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. A 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 그 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 93 what the dark bay of the Adriatic is, and in what manner Täpyx, [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 94 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 8 Horace knew the Adriatic Sea in his voyage to Athens, when he went to study philosophy there; and a second time, in his return to Italy, after the battle of Philippi. FRAN. 94 Galatea was preparing to embark, because the skies were serene, and the seas calm; but Horace tells her that Europa was deceived by the same serenity of the skies and calmness of the seas; that she soon had reason to repent of her boldness, when she saw nothing round her but stars and waves. Such is the force and justness of the comparison. TORR. about flowers, and a composer of the chaplet meet for nymphs, saw nothing in the dusky night but stars and water. Who as soon as she arrived at Crete, powerful with its hundred cities, cried out, overcome with rage, "O father, name abandoned by thy daughter !95 O my duty! Whence, whither am I come? One death is too little for virgins' crime. Am I awake, while I deplore my base offence; or does some vain phantom, which, escaping 96 from the ivory gate, brings on a dream, impose upon me, still free from guilt? Was it better to travel over the tedious waves, or to gather the fresh flowers? If any one now would deliver up to me in my anger this infamous bull, I would do my utmost to tear him to pieces with steel, and break off the horns of the monster, lately so much beloved. Abandoned I have left my father's house, abandoned I procrastinate my doom. O if any of the gods hear this, I wish I may wander naked among lions: before foul decay seizes my comely cheeks, and moisture leaves this tender prey, I desire, in all my beauty, to be the food of tigers." "Base Europa," thy absent father urges, "why do you hesitate to die? you may strangle 97 your neck suspended from this ash, with your girdle that has commodiously attended you. Or if a precipice, and the rocks that are edged with death, please you, come on, commit yourself to the rapid storm; unless you, that are of blood-royal, had rather card your mistress's wool,98 and be given up as a concubine to some barbarian dame." As she complained, the treacherouslysmiling Venus, and her son, with his bow relaxed, drew near. Presently, when she had sufficiently rallied her, "Refrain (she cried) from your rage and passionate chidings, since this detested bull shall surrender his horns to be torn in pieces by 95 "Filiæ" is a Grecism for " a filia." 96 Dreams of falsehood, according to Homer, passed through an ivory gate in the infernal world; and those of truth through a gate of horn. FRAN. 97 Hanging was the common death of ancient heroines in tragedy and history. Arsace, in Heliodorus; Jocasta and Antigone, in Sophocles; Phædra, in Euripides; Amata, in Virgil; and the wife of Mithridates, in Plutarch, died in this manner. DAC. 98 Pensum was properly a certain quantity of wool, which was every day given to female slaves for their task. It was weighed, from whence it was called pensum, which afterwards became a name for any regular and ordinary work. From hence the proverb persolvere pensum, to do our duty. CRUQ. you. Are you ignorant, that you are the wife of the invincible Jove? Cease your sobbing; learn duly to support your distinguished good fortune. A division of the world shall bear your name. ODE XXVIII. TO LYDE. WHAT can I do better on the festal day of Neptune? Quickly 99 produce, Lyde, the hoarded Cæcuban, and make an attack upon wisdom, ever on her guard. You perceive the noontide is on its decline; and yet, as if the fleeting day stood still, you delay to bring out of the store-house the loitering cask, [that bears its date] from the consul Bibulus. We will sing by turns, Neptune, and the green locks of the Nereïds; you shall chant, on your wreathed lyre, Latona and the darts of the nimble Cynthia; at the conclusion of your song, she also [shall be celebrated], who with her yoked swans visits Gnidos, and the shining Cyclades, and Paphos: the night also shall be celebrated in a suitable lay. ODE XXIX. TO MÆCENAS. O MECENAS, thou progeny of Tuscan kings, there has been a long while for you in my house some mellow wine in an unbroached 100 hogshead, with rose-flowers and expressed essence for your hair. Disengage yourself from any thing that may retard you, nor contemplate the ever marshy Tibur, and the sloping fields of Æsula, and the hills of Telegonus the parricide. Leave abundance, which is the source of daintiness, and yon pile of buildings approaching near the lofty clouds: 99 "Strenua" is taken adverbially, "actively." 100 The ancients placed their casks upon the bottom, and were therefore obliged to bend them forward when they poured out their wine. Cadum vertere and crateras vertere are expressions of the same kind. TORR. cease to admire the smoke, and opulence, and noise of flourishing Rome, 101 A change is frequently agreeable to the rich, and a cleanly meal in the little cottage of the poor has smoothed an anxious brow without carpets or purple. Now the bright father of Andromeda displays his hidden fire; now Procyon rages, and the constellation of the ravening Lion, as the sun brings round the thirsty season. Now the weary shepherd with his languid flock seeks the shade, and the river, and the thickets of rough Sylvanus; and the silent bank is free from the wandering winds. You regard what constitution may suit the state, and are in an anxious dread for Rome, what preparations the Seres and the Bactrians subject to Cyrus, and the factious Tanaïs are making. A wise deity shrouds in obscure darkness the events of the time to come, and smiles if a mortal is solicitous beyond the law of nature. Be mindful to manage duly that which is present. What remains goes on in the manner of the river, at one time calmly gliding in the middle of its channel to the Tuscan Sea, at another, rolling along corroded stones, and stumps of trees forced away, and cattle, and houses, not without the noise of mountains and neighbouring woods, when the merciless deluge enrages the peaceful waters. That man is master of himself and shall live happy, who has it in his power to say, "I have lived to-day: to-morrow let the Sire invest the heaven, either with a black cloud, or with clear sunshine; nevertheless he shall not render ineffectual what is past, nor undo or annihilate what the fleeting hour has once carried off. Fortune, happy in the execution of her cruel office, and persisting to play her insolent game, changes uncertain honours, indulgent now to me, by and by to another. I praise her, while she abides by me. If she moves her fleet wings, I resign3 what she has bestowed, and wrap myself up in my 101 We may compute how great the noise of a city must have been, which reckoned three millions of inhabitants; whose circuit, according to Pliny, including the suburbs, was forty-eight miles; and where the houses might be raised seven stories, each of them ten foot high. Lampridius tells us, that Heliogabalus collected ten thousand pound weight of cobwebs in Rome. FRAN. 2 The Scythians and Sarmatians, who bordered upon this river, were frequently engaged in wars with each other, from whence the poet calls it discors. LAMB. • Resigno quæ dedit-is a figurative expression. signifies to unseal or open, in opposition to signare. derstood, reddere, restituere, to restore. LAMB. Resignare properly 4 virtue, and court honest poverty without a portion. It is no business of mine, if the mast groan with the African storms, to have recourse to piteous prayers, and to make a bargain with my vows, that my Cyprian and Syrian merchandise may not add to the wealth of the insatiable sea. Then the gale and the twin Pollux will carry me safe in the protection of a skiff with two oars, through the tumultuous Ægean Sea. ODE XXX. ON HIS OWN WORKS. I HAVE Completed a monument more lasting than brass, and more sublime than the regal elevation of pyramids, which neither the wasting shower, the unavailing north-wind, nor an innumerable succession of years, and the flight of seasons, shall be able to demolish. I shall not wholly die; but a great part of me shall escape Libitina.5 I shall continually be renewed in the praises of posterity, as long as the priest shall ascend the Capitol with the silent [vestal] virgin. Where the rapid Aufidus shall murmur, and where Daunus, poorly supplied with water, ruled over a rustic people, I, exalted from a low degree, shall be acknowledged as having originally adapted the Æolic verse to Italian measures. Melpomene, assume that pride which your merits have acquired, and willingly crown my hair with the Delphic laurel. 6 These conditional prayers, which virtue blushes for, and which the gods disregard, are by Plato called Tέxvas iμπoоρiкág, a merchant's traffic; and by Persius, preces emaces, prayers of purchase. FRANCIS. This was the goddess who presided over funerals. She is called Venus inferna or Epitymbia, in some ancient epitaphs, and reckoned among the infernal deities. A place in Rome, as the ancient Scholiast informs us, was called Libitina, where the undertaker lived, who received a certain piece of money for every person who was buried, from whence they knew the number of their dead. FRANCIS. This Daunus was the son of Pilumnus and Danaë. He reigned over Daunia, and gave his name to the country. WATSON. In this poem, which ought to be the last of his lyric works, the poet shows that he has preserved his resolution of imitating Alcæus and Sappho, which he mentioned in his first ode. Nor is it probable, that he could have so frequently boasted of being the first who formed himself upon an imitation of the Grecian poets, if the public had not in genera. acknowledged his claim. SAN. |