those blest heights, solicit you and me: there you shall bedew the glowing ashes of your poet friend with a tear due [to his memory].

ODE VII.

TO POMPEIUS VARUS.

O thou, often reduced with me to the last extremity, in the war which Brutus carried on, who has restored thee as a Roman citizen, to the gods of thy country and the Italian air, Pompey, thou first of my companions; with whom I have frequently broken the tedious day in drinking, having my hair, shining with the Syrian malobathrum, crowned [with flowers]! Together with thee did I experience the [battle of] Philippi and a precipitate flight, having shamefully enough left my shield; when valour was broken, and the most daring smote the squalid earth with their faces. But Mercury swift conveyed me away, terrified as I was, in a thick cloud through the midst of the enemy. Thee the reciprocating sea, with his tempestuous waves, bore back again to war. Where

fore render to Jupiter the offering that is due, and deposit your limbs, wearied with a tedious war, under my laurel, and spare not the casks reserved for you. Fill up the polished bowls with care-dispelling Massic: pour out the perfumed ointments from the capacious shells. Who takes care to quickly weave the chaplets of fresh parsley or myrtle? Whom shall the Venus pronounce to be master of the revel? In wild carouse I will become frantic as the Bacchanalians. 'Tis delightful to me to play the madman, ou the reception of my friend.

ODE VIII.

TO BARINE.

If any punishment, Barine, for your violated oath had ever been of prejudice to you: if you had become less agreeable by the blackness of a single tooth or nail, I might believe you. But you no sooner have bound your

perfidious head with vows, but you shine out more charming by far, and come forth the public care of our youth. It is of advantage to you to deceive the buried ashes of your mother, and the silent constellations of the night, together with all heaven, and the gods free from chill death. Venus herself, I profess, laughs at this; the good-natured nymphs laugh, and cruel Cupid, who is perpetually sharpening his burning darts on a bloody whetstone. Add to this, that all our boys are growing up for you; a new herd of slaves is growing up; nor do the former ones quit the house of their impious mistress, notwithstanding they often have threatened it. The matrons are in dread of you on account of their young ones; the thrifty old men are in dread of you; and the girls but just married are in distress, lest your beauty should slacken [the affections of] their husbands.

ODE IX.

TO TITUS VALGIUS.

Showers do not perpetually pour down upon the rough fields, nor do varying hurricanes for ever harass the Caspian Sea; nor, my friend Valgius, does the motionless ice remain fixed throughout all the months in the regions of Armenia; nor do the Garganian oaks [always] labour under the northerly winds, nor are the ash-trees widowed of their leaves. But thou art continually pursuing Mystes, who is taken from thee, with mournful measures: nor do the effects of thy love for him cease at the rising of Vesper, or when he flies the rapid approach of the sun. But the aged man who lived three generations, did not lament the amiable Antilochus all the years of his life nor did his parents or his Trojan sisters perpetually bewail the blooming Troïlus. At length then desist from thy tender complaints; and rather let us sing the fresh trophies of Augustus Cæsar, and the frozen Niphates, and the river Medus, added to the vanquished nations, rolls more humble tides, and the Gelonians riding within a prescribed boundary in a narrow tract of land.

ODE X.

TO LICINIUS MURENA.

O Licinius, you will lead a more correct course of life, by neither always pursuing the main ocean, nor, while you cautiously are in dread of storms, by pressing too much upon the hazardous shore. Whosoever loves the golden mean, is secure from the sordidness of an antiquated cell, and is too prudent to have a palace that might expose him to envy. The lofty pine is more frequently agitated with winds, and high towers fall down with a heavier ruin, and lightnings strike the summits of the mountains. A well-provided breast hopes in adversity, and fears in prosperity. 'Tis the same Jupiter, that orings the hideous winters back, and that takes them way. If it is ill with us now, it will not be so hereafter. Apollo sometimes rouses the silent lyric muse, neither does he always bend his bow. In narrow circumstances appear in high spirits, and undaunted. In the same manner you will prudently contract your sails, which are apt to be too much swollen in a prosperous gale.

ODE XI.

TO QUINTIUS HIRPINUS.

O Quintius Hirpinus, forbear to be inquisitive what the Cantabrian, and the Scythian, divided from us by the interposed Adriatic, is meditating; neither be fearfully solicitous for the necessaries of a life, which requires but a few things. Youth and beauty fly swift away, while sapless old age expels the wanton loves and gentle sleep. The same glory does not always remain to the vernal flowers, nor does the ruddy moon shine with one continued aspect; why, therefore, do you fatigue your mind, unequal to eternal projects? Why do we not rather (while it is in our power) thus carelessly reclining under a lofty plane-tree, or this pine, with our hoary locks made fragrant by roses, and anointed with Syrian perfume, indulge ourselves with generous wine? Bacchus dissipates preying cares. What slave is here, instantly to cool some cups of ardent Falernian in the passing stream?

Who will tempt the vagrant wanton Lyde from her house? See that you bid her hasten with her ivory lyre, collecting her hair into a graceful knot, after the fashion of a Spartan maid.

ODE XII.

TO MÆCENAS.

Do not insist that the long wars of fierce Numantia, or the formidable Annibal, or the Sicilian Sea impurpled with Carthagian blood, should be adapted to the tender lays of the lyre: nor the cruel Lapithæ, nor Hylæus excessive in wine, and the earth-born youths, subdued by Herculean force, from whom the splendid habitation of old Saturn dreaded danger. And you yourself, Mæcenas, with more propriety shall recount the battles of Cæsar, and the necks of haughty kings led in triumph through the streets in historical prose. It was the muse's will that I should celebrate the sweet strains of my mistress Lycimnia, that I should celebrate her bright-darting eyes, and her breast laudably faithful to mutual love; who can with a grace introduce her foot into the dance, or, sport. ing, contend in raillery, or join arms with the bright virgins on the celebrated Diana's festival. Would you, [Mæcenas,] change one of Lycimnia's tresses for all the rich Achæmenes possessed, or the Mygdonian wealth of fertile Phrygia, or all the dwellings of the Arabians replete with treasures? Especially when she turns her neck to meet your burning kisses, or with a gentle cruelty denies, what she would more delight to have ravished than the petitioner, or sometimes eagerly anticipates to snatch hem herself.

ODE XIII.

TO A TREE.

O tree, he planted thee on an unlucky day whoever did it first, and with an impious hand raised thee for the destruction of prosperity, and the scandal of the village. I could believe that he had broken his own father's neck, and stained his most secret apartments with the midnight

blood of his guest. He was wont to handle Colchian poisons, and whatever wickedness is anywhere conceived, who planted in my field thee, a sorry Ïog; thee, ready to fall on the head of thy inoffensive master. What we ought to be aware of, no man is sufficiently cautious at all hours. The Carthaginian sailor thoroughly dreads the Bosphorus ; nor, beyond that, does he fear a hidden fate from any other quarter. The soldier dreads the arrows and the fleet retreat of the Parthian; the Parthian, chains and an Italian prison; but the unexpected assault of death has carried off, and will carry off, the world in general. How near was I seeing the dominions of black Proserpine, and Eacus sitting in judgment: the separate abodes also of the pious, and Sappho complaining on her Æolian lyre of her own country-damsels; and thee, O Alcæus, sounding in fuller strains on thy golden harp the distresses of exile, and the distresses of war. The ghosts admire them both. while they utter strains worthy of a sacred silence; but the crowded multitude, pressing with their shoulders, imbibes, with a more greedy ear, battles and banished tyrants. What wonder? Since the many-headed monster, astonished at those lays, hangs down his sable ears; and the snakes, entwined in the hair of the furies, are soothed. Moreover, Promethers and the sire of Pelops are deluded into an insensibility of their torments, by the melodious sound: nor is Orion any longer solicitous to harass the lions, or the fearful lynxes.

ODE XIV.

TO POSTUMUS.

Alas! my Postumus, my Postumus, the fleeting years glide on; nor will piety cause any delay to wrinkles, and lvancing old age, and insuperable death. You could not,

you were to sacrifice every passing day three hundred bulls, render propitious pitiless Pluto, who confines the thrice-monstrous Geryon and Tityus with the dismal Sty gian stream, namely, that stream which is to be passed over by all who are fed by the bounty of the eah, whether we be kings or poor hinds. In vain shall w De free from sanguinary Mars, and the broken billows of the hoarse