unequal to the occasion,' Macleane observes justly that it was evidently only a private affair.' The familiar lightness of the concluding stanzas would indicate a merry-making kept with a few personal friends.

CARM. XIV.

Herculis ritu modo dictus, O Plebs,
Morte venalem petiisse laurum,

Cæsar Hispana repetit Penates
Victor ab ora.

Unico gaudens mulier marito'
Prodeat, justis operata sacris ;
Et soror clari ducis, et decoræ
Supplice vitta

Virginum matres, juvenumque nuper2
Sospitum. Vos, O pueri et puellæ
Jam virum expertæ, male ominatis
Parcite verbis.

Hic dies vere mihi festus atras
Eximet curas; ego nec tumultum,
Nec mori per vim metuam,3 tenente
Cæsare terras.

I, pete unguentum, puer, et coronas,
Et cadum Marsi memorem duelli,

Spartacum si qua potuit vagantem
Fallere testa.

'The Marsic or Social war was continued from A.U.C. 663 to 665; and the Servile war, headed by Spartacus, lasted from A.U.C. 681 to 683; therefore the wine Horace wanted would have been sixty-five years old at least. There seems to have been something remarkable in the vintage of that period, so as to make it proverbial; for Juvenal, one hundred years afterwards, speaking of the selfish gentleman who keeps his best wine for his own drinking, says :—

"Ipse capillato diffusum consule potat,
Calcatamque tenet bellis socialibus uvam."

-S. v. 30, 89.-MACLEANE

T

Go, and bid silver-tongued Neæra hasten,
Binding in Spartan knot her locks myrrh-scented ;1
But, if obstructed by that brute her porter,
Quietly come back.

Nothing cools fiery spirits like a grey hair;
In every quarrel 'tis your sure peacemaker ;
In my hot youth, when Plancus was the consul,
I was less patient.2

Myrrheum crinem.' The scholiasts interpreted this expression 'myrrh-coloured.' Orelli and other recent commentators support the interpretation myrrh-scented.'

2 I.e., when Horace was in his twenty-third year,

Dic et argutæ properet Neæræ
Myrrheum nodo cohibere crinem ; 1
Si per invisum mora janitorem
Fiet, abito.

Lenit albescens animos capillus Litium et rixæ cupidos protervæ ; Non ego hoc ferrem calidus juventa,2 Consule Planco.

ODE XV.

ON AN OLD WOMAN AFFECTING YOUTH.

The names in this poem are, of course, fictitious, and the satire itself is of very general application even in the present day. Its date is undiscoverable.

Mend thy life-it is time; cease such pains to be vile,
Flaunting wife of the indigent Ibycus ;

Fitter far for the grave, do not gambol with girls,
Interspersing a cloud 'mid the galaxy.

That which Pholoë thy daughter may suit well enough, In thee, hoary Chloris, is horrible: 1

'Tis permitted to her to besiege the young rakes In their homes, with much greater propriety:

No Bacchante the timbrel excites with its clash,
Than that daughter of thine can be livelier;
And her fancy for Nothus so warms her and stings,
That no roe on the hills is more frolicsome.

What becomes thee the best is a warm woollen dress;
Get thee fleeces from famous Luceria;2

What become thee the least are the lute and the rose,
And the cask tippled dry with young rioters.

1 'Anus cum ludit, Morti delicias facit.'-P. SYRUS.

A town in Apulia now called Lucera. In its neighbourhood was one of the largest tracts of public pasture-land. The wools of Luceria were celebrated.

CARM. XV.

Uxor pauperis Ibyci,

Tandem nequitiæ fige modum tuæ, Famosisque laboribus:

Maturo propior desine funeri

Inter ludere virgines,

Et stellis nebulam spargere candidis. Non, si quid Pholoën satis,

Et te, Chlori, decet :' filia rectius

Expugnat juvenum domos,

Pulso Thyias uti concita tympano.

Illam cogit amor Nothi

Lascivæ similem ludere capreæ :

Te lanæ prope nobilem

Tonsæ Luceriam,2 non citharæ, decent

Nec flos purpureus rosæ,

Nec poti, vetulam, fæce tenus cadi.