What if more sweetly than the Thracian bard Thou tun'dst the harp-strings and by trees wert heard? Would then the blood run back to the empty shade, Which Mercury, whom no man can persuade To burst the bar of Fate for soothing word, Hath driven with dread wand to his black herd? 'Tis hard; but by endurance lighter grows That which to alter God's law disallows. LIBER I. CARMEN XXVI. Musis amicus tristitiam et metus Tradam protervis in mare Creticum Portare ventis, quis sub Arcto Rex gelidae metuatur orae, Quid Tiridaten terreat, unice Securus. O quae fontibus integris Gaudes, apricos necte flores, Necte meo Lamiae coronam, Pimplea dulcis: nil sine te mei Prosunt honores: hunc fidibus novis, Hunc Lesbio sacrare plectro Teque tuasque decet sorores. BOOK I. ODE XXVI. A friend of the Muses, all sadness and fear I will give to the petulant breezes to bear To the deep Cretan Ocean. Who 'neath the Great Bear The king of that frozen extremity fear, What scares Tiridates, not once will I care. Sweet Muse, who rejoices in fresh fountain-brim, Aye, him with the Lesbian quill in thy hand; Kmen, zee prerum thi prodest Aerias temptame fomos mimoque rotundam Perenie polum meritara. Oneidis et Pelopis genitor, ecoviva deorum, Tishornsque remotus in auras Et Iovis areanis Minos admissus, habentque Tartara Panthoiden iterum Orco Demissum, quamvis clipeo Troiana refixo Tempora testatus nihil ultra Nervos atque cutem morti concesserat atrae, Iudice te non sordidus auctor Naturae verique. Sed omnis una manet nox Et calcanda semel via leti. BOOK I. ODE XXVIII. Thou, who the sea, and earth, and the unnumbered sand For lack of scanty boon of a few grains of dust To have scaled the aerial mansions, and to have scoured And Minos privy-councillor of Jove. The realms Sent down to Orcus, though, unfastening his shield Conceded nought but skin and bones to sable Death, Of nature and of truth. But all one night awaits, *There in the full convive we.'-Troilus and Cressida, iv., 5, 272. |