forth, and the purple fig adorns its native tree: honey distils from the hollow oaks; the light water bounds down from the high mountains with a murmuring pace. There the she-goats come to the milk-pails of their own accord, and the friendly flock return with their udders distended nor does the bear at evening growl about the sheepfold, nor does the rising ground swell with vipers: and many more things shall we, happy [Romans], view with admi ration: how neither the rainy east lays waste the corn fields with profuse showers, nor is the fertile seed burned by a dry glebe; the king of gods moderating both [extremes]. The pine rowed by the Argonauts never attempted to come hither; nor did the lascivious [Medea] of Colchis set her foot [in this place]: hither the Sidonian mariners never turned their sail-yards, nor the toiling crew of Ulysses. No contagious distempers hurt the flocks; nor does the fiery violence of any constellation scorch the herd. Jupiter set apart those shores for a pious people,when he debased the golden age with brass: with brass, then with iron he hardened the ages; from which there shall be a happy escape for the good, according to y predictions.

ODE XVII.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN HORACE AND CARDIA.

Now, now I yield to powerful science; and suppliant beseech thee by the dominions of Proserpine, and by the inflexible divinity of Diana, and by the books of incantations able to call down the stars displaced from the firmament; O Canidia, at length desist from thine imprecations, and quickly turn, turn back thy magical machine. Telephus moved [with compassion] the grandson of Nereus, against whom he arrogantly had put his troops of Mysians in battle-array, and against whom he had darted his sharp javelins. The Trojan matrons embalmed the body of the man-slaying Lector, which had been condemned to birds of prey, and dogs, after king [Priam], having left the walls of the city, prostrated himself, alas ! at the feet of the obstinate Achilles. The mariners of the indefatigable Ulysses put off their limbs, bristled with

the hard skins [of swine], at the will of Circe: then their reason and voice were restored, and their former comeliness to their countenances. I have suffered punishment enough, and more than enough, on thy account, O thou so dearly beloved by the sailors and factors. My vigour is gone away, and my ruddy complexion has left me; my bones are covered with a ghastly skin; my hair with your preparations is grown hoary. No ease respites me from my sufferings: night presses upon day, and day upon night: nor is it in my power to relieve my lungs, which are strained with gasping. Wherefore, wretch that I am, I am compelled to credit (what was denied by me) that the charms of the Samnites discompose the breast, and the head splits in sunder at the Marsian incantations. What wouldst thou have more? O sea! O earth! I burn in such a degree as neither Hercules did, besmeared with the black gore of Nessus, nor the fervid flame burning in the Sicilian Etna. Yet you, a laboratory of Colchian poisons, remain on fire, till I, [reduced to] a dry ember, shall be wafted away by the injurious winds. What event, or what penalty awaits me? Speak out: I will with honour pay the demanded mulct; ready to make an expiation, whether you shall require a hundred steers, or choose to be celebrated on a lying lyre. You, a woman of modesty, you, a woman of probity, shall traverse the stars, as a golden constellation. Castor and the brother of the great Castor, offended at the infamy brought on [their sister] Helen, yet overcome by entreaty, restored to the poet his eyes that were taken away from him. And do you (for it is in your power) extricate me from this frenzy; O you, that are neither defiled by family meanness, nor skilful to disperse the ashes of poor people, after they have been nine days interred. You have an hospitable breast, and unpolluted hands; and Pactumeius is your son, and thee the midwife has tended; and, whenever you bring forth, you spring up with unabated vigour.

CANIDIA'S ANSWER.

Why do you pour forth your entreaties to ears that are closely shut [against them]? The wintery ocean, with its briny tempests, does not lash rocks more deaf to the cries

of the naked mariners. What, shall you, without being made an example of, deride the Cotyttian mysteries, sacred to unrestrained love, which were divulged [by you]? And shall you, [assuming the office] of Pontiff [with regard to my] Esquilian incantations, fill the city with my name unpunished? What did it avail me to have enriched the Palignian sorceress [with my charms], and to have prepared poison of greater expedition, if a slower fate awaits you than is agreeable to my wishes? An irksome life shall be protracted by you, wretch as you are, for this purpose, that you may perpetually be able to endure new tortures. Tantalus, the perfidious sire of Pelops, ever craving after the plenteous banquet [which is always before him], wishes for respite; Prometheus, chained to the vulture, wishes [for rest]; Sisyphus wishes to place the stone on the summit of the mountain: but the laws of Jupiter forbid. Thus you shall desire at one time to leap down from a high tower, at another to lay open yout breast with the Noric sword; and, grieving with your tedious indisposition, shall tie nooses about your neck in vain. I at that time will ride on your odious shoulders; and the whole earth shall acknowledge my unexampled power. What shall I, who can give motion to waxen images (as you yourself, inquisitive as you are, were convinced of) and snatch the moon from heaven by my incantations; I, who can raise the dead after they are buried, and duly prepare the potion of love, shall I bewail the event of my art having no efficacy upon you?

THE SECULAR POEM

OF

HORACE.

TO APOLLO AND DIANA.

Phoebus, and thou Diana, sovereign of the woods, ye illustrious ornament of the heavens, oh ever worthy of adoration and ever adored, bestow what we pray for at this sacred season: at which the Sibylline verses have given directions, that select virgins and chaste youths should sing a by an to the deities, to whom the seven hills [of Rome] are acceptable. O genial sun, who in your splendid car draw forth and obscure the day, and who arise another and the same, may it never be in your power to behold any thing more glorious than the city of Rome! OIlithyia, of lenient power to produce the timely birth, protect the matrons [in labour]; whether you choose the title of Lucina, or Genitalis. O goddess, multiply our offspring: and prosper the decrees of the senate in relation to the joining of women in wedlock, and the matrimonial law about to teem with a new race: that the stated revolution of a hundred and ten years may bring back the hymns and the games, three times by bright daylight resorted to in crowds, and as often in the welcome night. And you, ye fated sisters, infallible in having predicted what is es tablished, and what the settled order of things preserves, add propitious fates to those already past. Let the earth fertile in fruits and flocks, present Ceres with a sheafy crown: may both salubrious rains and Jove's air cherish the young brood! Apollo, mild and gentle with your sheathed arrows, hear the suppliant youths: O moon, thou horned queen of stars, hear the virgins. If Rome be your work, and the Trojan troops arrived on the Tuscan shore

(the part, commanded [by your oracles] to change the homes and city) by a successful navigation: for whom pious Æneas, surviving his country, secured a free passage through Troy, burning not by his treachery, abcut to give them more ample possessions than those that were left behind. O ye deities, grant to the tractable youth probity of manners; to old age, ye deities, grant a pleas ing retirement; to the Roman people, wealth, and pro geny, and every kind of glory. And may the illustrious issue of Anchises and Venus, who worships you with [offerings of] white bulls, reign superior to the warring enemy, merciful to the prostrate. Now the Parthian, by sea and land, dreads our powerfu! forces and the Roman axes: now the Scythians beg [to know] our commands, and the Indians but lately so arrogant. Now truth, and peace, and honour, and ancient modesty, and neglected virtue dare to return, and happy plenty appears, with her horn full to the brim. Phoebus, the god of augury, and conspicuous for his shining bow, and dear to the nine muses, who by his salutary art soothes the wearied limbs of the body; if he, propitious, surveys the Palatiue altars -may he prolong the Roman affairs, and the happy state of Italy to another lustrum, and to an improving age. And may Diana, who possesses Mount Aventine and Al gidus, regard the prayers of the Quindecemvirs, and lend a gracious ear to the supplications of the youths. We, the choir taught to sing the praises of Phoebus and Diana, bear home with us a good and certain hope, that Jupiter and all the other gods are sensible of these our supplications.