prefent: and turn your anger and power againft the houfes of our ur enemies: While the wild beafts lie hid in the gloomy woods, diffolved in sweet repofe: let the dogs of the Suburra, (which may be a matter of ridicule for every body) bark at the old fornicator, bedaubed with effence, fuch as my hands never made any more exquifite. What is the matter? why are thefe compofitions lefs efficacious than thofe of that barbarian Medea? by the means of which fhe made her efcape, after having revenged herfelf on Fafon's haughty miftrefs, the daughter of the mighty Creon; when the garment, a gift that was infected with poifon, took off his new bride by its inflammatory power. And yet no herb, nor root latent in inacceffible places ever efcaped my notice. Nevertheless, he fleeps in the effenced bed of every harlot, from his forgetfulness of me. Ha! ha! he walks in fecurity, fet free from my power by the charms of fome more powerful witch. Varus, (oh you are a perfon that will fhortly have much to lament!) thou fhalt come back to meby the means of unusual fpells: nor fhall you return to yourself by all the power of † Marfian inchantments. I will prepare a ftronger philire: I will pour in that ftronger philtre to you, difdainful as you are and the heaven fhall fubfide below the fea, with the earth extended over it, fooner than you shall not burn with a love for me, in the fame manner as pitch burns in the footy flames. At thefe words the Suburra, a fireet in Rome inhabited by the lower class of People, and a notorious neft for harlots. Marfus was a fon of the forceress Circe. Sub hæc puer, jam non, ut ante, mollibus Sed dubius unde rumperet filentium, Mifit Thyefteas preces. Venena * magnum fas nefafque, non valent Convertere humanam vicem Diris agam vos: dira deteftatio Nulla expiatur victima. Quin, ubi perire juffus exfpiravero, Nocturnus occurram furor; Petamque vultus, umbra, curvis unguibus; (Quæ vis Deorum eft Manium;) Et inquietis affidens præcordiis, Pavore fomnos auferam. Vos turba vicatim, hinc et hinc faxis petens, Contundet obfcœnas anus. Poft, infepulta membra different lupi. Et Efquiline alites. Neque hoc parentes, heu mihi fuperftites! CARMEN Verena magica fas nefafque non valent, Non vertere humanas viecs, Bentl the boy no longer attempted, as before, to move impious hags, by foothing expreffions; but doubtful in what manner he thou'd break filence, utter'd Thyeftean imprecations. Potions (Jays he) have a great efficacy in confounding right and wrong, but are not able to invert the condition and lot of human nature: I will perfecute you with curfes; and that execrating deteftation is not to be expiated by any victim. Moreover, when doomed by you to death, I fhall have expired, I will attend you as a nocturnal fury; and, a ghoft, I will attack your faces with my hooked talons; (for fuch is the power of thefe divinities, the Manest) and brooding upon your reftlefs breafts, I will deprive you of repofe by terrible vifions. And then the mob, from village to village, affaulting you on every fide with ftones, fhall demolish all you filthy hags. Finally, the wolves and Efquilian vultures fhall fcatter abroad your unburied limbs. Nor fhall this fpectacle efcape the obfervation of my parents, which, alas! muft now furvive me. ODE Thyeftean, fuch execrations as Thyeftes made use of to his brother Atreus. Vid, Sen. Trag. Manes, the geniuses of the dead, who had a kind of divinity afcribed to them. The Efquilia were the public burying places, and all where the criminals were expofed after execution, and confe quently the refort of birds of prey, CARMEN VI. In CASSIUM SEVERUM. Maledico minitatur ultionem. UID immerentes hofpites vexas, canis, Quin huc inanes, fi potes, vertis minas, Et me remorfurum petis? Nam, qualis aut Moloffus, aut fulvus Lacon, $ Amica vis paftoribus, Agam per altas aure fublata nives, Quæcunque præcedet fera. Tu, cum timenda voce complefti nemus, Projectum odoraris cibum. Cave, cave: namque in malos afperrimus Qualis Lycambe fpretus infido gener, Aut acer hoftis Bupalo. An, fi quis atro dente me petiverit, Inultus ut flebo puer? CARMEN O DE VII. Against CASSIUS SEVERUS. Horace threatens to revenge himfelf on him for his maledictions. HOU cur, that art a coward again wolves, why do you perfecute innocent strangers? why do you not, if you can, turn your empty yelpings hither, and attack me, who will bite again? for, like a maftiff, or tawny greyhound, that is a friendly affiftant to fhepherds, I will drive with erected ears thro' the deep fnows every brute that fhall go before me. As for you, when you have fill'd the grove with your tremendous barking, you smell at the food that is thrown to you. Have a care, have a care: for, very bitter against bad men, I' exert my horns ever ready for affault; like * him that was rejected as a fon-in-law by the perfidious Lycambes, or the † fatiric enemy of Bupalus. What, if any cur attack me with malignant tooth, fhall I only blubber like a boy that is incapable of revenging himfelf? VOL. I. Cc ODE * Lycambes broke his word with the poet Archilochus, with regard to his daughter Neobule; upon which Archilochus compofed fo fevere a fatire against him, that both he and his daughter banged themselves in defpair. Bupalus, a celebrated painter, having ridiculed the perfon of the poet Hipponex, by a portraiture he made of him, the bard in return wrote a moq bitter invective against him. |