The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace Part 16

Thy age, great Caesar, has restored To squalid fields the plenteous grain, Given back to Rome's almighty Lord Our standards, torn from Parthian fane, Has closed Quirinian Ja.n.u.s' gate, Wild pa.s.sion's erring walk controll'd, Heal'd the foul plague-spot of the state, And brought again the life of old, Life, by whose healthful power increased The glorious name of Latium spread To where the sun illumes the east From where he seeks his western bed.

While Caesar rules, no civil strife Shall break our rest, nor violence rude, Nor rage, that whets the slaughtering knife And plunges wretched towns in feud.

The sons of Danube shall not scorn The Julian edicts; no, nor they By Tanais' distant river born, Nor Persia, Scythia, or Cathay.

And we on feast and working-tide, While Bacchus' bounties freely flow, Our wives and children at our side, First paying Heaven the prayers we owe, Shall sing of chiefs whose deeds are done, As wont our sires, to flute or sh.e.l.l, And Troy, Anchises, and the son Of Venus on our tongues shall dwell.

CARMEN SAECULARE.

PHOEBE, SILVARUMQUE.

Phoebus and Dian, huntress fair, To-day and always magnified, Bright lights of heaven, accord our prayer This holy tide, On which the Sibyl's volume wills That youths and maidens without stain To G.o.ds, who love the seven dear hills, Should chant the strain!

Sun, that unchanged, yet ever new, Lead'st out the day and bring'st it home, May nought be present to thy view More great than Rome!

Blest Ilithyia! be thou near In travail to each Roman dame!

Lucina, Genitalis, hear, Whate'er thy name!

O make our youth to live and grow!

The fathers' nuptial counsels speed, Those laws that shall on Rome bestow A plenteous seed!

So when a hundred years and ten Bring round the cycle, game and song Three days, three nights, shall charm again The festal throng.

Ye too, ye Fates, whose righteous doom, Declared but once, is sure as heaven, Link on new blessings, yet to come, To blessings given!

Let Earth, with grain and cattle rife, Crown Ceres' brow with wreathen corn; Soft winds, sweet waters, nurse to life The newly born!

O lay thy shafts, Apollo, by!

Let suppliant youths obtain thine ear!

Thou Moon, fair "regent of the sky,"

Thy maidens hear!

If Rome is yours, if Troy's remains, Safe by your conduct, sought and found Another city, other fanes On Tuscan ground, For whom, 'mid fires and piles of slain, AEneas made a broad highway, Destined, pure heart, with greater gain.

Their loss to pay, Grant to our sons unblemish'd ways; Grant to our sires an age of peace; Grant to our nation power and praise, And large increase!

See, at your shrine, with victims white, Prays Venus and Anchises' heir!

O prompt him still the foe to smite, The fallen to spare!

Now Media dreads our Alban steel, Our victories land and ocean o'er; Scythia and Ind in suppliance kneel, So proud before.

Faith, Honour, ancient Modesty, And Peace, and Virtue, spite of scorn, Come back to earth; and Plenty, see, With teeming horn.

Augur and lord of silver bow, Apollo, darling of the Nine, Who heal'st our frame when languors slow Have made it pine; Lov'st thou thine own Palatial hill, Prolong the glorious life of Rome To other cycles, brightening still Through time to come!

From Algidus and Aventine List, G.o.ddess, to our grave Fifteen!

To praying youths thine ear incline, Diana queen!

Thus Jove and all the G.o.ds agree!

So trusting, wend we home again, Phoebus and Dian's singers we, And this our strain.

NOTES.

BOOK I, ODE 3.

THE ESTRANGING MAIN.

"The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea."

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

And slow Fate quicken'd Death's once halting pace.

The commentators seem generally to connect Necessitas with Leti; I have preferred to separate them. Necessitas occurs elsewhere in Horace (Book I, Ode 35, v. 17; Book III, Ode 1, v. 14; Ode 24, v. 6) as an independent personage, nearly synonymous with Fate, and I do not see why she should not be represented as accelerating the approach of Death.

BOOK I, ODE 5.

I have ventured to model my version of this Ode, to some extent, on Milton's, "the high-water mark," as it has been termed, "which Horatian translation has attained." I have not, however, sought to imitate his language, feeling that the attempt would be presumptuous in itself, and likely to create a sense of incongruity with the style of the other Odes.

BOOK I, ODE 6.

Who with pared nails encounter youths in fight.

I like Ritter's interpretation of sectis, cut sharp, better than the common one, which supposes the paring of the nails to denote that the attack is not really formidable. Sectis will then be virtually equivalent to Bentley's strictis. Perhaps my translation is not explicit enough.

BOOK I, ODE 7.

And search for wreaths the olive's rifled bower.

Undique decerptam I take, with Bentley, to mean "plucked on all hands," i. e. exhausted as a topic of poetical treatment.

He well compares Lucretius, Book I, v. 927--

"Juvatque novas decerpere flores, Insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam Unde prius nulli velarint tempora Musae."

'Tis Teucer leads, 'tis Teucer breathes the wind.

If I have slurred over the Latin, my excuse must be that the precise meaning of the Latin is difficult to catch. Is Teucer called auspex, as taking the auspices, like an augur, or as giving the auspices, like a G.o.d? There are objections to both interpretations; a Roman imperator was not called auspex, though he was attended by an auspex, and was said to have the auspicia; auspex is frequently used of one who, as we should say, inaugurates an undertaking, but only if he is a G.o.d or a deified mortal. Perhaps Horace himself oscillated between the two meanings; his later commentators do not appear to have distinguished them.

BOOK I, ODE 9.

Since this Ode was printed off, I find that my last stanza bears a suspicious likeness to the version by "C. S. C." I cannot say whether it is a case of mere coincidence, or of unconscious recollection; it certainly is not one of deliberate appropriation. I have only had the opportunity of seeing his book at distant intervals; and now, on finally comparing his translations with my own, I find that, while there are a few resemblances, there are several marked instances of dissimilarity, where, though we have adopted the same metre, we do not approach each other in the least.