ODE XVI.

GOLD THE CORRUPTOR.

This ode is among Horace's most striking variations of the moral he so frequently preaches-content versus gold. But here he does full justice to the power of gold as the corruptor. I have not adopted for this ode the forms of metre I have elsewhere employed for rendering odes in the

The brazen tower, the solid doors,1 the vigil
Of dismal watch-dogs sentried night and day,
Might have sufficed to guard

From midnight loves imprisoned Danaë;
But Jove and Venus laughed to scorn Acrisius,
The timorous jailer of the hidden maid,2
Opening at once sure way,

The god transformed himself into—a Bribe. More subtle than the flash of the forked lightning, Gold glides amidst the armëd satellites ;

More potent than Jove's bolt,

same

Gold through the walls of granite bursts its way:

So fell the Argive Augur with his kindred,3
Gain, tempting one, whelmed in destruction all;
The man of Macedon

By gifts cleft gates, by gifts sapped rival thrones

Gifts have ensnared a Navy's fiercest chiefs,5

Care grows with wealth, with wealth the greed for more.

Robustæque fores.' Orelli suggests 'firmissimæ,' and objects, not without fine critical taste, to the interpretation of Forcellini and others—viz., ‘oaken doors,' as a descent in poetic expression, just after insisting on brazen tower.' Certainly, in line 9, Ode iii., Illi robur et æs triplex,' 'robur' comes first.

* Acrisius shut up his daughter in a brazen tower from fear of the oracle, who had predicted that she should bear him a son who would cause his death. He is therefore timorous or panic-stricken (pavidus) because of the oracle.

same measure (Asclepiadean, with a Glyconean in the 4th line), but one by which I have not unfrequently rendered the Alcaic stanza, with the slight variation of a monosyllabic termination in the second verse, while the termination of the first verse is dissyllabic.

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CARM. XVI.

Inclusam Danaën turris aënea
Robustæque fores,' et vigilum canum
Triste excubiæ munierant satis
Nocturnis ab adulteris,

Si non Acrisium virginis abditæ 2
Custodem pavidum, Juppiter et Venus
Risissent fore enim tutum iter et patens
Converso in pretium deo.

Aurum per medios ire satellites,
Et perrumpere amat saxa potentius
Ictu fulmineo: concidit auguris
Argivi3 domus ob lucrum

Demersa exitio; diffidit urbium
Portas vir Macedo, et subruit æmulos
Reges muneribus; munera navium
Sævos illaqueant duces.5

Crescentem sequitur cura pecuniam
Majorumque fames. Jure perhorrui

Amphiaraus; his wife Eriphyle, bribed by her brother Polynices, persuaded him to join in the siege of Thebes. There he fell, ordering his sons to put their mother to death. Alcmæon obeyed, and finally perished himself in attempting to get the gold necklace with which Eriphyle had been bribed.

Philip of Macedon.

This is held to refer to Menas, alias Menodorus, commander of Sextus Pompeius's fleet. He deserted from Pompeius to Augustus, then again to Pompeius, and again to Augustus. He had been freed-man to

C. M. Pompeius.

O my Mæcenas! gem

Of Roman knighthood,' ever have I feared

To lift a crest above the crowd conspicuous-
Rightly; the more man shall deny himself,
The more shall gods bestow.

I do not side with wealth, but, lightly armed,

Bound o'er the lines, deserting to Contentment;
Owner more grand in means the rich despise,
Than were I said to hide,

In mine own granaries, all Apulia yields

Her toiling sons, want-pinched amidst heaped plenty :-
A brooklet pure, some roods of woodland cool,
Faith in crops, sure if small—

Are a lot happier, though he knows it not,

Than his who glitters in the spoils of Afric.
Though not for me toil the Calabrian bees,
Nor wines in Formian jars

Languish their fire in length of years away,

Nor fleecy wools gain weight in Gallic pastures,
Yet Penury keeps aloof; nor, lacked I more,
More wouldst thou me deny:

Widening my means by narrowing my desires,

I shall have ampler margin for true riches
Than if to Lydia adding Phrygian realms.
Who covets much, much wants ;

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God gives most kindly giving just enough.

Mæcenas, equitum decus.' By this significant reference to Maecenas as the ornament of knighthood, Horace associates Mæcenas with himself in the philosophy of contentment-Mæcenas, having always remained in the equestrian order, to which he was born, declining promotion to the senatorial.

Late conspicuum tollere verticem,
Mæcenas, equitum decus.1

Quanto quisque sibi plura negaverit,
Ab dis plura feret. Nil cupientium
Nudus castra peto, et transfuga divitum
Partes linquere gestio,

Contemptæ dominus splendidior reï,
Quam si, quidquid arat impiger Apulus,
Occultare meis dicerer horreis,
Magnas inter opes inops.

Puræ rivus aquæ, silvaque jugerum
Paucorum, et segetis certa fides meæ,
Fulgentem imperio fertilis Africa

Fallit sorte beatior.

Quamquam nec Calabræ mella ferunt apes, Nec Læstrygonia Bacchus in amphora Languescit milf, nec pinguia Gallicis Crescunt vellera pascuis,

Importuna tamen Pauperies abest;
Nec, si plura velim, tu dare deneges.
Contracto melius parva cupidine
Vectigalia porrigam,

Quam si Mygdoniis regnum Alyattei
Campis continuem. Multa petentibus

Desunt multa: bene est, cui Deus obtulit

Parca, quod satis est, manu.

ODE XVII.

TO L. ELIUS LAMIA.

This personage was the son of the L. Æ. Lamia who supported Cicero in the suppression of the Catiline conspiracy, and appears during the civil wars to have espoused the party of Cæsar. Horace's friend was consul A.D. 3; afterwards appointed by Tiberius governor of Syria, but not allowed to enter on the administration of the province. He became,

Noble Ælius, whose house hath its rise in that Lamus
From whom both the first and the later descendants
(As attesting memorials record)

The great name of Lamia inherit,

Thou canst trace back, indeed, to an absolute monarch,
Holding sway, it is said, over Formia's walled ramparts,
And the waters of Liris, that flow
Into grassy domains of Marica.

A.D.

To-morrow the east wind shall send us a tempest,
Which-if true be the crow, that old seer of foul weather-
Shall strew in the grove many leaves;

On the shore, many profitless sea-weeds.

While thou canst, then, protect from the rains the dry faggots;

Spend to-morrow in resting thyself and thy household;
Feast thy genius with wine-but not mixed;
And do not forget a young porker.

Per memores-fastos.' Family records,' not the fasti consulares.'-MACLEANE.

2 The shore of Minturna, on the borders of Latium and Campania, where the nymph Marica was worshipped.