What the approach by which Death could have daunted Vainly by wastes of an ocean estranging Be by our vessels profane traversed o'er. Rushes man's race through the evils forbidden, Bring to the nations fire won through a fraud. Fire stolen thus from the Dome Empyrean, Hurried his stride, and stood facing his victim; Nought is too high for the daring of mortals; Quem Mortis timuit gradum, Qui siccis oculis monstra natantia, Qui vidit mare turgidum et Infames scopulos Acroceraunia? Nequicquam Deus abscidit Prudens Oceano dissociabili Terras, si tamen impia Non tangenda rates transiliunt vada. Audax omnia perpeti Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas : Post ignem ætheria domo Subductum, Macies et nova Febrium Terris incubuit cohors, Semotique prius tarda necessitas Leti corripuit gradum. Expertus vacuum Dædalus aëra Pennis non homini datis ; Perrupit Acheronta Herculeus labor. Nil mortalibus ardui est ; Cælum ipsum petimus stultitia, neque Per nostrum patimur scelus Iracunda Jovem ponere fulmina. ODE IV. TO LUCIUS SESTIUS. The Lucius Sestius here addressed was the son of the Sestius or Sextius defended by Cicero in an oration still extant. Keen winter melts in glad return of spring and soft Favonius; And the dry keels the rollers seaward draw ; No more the pens allure the flock, no more the hearth the ploughman ; Nor glint the meadows white with rime-frost hoar Beneath the overhanging moon, now Venus leads her dances, The awful forge in which the Cyclops toils.1 [myrtle, Now well becomes anointed brows to wreathe with verdant Or such rath flowers as swards, relaxing, free; [him, And well becomes the votive lamb, or kid if more it please Offered to Faunus amid shadowy groves. Pale Death with foot impartial knocks alike at each man's dwelling, The huts of beggars and the towers of kings. Blest Sestius, life's brief sum forbids commencing hope too lengthened; Ev'n now press on thee Night and storied ghosts, And Pluto's meagre hall, which gained, the wine-king's reign is over No more the die allots the frolic crown.2 * * * * 1 Venus dances-Vulcan toils: i.e. in spring man reawakens both to pleasure and labour. 'Urit'-'Though I have retained the ordinary reading of editions here, I believe that MS. authority, properly interpreted, indicates uissit (i.e. visit, as Bentley and, before him, Rutgersius read). . Venus dancing in the moonshine, while her husband is away visiting the stithies of the Cyclops, is a beautiful picture.'-MUNRO, extant. Lucius served under Brutus in Macedonia, and after his chieftain's death continued to honour his memory and preserve his images. He did not on that account incur the displeasure of Augustus, who made him Consul Suffectus in his own place, B.C. 23. There is no other ode in this metre, which has its name (Archilochian) from Archilochus of Paros. The difference. in rhythm between the first and second verse of the strophe is remarkable, and suggests the idea of being chanted by two voices in alternate lines. CARM. IV, Solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris et Favoni, Ac neque jam stabulis gaudet pecus, aut arator igni ; Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus, imminente Luna, Alterno terram quatiunt pede, dum graves Cyclopum Nunc decet aut viridi nitidum caput impedire myṛto, Nunc et in umbrosis Fauno decet immolare lucis, Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam, Et domus exilis Plutonia: quo simul mearis, Nec tenerum Lycidan mirabere, quo calet juventus Introduction, xxix. xxx. See there the elaborate argument by which this eminent scholar supports the reading he would prefer. * The Romans chose by cast of the die the symposiarch or king of the feast. ODE V. TO PYRRHA. I cannot presume to attempt any rhymeless version of this ode in juxtaposition with Milton's famous translation, which I therefore annex. Any resemblance between the What slender youth, bedewed with liquid odours,1 Pyrrha ? for whom bind'st thou In wreaths thy golden hair, Plain in thy neatness? O, how oft shall he Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold, Hopes thee, of flattering gales metre T'whom thou untried seem'st fair! Me, in my vowed My dank and dropping weeds To the stern god of sea.3 The reader will observe that the first line is the only one in the translation which ends with a dissyllable. Whether Milton makes thi variation of the rhythm he selects through oversight or intention, the reader can conjecture for himself. Probably Milton regarded the two first lines of each strophe simply as heroic blank verse, in which the termination of a monosyllable or dissyllable is optional. 2 Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro.' 'Some pleasant cave' appear scarcely to give the sense of the original. Antrum' means the grotto attached to the houses of the luxurious, and in which was placed a statue of Venus. Grottoes are still in use among the richer Italians, and it is not some cave to which Horace alludes, but with a certain tenderness of reproach to the grotto in which Pyrrha had been accustomed to receive him. Potenti-maris deo' Milton translates the stern god of sea,' |