Tu lene tormentum ingenio admoves
Plerumque duro: tu sapientium
Curas et arcanum jocoso
Consilium retegis Lyaeo.

Tu spem reducis mentibus anxiis,
Viresque; et addis cornua pauperi,
Post te neque iratos trementi

Regum apices, neque militum arma.

Te Liber, et, si laeta aderit, Venus,
Segnesque nodum solvere Gratiae,
Vivaeque producent lucernae,

Dum rediens fugat astra Phoebus.

XXII. AD DIANAM.

MONTIUM Custos nemorumque, Virgo,

Quae laborantes utero puellas
Ter vocata audis, adimisque leto,
Diva triformis:

Imminens villae tua pinus esto,
Quam per exactos ego laetus annos
Verris obliquum meditantis ictum

Sanguine donem.

The commentators very generally take for granted that Phidyle was Horace's villica-the stewardess of his Sabine farm. Possibly she was; but quite as possibly she may have been any other thrifty housewife, or even nobody at all, but a mere creature of the poet's fancy.

Ir suppliant hands, my rustic Phidyle,

You raise to heaven when the new moon you see;
If incense and firstfruits appease,

And sucking pig, home's deities;
Neither shall pestilent south-west wind smite
The teeming vine, nor, famine-laden, blight
The corn; nor for your children dear
Need you the sickly fruit-time fear.
For pasturing amid the holms and oaks
That intermix with snowy Algid's rocks,
Or fattening upon Alban grass,

Are cattle doomed, whose throats shall pass
But not of you,

Neath Pontiff's blood-stained axe.

Crowning our little gods with myrtle's due

And rosemary's, do they require
The slaughter of a herd entire.
If spotless hands upon the altar wait,
The costliest victim has not o'er irate
Penates, more of softening power
Than crackling salt and votive flour.

XXIII. AD PHIDYLEN.

CAELO supinas si tuleris manus
Nascente Luna, rustica Phidyle;
Si ture placaris et horna

Fruge Lares, avidaque porca; Nec pestilentem sentiet Africum Fecunda vitis, nec sterilem seges Robiginem, aut dulces alumni

Pomifero grave tempus anno. Nam, quae nivali pascitur Algido Devota quercus inter et ilices, Aut crescit Albanis in herbis

Victima, pontificum secures Cervice tinget: te nihil attinet Tentare multa caede bidentium Parvos coronantem marino

Rore deos fragilique myrto. Immunis aram si tetigit manus, Non sumptuosa blandior hostia Mollivit aversos Penates

Farre pio, et saliente mica.

'This Ode, which is of the same class and was probably written about the same time as the first six of the third Book, deals with the licentious abuses of the times, and points to Augustus as the reformer of them.'

ALTHOUGH with more of treasured wealth endowed
Than untouched Arabs and rich Indies boast,
Thou linest with thine edifices proud
The whole Tyrrhenian or Apulian coast;
If in each structure's topmost pinnacle
Is fixed the adamantine nail of fate,
Fear from thy bosom wilt thou not expel,
Nor from death's snares thy being extricate.
More happily do lowland Scythians live,

Whose wandering homes are dragged along on wains,
And hardy Getes, who sustenance derive

From grain and fruit grown on unmeted plains,

And freely shared by all. Them pleases not
Longer than yearly tenure.

As his toil

One yearling finishes, impartial lot
Appoints a substitute to till the soil.
The undesigning matron there appears
Pitiful to step-children motherless,

Nor, dowried, o'er her husband domineers,
Nor trusts to sleek adulterer's address.
Ancestral virtue ranks as ample dower,
And chastity, which with unyielding faith
Shrinks from all other than her one lord's power:

And sin is shame, and wage of sin is death.

XXIV.

INTACTIS opulentior

Thesauris Arabum et divitis Indiae, Caementis licet occupes

Tyrrhenum omne tuis et mare Apulicum;

Si figit adamantinos

Summis verticibus dira Necessitas

Clavos, non animum metu,

Non mortis laqueis expedies caput.

Campestres melius Scythae,

Quorum plaustra vagas rite trahunt domos,

Vivunt, et rigidi Getae,

Immetata quibus jugera liberas

Fruges et Cererem ferunt;

Nec cultura placet longior annua,

Defunctumque laboribus.

Aequali recreat sorte vicarius. Illic matre carentibus

Privignis mulier temperat innocens :

Nec dotata regit virum

Conjux, nec nitido fidit adultero.

Dos est magna parentium

Virtus, et metuens alterius viri

Certo foedere castitas;

Et peccare nefas, aut pretium est mori.