Through lustful greed.

Bassareus,

But I will not, O graceful

'Gainst thy will rouse thee, nor into the glare of day adduce Thy mysteries veiled with varied leaves. Those cymbals dire remove

And Berecynthian clarion, whose train are blind Self-love, Vain-glory, who, too much and more, exalts her empty head, And Faith, than glass pellucider, whose secrets all are said.

'When or under what circumstances, or to whom, if to anybody, Horace wrote this Ode, we must be content to be ignorant,' consoling ourselves with the reflection that the completest knowledge would not much increase our pleasure.

CUPID'S harsh mother orders me,

And eke the son of Theban Semele,
And my own licensed wantonness,

To my old loves my mind to re-address.

I burn with Glycera's rays that shine

Brighter than ever Parian marble shone;
Burn with her frowardness benign

And looks too mobile to be looked upon.

Assailing me with all her force

Venus has Cyprus left, nor brooks my songs
Of Parthian bold, on back-turned horse,

Or Scyth, or aught that not to her belongs.
Bring hither a live turf, and here

Frankincense, boys, and vervain to me bear,
With wine-jar of last year's supply.

A victim may her coming mollify.

Discernunt avidi. Non ego te, candide Bassareu
Invitum quatiam: nec variis obsita frondibus
Sub divum rapiam. Saeva tene cum Berecyntio
Cornu tympana, quae subsequitur caecus Amor sui,
Et tollens vacuum plus nimio Gloria verticem,
Arcanique Fides prodiga, perlucidior vitro.

XIX. AD GLYCERAM.

MATER Saeva Cupidinum

Thebanaeque jubet me Semeles puer,

Et lasciva Licentia

Finitis animum reddere amoribus.

Urit me Glycerae nitor

Splendentis Pario marmore purius:
Urit grata protervitas

Et voltus nimium lubricus adspici.

In me tota ruens Venus

Cyprum deseruit: nec patitur Scythas

Et versis animosum equis
Parthum dicere nec quae nihil attinent.

Hic vivum mihi caespitem, hic
Verbenas, pueri, ponite, turaque
Bimi cum patera meri:
Mactata veniet lenior hostia.

E

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.