EPODE I.

In light Liburnian galleys thou, my friend, shalt go 'Mid the tall vessels armed from stern to prow, Ready, whatever danger Cæsar shall confront,

With danger to thyself to bear the brunt: How is 't with us? to whom, if life to thee remain, Life is a pleasure, otherwise a pain:

Shall we, as bidden, still pursue a tranquil ease, Which charms not, save with thee to make it please? Or shall we bear this trial, minded as 'tis right

That men who're not effeminate should fight? Bear it we will-and either 'cross the Alpine peak, And Caucasus inhospitably bleak,

Or even to the utmost coast-bend of the West,
Thee we will follow with courageous breast:

DD

Roges, tuum labore quid juvem meo
Inbellis ac firmus parum :

Comes minore sum futurus in metu,
Qui maior absentis habet;
Ut assidens inplumibus pullis avis
Serpentium allapsus timet
Magis relictis, non, ut adsit, auxili
Latura plus praesentibus.
Libenter hoc et omne militabitur
Bellum in tuae spem gratiae,

Non ut juvencis illigata pluribus
Aratra nitantur mea,

Pecusve Calabris ante sidus fervidum
Lucana mutet pascuis,

Neque ut superni villa candens Tusculi
Circaea tangat moenia.

Satis superque me benignitas tua

Ditavit: haut paravero

Quod aut avarus ut Chremes terra premam, Discinctus aut perdam nepos.

Dost ask how thy exertion I by mine can back,
When I'm unwarlike, aye, and firmness lack?
In thy companionship, in less fear I shall be

Which sways the absent more imperiously,
Just as a bird that sits beside her unfledged brood,
When they are left, feels more disquietude

For serpents gliding towards them, though, if she were near,
She would not in their presence more help bear:
Gladly we'll serve in this, and every war's campaign,
Hoping thereby thy favour to obtain;

Not that, more numerous heifers to the traces bound,

My ploughs may thrust them through and through the ground: Nor that my flock may leave, when the hot star's at hand, Calabria for Lucanian pasture-land;

Nor that a glist'ning villa may adjoin the town,

Built on a hill, which Circe's ramparts crown:
Enough, yea, too much has thy bounty in the past
Enriched me; I'd not have a store amassed

To hide, like avaricious Chremes, in a pit,
Or, like a spendthrift child, waste every bit.

EPODON LIBER.

CARMEN II.

Beatus ille qui procul negotiis,
Ut prisca gens mortalium,
Paterna rura bobus exercet suis
Solutus omni fenore,

Neque excitatur classico miles truci
Neque horret iratum mare,
Forumque vitat et superba civium

Potentiorum limina.

Ergo aut adulta vitium propagine
Altas maritat populos,

Aut in reducta valle mugientium

Prospectat errantes greges,

Inutilisque falce ramos amputans
Feliciores inserit,

EPODE II.

-6

Happy the man, who from all business far away,

Like mortals born in ancient day,

Upturns his fathers' broadlands with his own good steers, Freed wholly from usurious fears,

And is not roused by the fierce trumpet's call to war, Nor dreads the angry ocean's roar,

And shuns the forum, and the proud and haughty door
Of citizens of too great power:

Therefore the adult layer of the vine-trees he
Marries to some tall poplar tree,

Or views, in some secluded valley bellowing,
His herds of oxen wandering,

And, lopping unproductive branches with his knife,
Grafts others in more rich with life,