O DE VI. To the ROMANS. That the contempt of religion, and the corruption of morals had brought the greatest misfortunes upon the Romans. You OU fhall fuffer, O Rome, for the fins of your ancestors, the innocent of the th, till you fhall have repaired the temples and tottering edifices of the Gods, and their ftatues, that are defiled with footy fmoke. You justly reign, because you conduct yourself as fubordinate to the Gods: to this fource refer every undertaking, to this very event. The Gods, because neglected, have inflicted many evils on calamitous Italy. Already the Monefes, and the band of Pacorus, twice repelled our inaufpicious attacks, and exults in having added the Roman fpoils to their inferior collars. The Dacian. and Ethiopian have almost demolished the city engaged in civil broils, the one formidable for his fleet, the other more expert for miffile arrows. The times, fertile in wickednefs, have, in the first place, polluted the marriage ftate, and thereby the ifuc, and families. From this fountain perdition being derived, has overwhelmed the nation, and people. The virgin, marriageable, delights to be taught the Ionic dances, and at this time even is fafhioned in her limbs, and cherishes unchafte de fires Jam nunc, et incestos amores Cui donet impermiffa raptim Sed rufticorum mafcula militum Matris ad arbitrium, recifos Tempus agens abeunte curru. Damnofa quid non imminuit dies tas parentum, pejor avis, tulit, Nos nequiores, mox daturos Progeniem vitiofiorem. 25 30 35 40 45 Intermiffa-improvifa. CARMEN fires from her very infancy; for fhe courts younger debauchees when her husband is in his cups, nor has the any choice, to whom the fhall privately grant her forbidden pleasures when the lights are removed, but, at the word of command, openly, not without the knowledge of her husband, she will come forth, whether it be a factor that calls for her, or the captain of a Spanish fhip, the extrava gant purchaser of her impurities. "Twas not a youth born from parents like thefe, that tinged the fea with Carthaginian gore, and flew Pyrrhus, and Antiochus the Great, and the terrific Hannibal; but a manly progeny of ruftic foldiers, inftructed to turn the globe with Sabine fpades, and to carry clubs cut out of the woods at the pleasure of a rigid mother, what time the fun fhifted the fhadows of the mountains, and took the yokes from the wearied oxen, bringing on the pleafant hour with his retreating chariot. What does not wafting time decay? The age of our fathers, worfe than our grandfires, produced us ftill more flagitious, who are about to produce an offspring more vicious even than ourselves. VOL. I. ODE CARMEN VII. AD ASTERIEN. Solatur Afterien de mariti abfentia folicitam, et ut in ejus fide perfeveret hortatur. Q UID files, Afterie, quem tibi candidi Thyna merce beatum, Conftantis juvenem fide Gygen? Ille, Notis actus ad Oricum, Infomnis lacrymis agit. Atqui folicita nuntius hofpitæ, Tentat mille, vafer, modis. Ut Protum mulier perfida credulum Maturare necem, refert. Narrat pene datum Pelea Tartaro, Magneffam Hippolyten dum fugit abftinens: Et peccare docentes Fallax hiftorias monet: Fruftra: nam fcopulis furdior Icari Voces audit, adhuc integer. At, tibi Ne vicinus Enipeus Plus jufto placeat, cave. Quamvis * Conflanti juvenem fide. + Fallax hiftorias movet, Fellax hiftorias movet, Bentl ODE VII. To ASTERIE. He comforts Afterie, troubled for the abfence of her husband, and exhorts her to perfevere in her fidelity to him. WE 7HY, O Afterie, do you weep for Gyges, a youth of inviolable conftancy, whom the kindly zephyrs fhall reftore to you with the beginning of the fpring, enriched with a Bithynian cargo? Driven as far as Oricum by the fouthern winds, after the rifing ofthe goat's tempeftuous conftellation, he fleepless paffes the cold nights in abundant weeping for you: but the agent of his anxious landlady flyly tempts him by a thoufand methods, informing him that his miflrefs, Chloe, is fighing for him, and burns with your flames. He remonstrates to him how a perfidious woman urged the credu lous Prætus, by falfe accufations, to haften the death of the overchafte Bellerophon.He tells how Peleus was like to have been given up to the infernal regions, while out of temperance he avoided the Magnefian Hippolyte; and the deceiver quotes hiftories to him, that are leffons for finning.-In vain, for heart-whole as yet, he receives his words deafer than the Icarian rocks. But with regard to you, have a care left your neighbour Enipeus P 2 prove |