The Works of Horace Part 8

HOR. The Thracian Chloe now commands me, skillful in sweet modulations, and a mistress of the lyre; for whom I would not dread to die, if the fates would spare her, my surviving soul.

LYD. Calais, the son of the Thurian Ornitus, inflames me with a mutual fire; for whom I would twice endure to die, if the fates would spare my surviving youth.

HOR. What! if our former love returns, and unites by a brazen yoke us once parted? What if Chloe with her golden locks be shaken off, and the door again open to slighted Lydia.

LYD. Though he is fairer than a star, thou of more levity than a cork, and more pa.s.sionate than the bl.u.s.tering Adriatic; with thee I should love to live, with thee I would cheerfully die.

ODE X.

TO LYCE.

O Lyce, had you drunk from the remote Tanais, in a state of marriage with tome barbarian, yet you might be sorry to expose me, prostrate before your obdurate doors, to the north winds that have made those places their abode. Do you hear with what a noise your gate, with what [a noise] the grove, planted about your elegant buildings, rebellows to the winds? And how Jupiter glazes the settled snow with his bright influence? Lay aside disdain, offensive to Venus, lest your rope should run backward, while the wheel is revolving. Your Tyrrhenian father did not beget you to be as inaccessible as Penelope to your wooers. O though neither presents, nor prayers, nor the violet-tinctured paleness of your lovers, nor your husband smitten with a musical courtezan, bend you to pity; yet [at length] spare your suppliants, you that are not softer than the st.u.r.dy oak, nor of a gentler disposition than the African serpents. This side [of mine] will not always be able to endure your threshold, and the rain.

ODE XI.

TO MERCURY.

O Mercury, for under thy instruction the ingenious Amphion moved rocks by his voice, you being his tutor; and though my harp, skilled in sounding, with seven strings, formerly neither vocal nor pleasing, but now agreeable both to the tables of the wealthy and the temples [of the G.o.ds]; dictate measures to which Lyde may incline her obstinate ears, who, like a filly of three years old, plays and frisks about in the s.p.a.cious fields, inexperienced in nuptial loves, and hitherto unripe for a brisk husband. You are able to draw after your tigers and attendant woods, and to r.e.t.a.r.d rapid rivers. To your blandishments the enormous porter of the [infernal] palace yielded, though a hundred serpents fortify his head, and a pestilential steam and an infectious poison issue from his triple-tongued mouth. Moreover, Ixion and t.i.tyus smiled with a reluctant aspect: while you soothe the daughters of Danaus with your delightful harmony, their vessel for some time remained dry. Let Lyde hear of the crime, and the well-known punishment of the virgins, and the cask emptied by the water streaming through the bottom, and what lasting fates await their misdeeds even beyond the grave. Impious! (for what greater impiety could they have committed?) Impious! who could destroy their bridegrooms with the cruel sword! One out of the many, worthy of the nuptial torch, was n.o.bly false to her perjured parent, and a maiden ill.u.s.trious to all posterity; she, who said to her youthful husband, "Arise! arise! lest an eternal sleep be given to you from a hand you have no suspicion of; disappoint your father-in-law and my wicked sisters, who, like lionesses having possessed themselves of calves (alas)! tear each of them to pieces; I, of softer mold than they, will neither strike thee, nor detain thee in my custody. Let my father load me with cruel chains, because out of mercy I spared my unhappy spouse; let him transport me even to the extreme Numidian plains.

Depart, whither your feet and the winds carry you, while the night and Venus are favorable: depart with happy omen; yet, not forgetful of me, engrave my mournful story on my tomb."

ODE XII.

TO NEOBULE.

It is for unhappy maidens neither to give indulgence to love, nor to wash away cares with delicious wine; or to be dispirited out of dread of the lashes of an uncle's tongue. The winged boy of Venus, O Neobule, has deprived you of your spindle and your webs, and the beauty of Hebrus from Lipara of inclination for the labors of industrious Minerva, after he has bathed his anointed shoulders in the waters of the Tiber; a better horseman than Bellerophon himself, neither conquered at boxing, nor by want of swiftness in the race: he is also skilled to strike with his javelin the stags, flying through the open plains in frightened herd, and active to surprise the wild boar lurking in the deep thicket.

ODE XIII. TO THE BANDUSIAN FOUNTAIN.

O thou fountain of Bandusia, clearer than gla.s.s, worthy of delicious wine, not unadorned by flowers; to-morrow thou shalt be presented with a kid, whose forehead, pouting with new horns, determines upon both love and war in vain; for this offspring of the wanton flock shall tinge thy cooling streams with scarlet blood. The severe season of the burning dog-star cannot reach thee; thou affordest a refres.h.i.+ng coolness to the oxen fatigued with the plough-share, and to the ranging flock. Thou also shalt become one of the famous fountains, through my celebrating the oak that covers the hollow rock, whence thy prattling rills descend with a bound.

ODE XIV.

TO THE ROMANS.

Augustus Caesar, O ye people, who was lately said, like another Hercules, to have sought for the laurel to be purchased only by death, revisits his domestic G.o.ds, victorious from the Spanish sh.o.r.e. Let the matron (_Livia_), to whom her husband alone is dear, come forth in public procession, having first performed her duty to the just G.o.ds; and (_Octavia_), the sister of our glorious general; the mothers also of the maidens and of the youths just preserved from danger, becomingly adorned with supplicatory fillets. Ye, O young men, and young women lately married, abstain from ill-omened words. This day, to me a real festival, shall expel gloomy cares: I will neither dread commotions, nor violent death, while Caesar is in possession of the earth. Go, slave, and seek for perfume and chaplets, and a cask that remembers the Marsian war, if any vessel could elude the vagabond Spartacus. And bid the tuneful Neaera make haste to collect into a knot her auburn hair; _but_ if any delay should happen from the surly porter, come away. h.o.a.ry hair mollifies minds that are fond of strife and petulant wrangling. I would not have endured this treatment, warm with youth in the consuls.h.i.+p of Plancus.

ODE XV.

TO CHLORIS.

You wife of the indigent Ibycus, at length put an end to your wickedness, and your infamous practices. Cease to sport among the damsels, and to diffuse a cloud among bright constellations, now on the verge of a timely death. If any thing will become Pholoe, it does not you Chloris, likewise. Your daughter with more propriety attacks the young men's apartments, like a Baccha.n.a.lian roused up by the rattling timbrel. The love of Nothus makes her frisk about like a wanton she-goat. The wool shorn near the famous Luceria becomes you now antiquated: not musical instruments, or the damask flower of the rose, or hogsheads drunk down to the lees.

ODE XVI.

TO MAECENAS.

A brazen tower, and doors of oak, and the melancholy watch of wakeful dogs, had sufficiently defended the imprisoned Danae from midnight gallants, had not Jupiter and Venus laughed at Acrisius, the anxious keeper of the immured maiden: [for they well knew] that the way would be safe and open, after the G.o.d had transformed himself into a bribe. Gold delights to penetrate through the midst of guards, and to break through stone-walls, more potent than the thunderbolt. The family of the Grecian augur perished, immersed in destruction on account of lucre. The man of Macedon cleft the gates of the cities and subverted rival monarchs by bribery. Bribes enthrall fierce captains of s.h.i.+ps. Care, and a thirst for greater things, is the consequence of increasing wealth. Therefore, Maecenas, thou glory of the [Roman] knights, I have justly dreaded to raise the far-conspicuous head. As much more as any man shall deny himself, so much more shall he receive from the G.o.ds. Naked as I am, I seek the camps of those who covet nothing; and as a deserter, rejoice to quit the side of the wealthy: a more ill.u.s.trious possessor of a contemptible fortune, than if I could be said to treasure up in my granaries all that the industrious Apulian cultivates, poor amid abundance of wealth. A rivulet of clear water, and a wood of a few acres, and a certain prospect of my good crop, are blessings unknown to him who glitters in the proconsuls.h.i.+p of fertile Africa: I am more happily circ.u.mstanced. Though neither the Calabrian bees produce honey, nor wine ripens to age for me in a Formian cask, nor rich fleeces increase in Gallic pastures; yet distressful poverty is remote; nor, if I desired more, would you refuse to grant it me. I shall be better able to extend my small revenues, by contracting my desires, than if I could join the kingdom of Alyattes to the Phrygian plains. Much is wanting to those who covet much. 'Tis well with him to whom G.o.d has given what is necessary with a sparing hand.

ODE XVII.

TO AELIUS LAMIA.

O Aelius, who art n.o.bly descended from the ancient Lamus (forasmuch as they report, that both the first of the Lamian family had their name hence, and all the race of the descendants through faithful records derives its origin from that founder, who is said to have possessed, as prince, the Formian walls, and Liris gliding on the sh.o.r.es of Marica--an extensive potentate). To-morrow a tempest sent from the east shall strew the grove with many leaves, and the sh.o.r.e with useless sea-weed, unless that old prophetess of rain, the raven, deceives me. Pile up the dry wood, while you may; to-morrow you shall indulge your genius with wine, and with a pig of two months old, with your slaves dismissed from their labors.