The Works of Horace Part 5

TO XANTHIAS PHOCEUS.

Let not, O Xanthias Phoceus, your pa.s.sion for your maid put you out of countenance; before your time, the slave Briseis moved the haughty Achilles by her snowy complexion. The beauty of the captive Tecmessa smote her master, the Telamonian Ajax; Agamemnon, in the midst of victory, burned for a ravished virgin: when the barbarian troops fell by the hands of their Thessalian conqueror, and Hector, vanquished, left Troy more easily to be destroyed by the Grecians. You do not know that perchance the beautiful Phyllis has parents of condition happy enough to do honor to you their son-in-law. Certainly she must be of royal race, and laments the unpropitiousness of her family G.o.ds. Be confident, that your beloved is not of the worthless crowd; nor that one so true, so unmercenary, could possibly be born of a mother to be ashamed of. I can commend arms, and face, and well-made legs, quite chastely: avoid being jealous of one, whose age is hastening onward to bring its eighth mastrum to a close.

ODE V.

Not yet is she fit to be broken to the yoke; not yet is she equal to the duties of a partner, nor can she support the weight of the bull impetuously rushing to enjoyment. Your heifer's sole inclination is about verdant fields, one while in running streams soothing the grievous heat; at another, highly delighted to frisk with the steerlings in the moist willow ground. Suppress your appet.i.te for the immature grape; shortly variegated autumn will tinge for thee the lirid cl.u.s.ters with a purple hue. Shortly she shall follow you; for her impetuous time runs on, and shall place to her account those years of which it abridges you; shortly Lalage with a wanton a.s.surance will seek a husband, beloved in a higher degree than the coy Pholoe, or even Chloris; shining as brightly with her fair shoulder, as the spotless moon upon the midnight sea, or even the Gnidian Gyges, whom if you should intermix in a company of girls, the undiscernible difference occasioned by his flowing locks and doubtful countenance would wonderfully impose even on sagacious strangers.

ODE VI.

TO SEPTIMUS.

Septimus, who art ready to go with me, even to Gades, and to the Cantabrian, still untaught to bear our yoke, and the inhospitable Syrtes, where the Mauritanian wave perpetually boils. O may Tibur, founded by a Grecian colony, be the habitation of my old age! There let there be an end to my fatigues by sea, and land, and war; whence if the cruel fates debar me, I will seek the river of Galesus, delightful for sheep covered with skins, and the countries reigned over by Lacedaemonian Phalantus. That corner of the world smiles in my eye beyond all others; where the honey yields not to the Hymettian, and the olive rivals the verdant Venafrian: where the temperature of the air produces a long spring and mild winters, and Aulon friendly to the fruitful vine, envies not the Falernian grapes. That place, and those blest heights, solicit you and me; there you shall bedew the glowing ashes of your poet friend with a tear due [to his memory].

ODE VII.

TO POMPEIUS VARUS.

O thou, often reduced with me to the last extremity in the war which Brutus carried on, who has restored thee as a Roman citizen, to the G.o.ds of thy country and the Italian air, Pompey, thou first of my companions; with whom I have frequently broken the tedious day in drinking, having my hair, shining with the Syrian maiobathrum, crowned [with flowers]!

Together with thee did I experience the [battle of] Phillippi and a precipitate flight, having shamefully enough left my shield; when valor was broken, and the most daring smote the squalid earth with their faces. But Mercury swift conveyed me away, terrified as I was, in a thick cloud through the midst of the enemy. Thee the reciprocating sea, with his tempestuous waves, bore back again to war. Wherefore render to Jupiter the offering that is due, and deposit your limbs, wearied with a tedious war, under my laurel, and spare not the casks reserved for you.

Fill up the polished bowls with care-dispelling Ma.s.sic: pour out the perfumed ointments from the capacious sh.e.l.ls. Who takes care to quickly weave the chaplets of fresh pa.r.s.ely or myrtle? Whom shall the Venus p.r.o.nounce to be master of the revel? In wild carouse I will become frantic as the Baccha.n.a.lians. 'Tis delightful to me to play the madman, on the reception of my friends.

ODE VIII.

TO BARINE.

If any punishment, Barine, for your violated oath had ever been of prejudice to you: if you had become less agreeable by the blackness of a single tooth or nail, I might believe you. But you no sooner have bound your perfidious head with vows, but you shine out more charming by far, and come forth the public care of our youth. It is of advantage to you to deceive the buried ashes of your mother, and the silent constellations of the night, together with all heaven, and the G.o.ds free from chill death. Venus herself, I profess, laughs at this; the good-natured nymphs laugh, and cruel Cupid, who is perpetually sharpening his burning darts on a b.l.o.o.d.y whetstone. Add to this, that all our boys are growing up for you; a new herd of slaves is growing up; nor do the former ones quit the house of their impious mistress, notwithstanding they often have threatened it. The matrons are in dread of you on account of their young ones; the thrifty old men are in dread of you; and the girls but just married are in distress, lest your beauty should slacken [the affections of] their husbands.

ODE IX.

TO t.i.tUS VALGIUS.

Showers do not perpetually pour down upon the rough fields, nor do varying hurricanes forever hara.s.s the Caspian Sea; nor, my friend Valgius, does the motionless ice remain fixed throughout all the months, in the regions of Armenia; nor do the Garganian oaks [always] labor under the northerly winds, nor are the ash-trees widowed of their leaves. But thou art continually pursuing Mystes, who is taken from thee, with mournful measures: nor do the effects of thy love for him cease at the rising of Vesper, or when he flies the rapid approach of the sun. But the aged man who lived three generations, did not lament the amiable Antilochus all the years of his life: nor did his parents or his Trojan sisters perpetually bewail the blooming Troilus. At length then desist from thy tender complaints; and rather let us sing the fresh trophies of Augustus Caesar, and the Frozen Niphates, and the river Medus, added to the vanquished nations, rolls more humble tides, and the Gelonians riding within a prescribed boundary in a narrow tract of land.

ODE X.

TO LICINIUS MURENA.

O Licinius, you will lead a more correct course of life, by neither always pursuing the main ocean, nor, while you cautiously are in dread of storms, by pressing too much upon the hazardous sh.o.r.e. Whosoever loves the golden mean, is secure from the sordidness of an antiquated cell, and is too prudent to have a palace that might expose him to envy, if the lofty pine is more frequently agitated with winds, and high towers fall down with a heavier ruin, and lightnings strike the summits of the mountains. A well-provided breast hopes in adversity, and fears in prosperity. 'Tis the same Jupiter, that brings the hideous winters back, and that takes them away. If it is ill with us now, it will not be so hereafter. Apollo sometimes rouses the silent lyric muse, neither does he always bend his bow. In narrow circ.u.mstances appear in high spirits, and undaunted. In the same manner you will prudently contract your sails, which are apt to be too much swollen in a prosperous gale.

ODE XI.

TO QUINTIUS HIRPINUS.

O Quintius Hirpinus, forbear to be inquisitive what the Cantabrian, and the Scythian, divided from us by the interposed Adriatic, is meditating; neither be fearfully solicitous for the necessaries of a life, which requires but a few things. Youth and beauty fly swift away, while sapless old age expels the wanton loves and gentle sleep. The same glory does not always remain to the vernal flowers, nor does the ruddy moon shine with one continued aspect; why, therefore, do you fatigue you mind, unequal to eternal projects? Why do we not rather (while it is in our power) thus carelessly reclining under a lofty plane-tree, or this pine, with our h.o.a.ry locks made fragrant by roses, and anointed with Syrian perfume, indulge ourselves with generous wine? Bacchus dissipates preying cares. What slave is here, instantly to cool some cups of ardent Falernian in the pa.s.sing stream? Who will tempt the vagrant wanton Lyde from her house? See that you bid her hasten with her ivory lyre, collecting her hair into a graceful knot, after the fashion of a Spartan maid.

ODE XII.

TO MAECENAS.

Do not insist that the long wars of fierce Numantia, or the formidable Annibal, or the Sicilian Sea impurpled with Carthaginian blood, should be adapted to the tender lays of the lyre: nor the cruel Lapithae, nor Hylaeus excessive in wine and the earth born youths, subdued by Herculean force, from whom the splendid habitation of old Saturn dreaded danger. And you yourself, Maecenas, with more propriety shall recount the battles of Caesar, and the necks of haughty kings led in triumph through the streets in historical prose. It was the muse's will that I should celebrate the sweet strains of my mistress Lycimnia, that I should celebrate her bright darting eyes, and her breast laudably faithful to mutual love: who can with a grace introduce her foot into the dance, or, sporting, contend in raillery, or join arms with the bright virgins on the celebrated Diana's festival. Would you, [Maecenas,] change one of Lycimnia's tresses for all the rich Achaemenes possessed, or the Mygdonian wealth of fertile Phrygia, or all the dwellings of the Arabians replete with treasures? Especially when she turns her neck to meet your burning kisses, or with a gentle cruelty denies, what she would more delight to have ravished than the pet.i.tioner--or sometimes eagerly antic.i.p.ates to s.n.a.t.c.h them her self.

ODE XIII.

TO A TREE.