Tu secanda marmora Locas sub ipsum funus; et sepulcri Marisque Baiis obstrepentis urges Summovere litora, Parum locuples continente ripa.1 Limites clientium Salis avarus? Pellitur paternos Et uxor, et vir, sordidosque natos. Nulla certior tamen Rapacis Orci fine destinata Aula divitem manet Herum. Quid ultra tendis? Æqua tellus Pauperi recluditur Regumque pueris, nec satelles Orci Callidum Promethea Revexit auro captus. Hic superbum Tantalum atque Tantali Genus coërcet, hic levare functum Vocatus atque non vocatus audit. In allusion to the practice of the wealthy Romans in building villas out into the sea, on artificial foundations-as, long afterwards, rose the whole city of Venice. ODE XIX. IN HONOUR OF BACCHUS. Macleane appears to me greatly to underrate the beauty of this poem, in which he says the Greek fire is wanting. This is not the opinion of the earlier critics, nor of readers in general. It has as much of the character of the dithyramb as the taste of a Roman audience would sanction and the character of the Latin language allow. The date of the poem Amid sequestered rocky glens,-ye future times believe it! Bacchus I saw, in mystic verse his pupil nymphs instructing Instructing pricked ears intent Of circling goat-hoofed Satyrs. Evoë, with the recent awe is trembling yet my spirit, Filled with the god, my breast still heaves beneath the stormy rapture. Evoë! spare me; Liber, spare, Dread with the solemn thyrsus ! Vouchsafed to me the glorious right to chant the headstrong Thyads, The wine that from the fountain welled, the rills with milk o'erflowing, And, from the trunks of charmëd trees, The lapse of golden honey. Vouchsafed to sing thy consort's crown which adds a star to heaven,' Or that just wrath which overwhelmed the house of Theban Pentheus, Ariadne. poem is uncertain. Macleane suggests that it was perhaps composed at the time of the Liberalia, though in what year there are no means of determining. From its dithyrambic character, Orelli conjectures it to have been a copy from some Greek poem. The metre in this and the translation immediately following has some slight deviations from the preceding versions of the Alcaic, but not such as to affect the general character and form of the rhythm. CARM. XIX. Bacchum in remotis carmina rupibus Euoe, recenti mens trepidat metu. Parce, gravi metuende thyrso! Fas pervicaces est mihi Thyiadas, Fas et beatæ conjugis additum And doomed to so disastrous end The frantic king Lycurgus.' Thou bow'st the rivers to thy will, barbarian ocean rulest ;2 Bedewed with wine in secret hills, thy charm compels the serpents To interweave, in guileless coil, The locks of Thracian Mænads. Thou, when aloft through arduous heaven the impious host of giants Scaled to the Father's realm, didst hurl again to earth huge Rhœtus Fronting his might with lion-fangs, And jaws of yawning horror; 2 Albeit thou wert deemed a god more fit for choral dances, For jest and sport the readiest Power, of slenderer use in battle; Yet peace and war found thee the same, Of both the soul and centre. When flashed the golden horn that decks thy front through Stygian shadows, Harmless the Hell-dog wagged his tail to greet thy glorious coming, And gently licked with triple tongue Thine hallowed feet receding.3 Lycurgus, the King of the Edones, persecuted Bacchus on his passage through Thrace, and imprisoned his train of Satyrs. The mythologists vary as to the details of his punishment for this offence, but he was first afflicted with madness, and finally torn to pieces by horses. 2 Tu flectis amnes, tu mare barbarum.' 'Flectis amnes' does mean, as it is usually translated, thou turnest aside the course Disjecta non leni ruina, Thracis et exitium Lycurgi.' Tu flectis amnes, tu mare barbarum, Nodo coërces viperino Bistonidum sine fraude crines. Tu, cum parentis regna per arduum Unguibus horribilique mala ; Quamquam, choreis aptior et jocis Te vidit insons Cerberus aureo of the rivers;' the reference is to the Hydaspes and Orontes, over which Bacchus is said to have walked dryshod; and 'flecto' here must be taken either in the sense of 'to bow' or 'direct,' or, in its more metaphorical sense, to appease.' By 'mare barbarum' is meant the Indian Ocean. ' Orelli observes that in this stanza there are two images,-one at the entrance of Liber into Hades, when Cerberus gently wags his tail to greet him-the other when Liber is leaving and the Hell-dog licks his feet. The poet thus expresses the security with which the god passes through the terrors of the nether world. |