The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace

XXV

QUO ME, BACCHE

         Whither, Bacchus, tear'st thou me,     Fill'd with thy strength? What dens, what forests these,         Thus in wildering race I see?     What cave shall hearken to my melodies,         Tuned to tell of Caesar's praise     And throne him high the heavenly ranks among?         Sweet and strange shall be my lays,     A tale till now by poet voice unsung.         As the Evian on the height,     Roused from her sleep, looks wonderingly abroad,         Looks on Thrace with snow-drifts white,     And Rhodope by barbarous footstep trod,         So my truant eyes admire     The banks, the desolate forests. O great King         Who the Naiads dost inspire,     And Bacchants, strong from earth huge trees to wring!         Not a lowly strain is mine,     No mere man's utterance. O, 'tis venture sweet         Thee to follow, God of wine,     Making the vine-branch round thy temples meet!

XXVI

VIXI PUELLIS

     For ladies's love I late was fit,       And good success my warfare blest,     But now my arms, my lyre I quit,       And hang them up to rust or rest.     Here, where arising from the sea       Stands Venus, lay the load at last,     Links, crowbars, and artillery,       Threatening all doors that dared be fast.     O Goddess! Cyprus owns thy sway,       And Memphis, far from Thracian snow:     Raise high thy lash, and deal me, pray,       That haughty Chloe just one blow!

XXVII

IMPIOS PARRAE

     When guilt goes forth, let lapwings shrill,       And dogs and foxes great with young,     And wolves from far Lanuvian hill,           Give clamorous tongue:     Across the roadway dart the snake,       Frightening, like arrow loosed from string,     The horses. I, for friendship's sake,            Watching each wing,     Ere to his haunt, the stagnant marsh,       The harbinger of tempest flies,     Will call the raven, croaking harsh,            From eastern skies.     Farewell!—and wheresoe'er you go,       My Galatea, think of me:     Let lefthand pie and roving crow            Still leave you free.     But mark with what a front of fear       Orion lowers. Ah! well I know     How Hadria glooms, how falsely clear            The west-winds blow.     Let foemen's wives and children feel       The gathering south-wind's angry roar,     The black wave's crash, the thunder-peal,            The quivering shore.     So to the bull Europa gave       Her beauteous form, and when she saw     The monstrous deep, the yawning grave,            Grew pale with awe.     That morn of meadow-flowers she thought,       Weaving a crown the nymphs to please:     That gloomy night she look'd on nought            But stars and seas.     Then, as in hundred-citied Crete       She landed,—"O my sire!" she said,     "O childly duty! passion's heat            Has struck thee dead.     Whence came I? death, for maiden's shame,       Were little. Do I wake to weep     My sin? or am I pure of blame,            And is it sleep     From dreamland brings a form to trick       My senses? Which was best? to go     Over the long, long waves, or pick            The flowers in blow?     O, were that monster made my prize,       How would I strive to wound that brow,     How tear those horns, my frantic eyes            Adored but now!     Shameless I left my father's home;       Shameless I cheat the expectant grave;     O heaven, that naked I might roam            In lions' cave!     Now, ere decay my bloom devour       Or thin the richness of my blood,     Fain would I fall in youth's first flower,            The tigers' food.     Hark! 'tis my father—Worthless one!       What, yet alive? the oak is nigh.     'Twas well you kept your maiden zone,            The noose to tie.     Or if your choice be that rude pike,       New barb'd with death, leap down and ask     The wind to bear you. Would you like            The bondmaid's task,     You, child of kings, a master's toy,       A mistress' slave?'" Beside her, lo!     Stood Venus smiling, and her boy            With unstrung bow.     Then, when her laughter ceased, "Have done       With fume and fret," she cried, "my fair;     That odious bull will give you soon            His horns to tear.     You know not you are Jove's own dame:       Away with sobbing; be resign'd     To greatness: you shall give your name            To half mankind."

XXVIII

FESTO QUID POTIUS

     Neptune's feast-day! what should man       Think first of doing? Lyde mine, be bold,       Broach the treasured Caecuban,     And batter Wisdom in her own stronghold.       Now the noon has pass'd the full,     Yet sure you deem swift Time has made a halt,       Tardy as you are to pull     Old Bibulus' wine-jar from its sleepy vault.       I will take my turn and sing     Neptune and Nereus' train with locks of green;       You shall warble to the string     Latona and her Cynthia's arrowy sheen.       Hers our latest song, who sways     Cnidos and Cyclads, and to Paphos goes       With her swans, on holydays;     Night too shall claim the homage music owes.

XXIX

TYRRHENA REGUM

     Heir of Tyrrhenian kings, for you       A mellow cask, unbroach'd as yet,     Maecenas mine, and roses new,       And fresh-drawn oil your locks to wet,     Are waiting here. Delay not still,       Nor gaze on Tibur, never dried,     And sloping AEsule, and the hill       Of Telegon the parricide.     O leave that pomp that can but tire,       Those piles, among the clouds at home;     Cease for a moment to admire       The smoke, the wealth, the noise of Rome!     In change e'en luxury finds a zest:       The poor man's supper, neat, but spare,     With no gay couch to seat the guest,       Has smooth'd the rugged brow of care.     Now glows the Ethiop maiden's sire;       Now Procyon rages all ablaze;     The Lion maddens in his ire,       As suns bring back the sultry days:     The shepherd with his weary sheep       Seeks out the streamlet and the trees,     Silvanus' lair: the still banks sleep       Untroubled by the wandering breeze.     You ponder on imperial schemes,       And o'er the city's danger brood:     Bactrian and Serian haunt your dreams,       And Tanais, toss'd by inward feud.     The issue of the time to be       Heaven wisely hides in blackest night,     And laughs, should man's anxiety       Transgress the bounds of man's short sight.     Control the present: all beside       Flows like a river seaward borne,     Now rolling on its placid tide,       Now whirling massy trunks uptorn,     And waveworn crags, and farms, and stock,       In chaos blent, while hill and wood     Reverberate to the enormous shock,       When savage rains the tranquil flood     Have stirr'd to madness. Happy he,       Self-centred, who each night can say,     "My life is lived: the morn may see       A clouded or a sunny day:     That rests with Jove: but what is gone,       He will not, cannot turn to nought;     Nor cancel, as a thing undone,       What once the flying hour has brought."     Fortune, who loves her cruel game,       Still bent upon some heartless whim,     Shifts her caresses, fickle dame,       Now kind to me, and now to him:     She stays; 'tis well: but let her shake       Those wings, her presents I resign,     Cloak me in native worth, and take       Chaste Poverty undower'd for mine.     Though storms around my vessel rave,       I will not fall to craven prayers,     Nor bargain by my vows to save       My Cyprian and Sidonian wares,     Else added to the insatiate main.       Then through the wild Aegean roar     The breezes and the Brethren Twain       Shall waft my little boat ashore.

XXX

EXEGI MONUMENTUM

     And now 'tis done: more durable than brass       My monument shall be, and raise its head       O'er royal pyramids: it shall not dread     Corroding rain or angry Boreas,     Nor the long lapse of immemorial time.       I shall not wholly die: large residue       Shall 'scape the queen of funerals. Ever new     My after fame shall grow, while pontiffs climb     With silent maids the Capitolian height.       "Born," men will say, "where Aufidus is loud,       Where Daunus, scant of streams, beneath him bow'd     The rustic tribes, from dimness he wax'd bright,     First of his race to wed the Aeolian lay       To notes of Italy." Put glory on,       My own Melpomene, by genius won,     And crown me of thy grace with Delphic bay.

BOOK IV

I

INTERMISSA, VENUS

         Yet again thou wak'st the flame     That long had slumber'd! Spare me, Venus, spare!         Trust me, I am not the same     As in the reign of Cinara, kind and fair.         Cease thy softening spells to prove     On this old heart, by fifty years made hard,         Cruel Mother of sweet Love!     Haste, where gay youth solicits thy regard.         With thy purple cygnets fly     To Paullus' door, a seasonable guest;         There within hold revelry,     There light thy flame in that congenial breast.         He, with birth and beauty graced,     The trembling client's champion, ne'er tongue-tied,         Master of each manly taste,     Shall bear thy conquering banners far and wide.         Let him smile in triumph gay,     True heart, victorious over lavish hand,         By the Alban lake that day     'Neath citron roof all marble shalt thou stand:         Incense there and fragrant spice     With odorous fumes thy nostrils shall salute;         Blended notes thine ear entice,     The lyre, the pipe, the Berecyntine flute:         Graceful youths and maidens bright     Shall twice a day thy tuneful praise resound,         While their feet, so fair and white,     In Salian measure three times beat the ground.         I can relish love no more,     Nor flattering hopes that tell me hearts are true,         Nor the revel's loud uproar,     Nor fresh-wreathed flowerets, bathed in vernal dew.         Ah! but why, my Ligurine,     Steal trickling tear-drops down my wasted cheek?         Wherefore halts this tongue of mine,     So eloquent once, so faltering now and weak?         Now I hold you in my chain,     And clasp you close, all in a nightly dream;         Now, still dreaming, o'er the plain     I chase you; now, ah cruel! down the stream.

II

PINDARUM QUISQUIS

     Who fain at Pindar's flight would aim,       On waxen wings, Iulus, he     Soars heavenward, doom'd to give his name            To some new sea.     Pindar, like torrent from the steep       Which, swollen with rain, its banks o'erflows,     With mouth unfathomably deep,            Foams, thunders, glows,     All worthy of Apollo's bay,       Whether in dithyrambic roll     Pouring new words he burst away             Beyond control,     Or gods and god-born heroes tell,       Whose arm with righteous death could tame     Grim Centaurs, tame Chimaeras fell,            Out-breathing flame,     Or bid the boxer or the steed       In deathless pride of victory live,     And dower them with a nobler meed            Than sculptors give,     Or mourn the bridegroom early torn       From his young bride, and set on high     Strength, courage, virtue's golden morn,            Too good to die.     Antonius! yes, the winds blow free,       When Dirce's swan ascends the skies,     To waft him. I, like Matine bee,           In act and guise,     That culls its sweets through toilsome hours,       Am roaming Tibur's banks along,     And fashioning with puny powers           A laboured song.     Your Muse shall sing in loftier strain       How Caesar climbs the sacred height,     The fierce Sygambrians in his train,           With laurel dight,     Than whom the Fates ne'er gave mankind       A richer treasure or more dear,     Nor shall, though earth again should find           The golden year.     Your Muse shall tell of public sports,       And holyday, and votive feast,     For Caesar's sake, and brawling courts           Where strife has ceased.     Then, if my voice can aught avail,       Grateful for him our prayers have won,     My song shall echo, "Hail, all hail,           Auspicious Sun!"     There as you move, "Ho! Triumph, ho!       Great Triumph!" once and yet again     All Rome shall cry, and spices strow           Before your train.     Ten bulls, ten kine, your debt discharge:       A calf new-wean'd from parent cow,     Battening on pastures rich and large,           Shall quit my vow.     Like moon just dawning on the night       The crescent honours of his head;     One dapple spot of snowy white,           The rest all red.

III

QUEM TU, MELPOMENE

         He whom thou, Melpomene,     Hast welcomed with thy smile, in life arriving,         Ne'er by boxer's skill shall be     Renown'd abroad, for Isthmian mastery striving;         Him shall never fiery steed     Draw in Achaean car a conqueror seated;         Him shall never martial deed     Show, crown'd with bay, after proud kings defeated,         Climbing Capitolian steep:     But the cool streams that make green Tibur flourish,         And the tangled forest deep,     On soft Aeolian airs his fame shall nourish.         Rome, of cities first and best,     Deigns by her sons' according voice to hail me         Fellow-bard of poets blest,     And faint and fainter envy's growls assail me.         Goddess, whose Pierian art     The lyre's sweet sounds can modulate and measure,            Who to dumb fish canst impart     The music of the swan, if such thy pleasure:            O, 'tis all of thy dear grace     That every finger points me out in going            Lyrist of the Roman race;     Breath, power to charm, if mine, are thy bestowing!

IV

QUALEM MINISTRUM

     E'en as the lightning's minister,        Whom Jove o'er all the feather'd breed     Made sovereign, having proved him sure       Erewhile on auburn Ganymede;     Stirr'd by warm youth and inborn power,       He quits the nest with timorous wing,     For winter's storms have ceased to lower,       And zephyrs of returning spring     Tempt him to launch on unknown skies;       Next on the fold he stoops downright;     Last on resisting serpents flies,       Athirst for foray and for flight:     As tender kidling on the grass       Espies, uplooking from her food,     A lion's whelp, and knows, alas!       Those new-set teeth shall drink her blood:     So look'd the Raetian mountaineers       On Drusus:—whence in every field     They learn'd through immemorial years       The Amazonian axe to wield,     I ask not now: not all of truth       We seekers find: enough to know     The wisdom of the princely youth       Has taught our erst victorious foe     What prowess dwells in boyish hearts       Rear'd in the shrine of a pure home,     What strength Augustus' love imparts       To Nero's seed, the hope of Rome.     Good sons and brave good sires approve:       Strong bullocks, fiery colts, attest     Their fathers' worth, nor weakling dove       Is hatch'd in savage eagle's nest.     But care draws forth the power within,       And cultured minds are strong for good:     Let manners fail, the plague of sin       Taints e'en the course of gentle blood.     How great thy debt to Nero's race,       O Rome, let red Metaurus say,     Slain Hasdrubal, and victory's grace       First granted on that glorious day     Which chased the clouds, and show'd the sun,       When Hannibal o'er Italy     Ran, as swift flames o'er pine-woods run,       Or Eurus o'er Sicilia's sea.     Henceforth, by fortune aiding toil,       Rome's prowess grew: her fanes, laid waste     By Punic sacrilege and spoil,       Beheld at length their gods replaced.     Then the false Libyan own'd his doom:—       "Weak deer, the wolves' predestined prey,     Blindly we rush on foes, from whom       'Twere triumph won to steal away.     That race which, strong from Ilion's fires,       Its gods, on Tuscan waters tost,     Its sons, its venerable sires,       Bore to Ausonia's citied coast;     That race, like oak by axes shorn       On Algidus with dark leaves rife,     Laughs carnage, havoc, all to scorn,       And draws new spirit from the knife.     Not the lopp'd Hydra task'd so sore       Alcides, chafing at the foil:     No pest so fell was born of yore       From Colchian or from Theban soil.     Plunged in the deep, it mounts to sight       More splendid: grappled, it will quell     Unbroken powers, and fight a fight       Whose story widow'd wives shall tell.     No heralds shall my deeds proclaim       To Carthage now: lost, lost is all:     A nation's hope, a nation's name,       They died with dying Hasdrubal."     What will not Claudian hands achieve?       Jove's favour is their guiding star,     And watchful potencies unweave       For them the tangled paths of war.

V

DIVIS ORTE BONIS

     Best guardian of Rome's people, dearest boon       Of a kind Heaven, thou lingerest all too long:     Thou bad'st thy senate look to meet thee soon:           Do not thy promise wrong.     Restore, dear chief, the light thou tak'st away:       Ah! when, like spring, that gracious mien of thine     Dawns on thy Rome, more gently glides the day,           And suns serener shine.     See her whose darling child a long year past       Has dwelt beyond the wild Carpathian foam;     That long year o'er, the envious southern blast           Still bars him from his home:     Weeping and praying to the shore she clings,       Nor ever thence her straining eyesight turns:     So, smit by loyal passion's restless stings,           Rome for her Caesar yearns.     In safety range the cattle o'er the mead:       Sweet Peace, soft Plenty, swell the golden grain:     O'er unvex'd seas the sailors blithely speed:           Fair Honour shrinks from stain:     No guilty lusts the shrine of home defile:       Cleansed is the hand without, the heart within:     The father's features in his children smile:           Swift vengeance follows sin.     Who fears the Parthian or the Scythian horde,       Or the rank growth that German forests yield,     While Caesar lives? who trembles at the sword           The fierce Iberians wield?     In his own hills each labours down the day,       Teaching the vine to clasp the widow'd tree:     Then to his cups again, where, feasting gay,           He hails his god in thee.     A household power, adored with prayers and wine,       Thou reign'st auspicious o'er his hour of ease:     Thus grateful Greece her Castor made divine,           And her great Hercules.     Ah! be it thine long holydays to give       To thy Hesperia! thus, dear chief, we pray     At sober sunrise; thus at mellow eve,           When ocean hides the day.

VI

DIVE, QUEM PROLES

     Thou who didst make thy vengeful might       To Niobe and Tityos known,     And Peleus' son, when Troy's tall height           Was nigh his own,     Victorious else, for thee no peer,       Though, strong in his sea-parent's power,     He shook with that tremendous spear           The Dardan tower.     He, like a pine by axes sped,       Or cypress sway'd by angry gust,     Fell ruining, and laid his head           In Trojan dust.     Not his to lie in covert pent       Of the false steed, and sudden fall     On Priam's ill-starr'd merriment           In bower and hall:     His ruthless arm in broad bare day       The infant from the breast had torn,     Nay, given to flame, ah, well a way!           The babe unborn:     But, won by Venus' voice and thine,       Relenting Jove Aeneas will'd     With other omens more benign           New walls to build.     Sweet tuner of the Grecian lyre,       Whose locks are laved in Xanthus' dews,     Blooming Agyieus! help, inspire           My Daunian Muse!     'Tis Phoebus, Phoebus gifts my tongue       With minstrel art and minstrel fires:     Come, noble youths and maidens sprung           From noble sires,     Blest in your Dian's guardian smile,       Whose shafts the flying silvans stay,     Come, foot the Lesbian measure, while           The lyre I play:     Sing of Latona's glorious boy,       Sing of night's queen with crescent horn,     Who wings the fleeting months with joy,           And swells the corn.     And happy brides shall say, "'Twas mine,       When years the cyclic season brought,     To chant the festal hymn divine           By HORACE taught."

VII

DIFFUGERE NIVES

     The snow is fled: the trees their leaves put on,           The fields their green:     Earth owns the change, and rivers lessening run.           Their banks between.     Naked the Nymphs and Graces in the meads           The dance essay:     "No 'scaping death" proclaims the year, that speeds           This sweet spring day.     Frosts yield to zephyrs; Summer drives out Spring,           To vanish, when     Rich Autumn sheds his fruits; round wheels the ring,—           Winter again!     Yet the swift moons repair Heaven's detriment:           We, soon as thrust     Where good Aeneas, Tullus, Ancus went,           What are we? dust.     Can Hope assure you one more day to live           From powers above?     You rescue from your heir whate'er you give           The self you love.     When life is o'er, and Minos has rehearsed           The grand last doom,     Not birth, nor eloquence, nor worth, shall burst           Torquatus' tomb.     Not Dian's self can chaste Hippolytus           To life recall,     Nor Theseus free his loved Pirithous           From Lethe's thrall.

VIII

DONAREM PATERAS

     Ah Censorinus! to my comrades true       Rich cups, rare bronzes, gladly would I send:     Choice tripods from Olympia on each friend       Would I confer, choicer on none than you,     Had but my fate such gems of art bestow'd       As cunning Scopas or Parrhasius wrought,       This with the brush, that with the chisel taught     To image now a mortal, now a god.     But these are not my riches: your desire       Such luxury craves not, and your means disdain:       A poet's strain you love; a poet's strain     Accept, and learn the value of the lyre.     Not public gravings on a marble base,       Whence comes a second life to men of might       E'en in the tomb: not Hannibal's swift flight,     Nor those fierce threats flung back into his face,     Not impious Carthage in its last red blaze,       In clearer light sets forth his spotless fame,       Who from crush'd Afric took away—a name,     Than rude Calabria's tributary lays.     Let silence hide the good your hand has wrought.       Farewell, reward! Had blank oblivion's power       Dimm'd the bright deeds of Romulus, at this hour,     Despite his sire and mother, he were nought.     Thus Aeacus has 'scaped the Stygian wave,       By grace of poets and their silver tongue,       Henceforth to live the happy isles among.     No, trust the Muse: she opes the good man's grave,     And lifts him to the gods. So Hercules,       His labours o'er, sits at the board of Jove:       So Tyndareus' offspring shine as stars above,     Saving lorn vessels from the yawning seas:     So Bacchus, with the vine-wreath round his hair,       Gives prosperous issue to his votary's prayer.

IX

NE FORTE CREDAS

     Think not those strains can e'er expire,       Which, cradled 'mid the echoing roar     Of Aufidus, to Latium's lyre       I sing with arts unknown before.     Though Homer fill the foremost throne,       Yet grave Stesichorus still can please,     And fierce Alcaeus holds his own,       With Pindar and Simonides.     The songs of Teos are not mute,       And Sappho's love is breathing still:     She told her secret to the lute,       And yet its chords with passion thrill.     Not Sparta's queen alone was fired       By broider'd robe and braided tress,     And all the splendours that attired       Her lover's guilty loveliness:     Not only Teucer to the field       His arrows brought, nor Ilion     Beneath a single conqueror reel'd:       Not Crete's majestic lord alone,     Or Sthenelus, earn'd the Muses' crown:       Not Hector first for child and wife,     Or brave Deiphobus, laid down       The burden of a manly life.     Before Atrides men were brave:       But ah! oblivion, dark and long,     Has lock'd them in a tearless grave,       For lack of consecrating song.     'Twixt worth and baseness, lapp'd in death,       What difference? YOU shall ne'er be dumb,     While strains of mine have voice and breath:       The dull neglect of days to come     Those hard-won honours shall not blight:       No, Lollius, no: a soul is yours,     Clear-sighted, keen, alike upright       When fortune smiles, and when she lowers:     To greed and rapine still severe,       Spurning the gain men find so sweet:     A consul, not of one brief year,       But oft as on the judgment-seat     You bend the expedient to the right,       Turn haughty eyes from bribes away,     Or bear your banners through the fight,       Scattering the foeman's firm array.     The lord of boundless revenues,       Salute not him as happy: no,     Call him the happy, who can use       The bounty that the gods bestow,     Can bear the load of poverty,       And tremble not at death, but sin:     No recreant he when called to die       In cause of country or of kin.