Her arms, her face, her taper legs may I
Harmlessly praise. You, to suspect forbear,
One to whose now eighth lustre its last year
Age has already hastened to apply.

The inscription‘Ad Gabinium' appears in only one MS., and is adopted here only in the absence of any other. What Acron says, 'Incertum est quem alloquatur hæc ode,' might be said of a good many Odes besides this.

Not yet is she of strength the yoke to bear
On subject neck-not yet the duties share
Of partner, nor the bull's rude weight,
Rushing on love, to tolerate.

By verdant meads your heifer's heart is still
Engrossed-now suaging in the flowing rill
The fiery heat, and now among

Moist osier-beds, with steerlings young
Delighted frisking. For the unripe grape
Cease longing soon shall dappled autumn drape
Those clusters, now of livid hue,

And mark them with a deeper blue.

Soon shall she follow you: for fast careers
Coy youth, and places upon her the years
It takes from you. With wanton gait
Lalage soon will seek a mate.

As doth not Pholoe shy, will she excite
Love; nor so Chloris, with the shoulders white
Shining as shines on midnight sea

Clear moon, nor Cnidian Gyges-he

Brachia et voltum teretesque suras
Integer laudo; fuge suspicari,
Cujus octavum trepidavit aetas
Claudere lustrum.

V. AD GABINIUM.

NONDUM Subacta ferre jugum valet
Cervice, nondum munia comparis
Aequare nec tauri ruentis

In venerem tolerare pondus.
Circa virentes est animus tuae
Campos juvencae, nunc fluviis gravem
Solantis aestum, nunc in udo
Ludere cum vitúlis salicto
Praegestientis: tolle cupidinem
Immitis uvae: jam tibi lividos
Distinguet Auctumnus racemos
Purpureo varius colore..

Jam te sequetur, (currit enim ferox Aetas, et illi quos tibi dempserit, Apponet annos,) jam proterva Fronte petet Lalage maritum : Dilecta quantum non Pholoë fugax, Non Chloris albo sic humero nitens, Ut pura nocturno renidet

Luna mari, Cnidiusve Gyges,

Whom if you placed amid a troop of girls,
The little difference 'twixt his flowing curls,
Or dubious face and theirs, would try
Vastly the keenest stranger's eye.

That Septimius had a villa at Tarentum, where Horace paid him at least one visit, is about all that can with confidence be said of him beyond what may be gathered from this Ode.

WILLING with me, Septimius, to visit

Cadiz, and Biscay to the yoke inured not,
Barbarous Syrtes too, where Moorish billows
Ever are seething,

Would that sweet Tibur, built by Argive settler,
Could in old age become my habitation:

Would I might there end toil by land and water,
And by campaigning.

Whence, if untoward destiny debar me,

Pleasant Galesus will I turn to-river

Loved by swathed sheep, and to the rural realms of Spartan Phalantus.

That of earth's nooks smiles on me more than any:

Not to Hymettic second is its honey:

Rivals its olives are to e'en Venafrum's

Verdurous berries.

There a long spring, there doth a genial winter,
Jupiter's grace bestow, and Aulon, friendly

To the grape's growth, upon Falernum's vintage
Looks not with envy.

Quem si puellarum insereres choro,
Mire sagaces falleret hospites
Discrimen obscurum solutis

Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu.

VI. AD SEPTIMIUM.

SEPTIMI, Gades aditure mecum, et Cantabrum indoctum juga ferre nostra, et Barbaras Syrtes, ubi Maura semper

Aestuat unda :

Tibur Argeo positum colono

Sit meae sedes utinam senectae;
Sit modus lasso maris, et viarum,
Militiaeque.

Unde si Parcae prohibent iniquae
Dulce pellitis ovibus Galaesi
Flumen, et regnata petam Laconi
Rura Phalantho.

Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes
Angulus ridet; ubi non Hymetto
Mella decedunt, viridique certat
Baca Venafro;

Ver ubi longum, tepidasque praebet
Juppiter brumas; et amicus Aulon
Fertili Baccho minimum Falernis

Invidet uvis.

Thee and me both, that place, those happy uplands Summon: 'tis there that thou, with tearful tribute, Shalt the warm ashes of a poet sprinkle,

Him whom thou lovest.

Pompeius Varus must not be confounded, as until lately he very generally was, with the Pompeius Grosphus of Ode xvi. of this Book.

OFTEN reduced to last extremity

When, under Brutus, in campaign with me,
Who gives thee back in burgher-guise
To our Italian gods and skies,

Pompeius, foremost among friends of mine?
With whom, the lingering day I oft with wine
Have cleft, while Syrian odours breathed
From my sheen locks with chaplets wreathed.
With thee in headlong flight from Philippi
I shared, and left my shield not laudably,
When shattered valour's haughtiest

On the base earth their chins impressed.
But me, appalled and wrapt in thickened air,
Through the foe's midst did fleet Mercurius bear,
While thee again to raging war

Back the resorbent billows bore.

Wherefore to Jove his due of viands pay,

And thy limbs, tired with long campaigning, lay

Under my laurel, lavishly

Broaching the cask reserved for thee.