Choice prize, and migratory crane.

Who does not, leading such a life,
Set Love's anxiety at naught?

But if withal, he have a wife

Who for the house and bairns takes thought,—

A faithful Sabine mate, suppose,

Or one embrowned by Daunian sun,—
Who, on the fire, dry billets throws

To cheer him, when, the day's work done,
He comes in tired, and milks the kine,
First penning them in wattled ward,
And, drawing forth last season's wine,
With unbought viands decks the board:
Not oysters, then, from Lucrine meer,
Nor turbot, no, nor sturgeons rare,
If Euxine storms drive any here,
Should I regard as daintier fare.
Not Afric's bird would then, into
My stomach glide more gratefully,
Nor Lydian partridge, than what due
Of fruit, fat olive-trees supply,
Or sorrel, meadow-loving weed,
Or wholesome mallows, or the lamb
Ordained at Terminal feast to bleed,
Of wolf-saved kid. Ah! pleased I am
At such repasts to sit, and see
The pastured sheep returning home,
And weary steers, that o'er the lea,
Dragging the inverted ploughshare, come,
While the farm-servants, at the board

Pavidumque leporem, et advenam laqueo gruem,

Jucunda captat praemia.

Quis non malarum, quas amor curas habet,

Haec inter obliviscitur?!

Quodsi pudica mulier in partem juvet

Domum, atque dulces liberos, (Sabina qualis, aut perusta solibus Pernicis uxor Apuli,)

Sacrum vetustis exstruat lignis focum

Lassi sub adventum viri:

Claudensque textis cratibus laetum pecus,

Distenta siccet ubera;

Et horna dulci vina promens dolio,
Dapes inemptas apparet;
Non me Lucrina juverint conchylia,
Magisve rhombus, aut scari,

Si quos Eois intonata fluctibus

Hiems ad hoc vertat mare:

Non Afra avis descendat in ventrem meum,

Non attagen Ionicus

Jucundior, quam lecta de pinguissimis

Oliva ramis arborum,

Aut herba lapathi prata amantis, et gravi

Malvae salubres corpori,

Vel agna festis caesa Terminalibus,

Vel haedus ereptus lupo.

Has inter epulas, ut juvat pastas oves

Videre properantes domum!

Videre fessos vomerem inversum boves
Collo trahentes languido,

X

In order placed, and just degrees,
Around the fire, below their lord
Are clustered like a swarm of bees.
After old Alphius thus had spoken,
In language seeming to betoken
A settled purpose to retire

From business, and turn country squire,
At Ides he called in all he'd lent,
But before Calends came and went,
Whatever cash the churl possessed
Was out again at interest.

These verses would seem to have been written during a fit of indigestion brought on by eating garlic.

WITH sacrilegious hand, whoever
His father's aged neck shall sever,
Let him eat garlic, more by far
Noxious than hemlock potions are.
What tough insides those reapers have!
What poison is there so can rave
Beneath my breast? Has viper's blood
So tricked me, with the pot-herbs stewed?
Or has Canidia pawed the food?

Medea, when admiring most

Of the whole Argonautic host

Their handsome chief, with this besmeared
Jason, thereby made more prepared

Positosque vernas, ditis examen domus,

Circum renidentes Lares!

Haec ubi, locutus fenerator Alphius,

Jam jam futurus rusticus,

Omnem redegit Idibus pecuniam;

Quaerit Kalendis ponere.

III. AD MAECENATEM.

PARENTIS olim si quis impia manu

Senile guttur fregerit,

Edit cicutis allium nocentius.

O dura messorum ilia!

Quid hoc veneni saevit in praecordiis? Num viperinus his cruor

Incoctus herbis me fefellit? An malas Canidia tractavit dapes?

Ut Argonautas praeter omnes candidum
Medea mirata est ducem,

Ignota tauris illigaturum juga,
Perunxit hoc Iasonem:

The necks of untamed bulls to yoke.

Gifts smeared with this she took to cloak
Her vengeance upon Jason's bride,

Ere on winged serpent thence she hied.
So heavily sidereal haze

Never on parched Apulia weighs.

More furiously his consort's vest

Burned not on stout Alcides' breast.

If ever you are droll enough

Maecenas, to desire such stuff,

Well, then I pray, the girl you love

Back, with her hand, your lips may shove,
And to the couch's edge remove.

This, like the ninth Ode of the first Book, is a convivial song written in winter.

A FEARFUL storm contracts the sky, and showers of rain and snow

Bring down aerial Jupiter: now ocean, forests now, Roar with the Thracian north wind: let us, my comrades, seize

The weather's opportunity, and, while still firm our knees, And it becomes us, let old age smoothen his wrinkled brow.

Wine pressed when my Torquatus held the consulship do thou

Produce leave talking of aught else: perchance the deity Will with good turn resettle things. 'Tis pleasant now to be