give me one for midnight, and one for Murena the augur. Let our goblets be mixed up with three or nine cups, according to every one's disposition. The enraptured bard, who delights in the odd-numbered muses, shall call for brimmers thrice three. Each of the Graces, in conjunction with the naked sisters, fearful of broils, prohibits upwards of three. It is my pleasure to rave: why ceasa the breathings of the Phrygian flute? Why is the pipe hung up with the silent lyre? I hate your niggardly handfuls: strew roses freely. Let the envious Lycus hear the jovial noise; and let our fair neighbour, ill suited to the old Lycus, [hear it. The ripe Rhode aims at thee Telephus, smart witn thy bushy locks; at thee, bright as the clear cvening-star; the love of my Glycera ly casuaeg me.

ODE XX.

TO PYRRHUS.

Do you not perceive, O Pyrrhus, at what hazard you re taking away the whelps from a Getulian lioness? In little while you, a timorous ravisher, shall fly from the severe engagement, when she shall march through the opposing hand of youths, re-demanding her beauteous Nearchus; a grand contest, whether a greater share of booty shall fall to thee or to her! In the mean time, while you produce your swift arrows, she whets her terrific teeth; while the umpire of the combat is reported to have placed the palm under his naked foot, and refreshed his shoulder, overspread with his perfumed locks with the gentle breeze: just such another was Nireus, or he that was ravished from the watery Ida.

ODE XXI.

TO HIS JAR.

O thou goodly cask, that wast brought to light at the same time with me in the consulship of Manlius, whether thou containest the occasion of complaint, or jests, or broils and maddening amours, or gentle sleep; under

whatever title thou preservest the choice Massic, worthy to be removed on an auspicious day; descend, Corvinus bids me draw the mellowest wine. He, though he is imbued in the Socratic lectures, will not morosely reject thee. The virtue even of old Cato is reported to have been frequently warmed with wine. Thou appliest a gentle violence to that disposition, which is in general of the rougher cast. Thou revealest the cares and secret designs of the wise, by the assistance of merry Bacchus. You restore hope and spirit to anxious minds, and give horns to the poor man, who after [tasting] you neither dreads the diadems of enraged monarchs, nor the weapons of the soldiers. Thee Bacchus, and Venus, if she comes in good humour, and the Graces loth to dissolve the knot [of their union], and living lights shall prolong, till returning Phoebus puts the stars to flight.

ODE XXII.

TO DIANA.

O virgin, protectress of the mountains and the groves thou three-formed goddess, who, thrice invoked, hearest young women in labour, and savest them from death; sacred to thee be this pine that overshadows my villa, which I, at the completion of every year, joyful will present with the blood of a boar-pig, just meditating his oblique attack.

ODE XXIII.

TO PHIDYLE.

My rustic Phidyle, if you raise your suppliant hands to heaven at the new moon, and appease the household gods with frankincense, and this year's fruits, and a avening swine; the fertile vine shall neither feel the pestilential south-west, nor the corn the barren blight, or your dear brood the sickly season in the fruit-bearing iutumn. For the destined victim, which is pastured in he snowy Algidus among the oaks and holm trees, or thrives in the Albanian meadows, with its throat shall

stain the axes of the priests. It is not required of you, who are crowning our little gods with rosemary and the brittle myrtle, to propitiate them with a great slaughter of sheep. If an innocent hand touches the altar, a magnificent victim does not pacify the offended Penates more acceptably, than a consecrated cake and crackling jalt.

ODE XXIV.

TO THE COVETOUS.

Though, moe wealthy than the unrifled treasures of the Arabians and rich India, you should possess yourself by your edifices of the whole Tyrrhenian and Apulian seas; yet, if cruel fate fixes its adamantine grapples upon the topmost roofs, you shall not disengage your mind from dread, nor your life from the snares of death. The Scythians that dwell in the plains, whose carts, according to their custom, draw their vagrant habitations, live in a better manner; and [so do] the rough Getæ, whose uncircumscribed acres produce fruits and corn free to all, nor is a longer than annual tillage agreeable, and a successor relieves him who has accomplished his labour by an equal right. There the guiltless wife spares her motherless step-children, nor does the portioned spouse govern her husband, or put any confidence in a sleek adulterer. Their dower is the high virtue of their parents, and a chastity reserved from any other man by a tedfast security; and it is forbidden to sin, or the reward is death. O if there be any one willing to remove our impious slaughters, and civil rage; if he be desirous to be written FATHER OF THE STATE, on statues [erected to him], let him dare to curb insuperable licentiousness and be eminent to posterity; since we (O injustice! de test virtue while living, but invidiously seek for her after she is taken out of our view. To what purpose are our woeful complaints, if sin is not cut off with punishment? Of what efficacy are empty laws, without morals; it neither that part of the world which is shut in by fervent heats, nor that side which borders upon Boreas, and snows hardened upon the ground, keep off the mer

〃

chant; [and] the expert sailors get the better of the horrible seas? Poverty, a great reproach, impels us both to do and to suffer any thing, and deserts the path of difficult virtue. Let us, then, cast our gems and precious stones and useless gold, the cause of extreme evil, either into the Capitol, whither the acclamations and crowd of applauding [citizens] call us, or into the adjoining ocean. If we are truly penitent for our enormities, the very elements of depraved lust are to be erased, and the minds of too soft a mould should be formed by severer studies. The noble youth knows not how to keep his seat on horseback, and is afraid to go a hunting, more skilled to play (if you choose it) with the Grecian trochus, or dice, prohibited by law; while the father's per jured faith can deceive his partner and friend, and he hastens to get money for an unworthy heir. In a word iniquitous wealth increases, yet something is ever want ing to the incomplete fortune

ODE XXV.

TO BACCHUS.

A DITHYRAMBIC.

Whither, O Bacchus, art thou hurrying me, replete with your influence? Into what groves, into what recesses am I driven, actuated with uncommon spirit? In what caverns, meditating the immortal honour of illustrious Cæsar, shall I be heard enrolling him among the stars and the council of Jove? I will utter something extraordinary, new, hitherto unsung by any other voice. Thus the sleepless Bicchanal is struck with enthusiasm, casting her eyes pon Hebrus, and Thrace bleached with snow, and Rho dope traversed by the feet of barbarians. How am I de lighted in my rambles, to admire the rocks and the desert grove! Olord of the Naiads and the Bacchanalian women who are able with their hands to overthrow lofty ash-trees; nothing little, nothing low, nothing mortal will I sing Charming is the hazard, O Bacchus, to accompany the god, who binds his temples with the verdant vine-leaf.

ODE XXVI.

TO VENUS.

I lately lived a proper person for girls, and campaigned it not without honour; but now this wall, which guards the left side of [the statue] of sea-born Venus, shall have my arms and my lyre discharged from warfare. Here here, deposit the shining flambeaux, and the wrenching irons, and the bows, that threatened the resisting doors. O thou goddess, who possessest the blissful Cyprus, and Memphis free from Sithonian snow, O queen, give the haughty Chloe one cut with your high-raised lash.

ODE XXVII.

TO GALATEA, UPON HER GOING TO SEA.

Let the omen of the noisy screech-owl and a pregnant bitch, or a tawny wolf running down from the Lanuvian fields, or a fox with whelp conduct the impious [on their way]; may the serpent also break their undertaken journey, if, like an arrow athwart the road, it has frightened the horses. What shall I, a provident augur, fear? I will invoke from the east, with my prayers, the raven foreboding by his croaking, before the bird, which presages impending showers, revisits the stagnant pools. Mayest thou be happy, O Galatea, wheresoever thou choosest to reside, and live mindful of me: and neither the unlucky pye nor the vagrant crow forbids your going on. But you see, with what an uproar the prone Orion hastens on: I know what the dark bay of the Adriatic is, and in what manner läpyx, [seemingly] serene, is guilty. Let the wives and children of our enemies feel the blind tumults of the rising south, and the roaring of the blackened sea, and the shores trembling with its lash. Thus, too, Europa trusted her fair side to the deceitful bull, and bold as she was, turned pale at the sea abounding with monsters, and the cheat now become manifest. She, who lately in the meadows was busied about flowers, and a composer of the chaplets meet for nymphs, saw nothing in the dusky night but stars and water. Who as soon so she arrived at Crete, nowerful with its hundred cities. ciied out, overcome