; the Calenian vineyards, prune them with a hooked knife and let the wealthy merchant drink out of golden cups, the wines procured by his Syrian merchandise, favoured by the Gods themselves, inasmuch as without loss he visits three or four times a-year the Atlantic sea. Me olives support, me succories and emollient mallows. O thou son of Latona, grant me to enjoy my acquisitions, and to have my health, together with an unimpaired understanding, I beseech thee; and that I may not lead a dishonourable old age, nor one deprived of a taste for music. ODE XXXII. TO HIS LYRE. Being desired to write a secular ode, Horace invokes his lyre to assist him with strains equal to the subject. If in idle amusement in the WE E are now called upon. shade with you, we have played any thing that may live for this year and many, come on, assist me with a lyric ode in Latin, my dear lyre,-first tuned in Greek by the Lesbian citizen Alcaus; who, fierce in war, yet amidst arms, or if he had made fast to the watery shore his tossed vessel, sung Bacchus, and the Muses, and Venus, and the boy her ever-close attendant, and Lycus, lovely for his black eyes and jetty locks. O thou ornament of Apollo, charming shell, agreeable even at the banquets of supreme Jupiter! O thou sweet alleviator of anxious toils, be propitious to me, whenever I duly invoke thee! CARMEN XXXIII AD ALBIUM TIBULLUM. Solatur eum aliorum exemplo, qui amantes non redamantur. ALBI, ne doleas plùs nimio, memor Læsa præniteat fide. Insignem tenui fronte Lycorida Quàm turpi Pholoë peccet adultero. Sævo mittere cum joco. Ipsum me melior cùm peteret Venus, Curvantis Calabros sinus. 10 15 CARMEN XXXIV. Ficta palinodiâ Deorum providentiam prorsùs evertit. PARCUS Deorum cultor et infrequens, Insanientis dum sapientiæ Consultus erro, nunc retrorsùm Vela dare, atque iterare cursus Relectos. Heins. ODE XXXIII. TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS. He endeavours to comfort him, by instancing others who were in love without a mutual return. GRIEVE not too much, my Albius, thoughtful of cruel Glycera; nor chant your mournful elegies because, as she has forfeited her faith, a younger man is more agreeable than you in her eyes. A love for Cyrus inflames Lycoris distinguished for her delicate little forehead *: Cyrus follows the rough Pholoë; but she-goats shall sooner be united to the Apulian wolves, than Pholoë shall commit a crime with a base adulterer. Such is the will of Venus, who delights in cruel sport to subject to her brazen yokes persons and tempers ill suited to each other. As for myself, the slave-born Myrtale, more untractable than the Adriatic sea that forms the Calabrian gulfs, entangled me in a pleasing chain, at the very time that a more eligible love courted my embraces. DE XXXIV. In a pretended recantation he absolutely overthrows the arguments in favour of the providence of the Gods. I was an unfrequent and remiss worshipper of the Gods, while I professed the errors of a senseless philosophy; but now I am obliged to set sail back again, and to renew the course that I had deserted. For Jupiter, who usually cleaves the clouds† with his gleaming lightning, lately The ancients thought a small forehead a great beauty, and the ladies affected it in their dress. It was the opinion of the Epicureans, that thunder was caused by the collision of one cloud against another; but Horace, hearing thunder in a cloudless sky, gives up their doctrine. VOL. I F Plerumque, per purum tonantes Concutitur. Valet ima summis CARMEN XXXV. AD FORTUNAM. 10 15 Pro republicâ, Augusto, et Romanis exercitibus deprecatur. Præsens vel imo tollere de gradu Te Dacus asper, te profugi Scythæ, Injurioso ne pede proruas Stantem columnam; neu populus frequens Ad arma cessantes, ad arma Concitet, imperiumque frangat. 5 10 15 Te semper anteit sæva + Necessitas, Gestans ahenâ: nec severus Uncus abest, liquidumque plumbum. 20 *Insignia. Cunn. Insigne. Bentl. + Serva. drove his thundering horses and rapid chariot through the clear serene; at which the sluggish earth, and wandering rivers; at which Styx, and the horrid seat of detested Tænarús, and the utmost boundary of Atlas was shaken. The Deity is able to make an exchange between the highest and the lowest, and diminishes the exalted, bringing to light the obscure: rapacious fortune, with a shrill whizzing, has borne off the plume from one head, and delights in having placed, not fixed, it on another. ODE XXXV. TO FORTUNE. He prays to her for the commonwealth, Augustus, and the Roman armies. O GODDESS, who presidest over beautiful Antium; thou, that art ready to exalt mortal man from the most abject state, or to convert superb triumphs into funerals! Thee, the poor countryman solicits with his anxious vows; and whosoever ploughs the Carpathian sea with the Bithynian vessel, importunes thee as mistress of the sea. Thee the rough Dacian, thee the wandering Scythians, and cities, and nations, and warlike Latium also, and the mothers of barbarian kings, and tyrants, clad in purple, fear. Spurn not with destructive foot that column, which now stands firm, nor let popular tumults rouse those who now rest quiet to arms,-to arms-and break the empire. Inexorable Necessity always marches before thee, holding in her brazen hand huge spikes* and wedges; nor is the tormenting hook absent, nor the melted lead. These were several instruments of punishment and death, which were sculptured in the temple of Fortune at Antium. |