HERE wilt thou drink, dear cavalier Maecenas,
Moderate beakers of a common Sabine

Stored by myself and sealed in Grecian flagon,
When in the circus

So wert thou welcomed by its loud applauses,
That thy paternal riverbanks, as likewise
Vatican's mountain, with its gleeful echo,
Answered in praises.

Caecuban grapes, and those which in Calenum's
Presses are crushed, drink thou at home, but neither
Formian hillsides, nor Falernic vineyards

Flavour my goblets.

The year after Augustus returned to Rome from the raking of Alexandria, he dedicated a temple to Apollo on the Palatine Hill, and instituted quinquennial games, the Ludi Actiaci, in honour of Apollo and Diana. This Ode may have been written then, or on some similar occasion.

YE gentle maidens of Diana sing,

Ye, boys, the praise of Cynthus' beardless king,
And of Latona, who the love

Shares largely of supremest Jove.

Her, girls, whom streams and leafy groves delight, Those which project from chilly Algid's height,

XX. AD MAECENATEM.

VILE potabis modicis Sabinum

Cantharis, Graeca quod ego ipse testa
Conditum levi, datus in theatro
Cum tibi plausus,

Care Maecenas eques: ut paterni
Fluminis ripae, simul et jocosa
Redderet laudes tibi Vaticani
Montis imago.

Caecubum, et praelo domitam Caleno
Tu bibes uvam: mea nec Falernae
Temperant vites, neque Formiani
Pocula colles.

XXI. IN DIANAM ET APOLLINEM.

DIANAM tenerae dicite virgines,
Intonsum pueri dicite Cynthium,

Latonamque supremo

Dilectam penitus Jovi.

Vos laetam fluviis et nemorum coma,
Quaecunque aut gelido prominet Algido,

Or Erymanthine forest shades,

Or Cragus, and its verdant glades.
Ye, lads, Apollo's native Delos praise,

And Tempe ye, with no less numerous lays:
His shoulders, likewise, decked with dire
Quiver, and with his brother's lyre.
He tearful war, wan famine, pestilence,
From princely Caesar and his people, hence
To Persia, and to Britain's isle,

At your petition will exile.

Aristius Fuscus was the friend of whom Horace speaks with so much affection in Epistle i. 10, and the wag who played him false in the scene with a troublesome bore, described in Satire i. 9.

WHOSO a perfect life and sinless leadeth,
Neither the bow nor Moorish javelin heedeth,
Neither to load with poisoned arrows needeth,
Fuscus, his quiver:

Whether through burning sands his way he guideth
Or there where churlish Caucasus presideth,
Or mid the scenes by which Hydaspes glideth,
Fable-fraught river.

For while in Sabine wood, no solace wanting,
Past bounds I sauntered, Lalage mine chanting,
Slunk off a wolf from me unarmed, yet daunting
Hunger's fell passion.

Nigris aut Erymanthi

Silvis, aut viridis Cragi:

Vos Tempe totidem tollite laudibus;
Natalemque, mares, Delon Apollinis,
Insignemque pharetra

Fraternaque humerum lyra.

Hic bellum lacrymosum, hic miseram famem Pestemque a populo et principe Caesare in

Persas atque Britannos

Vestra motus aget prece.

XXII. AD ARISTIUM FUSCUM.

INTEGER vitae, scelerisque purus
Non eget Mauris jaculis neque arcu,
Nec venenatis gravida sagittis,

Fusce, pharetra :

Sive per Syrtes iter aestuosas,
Sive facturus per inhospitalem
Caucasum, vel quae loca fabulosus
Lambit Hydaspes.

Namque me silva lupus in Sabina,
Dum meam canto Lalagen et ultra
Terminum curis vagor expeditis,

Fugit inermem,

Like monster martial Daunia never feedeth,
Land which in oaken forest so exceedeth:
Naught Juba's realm, dry nurse of lions, breedeth,
After like fashion.

Place me on plains where barrenness distresses,
Where is no tree that genial breeze caresses,
Side of the world where Jove malign oppresses,
Sable clouds piling;

Place me where, 'neath the sun's near chariot reeking,
Vain for man's habitation were the seeking,

There will I love my Lalage sweet-speaking,
Sweetly too smiling.

Apparently imitated from a poem of Anacreon, of which a single line has been preserved in Athenaeus.

You shrink from me, my Chloe, like a fawn
Whom search after her timorous dam has drawn
To pathless steeps, in needless fear

Of every breath and thicket there.

For with cold tremors quake her heart and knees,
Whether spring's advent stir the rustling trees,
Or the green-coated lizard brush
Lightly athwart the quivering bush.
But not, like tiger fierce, to mangle you,
Nor like Getulian lion, I pursue;

Quit then, at length your mother quit,
Since now of years for wedlock fit.