ODE II.

TO CRISPUS SALLUSTIUS.

That he alone is rich, who makes a proper use of his and he alone is happy that can command his

riches; passions.

O CRISPUS SALLUSTIUS, thou foe to the bullion that is concealed in the niggard earth,* there is no lustre in money, unless it derives its splendour from a moderate enjoyment. Proculeius shall live an extended age, conspicuous for fatherly affection to brothers: surviving fame shall bear him on an indissoluble wing. You may have a more extensive dominion by controlling a craving disposition, than if you could unite Lybia to the distant Gades, and each of the Carthages were subject to you alone. The direful dropsy increases by self-indulgence, nor extinguishes the thirst, unless the cause of the disorder has departed from the veins, and the watery languor from the pallid body. Virtue, differing from the vulgar, excepts Phraates, though restored to the throne of Cyrus, from the number of the happy; and corrects the false language of the populace, by conferring the kingdom, and the established diadem, and perpetual laurel, on him alone, whosoever he is, that views the largest heaps of treasure without one wishful cast of his eye.

*Covetously hoarded in the earth.

ODE III.

TO QUINTUS DELIUS.

That the happiness of life consists in serenity of mind and virtuous enjoyments.

O DELIUS! Since you were born to die, be mind ful to preserve a temper of mind even in times of difficulty, as well as secured from insolent exultation in prosperity: whether you shall lead a life of continual sadness, or you shall through happy days regale yourself with Falernian wine of the richest date, at ease reclined in some grassy retreat, where the lofty pine and hoary poplar delight to interweave their boughs into a hospitable shade, and the clear current with trembling surface purls along in meandering rivulet. Hither order your slaves to bring the wine, and the perfumes, and the grateful flowers of the too transitory rose; while fortune and age, and the sable threads of the three fatal sisters, permit you. You must depart from your numerous purchased groves from your stately house also, and that delightful villa, which the yellow (sandy) Tiber washes, you must depart: and an heir shall possess these high-piled riches. It is of no consequence, whether you are the wealthy descendant of ancient Inachus, or whether poor and of ignoble race you live without a covering from the open air, since you are the victim of merciless Pluto. We are all compelled to take the same road: the lot is shaking in the universal urn; sooner or later it must come forth, and embark us in Charon's boat to eternal exile.

ODE IV.

TO XANTHIAS PHOCEUS.

That he had no occasion to be ashamed at being in love with his maid; for that had been the case with many great men.

LET not, O Xanthias Phoceus, your passion for your maid put you out of countenance: before your time the slave Briseis moved the haughty Achilles by her fair complexion: the beauty of the captive Tecmessa smote her master, the Telamonian Ajax: Agamemnon, in the midst of victory, burned for a ravished virgin; when the barbarian troops fell by the hands of their Thessalian conqueror, and Hector, being taken off, left Troy more liable to be destroyed by the Grecians. You do not know but the beautiful Phyllis has parents of condition happy enough to do honour to you, their son-in-law. Certainly, she must be of royal race, and laments the unpropitiousness of her family gods.* Be confident, she was not selected for you out of the paltry vulgar; nor that one so true, so unmercenary, could possibly be born of a mother to be ashamed of. I can commend arms, and face, and well-made legs, quite chastely. Be far from being jealous of one, whose age hath trembled upon the verge of forty.t

*Laments the distress of her family.
† Closed the eighth lustrum.

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ODE V.

That he ought to recal his affection from the pursuit of a young lady as yet unripe for his addresses.

NoT as yet is she fit to be broken to the yoke; nor as yet is she equal to the duties of a partner, nor can she support the weight of the bull impetuously rushing upon enjoyment. Your heifer's sole inclination is about verdant fields; one while in running streams, abating the grievous heat; at another, highly delighted to frisk with the steerlings in the moist willow ground. Suppress your appetite for the immature grape; shortly variegated autumn shall tinge the livid clusters with a purple hue. Shortly she shall follow you; for impetuous time runs on, and shall place to her account those years, of which it abridges you: shortly Lalage, with a wanton assurance, shall seek a husband, beloved in a higher degree than the coy Pholoë, or even Chloris; with a resplendency on her fair shoulder, like the lustre of the spotless moon upon the nocturnal sea, or even the Cnidian Gyges, whom, if you intermix in a company of girls, the indiscernible difference occasioned by his flowing locks and equivocal countenance would wonderfully impose on strangers, though of sagacity.

* The gay ladies in Rome dressed so as to show their shoulders.

ODE VI.

TO SEPTIMIUS.

Horace invites him to come and live in the country with him.

SEPTIMIUS, who art ready to go with me, even o Gades, and to the Cantabrian, still untaught to bear our (the Roman) yoke, and the inhospitable Syrtes, where perpetually boils the Mauritanian wave. O may Tibur, founded by a Grecian colony, be the habitation of my old age! There let there be an end to my fatigues by sea and land, and war; from whence if the cruel fates debar me, I will seek the river of Galesus, delightful for sheep covered with skins, and the countries reigned over by Lacedæmonian Thalantus. That corner of the world smiles in my eye beyond all others where the honey yields not to the Hymettian, and the olive rivals the verdant Venafrian ; where the temperature of the airt produces a long spring and mild winters: and Aulon, friendly to the fruitful vine, envies not the Falernian grapes. That place, and those blest towering hills, solicit you and me: there you shall bedew the glowing ashes of your poetical friend with a tributary tear.

*To preserve the delicacy of their fleeces from the inclemency of the weather.

+ See Jupiter, the climate, or the air, thus translated, Ode I. 25, &c.

+ Bacchus, in like manner, here signifies the vine.