tains, and for Tiber to change his course, since you are about to exchange the noble works of Panatius, collected from all parts, together with the whole Socratic family, for Iberian armour, after >> you had given us hopes of better things.

ODE XXX.

TO VENUS.

Horace invokes Venus to be present at Glycera's private: sacrifice.

O VENUS, queen of Cnidos and Paphos, neglect your favourite Cyprus, and transport yourself into the beautiful temple of Glycera, who is invoking you with abundance of frankincense. Let your fervid son hasten along with you, and the Graces, with their zones loosed, and the Nymphs, and Youth disagreeable without you, and Mercury.

ODE XXXI.

TO APOLLO.

That a sound state of body and mind, together with a taste for poetry, exceeds all other blessings of life. WHAT does the poet beg from the consecrated shrine of Phoebus? What does he pray for, while he pours from the flagon the first libation of wine? Not the rich crops of fertile Sardinia: not the goodly flocks of the scorched Calabria: not gold, or Indian ivory: not those countries, which the still river Liris eats away with its silent

streams. Let those, to whom fortune has given the Calenian vineyards, prune them with a hooked knife: and let the wealthy merchant drink, out of golden cups, the wines procured by his Syrian merchandise, favoured by the Gods themselves, for as much as without loss he visits three or four times a year the Atlantic sea. Me olives support,

me succories and emollient mallows. O thou son of Latona, grant me to enjoy my acquisitions, and to have my health, together with an unimpaired understanding, I beseech thee; and that I may not lead a dishonourable old age, nor one deprived of a taste for music.

ODE XXXII.

TO HIS LYRE.

Being desired to write a secular ode, Horace invokes a lyre to assist him with strains cqual to the subject.

We are now called upon. If in idle amusement in the shade with you, we have played any thing that may live for this year and many, come on, assist me with a lyric ode in Latin, my dear lyre, first tuned in Greek by the Lesbian citizen Alcaus: who, fierce in war, yet amidst arms, or if he had made fast to the watery shore his tossed vessel, sung Bacchus and the Muses, and Venus, and the boy her ever-close attendant, and Lycus, lovely for his black eyes and jetty locks. O thou ornament of Apollo, charming shell, agreeable even at the banquets of supreme Jupiter! O thou sweet alleviator of anxious toils, be propitious to me, whenever I duly invoke thee,

ODE XXXIII.

TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS.

He endeavours to comfort him, by instancing others who were in love without a mutual return.

GRIEVE not too much, my Albius, thoughtful of cruel Glycera; nor chant your mournful elegies, because, having forfeited her faith, a younger man is more agreeable than you in her eyes. Behold, a love for Cyrus inflames Lycoris, distinguished for her delicate little forehead.* Cyrus follows the rough-spun Pholoë; but she-goats shall sooner be united to the Apulian wolves, than Pholoë shall commit a crime with a base adulterer. Such is the will of Venus, who delights in cruel sport to subject to her brazen yokes, persons and tempers ill-suited to each other. As for myself, the slave-born Myrtale, more unattractable than the Adriatic sea that forms the Calabrian gulfs, entangled me in a pleasing chain, at the very time a more eligible love courted my

embraces.

ODE XXXIV.

In a pretended recantation, he absolutely overthrows the arguments in favour of the providence of the Gods.

I was an unfrequent and remiss worshipper of the gods, while I professed the errors of a senseless philosophy; but now I am obliged to set sail

The ancients thought a small forehead a great beauty, and the ladies affected it in their dress.

back again and to renew the course that I had deserted: For Jupiter, who usually cleaves the clouds* with his gleaming lightning, lately drove his thundering horses and rapid chariot through the clear serene; at which the sluggish earth and wandering rivers, at which Styx, and the horrid seat of detested Tænarus, and the utmost boundary of Atlas, was shaken. The Deity is able to make an exchange between the highest and lowest, and diminishes the exalted, by bringing to light the obscure: rapacious fortune, with a shrill whizzing, hath borne off the plume from one head, and delights in having placed, not fixed. it, on another.

ODE XXXV.

TO FORTUNE.

He prays to her for the commonwealth, Augustus, and the Roman armies.

O GODDESS, who presidest over beautiful Antium; thou that art ready to exalt mortal man from the most abject state or to convert superb triumphs into funerals! Thee, the poor countryman solicits with his anxious vows; and whosoever ploughs the Carpathian sea with the Bithynian vessel, importunes thee as mistress of the sea. Thee, the rough Dacian; thee, the wandering Scythians, and cities and nations, the warlike Latium also, and the mothers of barbarian

It was the opinion of the Epicureans, that thunder was caused by the collision of one cloud against another. But Horace, hearing thunder in a cloudless sky, gives up their doctrine.

kings, and tyrants clad in purple, are in dread of. Spurn not, with destructive foot, that column which now stands firm, nor let popular tumults rouse those who now rest quiet to arms,-to arms -and break the empire. Inexorable necessity always marches before you, holding in her brazen hand huge* spikes and wedges: nor is the tormenting hook absent, or the melted lead. Thee hope reverences, and fidelity rare, robed in a white garment; nor does she desert thee, howsoever in wrath thou change thy robe, and abandon the houses of the powerful. But the faithless crowd of companions, and the perjured 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. Preserve thou Cæsar, who is meditating an expedition against the Britons, the farthest people in the world, and also the new levy of youths to be dreaded by the eastern regions, and the Red Sea. Alas! I am ashamed of the wounds and wickedness of the public, and brethren slain 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 swords on a different anvil against the Messagetæ and Arabians.

*These were several instruments of punishment and death, which were sculptured in the temple of Fortune at Antium.