The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace Part 9

I bid the unhallow'd crowd avaunt!

Keep holy silence; strains unknown Till now, the Muses' hierophant, I sing to youths and maids alone.

Kings o'er their flocks the sceptre wield; E'en kings beneath Jove's sceptre bow: Victor in giant battle-field, He moves all nature with his brow.

This man his planted walks extends Beyond his peers; an older name One to the people's choice commends; One boasts a more unsullied fame; One plumes him on a larger crowd Of clients. What are great or small?

Death takes the mean man with the proud; The fatal urn has room for all.

When guilty Pomp the drawn sword sees Hung o'er her, richest feasts in vain Strain their sweet juice her taste to please; No lutes, no singing birds again Will bring her sleep. Sleep knows no pride; It scorns not cots of village hinds, Nor shadow-trembling river-side, Nor Tempe, stirr'd by western winds.

Who, having competence, has all, The tumult of the sea defies, Nor fears Arcturus' angry fall, Nor fears the Kid-star's sullen rise, Though hail-storms on the vineyard beat, Though crops deceive, though trees complain.

One while of showers, one while of heat, One while of winter's barbarous reign.

Fish feel the narrowing of the main From sunken piles, while on the strand Contractors with their busy train Let down huge stones, and lords of land Affect the sea: but fierce Alarm Can clamber to the master's side: Black Cares can up the galley swarm, And close behind the horseman ride.

If Phrygian marbles soothe not pain, Nor star-bright purple's costliest wear, Nor vines of true Falernian strain, Nor Achaemenian spices rare, Why with rich gate and pillar'd range Upbuild new mansions, twice as high, Or why my Sabine vale exchange For more laborious luxury?

II.

ANGUSTAM AMICE.

To suffer hardness with good cheer, In sternest school of warfare bred, Our youth should learn; let steed and spear Make him one day the Parthian's dread; Cold skies, keen perils, brace his life.

Methinks I see from rampined town Some battling tyrant's matron wife, Some maiden, look in terror down,-- "Ah, my dear lord, untrain'd in war!

O tempt not the infuriate mood Of that fell lion! see! from far He plunges through a tide of blood!"

What joy, for fatherland to die!

Death's darts e'en flying feet o'ertake, Nor spare a recreant chivalry, A back that cowers, or loins that quake.

True Virtue never knows defeat: HER robes she keeps unsullied still, Nor takes, nor quits, HER curule seat To please a people's veering will.

True Virtue opens heaven to worth: She makes the way she does not find: The vulgar crowd, the humid earth, Her soaring pinion leaves behind.

Seal'd lips have blessings sure to come: Who drags Eleusis' rite to day, That man shall never share my home, Or join my voyage: roofs give way And boats are wreck'd: true men and thieves Neglected Justice oft confounds: Though Vengeance halt, she seldom leaves The wretch whose flying steps she hounds.

III.

JUSTUM ET TENACEM.

The man of firm and righteous will, No rabble, clamorous for the wrong, No tyrant's brow, whose frown may kill, Can shake the strength that makes him strong: Not winds, that chafe the sea they sway, Nor Jove's right hand, with lightning red: Should Nature's pillar'd frame give way, That wreck would strike one fearless head.

Pollux and roving Hercules Thus won their way to Heaven's proud steep, 'Mid whom Augustus, couch'd at ease, Dyes his red lips with nectar deep.

For this, great Bacchus, tigers drew Thy glorious car, untaught to slave In harness: thus Quirinus flew On Mars' wing'd steeds from Acheron's wave, When Juno spoke with Heaven's a.s.sent: "O Ilium, Ilium, wretched town!

The judge accurst, incontinent, And stranger dame have dragg'd thee down.

Pallas and I, since Priam's sire Denied the G.o.ds his pledged reward, Had doom'd them all to sword and fire, The people and their perjured lord.

No more the adulterous guest can charm The Spartan queen: the house forsworn No more repels by Hector's arm My warriors, baffled and outworn: Hush'd is the war our strife made long: I welcome now, my hatred o'er, A grandson in the child of wrong, Him whom the Trojan priestess bore.

Receive him, Mars! the gates of flame May open: let him taste forgiven The nectar, and enrol his name Among the peaceful ranks of Heaven.

Let the wide waters sever still Ilium and Rome, the exiled race May reign and prosper where they will: So but in Paris' burial-place The cattle sport, the wild beasts hide Their cubs, the Capitol may stand All bright, and Rome in warlike pride O'er Media stretch a conqueror's hand.

Aye, let her scatter far and wide Her terror, where the land-lock'd waves Europe from Afric's sh.o.r.e divide, Where swelling Nile the corn-field laves-- Of strength more potent to disdain Hid gold, best buried in the mine, Than gather it with hand profane, That for man's greed would rob a shrine.

Whate'er the bound to earth ordain'd, There let her reach the arm of power, Travelling, where raves the fire unrein'd, And where the storm-cloud and the shower.

Yet, warlike Roman, know thy doom, Nor, drunken with a conqueror's joy, Or blind with duteous zeal, presume To build again ancestral Troy.

Should Troy revive to hateful life, Her star again should set in gore, While I, Jove's sister and his wife, To victory led my host once more.

Though Phoebus thrice in brazen mail Should case her towers, they thrice should fall, Storm'd by my Greeks: thrice wives should wail Husband and son, themselves in thrall."

--Such thunders from the lyre of love!

Back, wayward Muse! refrain, refrain To tell the talk of G.o.ds above, And dwarf high themes in puny strain.

IV.

DESCENDE CAELO.

Come down, Calliope, from above: Breathe on the pipe a strain of fire; Or if a graver note thou love, With Phoebus' cittern and his lyre.

You hear her? or is this the play Of fond illusion? Hark! meseems Through gardens of the good I stray, 'Mid murmuring gales and purling streams.

Me, as I lay on Vultur's steep, A truant past Apulia's bound, O'ertired, poor child, with play and sleep, With living green the stock-doves crown'd-- A legend, nay, a miracle, By Acherontia's nestlings told, By all in Bantine glade that dwell, Or till the rich Forentan mould.

"Bears, vipers, spared him as he lay, The sacred garland deck'd his hair, The myrtle blended with the bay: The child's inspired: the G.o.ds were there."

Your grace, sweet Muses, shields me still On Sabine heights, or lets me range Where cool Praeneste, Tibur's hill, Or liquid Baiae proffers change.

Me to your springs, your dances true, Philippi bore not to the ground, Nor the doom'd tree in falling slew, Nor billowy Palinurus drown'd.

Grant me your presence, blithe and fain Mad Bosporus shall my bark explore; My foot shall tread the sandy plain That glows beside a.s.syria's sh.o.r.e; 'Mid Briton tribes, the stranger's foe, And Spaniards, drunk with horses' blood, And quiver'd Scythians, will I go Unharm'd, and look on Tanais' flood.

When Caesar's self in peaceful town The weary veteran's home has made, You bid him lay his helmet down And rest in your Pierian shade.

Mild thoughts you plant, and joy to see Mild thoughts take root. The nations know How with descending thunder He The impious t.i.tans hurl'd below, Who rules dull earth and stormy seas, And towns of men, and realms of pain, And G.o.ds, and mortal companies, Alone, impartial in his reign.

Yet Jove had fear'd the giant rush, Their upraised arms, their port of pride, And the twin brethren bent to push Huge Pelion up Olympus' side.

But Typhon, Mimas, what could these, Or what Porphyrion's stalwart scorn, Rhoetus, or he whose spears were trees, Enceladus, from earth uptorn, As on they rush'd in mad career 'Gainst Pallas' shield? Here met the foe Fierce Vulcan, queenly Juno here, And he who ne'er shall quit his bow, Who laves in clear Castalian flood His locks, and loves the leafy growth Of Lycia next his native wood, The Delian and the Pataran both.

Strength, mindless, falls by its own weight; Strength, mix'd with mind, is made more strong By the just G.o.ds, who surely hate The strength whose thoughts are set on wrong.

Let hundred-handed Gyas bear His witness, and Orion known Tempter of Dian, chaste and fair, By Dian's maiden dart o'erthrown.

Hurl'd on the monstrous shapes she bred, Earth groans, and mourns her children thrust To Orcus; Aetna's weight of lead Keeps down the fire that breaks its crust; Still sits the bird on t.i.tyos' breast, The warder of unlawful love; Still suffers lewd Pirithous, prest By ma.s.sive chains no hand may move.

V.

CAELO TONANTEM.

Jove rules in heaven, his thunder shows; Henceforth Augustus earth shall own Her present G.o.d, now Briton foes And Persians bow before his throne.

Has Cra.s.sus' soldier ta'en to wife A base barbarian, and grown grey (Woe, for a nation's tainted life!) Earning his foemen-kinsmen's pay, His king, forsooth, a Mede, his sire A Marsian? can he name forget, Gown, sacred shield, undying fire, And Jove and Rome are standing yet?

'Twas this that Regulus foresaw, What time he spurn'd the foul disgrace Of peace, whose precedent would draw Destruction on an unborn race, Should aught but death the prisoner's chain Unrivet. "I have seen," he said, "Rome's eagle in a Punic fane, And armour, ne'er a blood-drop shed, Stripp'd from the soldier; I have seen Free sons of Rome with arms fast tied; The fields we spoil'd with corn are green, And Carthage opes her portals wide.

The warrior, sure, redeem'd by gold, Will fight the bolder! Aye, you heap On baseness loss. The hues of old Revisit not the wool we steep; And genuine worth, expell'd by fear, Returns not to the worthless slave.

Break but her meshes, will the deer a.s.sail you? then will he be brave Who once to faithless foes has knelt; Yes, Carthage yet his spear will fly, Who with bound arms the cord has felt, The coward, and has fear'd to die.

He knows not, he, how life is won; Thinks war, like peace, a thing of trade!

Great art thou, Carthage! mate the sun, While Italy in dust is laid!"

His wife's pure kiss he waved aside, And prattling boys, as one disgraced, They tell us, and with manly pride Stern on the ground his visage placed.

With counsel thus ne'er else aread He nerved the fathers' weak intent, And, girt by friends that mourn'd him, sped Into ill.u.s.trious banishment.

Well witting what the torturer's art Design'd him, with like unconcern The press of kin he push'd apart And crowds enc.u.mbering his return, As though, some tedious business o'er Of clients' court, his journey lay Towards Venafrum's gra.s.sy floor, Or Sparta-built Tarentum's bay.

VI.

DELICTA MAJORUM.