wind contending with the Icarian waves, commends tranquillity and the rural retirement of his village; but soon after, incapable of being taught to bear poverty, he refits his shattered vessel. There is another, who despises not cups of old Massic, taking a part from the entire day, one while stretched under the green arbute, another at the placid head of some sacred

stream.

The camp, and the sound of the trumpet mingled with that of the clarion, and wars detested by mothers, rejoice many.

The huntsman, unmindful of his tender spouse, remains in the cold air, whether a hart is held in view by his faithful hounds, or a Marsian boar has broken the fine-wrought toils.

Ivy, the reward of learned brows, equals me with the gods above: the cool grove, and the light dances of nymphs and satyrs, distinguish me from the crowd; if neither Euterpe withholds her pipe, nor Polyhymnia disdains to tune the Lesbian lyre. But, if you rank me among the lyric poets, I shall tower to the stars with my exalted head.

ENOUGH of snow and dreadful' hail has the Sire now sent

4 Demere partem de solido die," sine ulla dubitatione est meridiari, i. e. ipso meridie horam unam aut alteram dormire; quod qui faciunt, diem quodammodo frangunt et dividunt, neque eum solidum et ỏλóкληpov esse patiuntur. Varro alicubi (de R. R. 1, 2, 5) vocat diem diffindere institicio somno." MURETUS.

5 Octavianus assumed his new title of Augustus, conferred upon him at the suggestion of Munatius Plancus, on the 17th of January, (XVIII. Cal. Febr.) A. U. c. 727; the following night Rome was visited by a severe tempest, and an inundation of the Tiber. The present ode was

written in allusion to that event. ANTHON.

6 Of snow and dreadful hail. Turnebus, lib. vi. cap. 8, Appianus, lib. iv., and Dion, lib. xlvii., give an account of the dreadful thunder and lightning, snow and rain, that followed the murder of Julius Cæsar; that many temples were so struck down or very much damaged, which was looked upon as a presage of the horrible civil war that soon after followed. WATSON.

7 Diræ, an epithet applied to any thing fearful and portentous, as "diri cometa," Virg. Georg. i. 488. ÖRELLI.

10

8

upon the earth, and having hurled [his thunderbolts] with his red right hand' against the sacred towers, he has terrified the city; he has terrified the nations, lest the grievous age of Pyrrha, complaining of prodigies till then unheard of, should return, when Proteus drove all his [marine] herd to visit the lofty mountains; and the fishy rcae were entangled in the elm top, which before was the frequented seat of doves; and the timorous deer swam in the overwhelming flood. We have seen the yellow Tiber," with his waves forced back with violence from the Tuscan shore, proceed to demolish the monuments of king [Numa], and the temples of Vesta; while he vaunts himself the avenger of the too disconsolate Ilia, and the uxorious river, leaving his channel, overflows his left bank, notwithstanding the disapprobation of Jupiter.

Our youth, less numerous by the vices of their fathers, shall hear of the citizens having whetted that sword [against themselves], with which it had been better that the formidable Persians had fallen; they shall hear of [actual] engagements. Whom of the gods shall the people invoke to the affairs of the sinking empire? With what prayer shall the sacred virgins importune Vesta, who is now inattentive to their hymns? To whom shall Jupiter assign the task of expiating our wickedness? Do thou at length, prophetic Apollo, (we pray thee !) come,

8 "Terris" is a Grecism for "in terras." See on Virg. Ecl. viii.

101.

9 Horace alludes to a superstitious opinion of the ancients, who believed that thunders which portended any revolution in a state were more inflamed than any other; as they fancied that the lightnings of Jupiter were red and fiery; those of the other gods, pale and dark. CRUQ.

10 Wife of Deucalion, king of Thessaly: in his time came the deluge or universal flood, which drowned all the world; only he and his wife got into a little shallop, which was carried to Mount Parnassus, and there staid, the dry land first appearing there. When the flood was dried up, he consulted with the oracle of Themis, how mankind might be repaired; and was answered, If he cast his great mother's bones behind his back; whereupon he and Pyrrha his wife took stones, and cast them over their shoulders, and they became men and women. WATSON.

11 The Tiber discharges itself into the Tuscan Sea, which being swollen by tempests, and a prodigious fall of snow and hail (the wind at the same time blowing up the channel), made the river flow backward (retorquere) against its natural course. The Littus Etruscum means the shores of the Tuscan Sea, into which the Tiber should naturally flow, and from whence it turned upward to its fountain-head. CRUQ.

vailing thy radiant shoulders with a cloud: or thou, if it be more agreeable to thee, smiling Venus, about whom hover the gods of mirth and love: or thou, if thou regard" thy neglected race and descendants, our founder Mars, whom clamor and polished helmets, and the terrible aspect of the Moorish infantry against their bloody enemy, delight, satiated at length with thy sport, alas! of too long continuance or if thou, the winged son of gentle Maia, by changing thy figure, personate a youth' upon earth, submitting to be called the avenger of Cæsar; late mayest thou return to the skies, and long mayest thou joyously be present to the Roman people; nor may an untimely blast transport thee from us, offended at our crimes. Here mayest thou rather delight in magnificent triumphs," and to be called father and prince: nor suffer the Parthians with impunity to make incursions, you, O Cæsar, being our general.

ODE III.

ΤΟ THE SHIP, IN WHICH VIRGIL WAS ABOUT TO SAIL TO

ATHENS.

16

So may the goddess who rules over Cyprus; so may the bright stars, the brothers of Helen;" and so may the father

13 Respicis, "Thou again beholdest with a favoring eye." When the gods were supposed to turn their eyes toward their worshipers, it was a sign of favor; when they averted them, of displeasure. The Greeks use ἐπιβλέπειν with the same meaning. ANTHON.

14 Sallust calls Julius Cæsar Adolescentulus, when he was thirty-six years old; the same age in which Horace here calls Augustus Juvenem. Varro tells us this last word is derived from Juvare, as if this age were capable of rendering the most considerable services to the republic. SAN. 15 Augustus, in the month of August, 725, had triumphed three days. The first, for the defeat of the Pannonians and Dalmatii; the second, for the battle of Actium; the last, for the reduction of Egypt. Dac.

16 Venus was invoked by mariners, not only because she sprung from the ocean, but because her star was useful to navigation. CRUQ.

17 Brothers of Helen, Castor and Pollux. Leda, wife of Tyndarus, king of Laconia, as fame goes, brought forth two eggs; out of one of them came Pollux, and Helena, born immortal, begotten by Jupiter; of the other, Castor and Clytemnestra, begotten by Tyndarus: because those brothers,

of the winds, confining all except Iapyx,18 direct thee, O ship, who art intrusted with Virgil; my prayer is, that thou mayest land1 him safe on the Athenian shore, and preserve the half of my soul. Surely oak and threefold brass surrounded his heart who first trusted a frail vessel to the merciless ocean, nor was afraid of the impetuous Africus contending with the northern storms, nor of the mournful Hyades," nor of the rage of Notus, than whom there is not a more absolute controller of the Adriatic, either to raise or assuage its waves at pleasure. What path of death" did he fear, who beheld unmoved the rolling monsters of the deep; who beheld unmoved the tempestuous swelling of the sea, and the Acroceraunians 23-illfamed rocks.

In vain has God in his wisdom divided the countries of the earth by the separating" ocean, if nevertheless profane ships bound over waters not to be violated. The race of man presumptuous enough to endure every thing, rushes on through forbidden wickedness.

The presumptuous son of Iäpetus, by an impious fraud,

as long as they lived, freed the seas from pirates and robbers, they are said to have received power from Neptune, the god of the sea, of helping those who were in danger of being shipwrecked, by being turned into stars, which makes our poet invoke them under this epithet, "Lucida sidera, fratres Helenæ."

18 The W. N. W.

WATSON.

19 With reddas and serves understand ut, which stands in opposition to sic. "Usus hic particulæ SIC in votis, precibus, obtestationibusque ita proprie explicandus: 'Uti nos a te hoc vel illud optamus, SIC, ubi nostras preces exaudieris, hoc vel illud, quod tu optas, tibi contingat.' ORELL.

20 In robur there is first the idea of sturdy oak, of which the Roman clypeus was made, and then, metaphorically, of strength of mind; so also in as triplex there is allusion to the Lorica, hence the use of circa pectus. M'CAUL.

21 The Hyades are a constellation in the head of the bull, whose rising and setting are frequently attended by rain, from whence the poet calls them Tristes. FRANCIS.

22 What kind of death could affright him. The ancients dreaded shipwreck as the worst sort of death, as being thereby liable to be devoured by fish, dashed against rocks, or cast upon an uninhabited island. WATSON.

23 The poet, with a very delicate flattery, calls these rocks infamous, because Augustus very narrowly escaped shipwreck on them, when he returned from the battle of Actium. FRANCIS.

24 Active, as "L Genitabilis aura Favonî," Lucret. i. 11; "penetrabile fulmen," Ovid, Met. xiii. 857.

brought down fire into the world. After fire was stolen fr the celestial mansions, consumption and a new train of fev settled upon the earth, and the slow approaching necessity death, which, till now, was remote, accelerated its pa Dædalus essayed the empty air with wings not permitted man. The labor of Hercules broke through Acheron. The is nothing too arduous for mortals to attempt. We aim heaven" itself in our folly; neither do we suffer, by our wicke ness, Jupiter to lay aside his revengeful thunderbolts.

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ODE IV.

TO SEXTIUS.

SEVERE winter is melted away beneath the agreeab change of spring and the western breeze; and engines" ha down the dry ships. And neither does the cattle any long delight in the stalls, nor the plowman in the fireside; n are the meadows whitened by hoary frosts. Now Cytherea Venus leads off the dance by moonlight; and the come Graces, in conjunction with the Nymphs, shake the groun with alternate feet; while glowing Vulcan kindles the lab rious forges of the Cyclops. Now it is fitting to encircle th shining head either with verdant myrtle, or with such flower as the relaxed earth produces. Now likewise it is fitting t sacrifice to Faunus28 in the shady groves, whether he deman a lamb, or be more pleased with a kid." Pale death knock at the cottages of the poor, and the palaces of kings, with a

25 Cœlum ipsum petimus. In allusion to the fable of the giants FRANCIS.

26 According to Vegetius, the seas were unfit for navigation “ex di iii. Id. Novembr. usque in diem vi. Id. Mart." ORELLI.

27 The ancients used to draw their ships on shore during winter. SAN 28 Faunus, he was son to Picus, father to Latinus, and the third king of the aborigines in Latium; who, because he taught the people some what of religion and tillage, was accounted a country god. And tha rude people might be kept in awe of him, they pictured him with feet of horn, and two horns on his head. Afterward all the gods of the woods went by this name. WATSON.

29 This use of the ablative is common with ritual words; so, “facere,' "immolare," are used. ORELLI.