perjur'd harlot draws back: Friends, treacherous in their promises to bear equally the burden of adversity, when casks are exhausted, very dregs and all, fly off. Preferve thou Cæfar, who is meditating an expedition against the Britains, the fartheft people in the world, and also the new levy of youths to be dreaded by the eastern regions, and the Red fea. Alas! I am afhamed of the wounds and wickedness of the public, and brethren flain by brethren. What have we, a hardened age, abhorred? What have we.in our impiety left unviolated? From what has our youth restrained their hands out of reverence to the gods? What altars have they spared? O may you forge anew our blunted fwords on a different anvil a. gainst the Meffagete and Arabians. O DE XXXVI. He congratulates Plotius Numida upon his happy return from Spain. Tenfe and mufic, and the votive blood of a HIS is a joyful occafion to facrifice with in heifer to the Gods, the guardians of Numida; who, now returning in fafety from the extremeft part of Spain, imparts many embraces to his beloved companions, but to none more than his dear Lamia, mindful of his childhood spent under one and the H 2 fame Mutatæque fimul toga. Creffa ne careat pulchra dies nota: Neu promptæ modus amphora, Neu morem in Salium fit requies pedum : Neu multi Damalis meri Baffum Threicia vincat amystide: Neu defint epulis rofæ, Neu vivax apium, neu breve lilium. Omnes in Damalin putres Deponent oculos: nec Damalis novo Divelletur adultero, 10 15 20 CARMEN XXXVII. AD SODALES. Ob Cleopatra mortem lætandum effe. NUN [UNC eft bibendum, nunc pede libero Ornare pulvinar Deorum Tempus erat dapibus, fodales. Antehac nefas depromere Cacubum Cellis avitis; dum Capitolio Regina dementes ruinas, Funus et imperio parabat, Conta fame governor, and of the * gown, which they changed at the fame time. Let not this joyful day be without a Cretan mark of distinction; let us not spare the jar at hand; nor, ‡ Salian-like, let there be any ceflation of feet; nor let the toping Damalis conquer Baffus in the Thracian § Amyftis; nor let there be roses wanting to the banquet, nor the ever-green parfley, nor fhort-liv'd lily. All the company will fix their diffolving eyes on Damalis; but she, more luxuriant than the wanton ivy, will not be separated from her new lover. ODE XXXVII. To his COMPANIONS. That they ought to make a rejoicing on account of Cleopatra's death. TOW, my companions, is the time to caroufe, now is the time that was to deck the couch of the Gods with sumptuous Salian dainties. Before this, it was impious to produce the old Cæcuban ftored up by our ancestors; while the queen, with a con At the beginning of the feventeenth year, the Roman youth changed the prætexta, or boy's gown, for the toga virilis, or man's gown. The Cretans mark'd their lucky days with white and the reverfe with black. Salii: priests of Mars, who made dancing a principal part of their religious worship. § Amyftis, a large Thracian сир, which to exhaust at a breath, was esteem'd a piece of drunken bravery. taminated H 3 Contaminato cum grege turpium Ebria fed minuit furorem Cæfar, ab Italia volantem Remis adurgens, (accipiter velut Venator in campis nivalis Emonie) daret ut catenis Fatale monftrum: quæ generofius Claffe cita (a) reparavit oras. Aufa et (b) jacentem vifere regiam Tractare ferpentes, ut atrum Deliberata morte ferocior: Sævis Liburnis fcilicet invidens Privata deduci fuperbo Non humilis mulier triumpho. (a) Penetravit oras. Bentl. (b) Aufa et tacentem. CARMEN taminated gang of creatures, noisome thro' dftientper, was preparing giddy destruction for the capitol and the fubverfion of the empire, being weak enough to hope for any thing, and intoxicated with the favours of fortune. But fcarcely a single ship preferved from the flames, abated her fury; and Cæfar reduced her mind, inflamed with Egyptian wine, to real fears, close purfuing her, in her flight from Italy, with his gallies, (as the hawk pursues the tender doves, or the nimble hunter the hare in the plains of fnowy Æmon) that he might throw into chains this destructive monster of a woman, who, feeking a more generous death, neither had an effeminate dread of the sword, nor repair'd with her fwift fhip to hidden fhores. She was able alfo to look upon her palace, lying in ruins, with a countenance unmov'd, and courageous enough to handle exafperated afps*, that she might imbibe into her body the deadly poison, being more refolved by having premeditated her death: for fhe was a woman of fuch greatnefs of foul, as to fcorn to be carried off in haughty triumph, like a private perfon, by rough Liburnian tars. *Plutarch fays it was that kind of ferpent called an afp. ODE |