return his love; and, though an unfeigned sorrow should take possession of you, yet his firmness shall not give way to that beauty which has once given him disgust. But as for you, whoever you are, that are more successful than me, and now strut proud of my misfortune, though you be rich in flocks, and abundance of land, and all Pactolus flow for you, nor the mysteries of transmigrating Pythagoras escape you, and you excel Nireus in beauty; alas! in a short time, you shall bewail her love transferred elsewhere; but I shall laugh in my turn.

ODE XVI.

TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE.

That Rome, which the wrath of the Gods delivers up to be torn to pieces by intestine wars, should be deserted, after the example of the Phoceans.

Now is another age worn away by civil wars, and Rome herself falls by her own strength. Whom neither the bordering Marsi could destroy, nor the Etrurian band of the menacing Porsena, nor the rival valour of Capua, nor the bold Spartacus, and the perfidious Gauls, with their innovations; nor did the fierce Germany subdue her with its blue-eyed youth, or Hannibal, detested by parents; but we, an impious race, whose blood is devoted to perdition, shall destroy her; and this land shall again be possessed by wild beasts. The victorious barbarian, alas! shall trample upon the ashes of the city, and the horsemen shall smite it with the sounding hoofs; and (horrible to see!) he shall insultingly disperse the bones of Romulus, which, as yet, are free from the injuries of wind and sun. Perhaps you all in general, or the better part of you, are inquisitive to know what may be expedient, in order to escape such dreadful evils. There can be no determination better than this; namely, to go wherever our feet will carry us, wherever the south, or boisterous south-west, shall summon us through the waves, (in the same manner as the whole state of the Phocæans fled, after having uttered execrations against such as should return, and left their fields and paternal abodes, and temples to be inhabited by boars and ravenous wolves.) Is this agreeable? or has any one a better scheme to advise? why do we delay to go a-shipboard under an auspicious omen? but first let us swear to these conditions:--the stones shall swim upwards, lifted up from the bottom of the sea, as soon as it shall not be impious to return: nor let it grieve us to direct our sails homewards then, and not before, when the Po shall wash the tops of the Matinian summits; or the lofty Apennine shall remove into the sea; or a miraculous appetite shall unite monsters by a strange kind of lust, insomuch that tigers may delight to couple with hinds, and the dove to be polluted with the kite; nor the simple herds may dread the tawny lions; and the hegoat, grown smooth, may love the briny main. After having sworn to these things, and whatever else may cut off the pleasing hope of returning, let us go, the whole city of us, or at least that part which is superior to the illiterate mob; but let the idle and despairing part remain in these inauspicious habitations. But ye that have bravery, away with effeminate grief and fly beyond the Tuscan shore. The circumambient ocean awaits us: let us seek the plains, the happy plains, and fortunate islands, where the untilled land yearly produces corn, and the unpruned vineyard punctually flourishes; and where the branch of the never-failing olive blossoms forth, and the purple fig adorns its native tree; honey distils from hollow oaks; and the light water bounds down from the high mountain with a murmuring pace. There the she-goats come to the milk-pails of their own accord, and the friendly flock return with their udders distended; nor does the evening bear growl about the sheepfold, nor does the rising ground swell with vipers; and many more things shall we happy Romans view with admiration : how neither the rainy east lays waste the cornfields with profuse showers, nor is the fertile seed burnt too dr a glebe; the king of Gods moderating both tremes. The ship that carried the Argonauts never attempted to come hither; nor did the lascivious Medea of Colchis set her foot in this place: hither the Sidonian mariners never turned their sailyards, nor the toiling crew of Ulysses. No contagious distempers here hurt the flocks; nor does the fiery violence of any constellation scorch the herd. Jupiter set apart those shores for a pious people, when he debased the golden age with brass: with brass, then with iron, he hardened the ages; from which there shall be

a

happy escape for the good, according to

my preODE XVII.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN HORACE AND CANIDIA. He ironically begs her pardon: she answers that she never will be reconciled to him.

Now, now I yield to powerful science; and suppliant beseech you, by the dominions of Proserpine, and by the inflexible divinity of Diana, and by the books of incantations which are able to call down the stars displaced from the firmament; oh Canidia, at length desist from your imprecations, and quickly turn, turn back your magical machine. Telephust moved with compassion the grandson of Nereus,‡ against whom he arrogantly had put his troops of Mysians in battle array, and against whom he had darted his sharp javelins. The Trojan matrons lamented over the body of the man-slaying Hector, which had been condemned to birds of prey and dogs, after king Priam, having left the walls of the city, prostrated himself, alas! at the feet of the obstinate Achilles. The mariners of the indefatigable Ulysses put off those limbs, bristled with the hard skins of swine, at the will of Circe: and then their reason and voice were restored, and their former comeliness to their countenances. I have suffered punishment enough, and more than

* The Rhombus was a kind of wheel, by the turning of which certain sorceries were performed.

† Telephus, king of Mysia, opposed the march of the Greeks through his kingdom, on their way to Troy. He was wounded by the spear of Achilles, and afterwards cured by some filings from the same weapon, for which he was directed to apply, by the oracle.

‡ Thetis, the mother of Achilles, was daughter to Nereus. enough, on your account, oh thou, that art so dearly beloved by the sailors and factors. My vigour is gone away, and my ruddy complexion has left me; my bones are covered with a ghastly skin; my hair too with your preparations is grown hoary. No ease respites me from my suf ferings: night presses upon day, and day upon night; nor is it in my power to relieve my lungs, which are strained with gasping. Wherefore, wretch that I am, I am compelled to credit, what before was denied by me, that the charms of the Samnites discomposed the breast, and the head splits in sunder at the Marsian incantations. What would you have more? O sea! O earth! I burn in such a degree as neither Hercules did, besineared with the black gore of Nessus, nor the fervid flame burning in the Sicilian Ætna. Yet thou, a laboratory of Colchian poisons, remainest on fire, till I, reduced to a dry ember, shall be wafted away by the injurious winds. What event? or what penalty awaits me? speak out: I will with honour pay the demanded mulct; ready to make an expiation, whether you shall require to have it done with a hundred steers, or you choose to be celebrated on a lying lyre: you, a woman of modesty, you, a woman of probity, shall traverse the stars, as a golden constellation. Castor, and the brother of the great Castor, though offended at the infamy brought on their sister Helen, yet, overcome by entreaty, restored to the poet* his eyes that were taken away from him.