thagoras," born again, escape you, and you excel Nireus in beauty; alas! you shall [hereafter] bewail her love transferred elsewhere: but I shall laugh in my turn.

ODE XVI.

TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE.

Now is another age worn away by civil wars," and Rome herself falls by her own strength. Whom neither the bordering Marsi could destroy, nor the Etrurian band of the menacing Porsena, nor the rival valor of Capua, nor the bold Spartacus, and the Gauls perfidious with their innovations: nor did the fierce Germany subdue with its blue-eyed youth, nor Annibal, detested by parents; but we, an impious race, whose blood is devoted to perdition, shall destroy her: and this land shall again be possessed by wild beasts. The victorious barbarian, alas! shall trample upon the ashes of the city, and the horsemen shall smite it with the sounding hoofs; and (horrible to see!) he shall insultingly disperse the bones of Romulus, which [as yet] are free from the injuries of wind aud sun. Perhaps you all in general, or the better part of you, are inquisitive to know, what may be expedient, in order to escape [such] dreadful evils. There can be no determination better than this; namely, to go wherever our feet will carry us, wherever the south or boisterous south-west shall summon us through the waves; in the same manner as the state of the Phocæans"

41 Nec te Pythagora. Horace may mean natural philosophy, of which Pythagoras was non sordidus auctor; or particularly his doctrince of the metempsychosis, from whence he calls him renatus. ED. DUBL.

42 Bellis civilibus. The civil wars between Marius and Sylla, which began in 666, were never perfectly extinguished until the death of Antony, 724. Horace therefore says, that this was the second age of those wars, because they had commenced in the preceding century. ED. DUBL.

43 Exsecrata. The Phocæans being besieged by Harpagus, general of the Persians, demanded one day's truce to deliberate upon the propositions which he had sent to them, and desired that he would draw off his army from their walls. As soon as Harpagus had consented, they carried their most valuable effects, their wives and children, aboard their ships. Then throwing a man of glowing iron into the sea, they bound themselves by oath never to return to their country until that mass should rise to the surface of the water. From hence a Grecian proverb, "As

fled, after having uttered execrations [against such as should return], and left their fields and proper dwellings and temples to be inhabited by boars and ravenous wolves. Is this agreeable? has any one a better scheme to advise? Why do we delay to go on shipboard under an auspicious omen? But first let us swear to these conditions-the stones shall swim upward, lifted from the bottom of the sea, as soon as it shall not be impious to return; nor let it grieve us to direct our sails homeward, when the Po shall wash the tops of the Matinian summits; or the lofty Apennine shall remove into the sea, or a miraculous appetite shall unite monsters by a strange kind of lust; insomuch that tigers may delight to couple with hinds, and the dove be polluted with the kite; nor the simple herds may dread the brindled lions, and the he-goat, grown smooth, may love the briny main. After having sworn to these things, and whatever else may cut off the pleasing hope of returning, let us go, the whole city of us, or at least that part which is superior to the illiterate mob: let the idle and despairing part remain upon these inauspicious habitations. Ye, that have bravery, away with effeminate grief, and fly beyond the Tuscan shore. The ocean encircling the land awaits us; let us seek the happy plains, and prospering islands, where the untilled land yearly produces corn, and the unpruned vineyard punctually flourishes; and where the branch of the never-failing olive blossoms forth, and the purple fig adorns its native tree: honey distills 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 admiration: 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

long as the Phocæan mass of iron shall continue at ocean." Their story is told by Herodotus and Strabo. Orelli observes that exsecrata is the middle voice, vovisset.

the bottom of the DUBLIN EDITOR. cum se diris de

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 my predictions.

ODE XVII.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN HORACE AND CANIDIA.

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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 Hector, 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

44 Citumque retro. Propertius and Martial mention a magical instrument called rhombus. Theocritus and Lucian tell us, that it was made of brass; and Ovid says, it was turned round by straps of leather, with which it was bound. This is probably the same instrument which Horace calls turbo, and he beseeches Canidia to turn it backward, as if to correct the fatal effects which it produced in its natural course. TORR.

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Telephus was king of Mysia. When the Greeks entered his country, in their passage to Troy, he opposed them vigorously; but being wounded by Achilles, he was told by the oracle, that he could only be cured by the same weapon with which he was wounded. He applied to Achilles, who, scraping his lance, poured the filings into his wound. Pliny mentions a picture, in which Achilles was painted performing the cure.

LAMB.

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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 vigor 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 honor pay the demanded mulct; ready to make an expiation, whether you should require a hundred steers, or chose 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 skillful to disperse the ashes of poor people, after they have been nine days interred." You have an hos

47

46 Officina. The ancient Scholiast has well explained this passage, ipsam Canidiam officinam venenorum disertè dixit; Horace calls his witch a shop of poisons, as we call a learned man a living library. FRAN. Sepulchris pauperum. Acron well remarks, that Horace only means the sepulchers of the poor, since those of the rich were surrounded with walls, to protect them from the sacrilege of sorcerers. FRAN.

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48 Novendiales pulveres. Servius, in his notes upon the fifth book of Virgil's Æneid, says, that a dead body was preserved seven days, burned on the eighth, and interred on the ninth; and that Horace intended these ceremonies in the present passage. This explication, although contra

dicted by Acron, has been received by our ablest commentators; yet there is little probability that such ceremonials were observed in the funerals of poor people, of whom alone the poet speaks here. He seems rather to mean, that these witches dug up the ashes of the dead nine

pitable 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 vigor.

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 your 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

days after they were interred; and perhaps the number nine might have had somewhat mysterious in it, which was thought to give force to their enchantments. The laws of the twelve tables had nothing determined concerning the number of days which a corpse should be kept before it was to be carried out to burial. SAN.

49 Riseris Cotyttia vulgata.-Cotyttia vulganda ridendo proposueris. Cotys, or Cotytto, was the goddess of impurity; and although she did not preside over assemblies of witches, yet, as there were many vile and infamous ceremonies practiced in them, the poet satirically makes Canidia call them the feasts of Cotys. Better to explain his design, he adds liberi Cupidinis sacrum, mysteries of a licentious and unbounded love. A Roman proverb calls a person of dissolute and vicious manners, Cotyos contubernalis, a companion of Cotys. POLITIAN.