nions, and the perjured harlot draws back: friends, treacherous in their promises to bear equally the burden of adverfity, when cafks are exhaufted, very dregs and all, fly off. Preferve thou Cæfar, who is meditating an expedition against the Britons, the fartheft people in the world, and also the new levy of youths to be dreaded by the eaftern regions, and the Red Sea. Alas! I am ashamed 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 Maffagete and Arabians. O DE XXXVI. He congratulates Plotius Numida upon his happy return from Spain. THIS is '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 fafety 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 E5 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 CARMEN XXXVIL AD SODALES. Ob Cleopatra mortem lætandum effe. UNC eft bibendum, nunc pede libero Pulfanda tellus: nunc Saliaribus Ornare pulvinar Deorum Tempus erat dapibus, fodales. Antehac nefas depromere Cæcubum Regina dementes ruinas, Funus & imperio parabat, 5 Conta fame governor, and of the gown, which they changed at the fame time. Let not this joyful day be without a Cretan† 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 refes 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 feparated from her new lover. That they ought to make a rejoicing on account of Cleopatra's death. NOW, my companions, is the time to carouse, 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 seventeenth 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 Ebria. Sed minuit furorem Cæfar, ab Italia volantem Remis adurgens (accipiter velut monia) daret ut catenis Fatale monftrum: quæ generofius Privata deduci fuperbo Non humilis mulier triumpho. 15 20 25 30 fal Penetravit oras. BENTL, [b] Aufa & tacentem, CARMEN : taminated gang of creatures, noisome 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, clofe purfuing 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 monster of a woman, who, feeking a more generous death, neither had an effeminate dread of the fword, nor repaired with her fwift ship 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. |