genuous smile. Nothing on earth is completely blest. A premature death carried off the celebrated Achilles; a protracted old age wore down Tithonus; and time, perhaps, may extend to me what it shall deny to you. Around you a hundred flocks bleat, and Sicilian heifers low; for your use, the mare, fit for the harness, neighs; wool, doubly dipped in the African purple-dye, clothes you: On me, unerring fate hath bestowed a small country estate, and a little genius for the Grecian muse,* and a contempt for the malignity of the vulgar. ODE XVII. TO MECENAS. He comforts Maecenas, labouring under a perpetual fever, and denies that he can possibly survive him. WHY do you kill me with your complaints? it is neither agreeable to the Gods, nor to me, that you should depart first. O Mæcenas, thou grand ornament and support of my affairs. Alas! if an untimely blow hurry away you, a part of my soul, why do I, the other moiety, remain, my value lost, nor any longer whole? That fatal day shall bring destruction on us both. I have by no means taken a false oath: we will go, we will go, whenever you shall lead the way, prepared to be fellow-travellers in the last journey. As for me, neither the breath of the fiery Chimera, nor the hundred-handed Gyas, were he to rise again, shall * Horace being the first who brought lyric poetry to any degree of perfection among the Romans. ever tear me from you: such is the will of powerful Justice and of the Fates. Whether Libra, or malignant Scorpio, had the ascendant at my natal hour, or Capricorn, the tyrant of the western wave, our horoscopes agree in a wonderful manner. Thee, the benign protection of Jupiter, shining with friendly aspect, rescued from the baleful influence of impious Saturn,* and retarded the wings of precipitate destiny, at the time the crowded people, in resounding applauses, thrice hailed you in the theatre: me, the trunk of a tree, falling upon my scull, would have despatched, had not Faunus,† the protector of men of genius, with his right hand, warded off the blow. Be you mindful to pay the victims and the votive temple; I will sacrifice an humble lamb. ODE XVIII. He inveighs against the Roman luxury and covetousness. NOR ivory, nor gilded arch, makes a figure in my house ; no Hymettian beams rest upon pillars cut out of the extremest parts of Africa; nor a pretended heir, have I possessed myself of the palace of Attalus: nor do ladies, my dependants, spin Laconian purple for my use. But honour, and a liberal vein of genius, are mine: and the man of fortune makes his court to me, who am but poor. I importune the Gods no farther, nor * In astrology, Saturn is always esteemed unlucky, unless corrected by the Trine of Jupiter, and supposed to incline persons born under him to vice and wickedness. + Or Pan. do I require of my friend in power any larger enjoyments, sufficiently happy with my Sabine farm alone. Day is driven on by day, and the new moons hasten to their wane. You put out marble to be hewn, though with one foot in the grave, and, unmindful of a sepulchre, are building houses, and are busy to extend the shore of the sea, that beats with violence at Baiæ, not rich enough while restrained to the limits of land. Why is it, that, through avarice, you even remove the landmarks of your neighbour's ground, and trespass beyond the bounds of your clients? and wife and husband are turned out, bearing in their bosom their household Gods, and their poorlooking children. Nevertheless, no court more certainly awaits its wealthy lord, than the destined seat of rapacious Pluto. Why do you go on? The impartial earth is open to the poor, as well as to the sons of kings; nor has the lifeguard ferryman of hell, bribed with gold, reconducted the artful Prometheus: He confines the proud Tantalus, and the race of Tantalus: He condescends, whether invoked or not, to relieve the poor, freed from their labours. 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, posterity,) dictating verses amongst the remote rocks, and the nymphs a learning them, and the attentive ears of the goatfooted satyrs. Eve!* (huzza!) my mind trembles with recent dread, and my soul, being replete with Bacchus, has a tumultuous joy. Eva! spare me, Bacchus; spare me, thou that art formidable for thy dreadful Thyrsus. It is given to me to sing the wanton Bacchanalian priestess, and the fountain of wine, and rivulets flowing with milk, and to reiterate the honeys distilling from hollow trunks. It is granted me likewise to celebrate the honour, added to the constellations by your happy spouse,‡ and the palace of Pentheus, demolished with hideous ruin, and the perdition of Thracian Lycurgus. You command the rivers, you the barbarian sea: You, moist with wine, in selected mountains, bind the hair of your Thracian priestesses with a knot of vipers, without hurt. You, when the impious band of giants scaled the realms of father Jupiter, through the sky repelled Rhotus, with *An interjection used by the priestess of Bacchus on this festival, which cannot be literally translated. † A spear, round the staff of which ivy and vine-leaves were twined. + Ariadne. the paws and horrible jaw of the lion-shape you had assumed. Though reported to be better adapted for dances, and jokes, and play, you were accounted insufficient for fight; yet it then appeared you had the same common talent for peace and war. Thee, ornamented with thy golden horn, Cerberus innocently gazed at, gently wagging his tail, and with his triple tongue licked your feet and legs as you returned. ODE XXII. TO MECENAS. He promises himself eternal fame from his verses. I, a two-formed poet, will be conveyed through the liquid air with no vulgar or humble wing: nor will I loiter upon earth any longer; and, superior to envy, will I quit cities. Not I, even I, whom my rivals style the blood of low parents, my dear Mæcenas, shall die; nor will I be restrained by the Stygian wave. At this instant a rough skin settles upon my ancles, and all upwards I am transformed into a white bird,* and the downy plumage arises over my fingers and shoulders. Now, having become a melodious bird, more expeditious than the Dædalian Icarus, I will visit the shores of the murmuring Bosphorus, and the Getulean Syrtes, and the Hyperborean plains. Me, the Colchan, and the Dacian who pretends not to fear the Marsian cohort, and *The poets allegorically represented themselves as transformed into swans. |