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ODE VII.

TO MUNATIUS PLANCUS.

OTHER poets shall celebrate the famous Rhodes, or Mitylene, or Ephesus, or the walls of Corinth, situated between two seas, or Thebes, illustrious by Bacchus, or Delphi by Apollo, or the Thessalian Tempe." There are some, whose one task it is to chant in endless verse the city of spotless Pallas, and to prefer the olive culled from every side, to every other leaf. Many a one, in honor of Juno, celebrates Argos, productive of steeds, and rich Mycenæ. Neither patient Lacedæmon so much struck me, nor so much did the plain of fertile Larissa, as the house of resounding Albunea, and the precipitately rapid Anio, and the Tiburnian groves, and the orchards watered by ductile rivulets. As the clear south-wind often clears away the clouds from a lowering sky, nor teems with perpetual showers; so do you, O Plancus," wisely remember to put an end to grief and the toils of life by mellow wine; whether the camp, refulgent with banners, possess you, or the dense shade of your own Tibur shall detain you. When Teucer fled from Salamis and his father, he is reported, notwithstanding, to have bound his temples, bathed in wine, with a poplar crown, thus accosting his anxious friends: "O associates and companions, we will go wherever fortune, more propitious than a father, shall carry us. Nothing is to be despaired of under Teucer's conduct, and the auspices of Teucer:1 for the infallible Apollo has promised, that a Salamis in a new land shall render the name equivocal.** O gallant heroes, and often my fellow-sufferers in greater hardships than these, now drive away your cares with wine: to-morrow we will re-visit the vast ocean."

39 Tempe, a pleasant vale in Thessaly, lying between the hills Ossa, Olympus, and Pelion; the river Peneus running through the midst of it. 40 Lucius Munatius Plancus, whose country-seat was Tibur, or at least near to it, and therefore not far from Horace's country-house. WATSON. 41 Teucer, the son of Scamander Cretensis, a king of Troy, who reigned with his father-in-law Dardanus, from whom the Trojans are called Teucri. But the Teucer meant here was the son of Telamon, an excellent archer; at his return from Troy, being banished by his father, he went to Cyprus, and built there a city, which he called Salamis, by the name of his own country. WATSON.

42 Which shall be so like that Salamis which we have left, in glory and grandeur, that it shall be difficult to distinguish them. SAN.

ODE VIII.

TO LYDIA.

LYDIA, I conjure thee" by all the powers above, to tell me why you are so intent to ruin Sybaris by inspiring him with love? Why hates he the sunny plain, though inured to bear the dust and heat? Why does he neither, in military accouterments, appear mounted among his equals; nor manage the Gallic steed with bitted reins? Why fears he to touch the yellow Tiber? Why shuns he the oil of the ring more cautiously than viper's blood? Why neither does he, who has often acquired reputation by the quoit, often by the javelin having cleared the mark, any longer appear with arms all black-and-blue by martial exercises? Why is he concealed, as they say the son of the sea-goddess Thetis was, just before the mournful funerals of Troy; lest a manly habit should hurry him to slaughter, and the Lycian troops ?

45

43 This is the usual collocation in adjurations; first the preposition, then the individual entreated, and then the object or deity by whom the adjuration is made, and last the verb. Thus Ναὶ πρὸς σε τῆς σῆς δεξιᾶς εὐωλένου, Eurip. Hipp. 605, where Elmsley remarks, "observa syntaxin. Græcis solenne est in juramento aliquid inter Præpositionem et Casum ejus interponere." Virgil, also, has a similar collocation, Æn. iv. 314, "Per ego has lacrymas, dextramque tuam, te," etc. ANTHON.

44 Amando has a passive signification, "By being beloved." As in Virgil; Uritque videndo fæmina. Instances of this kind are frequent in the best authors. DAC.

45 The discus was a kind of quoit, very large and heavy, made of wood or stone, but more commonly of iron or brass. It was almost round, and somewhat thicker in the middle than at the edges. It was thrown by the sole force of the arm. SAN.

ODE IX.

TO THALIARCHUS.

You see how Soracte" stands white with deep snow, nor can the laboring woods any longer support the weight, and the rivers stagnate with the sharpness of the frost. Dissolve the cold, liberally piling up billets on the hearth; and bring out, O Thaliarchus, the more generous wine, four years old, from the Sabine jar. Leave the rest to the gods, who having once laid the winds warring with the fervid ocean, neither the cypresses nor the aged ashes are moved. Avoid inquiring what may happen to-morrow; and whatever day fortune shall bestow on you, score it up for gain; nor disdain, being a young fellow, pleasant loves, nor dances, as long as illnatured hoariness keeps off from your blooming age. Now let both the Campus Martius and the public walks, and soft whispers" at the approach of evening be repeated at the appointed hour: now, too, the delightful laugh, the betrayer of the lurking damsel from some secret corner, and the token ravished from her arms or fingers, pretendingly tenacious of it.

ODE X.

TO MERCURY.

MERCURY, eloquent grandson of Atlas," thou who artful didst from the savage manners of the early race of men by oratory, and the institution of the graceful Palæstra: I will celebrate thee, messenger of Jupiter and the other gods, and parent of the curved lyre; ingenious to conceal whatever thou hast a mind to, in jocose theft. While Apollo, with angry voice, threatened you, then but a boy, unless you would restore the oxen, previously driven away by your fraud, he laughed, [when he found himself] deprived of his quiver [also]. Moreover, the wealthy Priam too, on his departure from Ilium, under your guidance deceived the proud sons of Atreus," and the Thessalian watch-lights, and the camp inveterate against Troy. You settle the souls of good men in blissful regions, and drive together the airy crowd with your golden rod," acceptable both to the supernal and infernal gods.

46 Soracte, a hill in Italy, in the country of the Sabines, consecrated to Apollo; which now is called St. Sylvester's Mount, because a pope of that name hid himself in a cave there, when Maxentius raised a sore persecution against the Christians. WATSON.

47 Appone. Ponere and apponere were terms used in arithmetic by the Romans. DAC.

48 Susurri. This word is formed by the figure onomatopeia, from an imitation of the sound in whispering, as in Greek, ψιθυρίζειν, in Italian, bisbiglio, and in French. chucheter. DAC.

49 Atlas, king of Mauritania, and brother to Prometheus; he was turned by Perseus into a mountain, whose top was so high, that it reached heaven, and is said to bear heaven up. WATSON.

ODE XI.

TO LEUCONOE.

INQUIRE not, Leuconoe (it is not fitting you should know), how long a term of life the gods have granted to you or to me: neither consult the Chaldean calculations. How much better is it to bear with patience whatever shall happen! Whether Jupiter have granted us more winters, or [this as] the last, which now breaks the Etrurian waves against the opposing rocks. Be wise; rack off your wines, and abridge your hopes [in proportion] to the shortness of your life. While we are conversing, envious age has been flying; seize the present day, not giving the least credit to the succeeding

50 Menelaus, the son of Atreus and Aerope, brother of Agamemnon, and king of Lacedæmonia, who (when Paris had stolen away his wife Helen) called together all the princes of Greece to take revenge on the Trojans for this fact, and to fetch her home again. Accordingly they met, and made up a fleet of a thousand ships, lifting themselves under the conduct of Agamemnon, as commander-in-chief; and vowing never to return home till they had sacked Troy, which cost them ten years' pains, and that to little purpose, till at length, more by deceit than valor, they won and ruined the city. WATSON.

51 Golden rod or tipstaff. With this he conducted the good to happiness; but it was ferrea virga, an iron rod, with which he compelled the wicked men to Pluto's dominions: he calls it the terrible rod, Ode xxiv. "Non sanguis redeat vanæ imagini, quam semel Mercurius horrida virga compulerit nigro gregi." WATSON.

52 The Babylonians were infatuated with judicial astrology, and made use of astronomical tables to calculate the fortunate or unfortunate days of life. These tables the poet calls Numeros. FRANCIS.

53 The construction is remarkable, "ut melius est, quanto melius ent

one.

ODE XII.

TO AUGUSTUS.

WHAT man, what hero, O Clio, do you undertake to celebrate on the harp, or the shrill pipe? What god? Whose name shall the sportive echo resound, either in the shady borders of Helicon, 65 or on the top of Pindus," or on cold Hæmus?57 Whence the woods followed promiscuously the tuneful Orpheus, who by his maternal art" retarded the rapid courses of rivers, and the fleet winds; and was so sweetly persuasive, that he drew along the listening oaks with his harmonious strings. But what can I sing prior to the usual praises of the Sire, who governs the affairs of men and gods; who [governs] the sea, the earth, and the whole world with the vicissitudes of seasons? Whence nothing is produced greater than him; nothing springs either like him, or even in a second degree to him: nevertheless, Pallas has acquired these honors, which are next after him.

pati quicquid erit!" How much better is it to bear whatsoever shall happen, than to depend upon the idle predictions of astrologers! SAN. 54 Vina liques. The ancients used to filter their wines, to render them more soft and smooth. CRUQ.

55 Helicon, a hill of Bœotia near Thebes, now called Zagaya, consecrated to Apollo and the Muses. WATSON.

56 Pindus, a mountain of Arcadia, running with a long ridge into Thessaly and Macedonia, sacred also to the nine muses. WATSON.

57 Hæmus, the greatest mountain of Thrace, dividing it from the lower Mysia: it hath divers names by the inhabitants through which it passes ; by the Turks it is called Balkan, by the Sclavonians Cumo. WATSON.

58 Maternal art, that is, the art of music, of singing with his voice, and playing upon the harp, as instructed by Calliope his mother, one of the nine Muses. WATSON.

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