. But, lady fair,
23 What if Enipeus please
24 Your listless eye? beware!
25 Though true it be that none with surer seat
26 Over Mars's grassy turf is seen to ride,
27 Nor any swims so fleet
28 Adown the Tuscan tide,
29 Yet keep each evening door and window barred;
30 Look not abroad when music strikes up shrill,
31 And though he call you hard,
32 Remain obdurate still.
8The first of March! a man unwed!
2 What can these flowers, this censer mean?
3 Or what these embers, glowing red
4 On sods of green?
5 You ask, in either language skilled!
6 A feast I vowed to Bacchus free,
7 A white he-goat, when all but killed
8 By falling tree.
9 So, when that holyday comes round,
10 It sees me still the rosin clear
11 From this my wine-jar, first embrowned
12 In Tullus' year.
13 Come, crush one hundred cups for life
14 Preserved, Maecenas; keep till day
15 The candles lit; let noise and strife
16 Be far away.
17 Lay down that load of state-concern;
18 The Dacian hosts are all overthrown;
19 The Mede, that sought our overturn,
20 Now seeks his own;
21 A servant now, our ancient foe,
22 The Spaniard, wears at last our chain;
23 The Scythian half unbends his bow
24 And quits the plain.
25 Then fret not lest the state should ail;
26 A private man such thoughts may spare;
27 Enjoy the present hour's regale,
28 And banish care.
9Horace: While I had power to bless you,
2 Nor any round that neck his arms did fling
3 More privileged to caress you,
4 Happier was Horace than the Persian king.
5 Lydia: While you for none were pining
6 Sorer, nor Lydia after Chloe came,
7 Lydia, her peers outshining,
8 Might match her own with Ilia's Roman fame.
9 Horace: Now Chloe is my treasure,
10 Whose voice, whose touch, can make sweet music flow:
11 For her I'd die with pleasure,
12 Would Fate but spare the dear survivor so.
13 Lydia: I love my own fond lover,
14 Young Calais, son of Thurian Ornytus:
15 For him I'd die twice over,
16 Would Fate but spare the sweet survivor thus.
17 Horace: What now, if Love returning
18 Should pair us beneath his brazen yoke once more,
19 And, bright-haired Chloe spurning,
20 Horace to off-cast Lydia ope his door?
21 Lydia: Though he is fairer, milder,
22 Than starlight, you lighter than bark of tree,
23 Than stormy Hadria wilder,
24 With you to live, to die, were bliss for me.
10Ah Lyce! though your drink were Tanais,
2 Your husband some rude savage, you would weep
3 To leave me shivering, on a night like this,
4 Where storms their watches keep.
5 Hark! how your door is creaking! how the grove
6 In your fair courtyard, while the wild winds blow,
7 Wails in accord! with what transparence Jove
8 Is glazing the driven snow!
9 Cease that proud temper: Venus loves it not:
10 The rope may break, the wheel may backward turn:
11 Begetting you, no Tuscan sire begot
12 Penelope the stern.
13 O, though no gift, no “prevalence of prayer,”
14 Nor lovers' paleness deep as violet,
15 Nor husband, smit with a Pierian fair,
16 Move you, have pity yet!
17 O harder even than toughest heart of oak,
18 Deafer than uncharmed snake to suppliant moans!
19 This side, I warn you, will not always brook
20 Rain-water and cold stones.
11Come, Mercury, by whose minstrel spell
2 Amphion raised the Theban stones,
3 Come, with your seven sweet strings, my shell,
4 Your “diverse tones,”
5 Nor vocal once nor pleasant, now
6 To rich man's board and temple dear:
7 Put forth your power, till Lyde bow
8 Her stubborn ear.
9 She, like a three-year colt unbroke,
10 Is frisking over the spacious plain,
11 Too shy to bear a lover's yoke,
12 A husband's rein.
13 The wood, the tiger, at your call
14 Have followed: you can rivers stay:
15 The monstrous guard of Pluto's hall
16 To you gave way,
17 Grim Cerberus, round whose Gorgon head
18 A hundred snakes are hissing death,
19 Whose triple jaws black venom shed,
20 And sickening breath.
21 Ixion too and Tityos smoothed
22 Their rugged brows: the urn stood dry
23 One hour, while Danaus' maids were soothed
24 With minstrelsy.
25 Let Lyde hear those maidens' guilt,
26 Their famous doom, the ceaseless drain
27 Of outpoured water, ever spilt,
28 And all the pain
29 Reserved for sinners, even when dead:
30 Those impious hands, (could crime do more?)
31 [1]Those impious hands had hearts to shed
32 Their bridegrooms' gore!
33 One only, true to Hymen's flame,
34 Was traitress to her sire forsworn:
35 That splendid falsehood lights her name
36 Through times unborn.
37 “Wake!” to her youthful spouse she cried,
38 “Wake! or you yet may sleep too well:
39 Fly—from the father of your bride,
40 Her sisters fell:
41 They, as she-lions bullocks rend,
42 Tear each her victim: I, less hard
43 Than these, will slay you not, poor friend,
44 Nor hold in ward:
45 Me let my sire in fetters lay
46 For mercy to my husband shown:
47 Me let him ship far hence away,
48 To climes unknown.
49 Go; speed your flight over land and wave,
50 While Night and Venus shield you; go
51 Be blest: and on my tomb engrave
52 This tale of woe.”
12How unhappy are the maidens who with Cupid may not play,
2 Who may never touch the wine-cup, but must tremble all the day
3 At an uncle, and the scourging of his tongue!
4 Neobule, there's a robber takes your needle and your thread,
5 Lets the lessons of Minerva run no longer in your head;
6 It is Hebrus, the athletic and the young!
7 O, to see him when anointed he is plunging in the flood!
8 What a seat he has on horseback! was Bellerophon's as good?
9 As a boxer, as a runner, past compare!
10 When the deer are flying blindly all the open country o'er,
11 He can aim and he can hit them; he can steal upon the boar,
12 As it couches in the thicket unaware.
13Bandusia's fount, in clearness crystalline,
2 O worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow!
3 Tomorrow shall be thine
4 A kid, whose crescent brow
5 Is sprouting all for love and victory.
6 In vain: his warm red blood, so early stirred.
7 Your gelid stream shall dye,
8 Child of the wanton herd.
9 You the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired,
10 Forbears to touch: sweet cool your waters yield
11 To ox with ploughing tired,
12 And lazy sheep afield.
13 You too one day shall win proud eminence
14 Amid honoured founts, while I the ilex sing
15 Crowning the cavern, whence
16 Your babbling wavelets spring.
14Our Hercules, they told us, Rome,
2 Had sought the laurel Death bestows:
3 Now Glory brings him conqueror home
4 From Spaniard foes.
5 Proud of her spouse, the imperial fair
6 Must thank the gods that shield from death;
7 His sister too:—let matrons wear
8 The suppliant wreath
9 For daughters and for sons restored:
10 You youths and maidens newly wed,
11 Let decent awe restrain each word
12 Best left unsaid.
13 This day, true holyday to me,
14 Shall banish care: I will not fear
15 Rude broils or bloody death to see,
16 While Caesar's here.
17 Quick, boy, the chaplets and the nard,
18 And wine, that knew the Marsian war,
19 If roving Spartacus have spared
20 A single jar.
21 And bid Neaera come and trill,
22 Her bright locks bound with careless art:
23 If her rough porter cross your will,
24 Why then depart.
25 Soon palls the taste for noise and fray,
26 When hair is white and leaves are sere:
27 How had I fired in life's warm May,
28 In Plancus' year!
15Wife of Ibycus the poor,
2 Let aged scandals have at length their bound:
3 Give your graceless doings o'er,
4 Ripe as you are for going underground.
5 You the maidens' dance to lead,
6 And cast your gloom upon those beaming stars!
7 Daughter Pholoe may succeed,
8 But mother Chloris what she touches mars.
9 Young men's homes your daughter storms,
10 Like Thyiad, maddened by the cymbals' beat:
11 Nothus' love her bosom warms:
12 She gambols like a fawn with silver feet.
13 Yours should be the wool that grows
14 By fair Luceria, not the merry lute:
15 Flowers beseem not withered brows,.
16 Nor withered lips with emptied wine-jars suit.
16Full well had Danae been secured, in truth,
2 By oaken portals, and a brazen tower,
3 And savage watch-dogs, from the roving youth
4 That prowl at midnight's hour:
5 But Jove and Venus mocked with gay disdain
6 The jealous warder of that close stronghold:
7 The way, they knew, must soon be smooth and plain
8 When gods could change to gold.
9 Gold, gold can pass the tyrant's sentinel,
10 Can shiver rocks with more resistless blow
11 Than is the thunder's. Argos' prophet fell,
12 He and his house laid low,
13 And all for gain. The man of Macedon
14 Cleft gates of cities, rival kings overthrew
15 By force of gifts: their cunning snares have won
16 Rude captains and their crew.
17 As riches grow, care follows: men repine
18 And thirst for more. No lofty crest I raise:
19 Wisdom that thought forbids, Maecenas mine,
20 The knightly order's praise.
21 He that denies himself shall gain the more
22 From bounteous Heaven. I strip me of my pride,
23 Desert the rich man's standard, and pass o'er
24 To bare Contentment's side,
25 More proud as lord of what the great despise
26 Than if the wheat threshed on Apulia's floor
27 I hoarded all in my huge granaries,
28 Amid vast possessions poor.
29 A clear fresh stream, a little field overgrown
30 With shady trees, a crop that never deceives,
31 Pass, though men know it not, their wealth, that own
32 All Afric's golden sheaves.
33 Though no Calabrian bees their honey yield
34 For me, nor mellowing sleeps the god of wine
35 In Formian jar, nor in Gaul's pasture-field
36 The wool grows long and fine,
37 Yet Poverty never comes to break my peace;
38 If more I craved, you would not more refuse.
39 Desiring less, I better shall increase
40 My tiny revenues,
41 Than if to Alyattes' wide domains
42 I joined the realms of Mygdon. Great desires
43 Sort with great wants. It is best, when prayer obtains
44 No more than life requires.
17Aelius, of Lamus' ancient name
2 (For since from that high parentage
3 The prehistoric Lamias came
4 And all who fill the storied page,
5 No doubt you trace your line from him,
6 Who stretched his sway over Formiae,
7 And Liris, whose still waters swim
8 Whore green Marica skirts the sea,
9 Lord of broad realms), an eastern gale
10 Will blow to-morrow, and bestrew
11 The shore with weeds, with leaves the vale,
12 If rain's old prophet tell me true,
13 The raven. Gather, while it is fine,
14 Your wood; tomorrow shall be gay
15 With smoking pig and streaming wine,
16 And lord and slave keep holyday.
18O wont the flying Nymphs to woo,
2 Good Faunus, through my sunny farm
3 Pass gently, gently pass, nor do
4 My younglings harm.
5 Each year, you know, a kid must die
6 For you; nor lacks the wine's full stream
7 To Venus' mate, the bowl; and high
8 The altars steam.
9 Sure as December's Nones appear,
10 All over the grass the cattle play;
11 The village, with the lazy steer,
12 Keeps holyday.
13 Wolves rove among the fearless sheep;
14 The woods for you their foliage strow;
15 The delver loves on earth to leap,
16 His ancient foe.
19What the time from Inachus
2 To Codrus, who in patriot battle fell,
3 Who were sprung from Aeacus,
4 And how men fought at Ilion,—this you tell.
5 What the wines of Chios cost,
6 Who with due heat our water can allay,
7 What the hour, and who the host
8 To give us house-room,—this you will not say
9 Ho, there! wine to moonrise, wine
10 To midnight, wine to our new augur too!
11 Nine to three or three to nine,
12 As each man pleases, makes proportion true.
13 Who the uneven Muses loves,
14 Will fire his dizzy brain with three times three;
15 Three once told the Grace approves;
16 She with her two bright sisters, gay and free,
17 Shrinks, as maiden should, from strife:
18 But I'm for madness. What has dulled the fire
19 Of the Berecyntian fife?
20 Why hangs the flute in silence with the lyre?
21 Out on niggard-handed boys!
22 Rain showers of roses; let old Lycus hear,
23 Envious churl, our senseless noise,
24 And she, our neighbour, his ill-sorted fere.
25 You with your bright clustering hair,
26 Your beauty, Telephus, like evening's sky,
27 Rhoda loves, as young, as fair;
28 I for my Glycera slowly, slowly die.
20Do you not perceive, O Pyrrhus, at what hazard you are taking away the whelps from a Gutulian lioness? In a little while you, a timorous ravisher, shall fly from the severe engagement, when she shall march through the opposing band of youths, re-demanding her beauteous Nearchus; a grand contest, whether a greater share of booty shall fall to you or to her! In the mean time, while you produce your swift arrows, she whets her terrific teeth; while the umpire of the combat is reported to have placed the palm under his naked foot, and refreshed his shoulder, overspread with his perfumed locks, with the gentle breeze: just such another was Nireus, or he that was ravished from the watery Ida.
21O born in Manlius' year with me,
2 Whatever you bring us, plaint or jest,
3 Or passion and wild revelry,
4 Or, like a gentle wine-jar, rest;
5 However men call your Massic juice,
6 Its broaching claims a festal day;
7 Come then; Corvinus bids produce
8 A mellower wine, and I obey.
9 Though steeped in all Socratic lore
10 He will not slight you; do not fear.
11 They say old Cato over and o'er
12 With wine his honest heart would cheer.
13 Tough wits to your mild torture yield
14 Their treasures; you unlock the soul
15 Of wisdom and its stores concealed,
16 Armed with Lyaeus' kind control.
17 It is yours the drooping heart to heal;
18 Your strength uplifts the poor man's horn;
19 Inspired by you, the soldier's steel,
20 The monarch's crown, he laughs to scorn,
21 Liber and Venus, wills she so,
22 And sister Graces, never unknit,
23 And living lamps shall see you flow
24 Till stars before the sunrise flit.
22Guardian of hill and woodland, Maid,
2 Who to young wives in childbirth's hour
3 Thrice called, grant sovereign aid,
4 O three-formed power!
5 This pine that shades my cot be thine;
6 Here will I slay, as years come round,
7 A youngling boar, whose tusks design
8 The side-long wound.
23If, Phidyle, your hands you lift
2 To heaven, as each new moon is born,
3 Soothing your Lares with the gift
4 Of slaughtered swine, and spice, and corn,
5 Never shall Scirocco's bane assail
6 Your vines, nor mildew blast your wheat.
7 Never shall your tender younglings fail
8 In autumn, when the fruits are sweet.
9 The destined victim amid the snows
10 Of Algidus in oakwoods fed,
11 Or where the Alban herbage grows,
12 Shall dye the pontiff's axes red;
13 No need of butchered sheep for you
14 To make your homely prayers prevail;
15 Give but your little gods their due,
16 The rosemary twined with myrtle frail.
17 The sprinkled salt, the votive meal,
18 As soon their favour will regain,
19 Let but the hand be pure and leal,
20 As all the pomp of heifers slain.
24Though your buried wealth surpass
2 The unsunned gold of Ind or Araby,
3 Though with many a ponderous mass
4 You crowd the Tuscan and Apulian sea,
5 Let Necessity but drive
6 Her wedge of adamant into that proud head,
7 Vainly battling will you strive
8 To escape Death's noose, or rid your soul of dread.
9 Better life the Scythians lead,
10 Trailing on waggon wheels their wandering home,
11 Or the hardy Getan breed,
12 As over their vast unmeasured steppes they roam;
13 Free the crops that bless their soil;
14 Their tillage wearies after one year's space;
15 Each in turn fulfils his toil;
16 His period over, another takes his place.
17 There the step-dame keeps her hand
18 From guilty plots, from blood of orphans clean;
19 There no downed wives command
20 Their feeble lords, or on adulterers lean.
21 Theirs are dowries not of gold,
22 Their parents' worth, their own pure chastity,
23 True to one, to others cold;
24 They dare not sin, or, if they dare, they die.
25 O, whoever has heart and head
26 To stay our plague of blood, our civic brawls,
27 Would he that his name be read
28 “Father of Rome” on lofty pedestals,
29 Let him chain this lawless will,
30 And be our children's hero! cursed spite!
31 Living worth we envy still,
32 Then seek it with strained eyes, when snatched from sight.
33 What can sad laments avail
34 Unless sharp justice kill the taint of sin?
35 What can laws, that needs must fail
36 Shorn of the aid of manners formed within,
37 If the merchant turns not back
38 From the fierce heats that round the tropic glow,
39 Turns not from the regions black
40 With northern winds, and hard with frozen snow;
41 Sailors override the wave,
42 While guilty poverty, more feared than vice.
43 Bids us crime and suffering brave,
44 And shuns the ascent of virtue's precipice?
45 Let the Capitolian fane,
46 The favoured goal of that vociferous crowd,
47 Aye, or let the nearest main
48 Receive our gold, our jewels rich and proud:
49 Slay we thus the cause of crime,
50 If yet we would repent and choose the good:
51 Ours the task to take in time
52 This baleful lust, and crush it in the bud.
53 Ours to mould our weakling sons
54 To nobler sentiment and manlier deed:
55 Now the noble's first-born shuns
56 The perilous chase, nor learns to sit his steed:
57 Set him to the unlawful dice,
58 Or Grecian hoop, how skilfully he plays!
59 While his sire, mature in vice,
60 A friend, a partner, or a guest betrays,
61 Hurrying, for an heir so base,
62 To gather riches. Money, root of ill,
63 Doubt it not, still grows apace:
64 Yet the scant heap has somewhat lacking still.
25Where, Bacchus, do you tear me.
2 Filled with your strength? What dens, what forests these,
3 Thus in wildering race I see?
4 What cave shall listen to my melodies,
5 Tuned to tell of Caesar's praise
6 And throne him high the heavenly ranks among?
7 Sweet and strange shall be my lays,
8 A tale till now by poet voice unsung.
9 As the Evian on the height,
10 Roused from her sleep, looks wonderingly abroad,
11 Looks on Thrace with snow-drifts white,
12 And Rhodope by barbarous footstep trod,
13 So my truant eyes admire
14 The banks, the desolate forests. O great King
15 Who the Naiads do inspire,
16 And Bacchants, strong from earth huge trees to wring!
17 Not a lowly strain is mine,
18 No mere man's utterance. O, it is venture sweet
19 You to follow, God of wine,
20 Making the vine-branch round your temples meet!
26For ladies' love I late was fit,
2 And good success my warfare blest,
3 But now my arms, my lyre I quit,
4 And hang them up to rust or rest.
5 Here, where arising from the sea
6 Stands Venus, lay the load at last,
7 Links, crowbars, and artillery,
8 Threatening all doors that dared be fast.
9 O Goddess! Cyprus owns your sway,
10 And Memphis, far from Thracian snow;
11 Raise high your lash, and deal me, pray,
12 That haughty Chloe just one blow!
27When guilt goes forth, let lapwings shrill,
2 And dogs and foxes great with young,
3 And wolves from far Lanuvian hill,
4 Give clamorous tongue:
5 Across the roadway dart the snake,
6 Frightening, like arrow loosed from string,
7 The horses. I, for friendship's sake,
8 Watching each wing,
9 Before to his haunt, the stagnant marsh,
10 The harbinger of tempest flies,
11 Will call the raven, croaking harsh,
12 From eastern skies.
13 Farewell!—and wheresoever you go,
14 My Galatea, think of me:
15 Let lefthand pie and roving crow
16 Still leave you free.
17 But mark with what a front of fear
18 Orion lowers. Ah! well I know
19 How Hadria glooms, how falsely clear
20 The west-winds blow.
21 Let foemen's wives and children feel
22 The gathering south-wind's angry roar,
23 The black wave's crash, the thunder-peal,
24 The quivering shore.
25 So to the bull Europa gave
26 Her beauteous form, and when she saw
27 The monstrous deep, the yawning grave,
28 Grew pale with awe.
29 That morn of meadow-flowers she thought,
30 Weaving a crown the nymphs to please:
31 That gloomy night she looked on nought
32 But stars and seas.
33 Then, as in hundred-citied Crete
34 She landed,—“O my sire!” she said,
35 “O childly duty! passion's heat
36 Has struck you dead.
37 From where came I? death, for maiden's shame,
38 Were little. Do I wake to weep
39 My sin? or am I pure of blame,
40 And is it sleep
41 From dreamland brings a form to trick
42 My senses? Which was best? to go
43 Over the long, long waves, or pick
44 The flowers in blow?
45 O, were that monster made my prize,
46 How would I strive to wound that brow,
47 How tear those horns, my frantic eyes
48 Adored but now!
49 Shameless I left my father's home;
50 Shameless I cheat the expectant grave;
51 O heaven, that naked I might roam
52 In lions' cave!
53 Now, before decay my bloom devour
54 Or thin the richness of my blood,
55 Gladly would I fall in youth's first flower,
56 The tigers' food.
57 Hark! it is my father—‘Worthless one!
58 What, yet alive? the oak is nigh.
59 It was well you kept your maiden zone,
60 The noose to tie.
61 Or if your choice be that rude pike,
62 New barbed with death, leap down and ask
63 The wind to bear you. Would you like
64 The bondmaid's task,
65 You, child of kings, a master's toy,
66 A mistress' slave?’” Beside her, lo!
67 Stood Venus smiling, and her boy
68 With unstrung bow.
69 Then, when her laughter ceased, “Have done
70 With fume and fret,” she cried, “my fair;
71 That odious bull will give you soon
72 His horns to tear.
73 You know not you are Jove's own dame:
74 Away with sobbing; be resigned
75 To greatness: you shall give your name
76 To half mankind.”
28Neptune's feast-day! what should man
2 Think first of doing? Lyde mine, be bold,
3 Broach the treasured Caecuban,
4 And batter Wisdom in her own stronghold.
5 Now the noon has passed the full,
6 Yet sure you deem swift Time has made a halt,
7 Tardy as you are to pull
8 Old Bibulus' wine-jar from its sleepy vault.
9 I will take my turn and sing
10 Neptune and Nereus' train with locks of green;
11 You shall warble to the string
12 Latona and her Cynthia's arrowy sheen.
13 Hers our latest song, who sways
14 Cnidos and Cyclads, and to Paphos goes
15 With her swans, on holydays;
16 Night too shall claim the homage music owes.
29Heir of Tyrrhenian kings, for you
2 A mellow cask, unbroached as yet,
3 Maecenas mine, and roses new,
4 And fresh-drawn oil your locks to wet,
5 Are waiting here. Delay not still,
6 Nor gaze on Tibur, never dried,
7 And sloping Aesule, and the hill
8 Of Telegon the parricide.
9 O leave that pomp that can but tire,
10 Those piles, among the clouds at home;
11 Cease for a moment to admire
12 The smoke, the wealth, the noise of Rome!
13 In change even luxury finds a zest:
14 The poor man's supper, neat, but spare,
15 With no gay couch to seat the guest,
16 Has smoothed the rugged brow of care.
17 Now glows the Ethiop maiden's sire;
18 Now Procyon rages all ablaze;
19 The Lion maddens in his ire,
20 As suns bring back the sultry days:
21 The shepherd with his weary sheep
22 Seeks out the streamlet and the trees,
23 Silvanus' lair: the still banks sleep
24 Untroubled by the wandering breeze.
25 You ponder on imperial schemes,
26 And over the city's danger brood:
27 Bactrian and Serian haunt your dreams,
28 And Tanais, tossed by inward feud.
29 The issue of the time to be
30 Heaven wisely hides in blackest night,
31 And laughs, should man's anxiety
32 Transgress the bounds of man's short sight.
33 Control the present: all beside
34 Flows like a river seaward borne,
35 Now rolling on its placid tide,
36 Now whirling massy trunks uptorn,
37 And waveworn crags, and farms, and stock,
38 In chaos blent, while hill and wood
39 Reverberate to the enormous shock,
40 When savage rains the tranquil flood
41 Have stirred to madness. Happy he,
42 Self-centred, who each night can say,
43 “My life is lived: the morn may see
44 A clouded or a sunny day:
45 That rests with Jove: but what is gone,
46 He will not, cannot turn to nought;
47 Nor cancel, as a thing undone,
48 What once the flying hour has brought.”
49 Fortune, who loves her cruel game,
50 Still bent upon some heartless whim,
51 Shifts her caresses, fickle dame,
52 Now kind to me, and now to him:
53 She stays; it is well: but let her shake
54 Those wings, her presents I resign,
55 Cloak me in native worth, and take
56 Chaste Poverty undowered for mine.
57 Though storms around my vessel rave,
58 I will not fall to craven prayers,
59 Nor bargain by my vows to save
60 My Cyprian and Sidonian wares,
61 Else added to the insatiate main.
62 Then through the wild Aegean roar
63 The breezes and the Brothers Twain
64 Shall waft my little boat ashore.
30And now it is done: more durable than brass
2 My monument shall be, and raise its head
3 Over royal pyramids: it shall not dread
4 Corroding rain or angry Boreas,
5 Nor the long lapse of immemorial time.
6 I shall not wholly die: large residue
7 Shall escape the queen of funerals. Ever new
8 My after fame shall grow, while pontiffs climb
9 With silent maids the Capitolian height.
10 “Born,” men will say, “where Aufidus is loud,
11 Where Daunus, scant of streams, beneath him bowed
12 The rustic tribes, from dimness he waxed bright,
13 First of his race to wed the Aeolian lay
14 To notes of Italy.” Put glory on,
15 My own Melpomene, by genius won,
16 And crown me of your grace with Delphic bay.