Crescit, occulto velut arbor aevo,
Fama Marcelli: micat inter omnes
Julium sidus, velut inter ignes
Luna minores,

Gentis humanae pater atque custos,
Orte Saturno, tibi cura magni
Caesaris fatis data: tų secundo
Caesare regnes.

Ille, seu Parthos Latio imminentes
Egerit justo domitos triumpho,
Sive subjectos Orientis orae
Seras et Indos,

Te minor latum reget aequus orbem:
Tu gravi curru quaties Olympum;
Tu parum castis inimica mittes
Fulmina lucis.

XIII. AD LYDIAM.

CUм tu, Lydia, Telephi

Cervicem roseam, cerea Telephi

Laudas brachia, vae! meum

D 2

Thick bile my burning liver swells,
And neither sense within me dwells
Nor colour in my face is.

But tears, that steal adown my cheek,
Of a slow fire within me speak,
With which I writhe, while noting
How, in some tipsy quarrel, he
Has soiled your shoulders' ivory;
Or, in his fits of doting,

How on your lips the frenzied boy
Has left the toothprints of his joy:
But, were I your director,

You'd trust not one who spoils the lips
Which Venus in the essence steeps
Of her own purest nectar.

Triply, and more than triply, blest,

They whom unbroken bands invest,
Congenial hearts involving;

Whose love, by no unseemly fray
Disjointed, to their dying day.
Remains without dissolving.

The Republic is here addressed under the form of a ship. Navem pro republica,' says Quintilian, 'fluctuum tempestates pro bellis civilibus, portum pro pace atque concordia dicit.'

Ан ship, are the waves bearing thee to sea,
Once more? What doest thou? Cling strenuously
Perceiv'st thou not how bare

To port.

Of banks of oars thy quarters are?

Fervens difficili bile tumet jecur.

Tum nec mens mihi, nec color

Certa sede manet: humor et in genas

Furtim labitur, arguens

Quàm lentis penitus macerer ignibus.

Uror, seu tibi candidos

Turpârunt humeros immodicae mero

Rixae; sive puer furens Impressit memorem dente labris notam. Non, si me satis audias, Speres perpetuum, dulcia barbare

Laedentem oscula, quae Venus

Quinta parte sui nectaris imbuit.

Felices ter, et amplius,

Quos irrupta tenet copula; nec malis

Divolsus querimoniis,
Suprema citius solvet amor die!

XIV.

O NAVIS, referent in mare te novi
Fluctus? O quid agis? Fortiter occupa
Portum. Nonne vides, ut

Nudum remigio latus,

And how, by furious south-west maimed, thy mast
And yard-arms groan? and how thy keel, embraced
By girding ropes, can scarce sustain

The force of the imperious main?
Thy sails are not entire: in thy distress
No gods are left whom thou may'st still address.
What though composed of Pontic pine,
Some famous forest's daughter fine,

Thy boast is of an useless name and race.
No confidence do timid sailors place

In painted hulls. Beware lest thou
For the wind's sport thyself bestow.
Thou who of late wert pain and grief to me,
Now my chief hope and grave anxiety,
Ah pr'ythee shun the dangerous seas
Effused 'mid glittering Cyclades.

This is probably one of the earliest of Horace's compositions. It certainly reads very much like a college exercise. In excuse for making the second syllable of Meriones short, I may perhaps be permitted to plead that Horace himself never scrupled to take similar liberty in case of need.

WHEN Helen, his hostess, the treacherous swain

In galleys Idaean bore over the main,

With quiet unwelcome did Nereus restrain

The winds, his dark future to sing.

'With ill omen thou bear'st to thy mansion the dame Whom Greece shall with numberless soldiers reclaim, In league to dissever thy nuptials of shame

And Priam's old realm to downfling.

Et malus celeri saucius Africo,

Antennaeque gemant: ac sine funibus
Vix durare carinae

Possint imperiosius

Aequor? Non tibi sunt integra lintea; Non Dii, quos iterum pressa voces malo. Quamvis Pontică pinus,

Silvae filia nobilis,

Jactes et genus et nomen inutile;
Nil pictis timidus navita puppibus
Fidit. Tu nisi ventis

Debes ludibrium, cave.

Nuper sollicitum quae mihi taedium,
Nunc desiderium, curaque non levis,
Interfusa nitentes

Vites aequora Cycladas.

XV.

PASTOR cum traheret per freta navibus
Idaeis Helenam perfidus hospitam,

Ingrato celeres obruit otio

Ventos, ut caneret fera

Nereus fata.

Mala ducis avi domum,

Quam multo repetet Graecia milite,

Conjurata tuas rumpere nuptias,

Et regnum Priami vetus.