His mother calls with many a prayer and vow For the ox safely rambles through the mead: Are nourishing the land: with winged speed Adultery ceases the pure home to stain: While Caesar is preserved to us, who fears Amid his own familiar hills, each one In wedlock with the widowed trees unites The vine; and joying o'er the day's work done, Votis, ominibusque, et precibus vocat, Curvo nec faciem litore demovet : Sic desideriis icta fidelibus Quaerit patria Caesarem. Tutus bos etenim rura perambulat: Nullis polluitur casta domus stupris: Mos et lex maculosum edomuit nefas: Culpam poena premit comes. Quis Parthum paveat? quis gelidum Scythen? Condit quisque diem collibus in suis, Te mensis adhibet deum; Thee, with abundance of entreaties, he Ah wouldest thou, good chief, on Italy This reads like a sort of preface to the Secular Ode. Horace begins with thanksgiving to Apollo for having slain Achilles and preserved Aeneas, the originator of the Roman state, and then turns to the chorus and gives them some directions. I hope no critic will be very hard upon me for having, in my desperate need of a dissyllable, devised Teucrum as another name for Troy. GOD, who wert found by Niobean offspring Phthian Achilles : Soldier, 'mid others best, to thee unequal, He as pine-tree stricken by biting hatchet Te multa prece, te prosequitur mero Defuso pateris; et Laribus tuum Miscet numen, uti Graecia Castoris Et magni memor Herculis. Longas o utinam, dux bone, ferias VI. AD APOLLINEM. DIVE, quem proles Niobea magnae Vindicem linguae, Tityosque raptor Sensit, et Trojae prope victor altae Phthius Achilles, Ceteris major, tibi miles impar : Filius quamvis Thetidis marinae Dardanas turres quateret tremenda Cuspide pugnax. Ille, mordaci velut icta ferro Pinus, aut impulsa cupressus Euro, Fell at full length and in the dust of Teucrum Never would he, pent in the horse pretending Openly cruel (ah! ah me! the horror), Save that by prayers of thine and gentle Venus Lyrist Apollo, ever young Agyieus, Tuneful Thalia's teacher, who in Xanthus' Phoebus to me gave inspiration, Phoebus, Wards of the Delian goddess, who the fleeing Lynxes and nimble stags with bow arresteth, Mark ye my Lesbic measure and keep time with That which my thumb beats; Duly Latona's son alternate hymning, Duly the waning Night-Illumer's cresset, Hers who our fruit-trees favours, and revolving Months hurries headlong. |