heroes, and often my fellow-sufferers in greater hardships than these, now drive away your cares with wine: to-morrow we will re-visit the vast ocean."

ODE VIII.

TO LYDIA.

LYDIA, I conjure thee" by all the powers above, to tell me why you are so intent to ruin Sybaris by inspiring him with love?" Why hates he the sunny plain, though inured to bear the dust and heat? Why does he neither, in military accouterments, appear mounted among his equals; nor manage the Gallic steed with bitted reins? Why fears he to touch the yellow Tiber? Why shuns he the oil of the ring more cautiously than viper's blood? Why neither does he, who has often acquired reputation by the quoit," often by the javelin having cleared the mark, any longer appear with arms all black-and-blue by martial exercises? Why is he concealed, as they say the son of the sea-goddess Thetis was, just before the mournful funerals of Troy; lest a manly habit should hurry him to slaughter, and the Lycian troops?

43 This is the usual collocation in adjurations; first the preposition, then the individual entreated, and then the object or deity by whom the adjuration is made, and last the verb. Thus Naì πрòç σε τns ons dεžiūs Evwλévov, Eurip. Hipp. 605, where Elmsley remarks, "observa syntaxin. Græcis solenne est in juramento aliquid inter Præpositionem et Casum ejus interponere." Virgil, also, has a similar collocation, Æn. iv. 314, "Per ego has lacrymas, dextramque tuam, te," etc. ANTHON.

44 Amando has a passive signification, “By being beloved." As in Virgil; Uritque videndo fœmina. Instances of this kind are frequent in the best authors. DAC.

45 The discus was a kind of quoit, very large and heavy, made of wood or stone, but more commonly of iron or brass. It was almost round, and somewhat thicker in the middle than at the edges. It was thrown by the sole force of the arm. SAN.

ODE IX.

TO THALIARCHUS.

46

You see how Soracte stands white with deep snow, nor can the laboring woods any longer support the weight, and the rivers stagnate with the sharpness of the frost. Dissolve the cold, liberally piling up billets on the hearth; and bring out, O Thaliarchus, the more generous wine, four years old, from the Sabine jar. Leave the rest to the gods, who having once laid the winds warring with the fervid ocean, neither the cypresses nor the aged ashes are moved. Avoid inquiring what may happen to-morrow; and whatever day fortune shall bestow on you, score it up for gain; nor disdain, being a young fellow, pleasant loves, nor dances, as long as illnatured hoariness keeps off from your blooming age. Now let both the Campus Martius and the public walks, and soft whispers at the approach of evening be repeated at the appointed hour: now, too, the delightful laugh, the betrayer of the lurking damsel from some secret corner, and the token ravished from her arms or fingers, pretendingly tenacious of it.

48

47

ODE X.

ΤΟ MERCURY.

MERCURY, eloquent grandson of Atlas," thou who artful

46 Soracte, a hill in Italy, in the country of the Sabines, consecrated to Apollo; which now is called St. Sylvester's Mount, because a pope of that name hid himself in a cave there, when Maxentius raised a sore persecution against the Christians. WATSON.

47 Appone. Ponere and apponere were terms used in arithmetic by the Romans. DAC.

48 Susurri. This word is formed by the figure onomatopeia, from an imitation of the sound in whispering, as in Greek, vpíše‹, in Italian, bisbiglio, and in French, chucheter. DAC.

49 Atlas, king of Mauritania, and brother to Prometheus; he was turned by Perseus into a mountain, whose top was so high, that it reached heaven, and is said to bear heaven up. WATSON.

heroes, and often my fellow-sufferers in greater hardships than these, now drive away your cares with wine: to-morrow we will re-visit the vast ocean."

ODE VIII.

TO LYDIA.

LYDIA, I conjure thee" by all the powers above, to tell me why you are so intent to ruin Sybaris by inspiring him with love?" Why hates he the sunny plain, though inured to bear the dust and heat? Why does he neither, in military accouterments, appear mounted among his equals; nor manage the Gallic steed with bitted reins? Why fears he to touch the yellow Tiber? Why shuns he the oil of the ring more cau tiously than viper's blood? Why neither does he, who has often acquired reputation by the quoit," often by the javelin having cleared the mark, any longer appear with arms all black-and-blue by martial exercises? Why is he concealed, as they say the son of the sea-goddess Thetis was, just before the mournful funerals of Troy; lest a manly habit should hurry him to slaughter, and the Lycian troops?

43 This is the usual collocation in adjurations; first the preposition, then the individual entreated, and then the object or deity by whom the adjuration is made, and last the verb. Thus Ναὶ πρὸς σε τῆς σῆς δεξιᾶς evwλévov, Eurip. Hipp. 605, where Elmsley remarks, "observa syntaxin. Græcis solenne est in juramento aliquid inter Præpositionem et Casum ejus interponere." Virgil, also, has a similar collocation, Æn. iv. 314, "Per ego has lacrymas, dextramque tuam, te," etc. ANTHON.

44 Amando has a passive signification, "By being beloved." As in Virgil; Uritque videndo fœmina. Instances of this kind are frequent in the best authors. DAC.

45 The discus was a kind of quoit, very large and heavy, made of wood or stone, but more commonly of iron or brass. It was almost round, and somewhat thicker in the middle than at the edges. It was thrown by the sole force of the arm. SAN.

ODE IX.

TO THALIARCHUS.

You see how Soracte46 stands white with deep snow, nor can the laboring woods any longer support the weight, and the rivers stagnate with the sharpness of the frost. Dissolve the cold, liberally piling up billets on the hearth; and bring out, O Thaliarchus, the more generous wine, four years old, from the Sabine jar. Leave the rest to the gods, who having once laid the winds warring with the fervid ocean, neither the cypresses nor the aged ashes are moved. Avoid inquiring what may happen to-morrow; and whatever day fortune shall bestow on you, score it up" for gain; nor disdain, being a young fellow, pleasant loves, nor dances, as long as illnatured hoariness keeps off from your blooming age. Now let both the Campus Martius and the public walks, and soft whispers at the approach of evening be repeated at the appointed hour: now, too, the delightful laugh, the betrayer of the lurking damsel from some secret corner, and the token ravished from her arms or fingers, pretendingly tenacious of it.

48

ODE X.

ΤΟ MERCURY.

MERCURY, eloquent grandson of Atlas," thou who artful

46 Soracte, a hill in Italy, in the country of the Sabines, consecrated to Apollo; which now is called St. Sylvester's Mount, because a pope of that name hid himself in a cave there, when Maxentius raised a sore persecution against the Christians. WATSON.

47 Appone. Ponere and apponere were terms used in arithmetic by the Romans. DAC.

48 Susurri. This word is formed by the figure onomatopeia, from an imitation of the sound in whispering, as in Greek, vpíšɛw, in Italian, bisbiglio, and in French, chucheter. DAC.

49 Atlas, king of Mauritania, and brother to Prometheus; he was turned by Perseus into a mountain, whose top was so high, that it reached heaven, and is said to bear heaven up. WATSON.

didst from the savage manners of the early race of men by oratory, and the institution of the graceful Palæstra: I will celebrate thee, messenger of Jupiter and the other gods, and parent of the curved lyre; ingenious to conceal whatever thou hast a mind to, in jocose theft. While Apollo, with angry voice, threatened you, then but a boy, unless you would restore the oxen, previously driven away by your fraud, he laughed, [when he found himself] deprived of his quiver [also]. Moreover, the wealthy Priam too, on his departure from Ilium, under your guidance deceived the proud sons of Atreus," and the Thessalian watch-lights, and the camp inveterate against Troy. You settle the souls of good men in blissful regions, and drive together the airy crowd with your golden rod," acceptable both to the supernal and infernal gods.

ODE XI.

TO LEUCONOE.

INQUIRE not, Leuconoe (it is not fitting you should know), how long a term of life the gods have granted to you or to me: neither consult the Chaldean" calculations. How much better is it to bear with patience whatever shall happen!

50 Menelaus, the son of Atreus and Aerope, brother of Agamemnon, and king of Lacedæmonia, who (when Paris had stolen away his wife Helen) called together all the princes of Greece to take revenge on the Trojans for this fact, and to fetch her home again. Accordingly they met, and made up a fleet of a thousand ships, lifting themselves under the conduct of Agamemnon, as commander-in-chief; and vowing never to return home till they had sacked Troy, which cost them ten years' pains, and that to little purpose, till at length, more by deceit than valor, they won and ruined the city. WATSON.

51 Golden rod or tipstaff. With this he conducted the good to happiness; but it was ferrea virga, an iron rod, with which he compelled the wicked men to Pluto's dominions: he calls it the terrible rod, Ode xxiv. "Non sanguis redeat vanæ imagini, quam semel Mercurius horrida virga compulerit nigro gregi." WATSON.

52 The Babylonians were infatuated with judicial astrology, and made use of astronomical tables to calculate the fortunate or unfortunate days of life. These tables the poet calls Numeros. FRANCIS.

53 The construction is remarkable, "ut melius est, quanto melius est