nor does the vulture desert the liver of incontinent Tityus, being stationed there as an avenger of his baseness; and three hundred chains confine the amorous Pirithoüs.

ODE V.

ON THE RECOVERY OF THE STANDARDS
FROM PHRAATES.

We believe from his thundering that Jupiter has dominon in the heavens: Augustus shall be esteemed a present deity, the Britons and terrible Parthians being added to the empire. What! has any soldier of Crassus lived, a degraded husband with a barbarian wife? And has (O [corrupted] senate, and degenerate morals!) the Marsian and Apulian, unmindful of the sacred bucklers, of the [Roman] name and gown, and of eternal Vesta, grown old in the lands of hostile fathers-in-law, Jupiter and the city being in safety? The prudent mind of Regulus had provided against this, dissenting from ignominious terms, and inferring from such a precedent destruction to the succeeding age, if the captive youth were not to perish unpitied. I have beheld, said he, the Roman standards affixed to the Carthaginian temples, and their arms taken away from our soldiers without bloodshed. I have beheld the arms of our citizens bound behind their free-born backs, and the gates [of the enemy] unshut, and the fields, which were depopulated by our battles, cultivated anew. The soldier, to be sure, ransomed by gold, will return a braver fellow!-No-you add loss to infamy; [for] neither does the wool once stained by the dye of the seaweed ever resume its lost colour; nor does genuine valour, when once it has failed, care to resume its place in those who have degenerated through cowardice. If the hind, disentangled from the thick-set toils, ever fights, then indeed shall he be valorous, who has intrusted himself to faithless foes; and he shall trample upon the Carthaginians in a second war, who dastardly has felt the thongs with his arms tied behind him, and has been afraid of death. He, knowing no other way to preserve his life, has confounded peace with war.-O scandal! O mighty Carthage, elevated to a higher pitch by Italy's disgraceful

downfall! He (Regulus) is reported to have rejected the embrace of his virtuous wife and his little sons like one degraded; and to have sternly fixed his manly counte nance on the ground, until, as an adviser, by his counse! he confirmed the wavering senators, and amidst his weeping friends hastened away, a glorious exile. Notwithstanding he knew what the barbarian executioner was providing for him, yet he pushed from his opposing, kindred and the populace retarding his return, in no other manner, than if (after he had quitted the tedious business of his clients, by determining their suit) he was only going to the Venafrían plains, or the Lacedæmonian Tarentum.

ODE VI.

TO THE ROMANS.

Thou shalt atone, O Roman, for the sins of your ances tors, though innocent, till you shall have repaired the temples and tottering shrines of the gods, and their statues, defiled with sooty smoke. Thou holdest sway, Decause thou bearest thyself subordinate to the gods; to this source refer every undertaking; to this, every event. The gods, because neglected, have inflicted many evils on calamitous Italy. Already has Monæses, and the band of Pacorus, twice repelled our inauspicious attacks, and exults in having added the Roman spoils to their trivial collars. The Dacian and Ethiopian have almost demolished the city engaged in civil broils, the one formidable for his fleet, the other more expert for missile arrow, The times, fertile in wickedness, have in the first place polluted the marriage state, and [thence] the issue and families. From this fountain perdition being derived has overwhelmed the nation and people. The marriage able virgin delights to be taught the Ionic dances, and even at this time is trained up in [seductive] arts, and cherishes unchaste desires from her very infancy. Soon after she courts younger debauchees when her husband is in his cups, nor has she any choice, to whom she shall privately grant her forbidden pleasures when the lights are removed, but at the word of command, openly, not

without the knowledge of her husband, she will come forth, whether it be a factor that calls for her, or the captain of a Spanish ship, the extravagant purchaser of her disgrace. It was not a youth born from parents like these, that stained the sea with Carthaginian gore, and slew Pyrrhus, and mighty Antiochus, and terrific Annibal; but a manly progeny of rustic soldiers, instructed to turn the glebe with Sabine spades, and to carry clubs cut [out of the woods] at the pleasure of a rigid mother, what time the sun shifted the shadows of the mountains, and took the yokes from the wearied oxen, bringing on the pleasant hour with his retreating chariot. What does not wasting time destroy? The age of our fathers, worse than our grandsires, produced us still more flagitious, us, who are about to produce an offspring more vicious [even than ourselves].

ODE VII.

TO ASTERIE.

Why, O Asterie, do you weep for Gyges, a youth of in violable constancy, whom the kindly zephyrs will restore to you in the beginning of the spring, enriched with a Bithynian cargo? Driven as far as Oricum by the southern winds, after [the rising] of the Goat's tempestuous constellation, he sleepless passes the cold nights in abundant weeping [for you]; but the agent of his anxious landlady slyly tempts him by a thousand methods, informing him that [his mistress], Chloe, is sighing for him, and burns with the same love that thou hast for him. He remonstrates with him how a perfidious woman urged the credulous Protus b false accusations, to hasten the death of the over-che Bellerophon. He tells how Peleus was like to have been given up to the infernal regions, while out of temperance he avoided the Magne sian Hippolyte: and the deceiver quotes histories to him, that are lessons for sinning. In vain; for, heart-whole as yet, he receives his words deafer than the Icarian ocks. But with regard to you, have a care lest yo" eighbour Enipeus prove too pleasing. Though no other person equally skilful to guide the steed, is conspicuous in the

course, nor does any one with equal swiftness swim down the Etrurian stream, yet secure your house at the very approach of night, nor look down into the streets at the sound of the dolefui pipe; and remain inflexible towards him, though he often upbraid thee with cruelty.

ODE VIII.

TO MÆCENAS.

O Mæcenas, learned in both languages, you wonder what I, a single man, have to do on the calends of March; what these flowers mean, aud the censer replete with frankincense, and the coals laid upon the live turf. I made a vow of a joyous banquet, and a white goat to Bacchus, after having been at the point of death by a blow from a tree. This day, sacred in the revolving year, shall remove the cork fastened with pitch from that jar, which was set to inhale the smoke in the consulship of Tullus. Take, my Mæcenas, a hundred cups on account of the safety of your friend, and continue the wakeful lamps even to day-light: all clamour and passion be far away. Postpone your political cares with regard to the state: the army of the Dacian Cotison is defeated; the troublesome Mede is quarrelling with himself in a horrible [civil] war: the Cantabrian, our old enemy on the Spanish coast, is subject to us, though conquered by a long-disputed victory: now, too, the Scythians are preparing to quit the field with their unbent bows. Neglectful, as a private person, forbear to be too solicitous lest the community in any wise suffer, and joyfully seize the boons of the present hour, and quit serious affairs.

:

ODE IX.

TO LYDIA.

HORACE. As long as I was agreeable to thee, and no -ther youth more favoured was wont to fold his arms around thy snowy neck, I lived happier than the Persian monarch.

LYDIA. As long as thou hadst not a greater flame for any other, nor was Lydia below Chloe [in thine affections], I, Lydia, of distinguished fame, flourished more eminent than the Roman Ilia.

HOR. The Thracian Chloe now commands me, skilful in sweet modulations, and a mistress of the lyre; for whom I would not dread to die, if the fates would spare her, my Surviving soul.

LYD. Calais, the son of the Thurian Ornitus, inflames me with a mutual fire; for whom I would twice endure to die, if the fates would spare my surviving youth.

HOR. What! if our former love returns, and unites by a brazen yoke us once parted? What if Chloe with her golden locks be shaken off, and the door again open to slighted Lydia?

LVD. Though he is fairer than a star, thou of more levity than a cork, and more passionate than the blustering Adriatic; with thee I should love to live, with thee I would cheerfully die.

ODE X.

TO LYCE.

O Lyce, had you drunk from the remote Tanais, in state of marriage with some barbarian, yet you might be sorry to expose me, prostrate before your obdurate doors, to the north winds that have made those places their abode. Do you hear with what a noise your gate, with what [a noise] the grove, planted about your elegant buildings, rebellows to the winds? And how Jupiter glazes the settled snow with his bright influence? Lay aside disdain offensive to Venus, lest your rope should run backward, while the wheel is revolving. Your Tyrrhenian father di not beget you to be as inaccessible as Penelope to your wooers. O though neither presents, nor prayers, nor the violet-tinctured paleness of your lovers, nor your husband smitten with a musical courtezan, bend you to pity; yet [at length] spare your suppliants, you that are not softer than the sturdy oak, nor of a gentler disposition than the African serpents. This side [of mine] will not always b able to endure your threshold, and the rain.