frankincense, and shall be charmed with the mixed music of the lyre and Berecynthian pipe, not without the flageolet. There the youths, together with the tender maidens, twice a day celebrating your divinity, shall, Salian-like,* with snow-white foot, thrice shake the ground. As for me, neither woman nor youth, nor the fond hope of a mutual inclination, nor to contend in wine, nor to bind my temples with fresh flowers, delight me any longer. But why, ah! why, O Ligurinus, does the tear every now and then trickle down my cheeks? why does my fluent tongue falter between my words with an ill-becoming silence? Thee in my dreams by night I clasp, caught in my arms; thee, flying across the turf of the Campus Martius, thee I pursue, O cruel one, through the rolling waters.

ODE II.

TO ANTONIUS IULUS.

Horace, being desired to celebrate the victories of Augustus in Pindaric verse, excuses himself in such a manner, that the very excuse itself highly performs what he seems to decline.

WHOEVER endeavours, O Iulus, to rival Pindar makes an effort on wings formed of wax, by art Dædalian, about to communicate his name to the azure sea. Like a river pouring down a mountain, when sudden rains have increased it beyond its accustomed banks, such the deep-mouthed Pin

*Priests of Mars.

dar rages, and rushes on immeasurable; sure to merit Apollo's laurel, whether he rolls down his new-formed terms through the daring dithyrambic, and is borne on in numbers exempt from rule; whether he sings the gods, and kings, the offspring of the Gods, by whom the Centaurs perished with a just destruction, by whom was quenched the flame of the dreadful Chimera; or celebrates he those whom the palm, in the Olympic games at Elis, brings home exalted to the skies-wrestler or steed, and presents them with a gift preferable to a hundred statues; or does he deplore some youth, snatched by death from his mournful bride, he displays both his strength and courage, and golden morals to the stars, and rescues him from the dark oblivion of the grave. A strong air elevates the Dircean swan, O Antonius, as often as he soars into the lofty regions of the clouds: but I, after the custom and manner of the Matiniant bee, that laboriously gathers the grateful thyme, I, a diminutive creature, compose elaborate verses about the grove and the banks of the watery Tibur. You, a poet of a sublimer rate, shall sing of Cæsar, whenever, graceful in his merited laurel, he shall drag the fierce Sicambri along the sacred hill; Cæsar, than whom nothing greater or better the fates and indulgent Gods ever bestowed on the earth, nor will bestow, though the times should return to their primitive gold. You shall sing both the festal days, and the public rejoicings on account of the often-implored return of the brave

* Incorrupt morals of the golden age.

† Flies strongly.

Matinus was a mountain in Calabria, abounding with thyme.

Augustus, and the forum silent from law-suits. Then (if I can offer any thing worth hearing) a considerable portion of my voice shall join the general acclamation, and then will I sing, happy at the reception of Cæsar, "O glorious day, O worthy art thou to be celebrated." And whilst you move along in procession, shouts of triumph we will repeat, shouts of triumph the whole city shall repeat, and we will offer frankincense to the indulgent Gods. Thee ten bulls and as many heifers shall absolve, me, a tender steerling, that having left his dam, thrives in spacious pastures, for the discharge of my vows, resembling, by the horns on his forehead, the bright curvature of the moon, when she appears of three days old; in which part also he has a mark of a snowy aspect, but is of a dun colour over the rest of his body.

ODE III.

TO MELPOMENE.

He acknowledges the favour to her, that he obtains some place and rank amongst poets.

HIM, O Melpomene, whom, at his birth, you have once viewed with a benign aspect, the Isthmian contest shall not render eminent as a wrestler; the swift horse shall not draw him triumphant in a Grecian car; nor shall any warlike achievement show him in the Capitol, a general adorned with the Delian laurel, on account of his having quashed the proud threats of kings: but such waters as flow through the fertile Tibur, and the

dense leaves of the groves, shall make him distinguished for the Eolian* verse. The sons of Rome, the queen of cities, deign to rank me amongst the amiable band of poets; and now I am less carped at by the tooth of envy. O thou muse, who regulatest the sweet harmony of the gildedt shell! O you, who can immediately bestow, if you please, the notes of the dying swan upon the mute fish! it is entirely your gift that I marked out, as the stringer of the Roman lyre, by the fingers of passengers:that I breathe, and give pleasure, if I give pleasure, is yours.

ODE IV.

THE PRAISES OF DRUSUS.

He celebrates the victory of Claudius Drusus Nero over the Vindelici.

LIKE as the winged minister of thunder, (to whom Jupiter, the sovereign of the Gods, has assigned the dominion over the fleeting birds, having experienced his fidelity in the affair of the beauteous Ganymede,) at one time youth and hereditary vigour drew him from his nest, unused to toil; and the vernal winds, the showers being now dispelled, taught him, at first timorous, unwonted enterprises; in a little while his violent impetuosity despatched him, as an enemy, to the sheepfolds; and now an appetite for food and fight has impelled him upon the reluctant dragons: or as

* Alcaic.

The lyre was made of a tortoise shell. This parenthesis is omitted by many editors.

a she-goat,* intent on rich pastures, has beheld a young lion, but just weaned from the udder of his tawny dam, ready to be devoured by his newly grown tooth; such did the Rhæti and the Vindelici behold Drusus carrying on the war under the Alps; whence this people derived the custom, which has always prevailed amongst them, of arming their right hands with the Amazonian axe, I have purposely omitted to inquire: neither can we discover every thing. But those troops which had been for a long while and extensively victorious, being subdued by the conduct of a youth, perceived what a disposition, what a genius rightly educated under an auspicious roof, what the fatherly affection of Augustus towards the young Neros, could jointly effect. The brave are generated by the brave; and there is in steers, there is in horses, the virtue of their sires; nor do the courageous eagles procreate the unwarlike dove. But yet learning improves the innate force, and good discipline confirms the mind: whenever morals are deficient, vices disgrace what is naturally good. What thou owest, O Rome, to the Neros, the river Metaurus is a witness, and the defeated Asdrubal, and that day which was illustrious by the dispelling of darkness from Italy, and which first smiled with benignantt victory, when the terrible African‡ rode through the Latian cities, like a fire through the pitchy pines, or the east-wind through the Sicilian waves. After this, the Roman youth increased continually in suc

* A doe.

+ Adorea, here used for victory, is properly the distribution of corn to the soldiers after the victory.

+ Hannibal.