The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace

II

NULLUS ARGENTO

     The silver, Sallust, shows not fair       While buried in the greedy mine:     You love it not till moderate wear           Have given it shine.     Honour to Proculeius! he       To brethren play'd a father's part;     Fame shall embalm through years to be           That noble heart.     Who curbs a greedy soul may boast       More power than if his broad-based throne     Bridged Libya's sea, and either coast           Were all his own.     Indulgence bids the dropsy grow;       Who fain would quench the palate's flame     Must rescue from the watery foe           The pale weak frame.     Phraates, throned where Cyrus sate,       May count for blest with vulgar herds,     But not with Virtue; soon or late           From lying words     She weans men's lips; for him she keeps       The crown, the purple, and the bays,     Who dares to look on treasure-heaps           With unblench'd gaze.

III

AEQUAM, MEMENTO

     An equal mind, when storms o'ercloud,       Maintain, nor 'neath a brighter sky     Let pleasure make your heart too proud,       O Dellius, Dellius! sure to die,     Whether in gloom you spend each year,       Or through long holydays at ease     In grassy nook your spirit cheer       With old Falernian vintages,     Where poplar pale, and pine-tree high       Their hospitable shadows spread     Entwined, and panting waters try       To hurry down their zigzag bed.     Bring wine and scents, and roses' bloom,       Too brief, alas! to that sweet place,     While life, and fortune, and the loom       Of the Three Sisters yield you grace.     Soon must you leave the woods you buy,       Your villa, wash'd by Tiber's flow,     Leave,—and your treasures, heap'd so high,       Your reckless heir will level low.     Whether from Argos' founder born       In wealth you lived beneath the sun,     Or nursed in beggary and scorn,       You fall to Death, who pities none.     One way all travel; the dark urn       Shakes each man's lot, that soon or late     Will force him, hopeless of return,       On board the exile-ship of Fate.

IV

NE SIT ANCILLAE

      Why, Xanthias, blush to own you love       Your slave? Briseis, long ago,     A captive, could Achilles move           With breast of snow.     Tecmessa's charms enslaved her lord,       Stout Ajax, heir of Telamon;     Atrides, in his pride, adored           The maid he won,     When Troy to Thessaly gave way,       And Hector's all too quick decease     Made Pergamus an easier prey           To wearied Greece.     What if, as auburn Phyllis' mate,       You graft yourself on regal stem?     Oh yes! be sure her sires were great;           She weeps for THEM.     Believe me, from no rascal scum       Your charmer sprang; so true a flame,     Such hate of greed, could never come           From vulgar dame.     With honest fervour I commend       Those lips, those eyes; you need not fear     A rival, hurrying on to end           His fortieth year.

VI

SEPTIMI, GADES

     Septimius, who with me would brave       Far Gades, and Cantabrian land     Untamed by Home, and Moorish wave           That whirls the sand;     Fair Tibur, town of Argive kings,       There would I end my days serene,     At rest from seas and travellings,           And service seen.     Should angry Fate those wishes foil,       Then let me seek Galesus, sweet     To skin-clad sheep, and that rich soil,           The Spartan's seat.     O, what can match the green recess,       Whose honey not to Hybla yields,     Whose olives vie with those that bless           Venafrum's fields?     Long springs, mild winters glad that spot       By Jove's good grace, and Aulon, dear     To fruitful Bacchus, envies not           Falernian cheer.     That spot, those happy heights desire       Our sojourn; there, when life shall end,     Your tear shall dew my yet warm pyre,           Your bard and friend.

VII

O SAEPE MECUM

     O, Oft with me in troublous time       Involved, when Brutus warr'd in Greece,     Who gives you back to your own clime       And your own gods, a man of peace,     Pompey, the earliest friend I knew,       With whom I oft cut short the hours     With wine, my hair bright bathed in dew       Of Syrian oils, and wreathed with flowers?     With you I shared Philippi's rout,       Unseemly parted from my shield,     When Valour fell, and warriors stout       Were tumbled on the inglorious field:     But I was saved by Mercury,       Wrapp'd in thick mist, yet trembling sore,     While you to that tempestuous sea       Were swept by battle's tide once more.     Come, pay to Jove the feast you owe;       Lay down those limbs, with warfare spent,     Beneath my laurel; nor be slow       To drain my cask; for you 'twas meant.     Lethe's true draught is Massic wine;       Fill high the goblet; pour out free     Rich streams of unguent. Who will twine       The hasty wreath from myrtle-tree     Or parsley? Whom will Venus seat       Chairman of cups? Are Bacchants sane?     Then I'll be sober. O, 'tis sweet       To fool, when friends come home again!

VIII

ULLA SI JURIS

     Had chastisement for perjured truth,       Barine, mark'd you with a curse—     Did one wry nail, or one black tooth,           But make you worse—     I'd trust you; but, when plighted lies       Have pledged you deepest, lovelier far     You sparkle forth, of all young eyes           The ruling star.     'Tis gain to mock your mother's bones,       And night's still signs, and all the sky,     And gods, that on their glorious thrones           Chill Death defy.     Ay, Venus smiles; the pure nymphs smile,       And Cupid, tyrant-lord of hearts,     Sharpening on bloody stone the while           His fiery darts.     New captives fill the nets you weave;       New slaves are bred; and those before,     Though oft they threaten, never leave           Your godless door.     The mother dreads you for her son,       The thrifty sire, the new-wed bride,     Lest, lured by you, her precious one           Should leave her side.

IX

NON SEMPER IMBRES

     The rain, it rains not every day       On the soak'd meads; the Caspian main     Not always feels the unequal sway       Of storms, nor on Armenia's plain,     Dear Valgius, lies the cold dull snow       Through all the year; nor northwinds keen     Upon Garganian oakwoods blow,       And strip the ashes of their green.     You still with tearful tones pursue       Your lost, lost Mystes; Hesper sees     Your passion when he brings the dew,       And when before the sun he flees.     Yet not for loved Antilochus       Grey Nestor wasted all his years     In grief; nor o'er young Troilus       His parents' and his sisters' tears     For ever flow'd. At length have done       With these soft sorrows; rather tell     Of Caesar's trophies newly won,       And hoar Niphates' icy fell,     And Medus' flood, 'mid conquer'd tribes       Rolling a less presumptuous tide,     And Scythians taught, as Rome prescribes,       Henceforth o'er narrower steppes to ride.

X

RECTIUS VIVES

     Licinius, trust a seaman's lore:       Steer not too boldly to the deep,     Nor, fearing storms, by treacherous shore         Too closely creep.     Who makes the golden mean his guide,       Shuns miser's cabin, foul and dark,     Shuns gilded roofs, where pomp and pride           Are envy's mark.     With fiercer blasts the pine's dim height       Is rock'd; proud towers with heavier fall     Crash to the ground; and thunders smite           The mountains tall.     In sadness hope, in gladness fear       'Gainst coming change will fortify     Your breast. The storms that Jupiter           Sweeps o'er the sky     He chases. Why should rain to-day       Bring rain to-morrow? Python's foe     Is pleased sometimes his lyre to play,           Nor bends his bow.     Be brave in trouble; meet distress       With dauntless front; but when the gale     Too prosperous blows, be wise no less,           And shorten sail.

XI

QUID BELLICOSUS

     O, Ask not what those sons of war,       Cantabrian, Scythian, each intend,     Disjoin'd from us by Hadria's bar,       Nor puzzle, Quintius, how to spend     A life so simple. Youth removes,       And Beauty too; and hoar Decay     Drives out the wanton tribe of Loves       And Sleep, that came or night or day.     The sweet spring-flowers not always keep       Their bloom, nor moonlight shines the same     Each evening. Why with thoughts too deep       O'ertask a mind of mortal frame?     Why not, just thrown at careless ease       'Neath plane or pine, our locks of grey     Perfumed with Syrian essences       And wreathed with roses, while we may,     Lie drinking? Bacchus puts to shame       The cares that waste us. Where's the slave     To quench the fierce Falernian's flame       With water from the passing wave?     Who'll coax coy Lyde from her home?       Go, bid her take her ivory lyre,     The runaway, and haste to come,       Her wild hair bound with Spartan tire.

XII

NOLIS LONGA FERAE

     The weary war where fierce Numantia bled,       Fell Hannibal, the swoln Sicilian main     Purpled with Punic blood—not mine to wed           These to the lyre's soft strain,     Nor cruel Lapithae, nor, mad with wine,       Centaurs, nor, by Herculean arm o'ercome,     The earth-born youth, whose terrors dimm'd the shine           Of the resplendent dome     Of ancient Saturn. You, Maecenas, best       In pictured prose of Caesar's warrior feats     Will tell, and captive kings with haughty crest           Led through the Roman streets.     On me the Muse has laid her charge to tell       Of your Licymnia's voice, the lustrous hue     Of her bright eye, her heart that beats so well           To mutual passion true:     How nought she does but lends her added grace,       Whether she dance, or join in bantering play,     Or with soft arms the maiden choir embrace           On great Diana's day.     Say, would you change for all the wealth possest       By rich Achaemenes or Phrygia's heir,     Or the full stores of Araby the blest,           One lock of her dear hair,     While to your burning lips she bends her neck,       Or with kind cruelty denies the due     She means you not to beg for, but to take,           Or snatches it from you?

XIII

ILLE ET NEFASTO

     Black day he chose for planting thee,        Accurst he rear'd thee from the ground,     The bane of children yet to be,       The scandal of the village round.     His father's throat the monster press'd       Beside, and on his hearthstone spilt,     I ween, the blood of midnight guest;       Black Colchian drugs, whate'er of guilt     Is hatch'd on earth, he dealt in all—       Who planted in my rural stead     Thee, fatal wood, thee, sure to fall       Upon thy blameless master's head.     The dangers of the hour! no thought       We give them; Punic seaman's fear     Is all of Bosporus, nor aught       Recks he of pitfalls otherwhere;     The soldier fears the mask'd retreat       Of Parthia; Parthia dreads the thrall     Of Rome; but Death with noiseless feet       Has stolen and will steal on all.     How near dark Pluto's court I stood,       And AEacus' judicial throne,     The blest seclusion of the good,       And Sappho, with sweet lyric moan     Bewailing her ungentle sex,       And thee, Alcaeus, louder far     Chanting thy tale of woful wrecks,       Of woful exile, woful war!     In sacred awe the silent dead       Attend on each: but when the song     Of combat tells and tyrants fled,       Keen ears, press'd shoulders, closer throng.     What marvel, when at those sweet airs       The hundred-headed beast spell-bound     Each black ear droops, and Furies' hairs       Uncoil their serpents at the sound?     Prometheus too and Pelops' sire       In listening lose the sense of woe;     Orion hearkens to the lyre,       And lets the lynx and lion go.

XIV

EHEU, FUGACES

     Ah, Postumus! they fleet away,       Our years, nor piety one hour     Can win from wrinkles and decay,       And Death's indomitable power;     Not though three hundred bullocks flame       Each year, to soothe the tearless king     Who holds huge Geryon's triple frame       And Tityos in his watery ring,     That circling flood, which all must stem,       Who eat the fruits that Nature yields,     Wearers of haughtiest diadem,       Or humblest tillers of the fields.     In vain we shun war's contact red       Or storm-tost spray of Hadrian main:     In vain, the season through, we dread       For our frail lives Scirocco's bane.     Cocytus' black and stagnant ooze       Must welcome you, and Danaus' seed     Ill-famed, and ancient Sisyphus       To never-ending toil decreed.     Your land, your house, your lovely bride       Must lose you; of your cherish'd trees     None to its fleeting master's side       Will cleave, but those sad cypresses.     Your heir, a larger soul, will drain       The hundred-padlock'd Caecuban,     And richer spilth the pavement stain       Than e'er at pontiff's supper ran.

XV

JAM PAUCA ARATRO

     Few roods of ground the piles we raise       Will leave to plough; ponds wider spread     Than Lucrine lake will meet the gaze       On every side; the plane unwed     Will top the elm; the violet-bed,       The myrtle, each delicious sweet,     On olive-grounds their scent will shed,       Where once were fruit-trees yielding meat;     Thick bays will screen the midday range       Of fiercest suns. Not such the rule     Of Romulus, and Cato sage,       And all the bearded, good old school.     Each Roman's wealth was little worth,       His country's much; no colonnade     For private pleasance wooed the North       With cool "prolixity of shade."     None might the casual sod disdain       To roof his home; a town alone,     At public charge, a sacred fane       Were honour'd with the pomp of stone.

XVI

OTIUM DIVOS

     For ease, in wide Aegean caught,       The sailor prays, when clouds are hiding     The moon, nor shines of starlight aught         For seaman's guiding:     For ease the Mede, with quiver gay:       For ease rude Thrace, in battle cruel:     Can purple buy it, Grosphus? Nay,         Nor gold, nor jewel.     No pomp, no lictor clears the way      'Mid rabble-routs of troublous feelings,     Nor quells the cares that sport and play         Round gilded ceilings.     More happy he whose modest board       His father's well-worn silver brightens;     No fear, nor lust for sordid hoard,         His light sleep frightens.     Why bend our bows of little span?       Why change our homes for regions under     Another sun? What exiled man         From self can sunder?     Care climbs the bark, and trims the sail,       Curst fiend! nor troops of horse can 'scape her,     More swift than stag, more swift than gale         That drives the vapour.     Blest in the present, look not forth       On ills beyond, but soothe each bitter     With slow, calm smile. No suns on earth         Unclouded glitter.     Achilles' light was quench'd at noon;       A long decay Tithonus minish'd;     My hours, it may be, yet will run         When yours are finish'd.     For you Sicilian heifers low,       Bleat countless flocks; for you are neighing     Proud coursers; Afric purples glow         For your arraying     With double dyes; a small domain,       The soul that breathed in Grecian harping,     My portion these; and high disdain         Of ribald carping.

XVII

CUR ME QUERELIS

     Why rend my heart with that sad sigh?       It cannot please the gods or me     That you, Maecenas, first should die,       My pillar of prosperity.     Ah! should I lose one half my soul       Untimely, can the other stay     Behind it? Life that is not whole,       Is THAT as sweet? The self-same day     Shall crush us twain; no idle oath       Has Horace sworn; whene'er you go,     We both will travel, travel both       The last dark journey down below.     No, not Chimaera's fiery breath,       Nor Gyas, could he rise again,     Shall part us; Justice, strong as death,       So wills it; so the Fates ordain.     Whether 'twas Libra saw me born       Or angry Scorpio, lord malign     Of natal hour, or Capricorn,       The tyrant of the western brine,     Our planets sure with concord strange       Are blended. You by Jove's blest power     Were snatch'd from out the baleful range       Of Saturn, and the evil hour     Was stay'd, when rapturous benches full       Three times the auspicious thunder peal'd;     Me the curst trunk, that smote my skull,       Had slain; but Faunus, strong to shield     The friends of Mercury, check'd the blow       In mid descent. Be sure to pay     The victims and the fane you owe;       Your bard a humbler lamb will slay.

XVIII

NON EBUR

         Carven ivory have I none;     No golden cornice in my dwelling shines;         Pillars choice of Libyan stone     Upbear no architrave from Attic mines;         'Twas not mine to enter in     To Attalus' broad realms, an unknown heir,         Nor for me fair clients spin     Laconian purples for their patron's wear.         Truth is mine, and Genius mine;     The rich man comes, and knocks at my low door:         Favour'd thus, I ne'er repine,     Nor weary out indulgent Heaven for more:         In my Sabine homestead blest,     Why should I further tax a generous friend?         Suns are hurrying suns a-west,     And newborn moons make speed to meet their end.         You have hands to square and hew     Vast marble-blocks, hard on your day of doom,         Ever building mansions new,     Nor thinking of the mansion of the tomb.         Now you press on ocean's bound,     Where waves on Baiae beat, as earth were scant;         Now absorb your neighbour's ground,     And tear his landmarks up, your own to plant.         Hedges set round clients' farms     Your avarice tramples; see, the outcasts fly,         Wife and husband, in their arms     Their fathers' gods, their squalid family.         Yet no hall that wealth e'er plann'd     Waits you more surely than the wider room         Traced by Death's yet greedier hand.     Why strain so far? you cannot leap the tomb.         Earth removes the impartial sod     Alike for beggar and for monarch's child:         Nor the slave of Hell's dark god     Convey'd Prometheus back, with bribe beguiled.         Pelops he and Pelops' sire     Holds, spite of pride, in close captivity;         Beggars, who of labour tire,     Call'd or uncall'd, he hears and sets them free.

XIX

BACCHUM IN REMOTIS

     Bacchus I saw in mountain glades       Retired (believe it, after years!)     Teaching his strains to Dryad maids,       While goat-hoof'd satyrs prick'd their ears.     Evoe! my eyes with terror glare;       My heart is revelling with the god;     'Tis madness! Evoe! spare, O spare,       Dread wielder of the ivied rod!     Yes, I may sing the Thyiad crew,       The stream of wine, the sparkling rills     That run with milk, and honey-dew       That from the hollow trunk distils;     And I may sing thy consort's crown,       New set in heaven, and Pentheus' hall     With ruthless ruin thundering down,       And proud Lycurgus' funeral.     Thou turn'st the rivers, thou the sea;       Thou, on far summits, moist with wine,     Thy Bacchants' tresses harmlessly       Dost knot with living serpent-twine.     Thou, when the giants, threatening wrack,       Were clambering up Jove's citadel,     Didst hurl o'erweening Rhoetus back,       In tooth and claw a lion fell.     Who knew thy feats in dance and play       Deem'd thee belike for war's rough game     Unmeet: but peace and battle-fray       Found thee, their centre, still the same.     Grim Cerberus wagg'd his tail to see       Thy golden horn, nor dream'd of wrong,     But gently fawning, follow'd thee,       And lick'd thy feet with triple tongue.

XX

NON USITATA

     No vulgar wing, nor weakly plied,       Shall bear me through the liquid sky;     A two-form'd bard, no more to bide       Within the range of envy's eye     'Mid haunts of men. I, all ungraced       By gentle blood, I, whom you call     Your friend, Maecenas, shall not taste       Of death, nor chafe in Lethe's thrall.     E'en now a rougher skin expands       Along my legs: above I change     To a white bird; and o'er my hands       And shoulders grows a plumage strange:     Fleeter than Icarus, see me float       O'er Bosporus, singing as I go,     And o'er Gastulian sands remote,       And Hyperborean fields of snow;     By Dacian horde, that masks its fear       Of Marsic steel, shall I be known,     And furthest Scythian: Spain shall hear       My warbling, and the banks of Rhone.     No dirges for my fancied death;       No weak lament, no mournful stave;     All clamorous grief were waste of breath,       And vain the tribute of o grave.

BOOK III

I

ODI PROFANUM

     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 rampired 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 assent:       "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 gods 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 shore 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 gods above,       And dwarf high themes in puny strain.