Lenesque sub noctem susurri Composita repetantur hora; Nunc et latentis proditor intimo Gratus puellae risus ab angulo, Pignusque dereptum lacertis, Aut digito male pertinaci.

X. AD MERCURIUM.

MERCURI, facunde nepos Atlantis,
Qui feros cultus hominum recentúm
Voce formâsti catus, et decorae
More palaestrae :

Te canam, magni Jovis et deorum
Nuntium, curvaeque lyrae parentem ;
Callidum, quidquid placuit, jocoso
Condere furto.

Te boves olim nisi reddidisses
Per dolum amotas, puerum minaci
Voce dum terret, viduus pharetra
Risit Apollo.

Quin et Atridas, duce te, superbos,
Ilio dives Priamus relicto,

Thessalosque ignes, et iniqua Trojae
Castra fefellit.

Thou in their mansions of delight installest
Pious men's souls, the airy throng directing
With thy gold wand-approved by Gods supernal
And by infernal.

Fortune-telling would seem to have been much in vogue at Rome in Horace's time, and Chaldeans its chief professors.

DON'T ask ('tis forbidden to know) what will be
The bound set by the gods, or for you, or for me,
Nor yet, my Leuconoë, try to explore

Babylonian cyphers: for, trust me, there's more
Of sense shown in bearing whate'er may betide,
Whether many more winters Jove yet may provide,
Or this-which on barriers of pumice has cast
The broken Tyrrhenian sea-be our last.

Be wise, rack your wine, and from life's narrow scope
Cut away the delusion of far-reaching hope.
E'en now, while we speak, spiteful time slips away:
Don't believe in the future, lay hold on to-day.

Tu pias laetis animas reponis
Sedibus, virgaque levem coërces
Aurea turbam, superis deorum
Gratus, et imis.

XI. AD LEUCONOEN.

Tu ne quaesiêris (scire nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi
Finem dî dederint, Leuconoë; nec Babylonios
Tentâris numeros. Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati!
Seu plures hiemes, seu tribuit Juppiter ultimam,
Quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum. Sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
Spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida.
Aetas carpe diem, quàm minimum credula postero.

The Latin inscription does not seem to express the scope of this ode, which is rather to celebrate the popular deities and heroes of 'Rome than Augustus exclusively: though the design is so worked out as to draw the chief attention to him. The poet, though making Augustus the climax of his song, goes through the praise of Jove and his children, and that of twelve of Rome's principal worthies, before he comes to Augustus.' Marcellus, mentioned in the twelfth stanza, the nephew and son-in-law of Augustus, died in his twentieth year.

WHAT man or hero with the lyre, or shrilly
Pipe, wilt thou take to celebrate, O Clio?

Which of the gods? Whose name by sportive Echo
Shall be repeated,

Either on slopes of Helicon umbrageous,

Or upon Pindus, or on gelid Haemus,

Rashly from whence came down the woods, attending
Eloquent Orpheus;

Who, with maternal art, the nimbly gliding
Rivers, and winds in their swift flight arrested:
Who the oaks guided, list'ning to his sweetly
Resonant harp-strings?

What shall I sing before the wonted praises
Due to the god, of gods and men the parent,
Who, unto them, and earth and sky and ocean,
Tempers the seasons?

XII. DE AUGUSTO.

QUEM virum aut heroa, lyra, vel acri

Tibia sumis celebrare, Clio?

Quem deum? Cujus recinet jocosa
Nomen imago,

Aut in umbrosis Heliconis oris,
Aut super Pindo, gelidove in Haemo
Unde vocalem temere insecutae

Orphea silvae,

Arte materna rapidos morantem
Fluminum lapsus, celeresque ventos,
Blandum et auritas fidibus canoris
Ducere quercus ?

Quid prius dicam solitis parentis
Laudibus, qui res hominum ac deorum,
Qui mare ac terras, variisque mundum
Temperat horis ?