✓ XIII.

While nature is stormy without, let friends be joyous within. Life is short and full of troubles, but has its pleasures and alleviations.

The heavens frown with rough weather, and Jove is downward drawn with rain and snow; now seas, then woods war with the Thracian blasts; let us, my friends, snatch our opportunity from the present day, and whilst our limbs are vigorous still, and joy becomes us, let age be cleared from off our clouded brow. Bring you forth the wine made when Torquatus was consul in my natal year. Care not to speak of aught beside: God perchance will settle back in peace our lot by kindly change. To-day right joyously I bedew myself with Achæmenian nard, and on the lyre of Mercury lighten my heart of dreaded cares; even as the noble Centaur sang to his tall pupil: "Mortal child of immortal Thetis, for you, destined to be invincible, waits the land of Assaracus, which the cool streams of little Scamander and rolling Simois divide; unalterable is the woof by which the Fates have cut off your return; never shall your azure mother bear you home; when there, you must lighten every toil by wine and song, the two sweet comforters of unsightly sorrow.'

XIV.

Addressed to Maecenas to excuse himself for not having completed a long-promised poem.

Mæcenas, true friend, you will be the death of me, if you ask so often, why a soft indolence has spread itself into my inmost soul, as though with thirsty throat I had drained cups inducing Lethaan slumbers: a god, yes, a god forbids my bringing to the finishing point the iambics I began, my long promised poem. Not otherwise, 'tis said, Anacreon of Teos loved Samian Bathyllus, and oft on hollow shell mourned for his passion, in measures freely flowing. You yourself are burning woefully; but if no brighter beauty kindled with fire beleaguered Troy, rejoice in your lot: I am racked by love of Phryne, a freedwoman, a mistress not content with a single admirer.

V XV.

Horace complains of the broken faith of one Neaera, who had abandoned him for a wealthier rival, and he warns him that he will meet with the same perfidy.

'Twas night, in cloudless sky the moon was shining amid the lesser stars, when you, fearing not to profane the divinity of the great gods, swore to the oath that I dictated; and clinging to me with twining arms, closer than tall oak is embraced by ivy, vowed that whilst wolves are the enemies of sheep, and Orion, the disturber of the stormy sea, is the dread of sailors, whilst wave in the breeze the flowing locks of Apollo, so long my love should be returned. But ah!

Neæra, destined are you to grieve through my resolution; for if in Flaccus there be aught of manhood, he will not brook that you ever to a rival give your hours, and, angry with you, will look for one who will return his love. Nor will his resolve give way to your beauty which has once displeased him, if settled wrath has passed into his soul. And you, whoe'er you be, happier now, who shew yourself so proud at my expense, rich you may be in flocks and many an acre, for you Pactolus may flow with gold, and known to you perhaps are the mysteries of Pythagoras, the seer born to many a life, in beauty you may surpass Nireus; yet with sighs shall you mourn her love transferred elsewhere, and I in turn shall laugh.

1-13. Describes the threatened ruin of Rome by civil wars. A second age is now wearing away in civil wars, and Rome by her own act is falling through her own strength. The city, which neither the neighbouring Marsians had power to destroy, nor Tuscan troops of menacing Porsena, nor the rival valour of Capua, nor Spartacus fierce in war, nor the Allobroges faithless in days of change; the city unsubdued by wild Germany with its blue-eyed warriors, or by Hannibal, name abhorred by parents; this city we shall ourselves destroy, an impious age whose blood is doomed, and again wild beasts shall be the lords of the soil. A conquerer and barbarian, alas! shall trample on our ashes, and the horsemen strike our city's streets with echoing hoof; and insolently scatter (oh unholy sight!) the bones of Quirinus, sheltered now from wind and sun.

15-40. An exhortation to his countrymen to bind themselves by oath to a voluntary and perpetual exile.

Perchance all in common, or at least the better-minded part of you, are consulting how best to escape from woeful troubles. Let no opinion be preferred to this; even as the state of Phocæa's people fled into exile, bound by a solemn curse; as they left their fields and own sacred homes and their shrines to be a dwelling-place for wild boars and ravening wolves; to go whither feet can carry, whither o'er the billows Notus invites or wanton Africus. Is this your pleasure? or has any one better advice to give? Why delay at once to embark with propitious omens? But let this be our form of oath : "As soon as stones lifted from the lowest depths swim on the surface, then to return may not be a sin; that we need not repent setting our sails homeward on the day that the Po washes Matinum's peaks, or the lofty Apennine juts into the sea, and a wondrous love forms monstrous unions with strange passion, so that tigers may gladly pair with stags, and the dove mate with the kite, and trusting cattle lose their dread of glaring lions, and the he-goat, now smooth, haunt the briny main." To such oaths as these, and others like them, that may cut off a return to

dear home let us bind ourselves, and go, the whole state, or the part wiser than the crowd who will not learn; let the craven and despairing still press their ill-starred beds; but you of a manly spirit away with womanish sorrow, and wing your voyage beyond the Tuscan shores.

41-66. A full description of the happy isles.

Us Ocean waits, that wanders round the world; let us speed to the fields, the blessed fields, and to the isles of wealth, where Earth unploughed supplies her corn each year, and ever flourishes the unpruned vine, and the topmost bough of the olive shoots and never disappoints, and the dusky fig adorns its proper tree; from hollow oak flows honey, lightly the rill with tinkling foot bounds down the mountain heights. There the unbidden goats come to the pails, and the kindly flock brings back distended udders; nor roars around the fold the evening bear, nor does the deep soil heave with vipers. More too in our bliss we shall admire; how that watery Eurus ne'er sweeps the fields with drenching showers, nor are the seeds rich in promise scorched in the arid earth, as the king of the heavenly Powers tempers either extreme. Hither sped not the ship Argo with her rowers, the shameless Medea set not foot here, nor did sailors of Sidon turn sail-yards hitherward, nor Ulysses' toilsome crew. No ill contagion hurts the cattle, the burning violence of no star scorches the flock. Jove set apart those shores for a pious race, when he debased the days of gold with brass; when he hardened the ages with brass, and then with iron; from which an auspicious flight is granted to the pious, with me for their seer.

XVII.

1-52. Horace represents himself as entreating Canidia for mercy. He retracts the charges he had made against her, in an ironical recantation.

Now, now to witchcraft's workings I surrender, and humbly beseech by Proserpine's realms, by Hecate's powers not lightly to be provoked, and by the magic books able to unfix the stars and call them down from heaven, Canidia, forbear at last your charms of imprecation, and unroll backwards, unroll your rapid wheel. Telephus to pity moved the grandson of Nereus, though in his pride he had marshalled against him the Mysian lines, and hurled his pointed spears. The matrons of Troy anointed the body of Hector the slayer of heroes, when doomed to wild birds and dogs, after that the king went forth from the city, and threw himself, sad sight, at the feet of the obstinate Achilles. The toilsome mariners of Ulysses stripped their limbs of rough bristling hides, for so consented Circe; then reason and speech returned to them gradually, and the familiar grace of the human countenance. Enough and more than enough is the atonement I have paid to you, sweetheart of many a boatman and huckster. My youthful look is gone, the hue of modesty has left my bones clad now with yellow skin; my hair is grey through your

ointments, no ease succeeds my toil to give me rest; night follows close on day, and day on night, nor can I relieve the tightened breathing of my chest. So then, wretched man that I am, I am forced to believe a truth I once denied, that Sabine enchantments can trouble the heart, and Marsian chants can split the head. What would you more? O sea! O earth! I burn, as ne'er burned Hercules smeared with the poisoned blood of Nessus, nor the undying Sicilian flame in glowing Etna; but till I am reduced to dry cinders and borne by insulting winds, you glow like crucible with Colchian drugs. What end awaits me now? what payment can I make? Declare; impose your penalty, with good faith will I pay it, ready to make atonement should you name a hecatomb of bullocks, or from my lying lute demand a song, how chaste you are, yes you, how honest; so shall you range among the stars, a golden constellation. Castor and the brother of great Castor, offended on account of Helen defamed, yet, overcome by prayer, restored the bard his eyesight taken from him. And you, (for you have power,) free me from my frenzy, you, a woman disgraced by no shame of father, you, no hag skilled to scatter the ashes on the ninth day among the graves of the poor. You surely have a heart kind to strangers, your hands are pure, Pactumeius is your true son, and of your childbirth there is no doubt, whenever you come forth strong after your travail.

53-81. Canidia is made to speak as one who is deaf to Horace's

prayers.

Why do you pour forth prayers to stopped ears? The rocks are not deafer to the naked sailors, when wintry Neptune buffets them with dashing surge. What! are you with impunity to divulge and deride the mysteries of Cotytto, the rites of Cupid unchecked by law, and unpunished to fill the city with my name, as though you were highpriest of witchcraft on the Esquiline hill? what then would be the good to have enriched Pelignian hags, and to have mingled poison full swift in its effects? But no, a death more lingering than you pray for awaits you, and you must prolong a wretched thankless life only for this, that you may ever survive to bear fresh pains. So longs for rest the father of faithless Pelops, Tantalus craving ever for the bounteous repast; so longs Prometheus to a vulture bound; so longs Sisyphus to set the stone on the summit; but Jove's laws forbid. At times you will wish to spring from lofty towers, anon to lay your breast bare with the Noric sword; in vain will you bind a noose around your throat in the despair of your sickening grief. Then shall I ride mounted on your hated shoulders, and the earth shall yield to my arrogance. I can give motion to images of wax, as your own prying eyes have seen, and from the sky my charms can pluck the moon, I can wake the dead from their ashes, and mix cups of pining love, and am I to lament the issue of my craft as unavailing against you?

INTRODUCTION TO THE SATIRES.

MANY have written more or less fully on Roman satire, its origin, and history; as the elder Scaliger, Casaubon, Heinsius, Dacier, the learned husband of a more learned lady, Dryden, the Delphin editor of Juvenal, Ruperti, Gerlach, Walckenaer, and others. The origin of Satire, even if so many learned men had not fully discussed the subject, could hardly be doubtful or obscure. Satire arose, as poetry in general arose, from the rude devotion and festive revels of the rustics in days of old. The Greek plays, tragic and comic alike, had the same origin. Ceres and Bacchus were the teachers and inspirers of these rough and unlettered poets. Often have been quoted the standard passages of Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus, in which is described the worship of the stout swains of old, their rural songs, their alternate strains and boisterous raillery. It seems indeed a long way from the uncouth and extemporaneous effusions of these husbandmen at the end of harvest to the highly-polished satires of Boileau and Pope; but it is a way easily followed; and, after all, the difference is more one of form and style than of real feeling. In the unshapen poetry of an early and uncivilized people, all styles and kinds are found mixed together, as yet undistinguished, in what may be called a formless and confused chaos; presently the various parts of poetry separate from one another, just as is the case in all things, in nature, in language, in society; from the rustic gibe poured forth in alternate verse came the farces, then the plays of Livius Androniwhilst Ennius, amongst his other works, and after him Pacuvius, wrote compositions which they called Satires. These satires embraced all varieties of subjects, serious and gay, were composed in metres mingled together in the same poems, were like a dish laden with a medley of all sorts of food, (whence came the name "satire,") and contained fables, dialogues, allegories, precepts, description, eulogy, censure, all thrown together. They could not then have been altogether unlike the satires of Horace.

cus;

And yet Lucilius passes for the inventor of Satire. In what particular points Lucilius differed from Ennius, and how he deserves the honourable name of "the inventor of Satire," it is hard to say. Indeed Quintilian only says that in Satire Lucilius first obtained distinguished praise. Probably Lucilius first gave a regular form to Satire. It is likely, too, that his satires were a great advance in excellence on those of Ennius. He used chiefly the hexameter verse, and did not mingle together different metres in the same book, as Ennius did. Probably, too, his books had greater unity than those of Ennius, and less variety of incongruous matter. If so, his Satires