ed charioteer,) pursue thee with intrepidity? Meriones 83 also eh shalt thou experience. Behold! the gallant son of Tydeus,84 aga a better man than his father, glows to find you out: him, as pta a stag flies a wolf, which he has seen on the opposite side of at the vale, unmindful of his pasture, shall you, effeminate, fly, ncti grievously panting:-not such the promises you made your Pal mistress. The fleet of the enraged Achilles shall defer for a d time that day, which is to be fatal to Troy and the Trojan Ten matrons: but, after a certain number of years, Grecian fire fem shall consume the Trojan palaces." ро SW du 8 ard en i the pale ODE XVI. TO A YOUNG LADY HORACE HAD OFFENDED. 85 ed O DAUGHTER, more charming than your charming mother, put what end you please to my insulting iambics; either in the flames, or, if you choose it, in the Adriatic. Nor Cybele, nor Apollo, the dweller in the shrines, so shakes the breast of his priests; Bacchus does not do it equally, nor do the Corybantes so redouble their strokes on the sharp-sounding ela cymbals, as direful anger; which neither the Noric sword can deter, nor the shipwrecking sea, nor dreadful fire, nor Jupiter himself rushing down with awful crash. It is reported that Prometheus was obliged to add to that original clay, [with which he formed mankind,] some ingredient taken from every ri animal, and that he applied the vehemence of the raging lion to the human breast. It was rage, that destroyed Thyestes with horrible perdition; and has been the final cause, that lofty cities have been entirely demolished, and that an insolent army has driven the hostile ploughshare over their walls. 86 83 Meriones, a brave captain, who went out of Crete to the siege of Troy. WATSON. th e he oul ent Diomedes, king of Ætolia, the son of Tydeus and Deipyle, one of the Grecian worthies in the Trojan wars. WATSON. 85 See Orelli. Anthon and others take "incola" as meaning, "habitans quasi in pectore." 86 Imprimeretque muris. It was a custom among the Romans, to drive a plough over the walls of a city which they destroyed, to signify that the ground upon which it stood should be for ever employed in agriculture. TORR. Compose your mind. An ardour of soul attacked me also in blooming youth, and drove me in a rage to the writing of swift-footed iambics. 87 Now I am desirous of exchanging severity for good nature, provided that you will become my friend, after my having recanted my abuse, and restore me your affections. ODE XVII. TO TYNDARIS. THE nimble Faunus often exchanges the Lycæan 88 mountain for the pleasant Lucretilis, 89 and always defends my she-goats from the scorching summer, 90 and the rainy winds. The wandering wives of the unsavoury husband 91 seek the hidden strawberry-trees and thyme with security through the safe grove: nor do the kids dread the green lizards, or the wolves sacred to Mars; whenever, my Tyndaris, the vales and the smooth rocks of the sloping Ustica have resounded with his melodious pipe. The gods are my protectors. My piety and my muse are agreeable to the gods. Here plenty, rich with rural honours, shall flow to you, with her generous horn filled to the brim. Here, in a sequestered vale, you shall avoid the heat of the dog-star; and, on your Anacreontic harp, sing of Penelope 92 and the frail Circe 93 striving for one lover; here 87 Celeres iambos. The poet calls this kind of verse swift, or rapid, because the first syllable of each foot was short, by which the cadence was quicker. SAN. 88 Lycæus, a mountain in Arcadia, sacred to Faunus, who is the same with Pan. So Virgil, Eclog. ii. "Pan primus calamos cera conjungere plures instituit: Pan curat oves oviumque magistros." Pan, who first taught us to conjoin our reeds: Pan, who protects the sheep and their masters. WATSON. 89 Lucretilis, a mountain in the country of the Sabines, not far from Rome, where Horace had a country-house. Mutat Lucretilem Lycao, by the figure hyperbaton, which puts that first which should be last, for Mutat Lyceum Lucretili, he interchanges Lycæus for Lucretilis. Watson. 90 Literally, "wards off the summer from the goats." So Virg. Ecl. vii. 47, "solstitium pecori defendite." 91 See note on Virg. Ecl. vii. 7. 92 Penelope, the daughter of Icarus; the wife of Ulysses, a woman of rare chastity. WATSON. 93 Circe, the daughter of Sol, and nymph of Perse; a sorceress, and skilful in the nature of herbs WATSON. you shall quaff, under the shade, cups of unintoxicating Lesbian. Nor shall the raging son of Semele enter the combat with Mars; and unsuspected you shall not fear the insolent Cyrus, lest he should savagely lay his intemperate hands on you, who are by no means a match for him; and should rend the chaplet that is platted in your hair, and your inoffensive garment. id ol dt th -ya ODE XVIII. TO VARUS. O VARUS, you can plant no tree preferable to the sacred vine, about the mellow soil of Tibur, and the walls of Catilus. For God hath rendered every thing cross to the sober; nor do biting cares disperse any otherwise [than by the use of wine]. Who, after wine, complains of the hardships of war or of poverty ? Who does not rather [celebrate] thee, Father Bacchus, and thee, comely Venus? Nevertheless, the battle of the Centaurs 94 with the Lapithæ, 95 which was fought in their cups, admonishes us not to exceed a moderate use of the gifts of Bacchus. And Bacchus himself admonishes us in his severity to the Thracians; when greedy to satisfy their lusts, they make little distinction between right and wrong. beauteous Bacchus, 96 I will not rouse thee against thy will, ade nor will I hurry abroad thy [mysteries, which are] covered dt rap the 3,2 "A people of Thessaly, near Mount Pelion, who first broke horses for war; whence it came to pass that they, being seen by other people on horseback at a distance, were supposed to be but one creature, who had the upper part like a man, and the other part of his body like a horse. WATSON. 95 Lapithæ, a people of Thessaly, near Mount Olympus. Pirithous was their king, who having drank to excess at his wedding, the Centaurs endeavoured to ravish Hippodamia, the king's new-married queen; or, as some say, attempted to ravish the wives of the Lapitha at the wedding, and were therefore all put to death. WATSON. The epithet candide is here very expressive, and refers to the unfading youth and beauty which the mythology of the Greeks and Romans assigned to the deity of wine. Compare Broukhus. ad Tibull. iii. vi. 1, and Dryden, (Ode for St. Cecilia's day,) "Bacchus, ever fair and young," and Ovid. Fast. iii. 772 : "Candida formosi venerabimur ora Lyæi." ANTHON. with various leaves. Cease your dire cymbals, together with your Phrygian horn, whose followers are blind Self-love and Arrogance, holding up too high her empty head, and the Faith communicative of secrets, and more transparent than glass. ODE XIX. TO GLYCERA. THE cruel mother of the Cupids, and the son of the Theban Semele, and lascivious ease, command me to give back my mind to its deserted loves. The splendour of Glycera, shining brighter than the Parian marble, inflames me: her agreeable petulance, and her countenance, too unsteady to be beheld, inflame me. Venus, rushing on me with her whole force, has quitted Cyprus; and suffers me not to sing of the Scythians,997 and the Parthian,98 furious when his horse is turned for flight, or any subject which is not to the present purpose. Here, slaves, place me a live turf; here, place me vervains and frankincense, with a flagon of two-year-old wine. She will approach more propitious, after a victim has been sacrificed. ODE XX. TO MÆCENAS. My dear knight Mæcenas, you shall drink [at my house] ignoble Sabine wine in sober cups, which I myself sealed up in the Grecian cask,99 stored at the time, when so loud an ap 97 Scythia was a large country, now called Tartary, divided into the e Asiatic and European. WATSON. 98 Parthian. Parthia, a country in Asia, lying between Media and Carmania, and the Hyrcanian Sea. The Parthians fought with bows and arrows, and that flying; so that by turning about their horses, they shot and wounded the enemy who was pursuing them. WATSON. 99 When the ancients filled their casks, they closed them with wax, t pitch, gum, or plaster, and although the Sabine wine was by no means worthy of so much care, yet as Mæcenas at that time had received some remarkable applause in the theatre, the poet preserved on his vessels the remembrance of a day so glorious his patron. SAN. er plause was given to you in the amphitheatre,100 that the banks ve of your ancestral river, together with the cheerful echo of the Vatican mountain, returned your praises. You, [when you la are at home,] will drink the Cæcuban, and the grape which is squeezed in the Calenian press: but neither the Falernian vines, nor the Formian 3 hills, season my cups. ODE XXI. ON DIANA AND APOLLO. 4 YE tender virgins, sing Diana; ye boys, sing Apollo with his unshorn hair, and Latona passionately beloved by the supreme Jupiter. Ye (virgins), praise her that rejoices in the rivers, and the thick groves, which project either from the cold Algidus, or the gloomy woods of Erymanthus, or the green Cragus. Ye boys, extol with equal praises Apollo's Delos, and his shoulder adorned with a quiver, and with his brother Mercury's lyre. He, moved by your intercession, shall drive away calamitous war, and miserable famine, and the plague from the Roman people and their sovereign Cæsar, to the Persians and the Britons. 100 It is probable, from the 17th Ode of the second Book, that this applause was to congratulate Mæcenas for his escaping some accidental danger; and as the ancients were used to mark the age of their wines by the names of the consuls, or by the most extraordinary event of the year, the poet had chosen this instance of the glory and good fortune of his patron. for the date of his wine. SAN. 1 Paterni fluminis. It seems as if Horace could not find a more glorious epithet for the Tiber than this, which calls it the river of Mæcenas's ancestors, who came originally from Etruria, where the Tiber has its source. SAN. 2 Cæcubum, a town in Campania, not far from Caieta. The wine produced there was much esteemed. WATSON. • Mount Formianum, near the city Formiæ, the seat of the Læstrygones, now swallowed up by the sea, and called Golfo di Gaietta. The wine of this place was much valued. WATSON. 4 In the celebration of the festival of Bacchus a select number of virgins, of honourable families, called κανηφόροι, κισσοφόροι, κιστοφόροι, carried small baskets of gold, in which were concealed, beneath vine, ivy, and other leaves, certain sacred mysterious things, which were not to be exposed to the eyes of the profane. ANTHON. |