nions, and the perjured harlot draws back: friends, treacherous in their promises to bear equally the burden of adverfity, when cafks are exhausted, very dregs and all, fly off. Preferve thou Cæfar, who is meditating an expedition against the Britons, the farthest people in the world, and alfo the new levy of youths to be dreaded by the eastern regions, and the Red Sea. Alas! I am afhamed of the wounds and wickedness of the public, and brethren flain by brethren. What have we, a hardened age, abhorred? What have we in our impiety left unviolated? From what has our youth reftrained their hands out of reverence to the gods? What altars have they fpared? O may you forge a-new our blunted fwords on a different anvil against the Maffagetæ and Arabians.

ODE XXXVI.

He congratulates Plotius Numida upon his happy return from Spain.

THIS

'HIS is a joyful occafion to facrifice with incenfe and mufic, and the votive blood of a heifer to the gods, the guardians of Numidia: who, now returning in safety from the extremeft part of Spain, imparts many embraces to his beloved companions, but to none more than his dear Lamia, mindful of his childhood spent under one and the fame

E 5

Mutátæque fimul toge

Creffa ne careat pulchra dies nota: Neu promte modus amphora,

Neu morem in Salium fit requies pedum : Neu multi Damalis meri

Baffum Threicia vincat Amyftide:

Neu defint epulis rofæ,

Neu vivax apium, neu breve lilium. Omnes in Damalin putres

Deponent oculos: nec Damalis novo Divelletur adultero,

Lafcivis ederis ambitiofior.

10

15

20

NUNC

AD SODALES.

Ob Cleopatra mortem lætandum effe.

est bibendum, nunc pede libero Pulfanda tellus: nunc Saliaribus Ornare pulvinar Deorum

Tempus erat dapibus, fodales.

Antehac nefas depromere Cæcubum
Cellis avitis; dum Capitolio

5

Conta

fame governor, and of the gown, which they changed at the fame time. Let not this joyful day be without a Cretant mark of diftinction; let us not fpare the jar at hand; nor, Salian-like, let there be any ceffation of feet; nor let the toping Damalis conquer Baffus in the Thracian Amyftis; } nor let there be rofes wanting to the banquet, nor the ever-green parsley, nor fhort-lived lily. All the company will fix their diffolving eyes on Damalis; but the, more luxuriant than the wanton ivy, will not be separated from her new lover.

ODE XXXVII,

To his COMPANIONS.

That they ought to make a rejoicing on account of Cleopatra's death.

NOW, my companions, is the time to caroufe, now to beat the ground with a light foot : now is the time that was to deck the couch of the gods with fumptuous Salian dainties. Before this, it was impious to produce the old Cæcuban ftored up by our ancestors; while the queen, with a contaminated

* At the beginning of the feventeenth year, the Roman youth changed the Prætexta, or boy's gown, for the Toga Virilis, or man's gown.-+ The Cretans marked their lucky days with white, and the reverfe with black.Salii: priefts of Mars, who made dancing a principal part of their religious worship.- Amyftis, a large Thra cian cup, which to exhauft at a breath, was esteemed a piece of drunken bravery,

Contaminato cum grege turpium
Morbo virorum, quidlibet impotens"
Sperare, fortunaque dulci

Ebria. Sed minuit furorem

:

Vix una fofpes navis ab ignibus
Mentemque lymphatem Marcotico
Redegit in veros timores

Cæfar, ab Italia volantem

Remis adurgens (accipiter velut
Molles columbas, aut leporem citus
Venator in campis nivalis

Emonie) daret ut catenis

Fatale monftrum: quæ generofius
Perire quærens, nec muliebriter
Expavit enfem, nec latentes
Claffe cita [a] reparavit oras.
Aufa & [b] jacentem vifere regiam
Vultu fereno, fortis & afperas
Tractare ferpentes, ut atrum
Corpore combiberet venenum,
Deliberata morte ferocior :
Sævis Liburnis fcilicet invidens
Privata deduci fuperbo

Non humilis mulier triumpho

15

20

25

30

fal Penetravit oras. BENTL

[b] Aufa & tacentem.

CARMEN

taminated gang of creatures, noifome through diftemper, was preparing giddy deftruction for the capitol, and the fubverfion of the empire, being weak enough to hope for any thing, and intoxicated with the favours of fortune. But fcarcely a fingle fhip preferved from the flames, abated her. fury and Cæfar reduced her mind, inflamed with Egyptian wine, to real fears, close pursuing her, in her flight from Italy, with his gallies (as the hawk purfues the tender doves, 'or the nimble hunter the hare in the plains of fnowy Emon) that he might throw into chains this deftructive monfter of a woman, who, feeking a more generous death, neither had an effeminate dread of the fword, nor repaired with her fwift fhip to hidden fhores. She was able alfo to look upon her palace, lying in ruins, with a countenance unmoved, and courageous enough to handle exafperated afps,* that the might imbibe into her body the deadly poifon, being more refolved by having premeditated her death for fhe was a woman of fuch greatnefs of foul, as to fcorn to be carried off in haughty triumph, like a private perfon, by rough Liburnian.

tars.

ODE

Plutarch fays it was that kind of ferpent called an afp.