The Works of Horace Part 7

I abominate the uninitiated vulgar, and keep them at a distance.

Preserve a religious silence: I, the priest of the Muses, sing to virgins and boys verses not heard before. The dominion of dread sovereigns is over their own subjects; that of Jupiter, glorious for his conquest over the giants, who shakes all nature with his nod, is over sovereigns themselves. It happens that one man, arranges trees, in regular rows, to a greater extent than another; this man comes down into the Campus [Martius] as a candidate of a better family; another vies with him for morals and a better reputation; a third has a superior number of dependants; but Fate, by the impartial law of nature, is allotted both to the conspicuous and the obscure; the capacious urn keeps every name in motion. Sicilian dainties will not force a delicious relish to that man, over whose impious neck the naked sword hangs: the songs of birds and the lyre will not restore his sleep. Sleep disdains not the humble cottages and shady bank of peasants; he disdains not Tempe, fanned by zephyrs. Him, who desires but a competency, neither the tempestuous sea renders anxious, nor the malign violence of Arcturus setting, or of the rising Kid; not his vineyards beaten down with hail, and a deceitful farm; his plantations at one season blaming the rains, at another, the influence of the constellations parching the grounds, at another, the severe winters. The fishes perceive the seas contracted, by the vast foundations that have been laid in the deep: hither numerous undertakers with their men, and lords, disdainful of the land, send down mortar: but anxiety and the threats of conscience ascend by the same way as the possessor; nor does gloomy care depart from the brazen-beaked galley, and she mounts behind the horseman. Since then nor Phrygian marble, nor the use of purple more dazzling than the sun, nor the Falernian vine, nor the Persian nard, composes a troubled mind, why should I set about a lofty edifice with columns that excite envy, and in the modern taste? Why should I exchange my Sabine vale for wealth, which is attended with more trouble?

ODE II.

AGAINST THE DEGENERACY OF THE ROMAN YOUTH.

Let the robust youth learn patiently to endure pinching want in the active exercise of arms; and as an expert horseman, dreadful for his spear, let him hara.s.s the fierce Parthians; and let him lead a life exposed to the open air, and familiar with dangers. Him, the consort and marriageable virgin-daughter of some warring tyrant, viewing from the hostile walls, may sigh--- Alas! let not the affianced prince, inexperienced as he is in arms, provoke by a touch this terrible lion, whom b.l.o.o.d.y rage hurries through the midst of slaughter. It is sweet and glorious to die for one's country; death even pursues the man that flies from him; nor does he spare the trembling knees of effeminate youth, nor the coward back. Virtue, unknowing of base repulse, shines with immaculate honors; nor does she a.s.sume nor lay aside the ensigns of her dignity, at the veering of the popular air. Virtue, throwing open heaven to those who deserve not to die, directs her progress through paths of difficulty, and spurns with a rapid wing grovelling cowards and the slippery earth. There is likewise a sure reward for faithful silence. I will prohibit that man, who shall divulge the sacred rites of mysterious Ceres, from being under the same roof with me, or from setting sail with me in the same fragile bark: for Jupiter, when slighted, often joins a good man in the same fate with a bad one. Seldom hath punishment, though lame, of foot, failed to overtake the wicked.

ODE III.

ON STEADINESS AND INTEGRITY.

Not the rage of the people pressing to hurtful measures, not the aspect of a threatening tyrant can shake from his settled purpose the man who is just and determined in his resolution; nor can the south wind, that tumultuous ruler of the restless Adriatic, nor the mighty hand of thundering Jove; if a crushed world should fall in upon him, the ruins would strike him undismayed. By this character Pollux, by this the wandering Hercules, arrived at the starry citadels; among whom Augustus has now taken his place, and quaffs nectar with empurpled lips. Thee, O Father Bacchus, meritorious for this virtue, thy tigers carried, drawing the yoke with intractable neck; by this Romulus escaped Acheron on the horses of Mars--Juno having spoken what the G.o.ds in full conclave approve: "Troy, Troy, a fatal and lewd judge, and a foreign woman, have reduced to ashes, condemned, with its inhabitants and fraudulent prince, to me and the chaste Minerva, ever since Laomedon disappointed the G.o.ds of the stipulated reward. Now neither the infamous guest of the Lacedaemonian adulteress shines; nor does Priam's perjured family repel the warlike Grecians by the aid of Hector, and that war, spun out to such a length by our factions, has sunk to peace. Henceforth, therefore, I will give up to Mars both my bitter resentment, and the detested grandson, whom the Trojan princes bore. Him will I suffer to enter the bright regions, to drink the juice of nectar, and to be enrolled among the peaceful order of G.o.ds. As long as the extensive sea rages between Troy and Rome, let them, exiles, reign happy in any other part of the world: as long as cattle trample upon the tomb of Priam and Paris, and wild beasts conceal their young ones there with impunity, may the Capitol remain in splendor, and may brave Rome be able to give laws to the conquered Medes. Tremendous let her extend her name abroad to the extremest boundaries of the earth, where the middle ocean separates Europe from Africa, where the swollen Nile waters the plains; more brave in despising gold as yet undiscovered, and so best situated while hidden in the earth, than in forcing it out for the uses of mankind, with a hand ready to make depredations on everything that is sacred. Whatever end of the world has made resistance, that let her reach with her arms, joyfully alert to visit, even that part where fiery heats rage madding; that where clouds and rains storm with unmoderated fury. But I p.r.o.nounce this fate to the warlike Romans, upon this condition; that neither through an excess of piety, nor of confidence in their power, they become inclined to rebuild the houses of their ancestors' Troy. The fortune of Troy, reviving under unlucky auspices, shall be repeated with lamentable destruction, I, the wife and sister of Jupiter, leading on the victorious bands. Thrice, if a brazen wall should arise by means of its founder Phoebus, thrice should it fall, demolished by my Grecians; thrice should the captive wife bewail her husband and her children."

These themes ill suit the merry lyre. Whither, muse, are you going?--Cease, impertinent, to relate the language of the G.o.ds, and to debase great things by your trifling measures.

ODE IV.

TO CALLIOPE.

Descend from heaven, queen Calliope, and come sing with your pipe a lengthened strain; or, if you had now rather, with your clear voice, or on the harp or lute of Phoebus. Do ye hear? or does a pleasing frenzy delude me? I seem to hear [her], and to wander [with her] along the hallowed groves, through which pleasant rivulets and gales make their way. Me, when a child, and fatigued with play, in sleep the woodland doves, famous in story, covered with green leaves in the Apulian Vultur, just without the limits of my native Apulia; so that it was matter of wonder to all that inhabit the nest of lofty Acherontia, the Bantine Forests, and the rich soil of low Ferentum, how I could sleep with my body safe from deadly vipers and ravenous bears; how I could be covered with sacred laurel and myrtle heaped together, though a child, not animated without the [inspiration of the] G.o.ds. Yours, O ye muses, I am yours, whether I am elevated to the Sabine heights; or whether the cool Praeneste, or the sloping Tibur, or the watery Baiae have delighted me.

Me, who am attached to your fountains and dances, not the army put to flight at Philippi, not the execrable tree, nor a Palinurus in the Sicilian Sea has destroyed. While you shall be with me with pleasure will I, a sailor, dare the raging Bosphorus; or, a traveler, the burning sands of the a.s.syrian sh.o.r.e: I will visit the Britons inhuman to strangers, and the Concanian delighted [with drinking] the blood of horses; I will visit the quivered Geloni, and the Scythian river without hurt. You entertained lofty Caesar, seeking to put an end to his toils, in the Pierian grotto, as soon as he had distributed in towns his troops, wearied by campaigning: you administer [to him] moderate counsel, and graciously rejoice at it when administered. We are aware how he, who rules the inactive earth and the stormy main, the cities also, and the dreary realms [of h.e.l.l], and alone governs with a righteous sway both G.o.ds and the human mult.i.tude, how he took off the impious t.i.tans and the gigantic troop by his falling thunderbolts. That horrid youth, trusting to the strength of their arms, and the brethren proceeding to place Pelion upon shady Olympus, had brought great dread [even] upon Jove. But what could Typhoeus, and the strong Mimas, or what Porphyrion with his menacing statue; what Rhoetus, and Enceladus, a fierce darter with trees uptorn, avail, though rushing violently against the sounding shield of Pallas? At one part stood the eager Vulcan, at another the matron Juno, and he, who is never desirous to lay aside his bow from his shoulders, Apollo, the G.o.d of Delos and Patara, who bathes his flowing hair in the pure dew of Castalia, and possesses the groves of Lycia and his native wood. Force, void of conduct, falls by its own weight; moreover, the G.o.ds promote discreet force to further advantage; but the same beings detest forces, that meditate every kind of impiety.

The hundred-handed Gyges is an evidence of the sentiments I allege: and Orion, the tempter of the spotless Diana, destroyed by a virgin dart.

The earth, heaped over her own monsters, grieves and laments her offspring, sent to murky Hades by a thunderbolt; nor does the active fire consume Aetna that is placed over it, nor does the vulture desert the liver of incontinent t.i.tyus, being stationed there as an avenger of his baseness; and three hundred chains confine the amorous Pirithous.

ODE V.

ON THE RECOVERY OF THE STANDARDS FROM PHRAATES.

We believe from his thundering that Jupiter has dominion in the heavens: Augustus shall be esteemed a present deity the Britons and terrible Parthians being added to the empire. What! has any soldier of Cra.s.sus lived, a degraded husband with a barbarian wife? And has (O [corrupted]

senate, and degenerate morals!) the Marsian and Apulian, unmindful of the sacred bucklers, of the [Roman] name and gown, and of eternal Vesta, grown old in the lands of hostile fathers-in-law, Jupiter and the city being in safety? The prudent mind of Regulus had provided against this, dissenting from ignominious terms, and inferring from such a precedent destruction to the succeeding age, if the captive youth were not to perish unpitied. I have beheld, said he, the Roman standards affixed to the Carthaginian temples, and their arms taken away from our soldiers without bloodshed. I have beheld the arms of our citizens bound behind their free-born backs, and the gates [of the enemy] unshut, and the fields, which were depopulated by our battles, cultivated anew. The soldier, to be sure, ransomed by gold, will return a braver fellow!--No--you add loss to infamy; [for] neither does the wool once stained by the dye of the sea-weed ever resume its lost color; nor does genuine valor, when once it has failed, care to resume its place in those who have degenerated through cowardice. If the hind, disentangled from the thickset toils, ever fights, then indeed shall he be valorous, who has intrusted himself to faithless foes; and he shall trample upon the Carthaginians in a second war, who dastardly has felt the thongs with his arms tied behind him, and has been afraid of death. He, knowing no other way to preserve his life, has confounded peace with war. O scandal! O mighty Carthage, elevated to a higher pitch by Italy's disgraceful downfall! He _(Regulus)_ is reported to have rejected the embrace of his virtuous wife and his little sons like one degraded; and to have sternly fixed his manly countenance on the ground, until, as an adviser, by his counsel he confirmed the wavering senators, and amid his weeping friends hastened away, a glorious exile. Notwithstanding he knew what the barbarian executioner was providing for him, yet he pushed from his opposing kindred and the populace r.e.t.a.r.ding his return, in no other manner, than if (after he had quitted the tedious business of his clients, by determining their suit) he was only going to the Venafrian plains, or the Lacedaemonian Tarentum.

ODE VI.

TO THE ROMANS.

Thou shalt atone, O Roman, for the sins of your ancestors, though innocent, till you shall have repaired the temples and tottering shrines of the G.o.ds, and their statues, defiled with sooty smoke. Thou boldest sway, because thou bearest thyself subordinate to the G.o.ds; to this source refer every undertaking; to this, every event. The G.o.ds, because neglected, have inflicted many evils on calamitous Italy. Already has Monaeses, and the band of Pacorus, twice repelled our inauspicious attacks, and exults in having added the Roman spoils to their trivial collars. The Dacian and Ethiopian have almost demolished the city engaged in civil broils, the one formidable for his fleet, the other more expert for missile arrows. The times, fertile in wickedness, have in the first place polluted the marriage state, and [thence] the issue and families. From this fountain perdition being derived, has overwhelmed the nation and people. The marriageable virgin delights to be taught the Ionic dances, and even at this time is trained up in [seductive] arts, and cherishes unchaste desires from her very infancy.

Soon after she courts younger debauchees when her husband is in his cups, nor has she any choice, to whom she shall privately grant her forbidden pleasures when the lights are removed, but at the word of command, openly, not without the knowledge of her husband, she will come forth, whether it be a factor that calls for her, or the captain of a Spanish ship, the extravagant purchaser of her disgrace. It was not a youth born from parents like these, that stained the sea with Carthaginian gore, and slew Pyrrhus, and mighty Antiochus, and terrific Annibal; but a manly progeny of rustic soldiers, instructed to turn the glebe with Sabine spades, and to carry clubs cut [out of the woods] at the pleasure of a rigid mother, what time the sun shifted the shadows of the mountains, and took the yokes from the wearied oxen, bringing on the pleasant hour with his retreating chariot. What does not wasting time destroy? The age of our fathers, worse than our grandsires, produced us still more flagitious, us, who are about to product am offspring more vicious [even than ourselves].

ODE VII.

TO ASTERIE.

Why, O Asterie, do you weep for Gyges, a youth of inviolable constancy, whom the kindly zephyrs will restore to you in the beginning of the Spring, enriched with a Bithynian cargo? Driven as far as Oric.u.m by the southern winds, after [the rising] of the Goat's tempestuous constellation, he sleepless pa.s.ses the cold nights in abundant weeping [for you]; but the agent of his anxious landlady slyly tempts him by a thousand methods, informing him that [his mistress], Chloe, is sighing for him, and burns with the same love that thou hast for him. He remonstrates with him how a perfidious woman urged the credulous Proetus, by false accusations, to hasten the death of the over-chaste Bellerophon. He tells how Peleus was like to have been given up to the infernal regions, while out of temperance he avoided the Magnesian Hippolyte: and the deceiver quotes histories to him, that are lessons for sinning. In vain; for, heart-whole as yet, he receives his words deafer than the Icarian rocks. But with regard to you, have a care lest your neighbor Enipeus prove too pleasing. Though no other person equally skillful to guide the steed, is conspicuous in the course, nor does any one with equal swiftness swim down the Etrurian stream, yet secure your house at the very approach of night, nor look down into the streets at the sound of the doleful pipe; and remain inflexible toward him, though he often upbraid thee with cruelty.

ODE VIII.

TO MAECENAS.

O Maecenas, learned in both languages, you wonder what I, a single man, have to do on the calends of March; what these flowers mean, and the censer replete with frankincense, and the coals laid upon the live turf.

I made a vow of a joyous banquet, and a white goat to Bacchus, after having been at the point of death by a blow from a tree. This day, sacred in the revolving year, shall remove the cork fastened with pitch from that jar, which was set to inhale the smoke in the consulship of Tullus. Take, my Maecenas, a hundred cups on account of the safety of your friend, and continue the wakeful lamps even to day-light: all clamor and pa.s.sion be far away. Postpone your political cares with regard to the state: the army of the Dacian Cotison is defeated; the troublesome Mede is quarreling with himself in a horrible [civil] war: the Cantabrian, our old enemy on the Spanish coast, is subject to us, though conquered by a long-disputed victory: now, too, the Scythians are preparing to quit the field with their imbent bows. Neglectful, as a private person, forbear to be too solicitous lest the community in any wise suffer, and joyfully seize the boons of the present hour, and quit serious affairs.

ODE IX.

TO LYDIA.

HORACE. As long as I was agreeable to thee, and no other youth more favored was wont to fold his arms around thy snowy neck, I lived happier than the Persian monarch.

LYDIA. As long as thou hadst not a greater flame for any other, nor was Lydia below Chloe [in thine affections], I Lydia, of distinguished fame, flourished more eminent than the Roman Ilia.