ODE XIX. ON BACCHUS. A DITHYRAMBIC, OR DRINKING SONG. That it was his duty to celebrate the praises of Bacchus, as being full of, and roused and animated by, his divinity. I SAW Bacchus (believe it; pofterity) dictating verfes among the remote rocks, and the nymphs learning them, and the attentive ears of the goat-footed fatyrs. * Evœ! (buzza!) my mind trembles with recent dread, and my foul replete with Bacchus has a tumultuous joy. Eve! fpare me, Bacchus ; fpare me, you that art formidable for your dreadful + Thyrfus. It is given me to fing. the wanton Bacchanalian prieftefs, and the fountain of wine, and rivulets flowing with milk, and to reiterate the honies diftilling from hollow trunks. It is granted me likewife to celebrate the honour added to the conftellations by your happy fpoufe, and the palace of Pentheus demolished with hideous ruin, and the perdition of Thracian Lycurgus. You command the rivers, you the barbarian fea You, moift with wine, in felected mountains bind the hair of your Thracian priefteffes with a knot of vipers without hurt. You, when the impious band of giants fcaled the realm's of father Jupiter through the sky, repelled Rhætus, with the paws and horrible jaw of the lion-fbape you bad affumed. Though reported to be better adapted for dances, and jokes, and play, you were accounted infufficient for fight; Yet it then appeared, you had the fame talent for peace and for war. You, An interjection, ufed by the priefteffes of Bacchus on this feftival, which cannot be literally tranflated. A Spear, round the Jhaft of which ivy and vine-leaves wwere twined, Te vidit infons Cerberus aureo 30 CARMEN XX. AD MECENATEM. Eternam fibi ex fuis carminibus famam pollicetur. N Penna biformis per liquidum æthera Vates; neque in terris morabor Urbes relinquam. Non ego pauperum Nec Stygia cohibebor unda. Jam jam refidunt cruribus afpera Jam, Dædaleo ocior Icaro, Ales Hyperboreofque campos. Me Colchus, et qui diffimulat metum Abfint inani funere næniæ, ornamented with your golden horn, Cerberus innocently gazed at, gently wagging his tail; and with his triple tongue licked your feet and legs, as you returned. 1 I ODE XX. TO MECENAS. He promises himself eternal fame from bis verfes. A two-formed poet, will be conveyed through the liquid air with no vulgar or humble wing; nor will 1 loiter upon earth any longer; and, fuperior to envy, I will quit cities. Not I, even I, whom my rivals ftile the blood of low parents, my dear Mecenas, shall die, nor will I be reftrained by the Stygian wave. At this inftant, a rough skin fettles upon my ankles, and all upward I am transformed into a white bird, and the downy plumage arifes over my fingers and fhoulders. Now, a melodious bird, more expeditious than the Dædalean Icarus, I will vifit the shores of the murmuring Bofphorus, and the Gætulean Syrtes, and the Hyperborean plains. Me the Colchian and the Dacian, who pretends not to fear the Marlian cohort, and the remoteft Gelonians fhall know: me the learned Spaniard shall ftudy, and he that drinks the waters of the Rhone. Let there be no dirges, or fhameful lamentation, or bewailings at my imaginary funeral; fupprefs your crying, and forbear the superfluous honours of a fepulchre. The poets allegorically represented themselves as transformed into fwans. Q. HORATII FLACCI CARMINUM LIBER III. CARMEN I Felicitatem in bonoribus ac divitiis pofitam non effe. DI profanum vulgus, et arceo. Virginibus puerifque canto. o Regum timendorum in proprios greges, Reges in ipfos imperium eft Jovis, Balvin Clari Giganteo triumpho, Cuneta fupercilio moventis. Ebo ut. Benti. THE THIRD BOOK OF THE ODES OF HORACE. I ODE I. That happiness confifts not in honours and riches. ABOMINATE the uninitiated vulgar, and drive them off. Give a religious attention: I, the priest of the mufes, fing to virgins and boys verfes not heard before. The dominion of dread fovereigns is only over their own fubjects; that of Jupiter, glorious for his conqueft over the giants, who fhakes all nature with his nod, is over fovereigns themselves. It happens that one man plants trees, in regular rows, to a greater extent than another; this man comes down into the Campus Martius as a candidate of a better family, while another vies with him for * Literally flocks. Homer is fond of terming kings fhepherds of the people. Thus the true GOD entitles himSelf the thepherd of his people, and them the sheep of his pafture; the expression therefore is not too low for the pomp of the ftrophe, agreeably to the charge of a late ingenious editor of our author. |