When I shall gaze on Caesar's car spoil-laden,

His steeds oft fretting at the applauding throng, And, clasping to my heart my matchless maiden, Devour the titles, as they flaunt along,

Of conquered towns, amid a myriad readersScan the fell shafts the flying horseman boreThe trousered soldier's bow, and captive leaders Sitting in chains beneath the arms they wore.

Preserve thy race, O Venus! and for ever

Smile on the scion of Aeneas' line;

Let booty crown the warrior's bold endeavour :
To cheer along the Sacred Way be mine!

V.

IN PRAISE OF A PEACEFUL LIFE.

Pacis Amor Deus est: pacem veneramur amantes.

Love is a god of peace: peace lovers prize.
My bitter war with Cynthia never dies.
Yet dream of gold accurst ne'er haunts my soul,
Nor do I quench my thirst from jewelled bowl,
Plough rich Campania's slopes, or sigh to deck
My home with bronze, O Corinth! from thy wreck.

First earth to rash Prometheus most unblest!
O luckless dream of a too heedless breast,
To frame a shape and give no mind to it !—
Though common-sense was man's first requisite.

Now we are tossed by winds on seas afar,
We seek a foe, and add fresh war to war.
Thou'lt bear no treasures to the realms below:
Naked to Hell's dark rafts, poor fool, thou'lt go.
Victor and vanquished in the shades shall meet,
And Consul Marius share Jugurtha's seat,
King Croesus near Dulichian Iris be:

That death is best which comes by Fate's decree.*

* Or, according to some texts—

'That death is best that sets the poor man free."-(See Notes.)

In youth on Helicon I loved to twine

My arms in dances with the tuneful Nine;
Now with full bowl I'd chain my soul, and string
For ever round my head the rose of spring;
And when dull age shall banish love-caresses,
And streak with snow-white locks my raven tresses,
O be it mine dark Nature's ways to scan,

And learn what power controls this mundane plan;
Whence comes the monthly moon, where pales from sight,
Whence fills her rounding horns with waxing light;
What Eurus courts; whence winds o'errun the main ;
Whence swell the clouds with never-failing rain;
If comes a day shall lay earth's bulwarks low;
Why drizzly raindrops feed the purple bow;
Or why Perrhaebian Pindus' summits quailed,
And Sol his radiant steeds in mourning veiled ;
Why lags Boötes' steers and circling wain;
Why blend in mazy light the Pleiad train;
Why ocean cannot leave its settled sphere;
Why four set seasons part the rolling year;
If judges sit and wretches writhe below;
If snake-haired fiends exist in realms of woe;
Alcmaeon's furies, Phineus' famine-dream,
The wheel, the rock, the thirst amid the stream;
If three-mouthed Cerberus guard the gate of gloom;
And Tityos find nine acres narrow room;

*

Or if some fable haunt poor souls the while,
And terrors cease beyond the funeral pile.

So end my days: go, warriors, and do ye
Bring Crassus' banners back to Italy.

* Sub terris sint jura deum et tormenta nocentum.—(Haupt.)

VI.

A DIALOGUE.

Dic mihi de nostra, quae sentis, vera puella.

PROPERTIUS.

ALL that thou know'st of Cynthia let me hear :
So, Lygdamus, thy freedom thou❜lt receive.
Yet puff not with unfounded tales mine ear,
Detailing what thou think'st I'd fain believe.

All messengers by truth should needs stand fast;
Yet more, with slaves, from fear should truth prevail.
Now tell me all thou know'st from first to last,—

Begin with open ears I'll drink the tale.

:

Hast thou e'er seen her weep with ruffled hair,

Tears from her eyes down-streaming all unchecked? Her bed laid out, and yet no mirror there?

Her snowy hands with jewels unbedecked?

Her arms a mourning robe loose-mantling o'er ?
At her bed-feet her jewel-casket flung,

Shut and unheeded on the chamber floor,

While o'er the house a gloomy shadow hung?

Hast seen her slaves their tasks in sorrow ply—
She spinning all the while her maids among ;
With tuft of wool the trickling tear-drops dry,

And tell our quarrels with a faltering tongue?

LYGDAMUS.

"O Lygdamus! was this my promised meed?
'Tis base in him," she said, "to treat me so;
And he can leave me sad for no misdeed,

And e'en declare no home my peer can show !*

"He's glad I pine on lonesome couch undone;
Well, let him dance for joy when I am dead.
By herbs, not graces, hath that base wench won,
And by the wicked witch's wheel-whirled thread.

"The venom-swollen toad, 'mid brambles found,

Snakes' bones, owls' feathers, culled from crumbling tomb, Wool-fillets twined the fatal couch around

Such the weird spells with which she wrought his doom.

"Yet if my dreams bode truth, meet vengeance dread, Though late, shall at my feet be amply paid;

The flimsy cobweb line their vacant bed,

And Love sleep all night long though fondly prayed."

PROPERTIUS.

If earnest be the plaint she made to thee,

Go back the way thou cam'st and speed along,
And bear these words with many tears from me,—
That wrath has marred my love, but never wrong—

That fires as fierce as hers torment my life,

Yet ne'er for other maid I've deigned to burn; And if sweet union crown so sad a strife,

Thou'lt earn through me thy freedom in return.

* Aequalem nulla dicere habere domo ! -The copies have nulla and nullo; Mueller reads multa.