Me, no flames bursting forth from the jaws of Chimæra,
Me, no Gyas once more rising up hundred-handed,
Could dispart from thyself,—such the will
Of omnipotent Justice and Fate.

Whether Libra, or Scorpio with aspect1 malignant,
In mine horoscope, ruled o'er the Houses of Danger,
Or moist Capricorn, lord of the west;

It is strange how our stars have agreed.

Thee, thine own native Jupiter snatched from fell Saturn, And outshining his beam, stayed the wings of the Parcæ, When the theatre hailed thee restored,

And the multitude thrice shouted joy.

Me the fall of the tree would have brained, had not Faunus,
To men born under Mercury, guardian benignant,

O'er my head stretched the saving right hand,
And made lighter the death-dealing blow.

Then forget not to render to Jove, the Preserver
Of a life so august, votive chapel and victims,
While I, to mine own sylvan god,

Offer grateful mine own humble lamb.

''Adspicit,' 'aspected,' is still the technical term in use among astrologers, according to whom the native star may be evilly aspected in various ways. But pars violentior' would apply to the hostile influences affecting the Lord of life,' chiefly found in the significations of the 8th and 12th House. By his allusion to Capricorn, Horace clearly refers to his dangers by sea-Sicula unda.' To astrology (a science then so much in fashion) Horace often refers-sometimes with scorn, sometimes with a seeming credulity-always as a man who knew very little about it. But where he speaks of it with scorn, as in addressing Leuconoë, Book I. Ode xi., it is less to denounce astrology itself as an imposture, than to dissuade from all attempts to divine the future-'better that the future should remain unknown

Me nec Chimæræ spiritus igneæ,
Nec, si resurgat, centimanus Gyas
Divellet unquam : sic potenti
Justitiæ placituinque Parcis.

Seu Libra, seu me Scorpios adspicit '
Formidolosus, pars violentior

Natalis horæ, seu tyrannus
Hesperia Capricornis undæ,

Utrumque nostrum incredibili modo
Consentit astrum. Te Jovis impio
Tutela Saturno refulgens

Eripuit, volucrisque Fati

Tardavit alas, cum populus frequens
Lætum theatris ter crepuit sonum :
Me truncus illapsus cerebro
Sustulerat, nisi Faunus ictum

Dextra levasset, Mercurialium
Custos virorum. Reddere victimas
Ædemque votivam memento:
Nos humilem feriemus agnam.

and unconjectured.'

On the other hand, where, as in this ode, he seems to affect credulity, it is only for a playful purpose. He regarded 'the Science of the Chaldee,' as he did most of the popular beliefs affecting the future, without serious examination of its truth or falsehood, as a question of speculative philosophy, but to be freely used, whether in sport or in earnest, for the purposes of poetic art.

ODE XVIII.

AGAINST THE GRASPING AMBITION OF THE COVETOUS.

This ode is in a metre of which there is no other example in Horace. It is said to have been invented by Hipponax of Ephesus, and is called generally by his name; though sometimes Euripidean, because often used by Euripides.

To me nor gold nor ivory lends
Its shine to fret my ceiling;
Nor shafts, in farthest Afric hewn,
Prop architraves Hymettian.1

I do not claim, an unknown heir,
The spoils of Orient kingdoms, 2
No wives of honest clients weave
For me Laconian purples.

Yet mine is truth and mine some vein
Of inborn genius kindly;
Though poor, I do not court the rich,
But by the rich am courted.

I do not weary heaven for more;
I tax no kindly patron;
Content with all I own on earth,

Some rural acres Sabine.

It

The Numidian or Libyan marble, known to us as the Giallo antico. The 'architraves Hymettian' (‘trabes Hymettiæ ') are the white marble of Hymettus.

'Neque Attali

Ignotus heres regiam occupavi.'

Attalus the third made by will the Romans his heirs; the older commentators suppose that the lines satirically imply the will to have been fraudulently obtained. But the word 'ignotus' does not necessarily bear that signification. As Orelli observes, the irony consists in the fact that

It abounds in trochees. I can only attempt to give a general idea of its trippingness and brevity of sound. It treats, with more than usual beauty, Horace's favourite thesis of declamation against the grasping nature of avarice; and, as Dillenburger observes, it takes up and expands the sentiment with which he had closed Ode xvi.

CARM. XVIII.

Non ebur neque aureum

Mea renidet in domo lacunar ;

Non trabes Hymettia1

Premunt columnas ultima recisas

Africa; neque Attali2

Ignotus heres regiam occupavi ;

Nec Laconicas mihi

Trahunt honestæ purpuras clientæ.3

At fides et ingeni

Benigna vena est, pauperemque dives

Me petit; nihil supra

Deos lacesso, nec potentem amicum

Largiora flagito,

Satis beatus unicis Sabinis.

Truditur dies die,

Novæque pergunt interire Lunæ :

Attalus did not know the persons he enriched. Torrentius supposes the lines to refer to Aristonicus, who, after the death of Attalus, seized on the throne by false pretences, defeated Licinius Crassus, was afterwards conquered by Perpenna, carried to Rome, and strangled in prison by orders of the Senate. The former interpretation is preferable.

"Honestæ clienta." I have seen no satisfactory explanation of the words "honesta client." Mr. Long has suggested to me that they may refer to the rustic women on a man's farms-the wives of the Coloni.'-MACLEANE.

Day treads upon the heels of day,
New moons wane on to perish;
Thou on the brink of death dost make
Vain contracts for new marble;

Building proud homes, and of thy lastThe sepulchre-forgetful;

As if the earth itself too small

Thou robb'st new earth from ocean,

And, urging on a length of shore
Upon the deep's foundation,
Thou thrustest back the angry wave
That wars in vain on Baiæ.1

What, must thou also, greeding still,
Remove thy neighbour's landmark--
Must ruthless avarice overleap

Each fence of humble clients?

And man and wailing wife, expelled
The dear paternal dwelling,
Clasp ragged babes and exiled gods
To wandering homeless bosoms?

And yet no surer hall awaits

The wealthy tyrant-master,

Than that which yields yet ampler room
In yet more greedy Orcus.

Where farther tend? Impartial earth
Opes both for prince and peasant;
No gold bribed Charon to row back
The crafty-souled Prometheus.

Death holds the haughty Tantalus ;
Death holds his children haughty:
Invoked or not, Death hears the poor,
And He gives rest to labour.