by Horace
When the king had left his walls and fallen
(alas) at the feet of stubborn Achilles,
the Trojan women anointed man-slaying Hector
given over to carrion birds and dogs.
By Circe’s consent the oarsmen
of toiling Ulysses put off their tough
and bristling hides; then wit and speech
flowed back, and their faces’ wonted grace.
Dearly belov’d of sailors and salesmen,
20
I’ve paid your fines enough and more.
My youth has fled and modesty’s blush
departed; my bones are draped in sallow hide;
my hair is white from your perfumes;
no leisure may intersperse my torment;
night crowds out day, day night, and I cannot ease
my straining lungs by taking breath.
And so I’m forced to believe what I denied:
Sabellian incantations shake the heart,
the head is split by Marsian spells.
30
What more d’you want? O land and sea, I burn
as neither Hercules smeared with Nessus’
black blood nor boiling Aetna’s burgeoning flames:
you glow like a manufactory
of Colchian poisons so that, dry ash,
I shall be blown away by injurious winds.
What end or what tax awaits me? Declare it:
I will faithfully pay the punishment enjoined,
prepared to expiate, should you demand
a hundred bullocks, or wish to be sung
40
to a disingenuous lyre – chaste and honest,
a golden constellation, you’ll walk among the stars.
Castor incensed at Helen’s disrepute,
and Castor’s great brother, were won by prayer:
so you (you have the power), deliver me from madness,
o woman unworn by family curses, for you
are no pedantic hag who scatters
nine-day ashes ’mid paupers’ graves.
Generous is your heart and pure your hands.
Pactumeius is your issue, yours the blood
50
that crimsoned the cloths the midwife washed,
though you stood up strong after giving birth.’
‘Why pour your prayers into ears that are shut?
The rocks that wintry Neptune pounds
with leaping brine are not more deaf to naked sailors.
You divulge the Cotyttian rite, the worship
of liberating Bacchus, and hope to smile unharmed?
High-priest of Esquiline poison-magic,
you fill the City with slander of my good name
and expect to reap no reward? What use
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to have enriched Paelignian beldames,
to have mixed ever swifter poisons? The fate
awaiting you is longer drawn out than your prayers:
a wretch, you shall lead a wretched life,
never avoiding yet more distress.
Treacherous Pelops’ father, Tantalus,
always in need of the generous banquet, longs for rest;
so longs Prometheus, chained to the eagle;
Sisyphus longs to set his boulder upon
the mountain’s peak: but the laws of Jove forbid.
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Now you shall yearn to jump from lofty towers,
and now to broach your breast with a Noric sword;
sick with loathsome depression, in vain
you shall put the noose about your neck.
I’ll mount like a knight your unbroken back,
the world give way before my prodigious ride.
Must I, who can animate waxen dolls
(as your curiosity knows), and tear
the moon from the Pole by my spells,
and raise the ashes of the dead
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and nicely mix aphrodisiac draughts:
must I bewail the period of my art,
shall it not prevail over you?’
ODES
BOOK 1
1
Maecenas atavis edite
Maecenas, descended from olden kings,
my rampart and sweet admiration,
some there are whose joy it is to collect
Olympic dust and swerve by the post
with smouldering axle and lift to the Gods
like lords of the earth the winner’s palm.
One man delights if the volatile crowd
raise him up to triple honours; another rejoices
to store in his granary everything swept
10
from Libyan threshing floors.
Not even Attalian terms could ever seduce
to become a fear-fraught sailor,
to part Myrtoan sea with Cyprian keel,
the man who is glad to work with his hoe
his father’s fields. The trader
fearing the south-west wind as it wrestles
th’Icarian swell, praises the calm of the wold
about his home town, yet soon will refurbish
his shattered bottoms, untaught to brook
20
privation. Others do not disdain cups
of vintage Massic, nor to devote a substantial
part of the day to stretching their limbs
beneath the verdant arbutus or by
the quiet spring of some holy stream.
The camp, the sounding of trumpets mixed
with fifes, and the wars that mothers hate,
enthuse so many. The hunter stays out
under heaven’s chill, forgetful of his wife,
whether faithful hounds have viewed a stag
30
or a Marsian boar may breach the fine-spun nets.
But me the ivy guerdon on learnéd brows
ranks with the Gods above; me the cool copse
and grateful carols of Nymphs and Satyrs
dispart from the masses – provided Euterpe
does not withhold her flutes nor Polyhymnia
decline to tune the lyre of Lesbos:
and should you list me among the lyric bards
I shall nudge the stars with my lifted head.
2
lam satis terris
The Father has loosed upon earth sufficient
snow and hail, smitten with his livid
right hand the sacred heights and terrorized
Rome our city,
terrorized all the peoples, lest Pyrrha’s
burdensome age of prodigies come again,
when Proteus drove his seals to visit
the high mountains,
and fishes lodged in the tops of elms
10
(till then well known as the haunt of doves),
and terrified does had to swim upon
the whelming flood.
We saw the tawny Tiber (his waves
flung back with fury from the Tuscan shore)
advance to mine King Numa’s palace
and Vesta’s shrine;
and boast he’d now avenge his Ilia (who protested
too much); and flow at large across
20
his own left bank (uxorious river)
without Jove’s consent.
Youth, made few by parents’ vice, shall hear
of swords whetted for civil strife which better
had slain fell Parthians; shall hear
of battles fought.
Which God shall the people call to affairs
of tottering empire? With what prayer shall
holy virgins beset pure Vesta not
heeding their hymns?
To whom shall Jupiter assign the role
30
of atonement? Come at length, we pray,
prophetic Apollo, swathing in cloud
your bright shoulder:
or you, smiling Venus, should it be your will,
> around whom flutter both Joy and Desire:
or you if you care for neglected descendants,
our sponsor Mars,
glutted on the long game, alas,
who delight in shouts and tossing helms
40
and fearsome Moorish infantry facing
its bloody foes:
or you, winged Mercury, if changing
your shape you appear on earth as a youth
prepared to be named as avenger of
Julius Caesar.
Then late return to the skies and long
be pleased to live among Romans: and though
our sins offend you, may no wind
carry you away
betimes: here rather may you enjoy great
50
triumphs and the names of Father and Foremost
nor tolerate Parthian raids while you are
our Leader, Caesar.
3
Sic te diva
May the mighty Cyprian queen,
may Helen’s brothers, shining stars,
may the father of winds
(all bound bar Iapix) so helm you,
ship, bearing in trust
our Virgil, that you render him unharmed,
I pray, to Attic shores
and preserve the half of my soul.
Oak and triple bronze
10
were about his breast who first committed
his fragile boat
to the surly sea nor feared the headlong
south-west wind fighting
it out with the north, nor moody Hyades,
nor the south (the Adriatic’s
chiefest judge) raising or laying the swell.
What onset of death
did he fear who looked dry-eyed on floundering
monsters, troubled seas
20
and the infamous skerry of Acroceraunia?
The wise God sundered
the lands with estranging Ocean in vain
since impious boats traverse
the sounds that ought to remain unstained.
Boldly enduring all,
mankind rushes through sin and prohibition.
Boldly Prometheus
by disobedient guile procured us fire:
and once that fire was brought
30
from its heaven-home, famine and a throng
of new fevers fell upon
earth; and death’s necessity, hitherto slow
and remote, now quickened
its pace. Daedalus tasted the empty air
on wings not granted to men.
Hercules’ efforts broke through Acheron.
Nothing is too steep for man:
we foolishly seek for heaven itself, our sin
will not let Jove
40
lay down his punitive thunderbolts.
4
Solvitur acris hiems
Sharp winter thaws for the spring and west wind,
capstans haul down dry hulls,
flocks tire of the fold and the ploughman of the hearth,
meadows no longer are blanched with frost.
Cytherea leads the dance by moonlight,
the seemly Graces hand in hand
with Nymphs tread the rhythm while flamy Vulcan
inspects the Cyclopes’ gloomy works.
10
Now is the time to deck your glistening hair
wiith green myrtle or the flowers
of the liberated Earth, to sacrifice to Faunus
in the shady wood a lamb or a kid.
Pallid Death kicks impartially at the doors
of hovels and mansions. O happy Sestius,
the brief sum of life invalidates long-term hopes.
Soon night shall whelm you and fabled ghosts
and Pluto’s mean home: once you are there the dice
will deal you no mastery of wine or wonder
20
at tender Lycidas for whom all youths now burn
and soon our virgins will kindle.
5
Quis multa gracilis
What slender boy besprinkled with fragrant oils
now crowds you, Pyrrha, amid the roses
in some convenient grotto?
For whom do you dress that yellow hair,
so simply neat? Alas, how often he will weep
at your and the Gods’ vacillations –
oh he will be flabbergasted
by rough seas and black gales,
who now enjoys the illusion your worth is golden,
10
who supposes you will be always available, always
amiable, not knowing the breeze
deceives. I pity those
for whom you blandly glitter.
A votive plaque on the temple wall
shows damp clothes (mine) hung up
to the puissant God of the sea.
6
Scriberis Vario
Varius the poet of Homeric flight
shall celebrate you as victorious, brave,
and the forces’ exploits (marine or horse)
under your command.
But I, too slight for grandeur, Agrippa
attempt nor that nor Peleus’ son’s high-stomached
no-surrender nor the voyaging about
the seas of double-
dealing Ulysses nor Pelops’ cruel house,
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since Modesty and the pacific Muse
forbid ineptitude lessen the praise of you and
distinguished Caesar.
Who worthy to write of Mars his adamantine
coat, Meriones grimed with Trojan dust
or Tydides with Pallas’ aid
a match for the Gods?
Flippant as ever, whether afire
or fancy free, I sing of banquets and ‘battles’
of eager girls with neatly trimmed nails
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against the young men.
7
Laudabunt alii
Let others praise bright Rhodes and Mytilene
or Ephesus or the walls of twin-
bayed Corinth or Thebes renowned for Bacchus
or Delphi for Apollo or Thessaly’s Tempe.
There are whose one work is to celebrate in uncessant
song the city of virgin Pallas and to wreathe
upon their brows olive sprigs gathered from far and wide.
Many a one shall speak in Juno’s honour
of Argos known for its steeds and of rich Mycenae.
10
As for me, neither obdurate Sparta
nor bounteous plain of Larisa has struck me so much
as Albunea’s booming cavern, and head-
long Anio, and Tibur’s grove and orchards
watered with frolicking streams.
