I nunc et versus tecum meditare canoros. Plerumque et risu populum quatit; hic ego rerum Verba lyrae motura sonum connectere digner? Multa fero ut placem genus irritabile vatum, * Et tempestivum pueris concedere ludum; Get hence, then, to ponder alone your fine sonorous verses: For choirs of writers must groves love, and shun too the cities, In shade and repose aye rejoicing as clients of Bacchus. Would'st have me, 'midst tumults, alike of the day and the night-time, Here sing, and the footsteps uncertain of poets thus follow? Nay, look you, some genius self-choosing calm Athens for studies; E'en seven long years thus devoting, and grown to old age too With books and vexations, comes forth like a statue in silence Must I, then, 80 Thus deign, in the tides and in tempests of town-life, to waken 85 The sounds of a lyre attuned to the songs that are fitting? Nay, much will endure I in soothing the breed of irasciblepoets 102 When writing myself; even stoop for the votes of the people, 105 too, I close in full safety-'gainst all who recite-ears once open. One laughs at composers of songs if they're feeble, but truly Such writers are charm'd; and, admiring themselves, if by chance you Are silent, will happily praise whatsoever they've written. No doubt then, t'were wisest aside to throw trifles: the useful mans, But rather, true numbers, and measures of life, begin learning. J41 145 175 190 Sic quia perpetuus nulli datur usus, et heres Utar et ex modico quantum res poscet acervo * * * 200 205 * * Pauperies immunda domus procul absit; ego, utrum Since here, a perpetual use is to none then, and follows An heir to our heirs, as new waves must come after the first ones, What thus can our manors or corn-heaps avail; what, Calabrian Forests adjoined to Lucanian, if Orcus awaits with his reap ing, Alike for the great and the little; aye scornful of gold too? I, mark you, shall use, from my modest heap, only what's needed, Nor fear, thus withdrawing, how heirs may pass judgment upon me, Should what they may find be no greater than that to me 175 190 Let poverty-sordid then, far from my home be, for whether The bark that shall bear me be large or be small, still, I'm carried: If full-swelling sails are unspread to a prosperous north wind, Yet life is not spent 'gainst the baffling, foul south ones. In strength, as in genius; in beauty, birth, fortune-if back thus, Of vanguard, yet haply I always may lead the last-comers. You're surely no miser? Nay, good then! Have all of the rest too, Of vices, flown from you? Is free now, your breast from vain Ambition: alike from the dreading of death, and from anger? 199 205 210 215 Natales grate numeras? Ignoscis amicis? Quid te exempta levat spinis de pluribus una ? Lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti: Tempus abire tibi est, ne potum largius aequo 5 10 15 CARM. 2. VII. O SAEPE mecum tempus in ultimum Dis patriis Italoque caelo, Pompei meorum prime sodalium, Malobathro Syrio capillos? Tecum Philippos et celerem fugam Turpe solum tetigere mento. |