had quitted the tedious bufinefs of his clients, by determining their fuit) he was only going to the Venafran plains, or the Lacedæmonian Tarentum. ODE VI. To the ROMANS. That the contempt of religion, and the corruption of morals, had brought the greatest misfortunes upon the Romans. 4 YOU fhall fuffer, O Rome, for the fins of your ancestors, though innocent of them, till you fhall have repaired the temples and tottering edifices of the gods, and their statues, that are defiled with footy smoke. You juftly reign, because you conduct yourself as fubordinate to the gods to this fource refer every undertaking, to this every event. The gods, because neglected, have inflicted many evils on calamitous Italy. Already has Monaefes, and the band of Pacorus, twice repelled our inaufpicious attacks, and exults in having added the Roman spoils to their inferior collars. The Dacian and Ethiopian have almoft demolifhed the city engaged in civil broils, the one formidable for his fleet, the other more expert for miffile arrows. The times, fertile in wickednefs, have in the first place, polluted the marriage ftate, and thereby the iffue, and families. From this fountain perdition being derived, has overwhelmed the nation, and people. Motus doceri gaudet Ionicos Sed rufticorum mafcula militum Matris ad arbitrium recifos 25 30. 35 40 45 [a] Et fingitur artibus. CARMEN people. The virgin, marriageable, delights to be taught the Ionic dances, and at this time even is fashioned in her limbs, and cherishes unchafte defires from her very infancy; for the courts younger debauchees when her husband is in his cups, nor has fhe any choice, to whom the fhall privately grant her forbidden pleasures when the lights are removed, but, at the word of command, openly, not without the knowledge of her husband, fhe will come forth, whether, it be a factor that calls for her, or the captain of a Spanish fhip, the extravagant purchaser of her impurities. Twas not a youth born from parents like thefe, that tinged the fea with Carthaginian gore, and flew Pyrrhus, and Antiochus the Great, and the terrific Hannibal; but a manly progeny of ruftic foldiers, inftructed to turn the glebe with Sabine spades, and to carry clubs cut out of the woods at the pleasure of a rigid mother, what time the fun fhifted the shadows of the mountains, and took the yokes from the wearied oxen, bringing on the pleasant hour with his retreating chariot. What does not wasting time decay? The age of our fathers, worfe than our grandfires, produced us ftill more flagitious, us, who are about to produce an offspring more vicious even than ourselves. ODE CARMEN VII. AD ASTERIEN. Solatur Afterien de mariti abfentia folicitam, et ut in ejus fide perfeveret hortatur. QUID fles, Afterie, quem tibi candidi Primo reftituent vere Thyna merce beatum, Conftantis [a] juvenem fide Gygen? ille Notis actus ad Oricum Infomnis lacrymis agit. Atqui folicitae nuncius hofpitae, Tentat mille vafer modis. Ut Proetum mulier perfida credulum Falfis impulerit criminibus, nimis Cafto Bellerophonti Maturare necem, refert. Narrat pene datum Pelea Tartaro. Magneffam Hippolyten dum fugit abftinens : Et peccare docentes Fallax [b] hiftorias [c] monet : Fruftra: nam fcopulis furdior Icari Voces audit, adhuc integer. at, tibi Ne vicinus Enipeus Plus jufto placeat, cave: 5 35 20 Quam. [a] Conftanti juvenem fide. [b] Fallax hiftorias movet. [c] Pellex hiftorias movet. Bentl. ODE VII. To ASTERIE. He comforts Afterie, troubled for the absence of her husband, and exhorts her to persevere in her fidelity to him. WHY, O Afterie, do you weep for Gyges, a youth of inviolable conftancy, whom the kindly zephyrs fhall reftore to you with the beginning of the fpring, enriched with a Bithynian cargo? Driven as far as Oricum by the fouthern winds, after the rifing of the goat's tempeftuous conftellation, he fleepless paffes the cold nights in abundant weeping for you: but the agent of your anxious landlady flily tempts him by a thousand methods, informing him that his miftrefs, Chloe, is fighing for him, and burns with your flames. He remonftrates to him how a perfidious woman urged the credulous Proetus, by false accufations, to haften the death of the overchafte Bellerophon.-He tells how Peleus was like to have been given up' to the infernal regions, while out of temperance he avoided the Magnefian Hippolyte; and the deceiver quotes hiftories to him, that are lessons for finning. In vain,for heart-whole as yet, he receives his words deafer than the Icarian rocks.But with regard to you, have care left your neighbour Enipeus |