proach; by not one outrage is the pure household stained; morality and a law have quelled the tainted sin; mothers are commended by the likeness of their children; punishment, a close companion, follows guilt.

Who would dread the Parthian, who would dread the icy Scythian, who would dread the brood which savage Germany engenders, while Cæsar is preserved? Who would heed the warfare of fierce Iberia?

On his own hills each man passes through the day, and weds the vine to the unmarried trees; after this, he joyfully returns to his cups, and to the second course invites you as a god; you with many a prayer, you with wine poured forth from the bowl he worships, and your divinity he mingles with his household-gods, as did Greece, in her regard for Castor and mighty Hercules.

Oh, that you may, good chief, grant to Hesperia a length of holidays! So pray we sober in the morning, when the day is all before us; so pray we bedewed with wine, when the sun is sinking down beneath the Ocean.

VI.

Hymn to Apollo. This ode forms a kind of introduction to the Secular Hymn.

God, whose might to punish a boastful tongue the offspring of Niobe felt, and which Tityos the ravisher felt, and Phthian Achilles, almost the conqueror of lofty Troy, a warrior greater than all the rest, yet not a match for thee; albeit he, the son of ocean Thetis, as he fought with his terrific spear, shook the Dardan battlements. He, like a pine struck by the biting steel, or a cypress beneath the East wind's shock, fell down extended far and wide, and laid his neck in Trojan dust.

He would not, shut up in the horse which counterfeited an offering to Minerva, have ensnared the Trojans in their ill-timed revelling, and Priam's palace in the gaiety of its dances: but openly dreadful to the captured, (alas, foul crime! alas!) he would have burnt with Achæan flames the children that could not speak, even him who was still hidden within his mother's womb; had not the sire of the gods, vanquished by thy prayers and those of sweet Venus, granted to the fortunes of Æneas a circle of walls built with a fairer omen.

Minstrel, teacher of Thalia with the ringing voice, Phoebus, who dost bathe thy hair in Xanthus' stream, defend the honour of the Daunian Muse, Agyieus ever young! 'Tis Phoebus who has given me inspiration, Phœbus has given me the art of song and the name of poet.

Flower of our maidens, and boys born of noble parents, you that are the wards of the Delian goddess who with her bow stops the flight of lynxes and stags, observe the Lesbian measure and the note my finger strikes, while you duly hymn Latona's youthful son, and duly hymn the Shiner of the Night with her growing torch, her who is gracious to the crops, and swift to roll along the current of the months.

Presently, as a bride, you will say: "I, when the cycle brought round its festal days, rendered a hymn that was pleasing to Heaven, well taught in the measures of Horace the bard."

VII.

To his noble friend the eloquent advocate Torquatus, on the return of Spring. Though the earth renews itself, and the waning moon waxes afresh, yet death is the ending of human life. Let us then make the best of our days while they last.

The snows have fled away; now grass to the plains comes back, and foliage to the trees; Earth changes her phase, and streams subsiding glide within their banks; the Grace, with the Nymphs and her twin sisters, ventures unclad to lead along the dance.

Not to hope for immortality the year warns you, and the hour that whirls along the kindly day. The cold grows mild beneath the western gales, Summer treads on the steps of Spring, doomed itself to perish, so soon as fruit-bearing Autumn has poured forth his store, and lifeless Winter next speeds back again.

Yet the swift moons make good their losses in the sky; we, when we have fallen to that place whither fell father Æneas, whither fell wealthy Tullus, and Ancus, are but dust and shadow.

Who knows whether the gods in heaven will add to-morrow's hours to the sum to-day completes? All that you shall chance to have bestowed on your own dear heart will escape the covetous hands of your heir.

When once you have met your doom, and Minos has pronounced upon you his august decree, not your birth, Torquatus, not your eloquence, not your piety will restore you to life: for neither does Diana release from the darkness of hell her chaste Hippolytus, nor has Theseus power to break off the fetters of Lethe from his beloved Pirithous.

To C. Marcius Censorinus.

VIII.

The poet's gift is an immortality of fame. It was usual for friends to exchange presents called strenæ, "étrennes," on the Kalends of March and at the Saturnalia, towards the end of December.

Censorinus, I would munificently bestow on my familiar friends bowls and pleasing vases of bronze; I would bestow tripods, that were the prizes won by gallant Greeks; and you would bear away not the meanest of my gifts, if I in truth were rich in works of art, which either Parrhasius or Scopas produced, the latter skilful to present in stone, the former in limpid colours, at one time a mortal, at another a god. But the means to do this I possess not; nor does your fortune or your choice need toys like these.

In verse is your delight; verse we are able to bestow, and to set its value on the gift. Not marble statues graved with a people's inscriptions, whereby soul and life after death come back to valiant leaders, not Hannibal's hurried flight, and threats flung back upon

himself, not the burning of impious Carthage, blazon more plainly the exploits of him, who, when he came back home, had earned a name from Africa subdued, than do the Calabrian Muses; and if paper holds its peace, you will never bear away the guerdon of what you have excellently done. What would the son of Mars and Ilia be, if jealous Silence suppressed the deserts of Romulus? Æacus, rescued from the Stygian waves, the genius and goodwill and tongue of mighty poets commit enshrined to the isles of wealth.

'Tis the Muse who forbids to die the man that is worthy of renown; 'tis the Muse who blesses him with a place in heaven. Thus the vigorous Hercules is a guest at the coveted banquets of Jove. The sons of Tyndarus, a bright constellation, rescue from the depth of the waters the shattered ships; Liber, with fresh vine-leaves decked, to happy issues brings the vows of men.

IX.

To M. Lollius, who was consul 21 B.C. The immortality of poetry. Many heroes of old have become forgotten because they had no poet to sing their exploits. Horace will immortalize the feats and the virtue of Lollius.

Lest perchance you may deem that the words will perish, which I, born beside Aufidus who echoes afar, utter by arts not made known before, words to be wedded to the strings of the lyre;-think how, if Mæonian Homer possess the higher seat, the Muse of Pindar does not lie unfamed, and the songs of Ceos, and the threatening verses of Alcæus, and Stesichorus' stately lays; and whate'er of yore Anacreon playfully sung, time has not destroyed; still breathes the love, and still live the ardours, that were committed to the lute of the Æolian girl.

Not Laconian Helen alone has been fired with love for an adulterer's glossy dressed locks, and admired his robes o'erspread with gold, and his regal array and retinue; nor was Teucer the first to point shafts on a Cydonian bow; not once only was Ilium assailed; 'twas not Idomeneus or Sthenelus alone who fought battles meet for the Muses to rehearse; not the first was dauntless Hector or valiant Deiphobus to sustain wounds for the sake of their chaste wives and their children. Many a brave man lived ere Agamemnon ; but they all, unwept and unknown, are o'erwhelmed by eternal night, because they are without a sacred bard.

Worth hidden is not far from buried sloth. I will not pass you by unsung and unpraised by my pages, and will not, O my Lollius, suffer envious Forgetfulness undisturbed to prey on your feats so manifold. You have a mind that is both sagacious in action, and steady in prosperous and perilous times; one that punishes greedy fraud, and abstains from money which draws the world to follow it; and your mind is a consul not only for a single year, but so often as it, a good and faithful judge, sets the honourable before the expedient, flings back with lofty mien the bribes of the guilty, and through opposing battalions victoriously opens a way for its arms.

You would not rightly call "blest" the man who has great posses

sions; more rightly does he assume the title of "blest," who has learned how to use wisely the gifts of Heaven, and to endure stern penury, and who fears disgrace worse than death; he for his dear friends or fatherland is not afraid to perish.

X.

To Ligurine.

You that are cruel as yet, and mighty in the gifts of Venus, when the unexpected down shall come upon your pride, and the locks that now float upon your shoulders shall have fallen away, and the hue, that now surpasses the blossom of the bright-red rose, shall be changed, and transform Ligurine into a shaggy visage; you will say, alas, whene'er you chance to see yourself in the mirror, a different form :"The mind I have to-day, why as a boy did I have it not? Or why to these feelings return not my unblemished cheeks?"

XI.

Horace invites Phyllis to visit him on the thirteenth of April, the birth-day of Maecenas.

I have a cask well filled with Alban wine which is passing its ninth year; I have in my garden, Phyllis, parsley for weaving garlands; I have a large abundance of ivy, wherewith you bind your hair and brightly shine. The house is smiling with silver; the altar, twined with wreaths of holy vervain, longs to be sprinkled with the sacrifice of a lamb; the whole band is hurrying; boys mixed with girls are running to and fro; the flames are flickering, as through the roof they whirl the sooty smoke.

Yet, that you may know to what delights you are summoned, you have to keep the Ides, that day which divides April, the month of sea-born Venus; that day which is with me rightly a high day, and holier almost than my own birthday, because from this dawn my Mæcenas reckons his flowing tide of years.

Telephus, whom you desire to win, that youth not of your condition, a girl wealthy and wanton has already enthralled, and keeps him bound with pleasing chain. Phaethon scathed by the thunderbolt affrights ambitious hopes; and winged Pegasus affords you a solemn warning, (he who would not brook his earthly rider Bellerophon,) always to aim at what is meet for you, and, by deeming it a sin to hope for more than is lawful, to avoid an ill-assorted lover.

Come now, latest of my loves, (for henceforth I will never feel the flame for any other woman,) truly learn measures to render with your lovely voice; by song the gloom of care will be diminished.

XII.

This ode, written in the early spring, is addressed to Virgil; though perhaps not to the poet. It is an invitation to a feast: but Horace playfully tells his friend that he must pay for his wine by bringing with him a box of perfume.

Now Spring's companions, they who soothe the main, the Thracian breezes, drive along the sails; now neither meads are stiff nor rivers roar swollen with winter snow.

The bird is building her nest, while she sadly mourns for Itys,— the bird unhappy, and the eternal shame of Cecrops' house, because she sinfully avenged the barbarous lusts of kings.

Amid the velvet grass the guardians of the goodly sheep are playing lays upon the pipe, and charm the god to whom the flocks are pleasant and Arcadia's dusky hills.

A

The season, O my Virgil, has brought thirst; but if you yearn to quaff the vintage which was pressed at Cales, you that are the client of our youthful nobles, with nard you must purchase your wine. tiny alabaster box of nard will draw forth a cask of wine, which now reposes in the stores of Sulpicius, a cask of bounteous power to grant fresh hopes, and of prevailing force to wash away the bitters of care.

If you are eager to approach these joys, come quickly with your merchandise; I design not to steep you in my cups exempt from cost, like a rich man in a plenteous mansion.

But fling aside delays and thoughts of gain; and mindful, while it may be, of the dark fires, mix with your meditations a brief folly; 'tis sweet at fitting time to lose our wisdom.

XIII.

The poet taunts Lyce, now growing old, with her desperate attempts still to seem young and fascinating. This ode is perhaps intended to form a contrast to the tenth of the third Book.

Lyce, the gods have heard my prayers, the gods have heard them, Lyce; you are growing an old woman, and yet would fain seem fair, and you shamelessly sport and drink, and in your cups with quavering note essay to wake regardless Love. He keeps his watch on Chia's beauteous cheeks, Chia in youthful bloom, and skilled to play the lute. For all disdainful he flies by the withered oaks, and shrinks from you, because those yellow teeth disfigure you, because wrinkles disfigure you, and the snows of the head.

Not robes of Coan purple now, nor brilliant pearls, bring back to you the times which once the flying day has stored and shut up in the public annals.

Whither has fled your charm, alas! or whither your bloom? Whither your graceful motion! What have you of her, of her, who used to breathe the spirit of love, who had stolen me from myself