by Horace
As Notus often is bright and wipes the sky clean
of shadowy clouds nor breeds perpetual
showers, so you, my Plancus, are wisely memorious
to end life’s dejection and burdens
with mellow wine, whether the camp refulgent with
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standards or your Tibur’s dense shade
now holds or shall hold you. Teucer fleeing from Salamis
and his father, is said to have twined
around his wine-steeped head a poplar crown,
addressing thus his grieving friends:
‘Wheresoever Fortune (my father’s better) shall bear us,
there we shall go, my comrades and peers.
Under Teucer’s fate and command, never abandon hope.
Absolute Apollo has promised to Teucer
an unforeseeable Salamis in another country.
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O valiant men who with me have often
suffered worse things, now drive out care with wine:
tomorrow we take to the mighty sea.’
8
Lydia, dic, Per omnis
Lydia, say, by all
the Gods I sue, why you make haste to kill
Sybaris with love; why,
inured to dust and heat, he shirks the sun-baked plain;
why rides no more
among his fellow cadets, nor curbs his Gallic mount
with a tooth-edged bit.
Why does he funk the tawny Tiber? Why does he shun
olive oil more
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than vipers’ blood, nor show his limbs livid
from weapon practice,
who once hurled discus and javelin beyond the mark?
Why does he hide
like sea-born Thetis’ son before the grieving of Troy,
lest masculine dress
should rush him to slaughter amid the Lycian squads?
9
Vides ut alta
See how Soracte stands deep
in dazzling snow and the trees cannot bear
their loads and bitter frosts
have paralysed the streams.
Unfreeze, heap plentiful logs
on the hearth and produce
your four-year Sabine, Thaliarchus,
a fine and generous wine.
Commit all else to the Gods:
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once they have quelled the mêlée
of wind and churning water, cypress
and mountain ash will be still.
Avoid speculation
about the future; count as credit the days
chance deals; youth should not spurn
the dance or sweet desire;
this is your green time, not your white
and morose. In field or piazza,
now is the proper season for
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trading soft whispers in the dark;
the tell-tale complaisant laugh
of a girl in some secret nook;
the pledge removed from an arm
or a helpfully helpless finger.
10
Mercuri, facunde
Atlas’ trenchant grandson, Mercury,
whose wit first civilized new-made man
with the gift of speech and the cult of
the wrestling-floor,
I sing of you, herald of Jove and all
the Gods, proponent of the curving lyre,
crafty to hide in klepto-jest whatever
took your fancy.
Apollo threatened you as a child with his
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frightening voice unless you gave back the cows
you’d magicked away, then laughed to find his
quiver gone too.
Rich Priam leaving Ilium evaded
with your guidance the proud Atrides,
Thessalian watch-fires, the camp
that menaced Troy.
And you bring in the dutiful souls
to the mansions of joy, direct the tenuous throng
with your golden wand, welcome alike to Gods
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above, below.
11
Tu ne quaesieris
Do not inquire, we may not know, what end
the Gods will give, Leuconoe, do not attempt
Babylonian calculations. The better course
is to bear whatever will be, whether Jove allot
more winters or this is the last which exhausts
the Tuscan sea with pumice rocks opposed.
Be wise, decant the wine, prune back
your long-term hopes. Life ebbs as I speak –
so seize each day, and grant the next no credit.
12
Quem virum aut heroa
What man or hero do you take up, Clio,
to proclaim on your lyre or incisive flute?
What God? What name will the teasing echo
cause to resound
about Helicon’s shady flanks
or upon cool Haemus’ or Pindus’ summit
(whence a forest mazèdly followed
Orpheus singing,
who by his mother’s art held back
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the flowing of streams and rushing winds;
whose eloquent song and lyre drew away
the spell-bound oaks) ?
What should I speak before the accustomed praise
of the Father, who directs the affairs
of men and Gods, of sea and land
and firmament,
who has created nothing greater than
himself, nor equal nor even proximate? Pallas,
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brave in battle, has secured the esteem
nearest to his,
however. And I will not omit to mention
you, Bacchus: nor the Virgin that’s foe to wild
beasts: nor you, and fear of your flawless aim,
archer Phoebus.
I shall speak of Alcides, and Leda’s boys,
one famed as a horseman and one for
his boxing (as soon as their bright stars
shine for sailors,
down from the reef pours the turbid sea,
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the winds fade out, the clouds make off
and the menacing wave subsides because
they will it so).
I am dubious whether to commemorate next
Romulus, Pompilius’ peaceful reign, the arrogant
fasces of Tarquin or the celebrated
death of Cato.
Regulus, the Scauri, and Paulus so prodigal
of his great spirit when Hannibal over
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came – these I rehearse in distinguished song.
Fabricius too:
harsh poverty and patrimonial farms with
their homesteads raised apt for war
both him and longhaired Curius
and Camillus.
The glory of Marcellus grows like a tree through
secluded generations. As the moon among lesser
lights, so the Julian constellation shines
above others.
Father and guardian of the human race,
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son of Saturn, to you the Fates have given
the care of mighty Caesar: you reign,
and Caesar next.
After you he rules, with equity, Earth,
whether he leads in a just triumph
the Parthians tamed that threaten Rome
or else, brought low,
the Indians and Seres of the Eastern borders:
yours with your heavy car to shake Olympus,
yours to launch down thunderbolts upon
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polluted groves.
13
Cum tu, Lydia
Lydia, when you praise
Telephus’ rosy neck or Telephus’
wax-white arms, alas,
my simmering liver swells with crotchety bile;
&nb
sp; nor my mind nor complexion
are true to their nature, and stealthy tears
on my cheeks are symptoms
of inward maceration above slow fires;
and if some violent, drunken row
10
has marked your snowy shoulders or the ravening
boy has stamped a memento
on your lips with his teeth, I am charred.
You may not, let me tell you,
expect fidelity of the savage who injures
that delicious mouth which Venus
has imbued with the essence of her nectar.
Thrice happy the couple
who are not torn apart by quarrels
but are held in a bond
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of unbroken love which only death dissolves.
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O navis, referent
O ship, new waves will take you out to sea
once more. Then what to do? Valiantly
make for port. Do you not see that
your gunwales are stripped of oars,
and your splintered mast and yards
groan in the driving sou’wester, and without
any girding ropes your hull
can hardly survive the mightier
seas? You have no unsplit sails, nor Gods
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to call upon when again beset by misfortune.
Though you’re built of Pontic pine,
a daughter of a famous forest,
boastful of line and (ineffectual) name,
the fearful sailor has no faith in the icons
upon your stern. Beware lest you become
the laughing-stock of the winds.
Of late my acute disillusion but now
my concern and not inconsiderable love,
avoid the seas that rush betwixt
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the glistening Cyclades.
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Pastor cum traheret
When the faithless shepherd’s Trojan ships
bore his hostess Helen over the sea,
Nereus blocked off the hastening winds
with an odious calm to prophesy
cruel fate: ‘It is wrong to carry home one
whom many Greek warriors will strive to fetch back
and conspire to break your wedlock
and Priam’s long-enduring realm.
Alas, what sweating of horses and men draws near!
10
How much bereavement you bring on the Trojan
people! Already Pallas prepares
her helmet, her shield, her chariot, her wrath.
In vain you shall comb your hair in Venus’ tents
and sing to the cithara sweet divisions
to charm the female heart;
in vain you shall shun in your bedroom
the heavy spears, the arrows of Cretan cane,
the din of battle and Ajax hot
on your trail; you shall come (how late, alas)
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to besmirch your adulterous locks in the dust.
Do you not heed Odysseus, the doom
of your line, nor Pylian Nestor?
Fearlessly Teucer of Salamis taxes
your strength; and Sthenelus skilled
in tactics and, if the need is to manage horses,
no sluggard charioteer. You shall know
Meriones too. And look, fell Tydides (his father’s
better) rages to seek you out,
whom you, panting, head back, shall flee
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as the deer forgetting its pasture flees
the wolf espied across the glen –
whatever you promised your mistress.
The wrath of Achilles’ Myrmidons may defer
the day of doom for Troy and the Trojan women,
but after th’appointed winters Achaean fires
shall raze the Asian homes.’
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O matre pulchra
O lovelier daughter of a lovely mother,
make what end you prefer
of my hurtful lines – on the fire,
in the sea, as you will.
Not Dindymene, nor the God in the Pythian
shrine when he shakes the priestess’ mind,
nor Bacchus, nor the Corybantes
shrilling their cymbals,
are harsh as Anger, which neither Noric
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swords deter nor the shipwrecking sea
nor raging fire nor even Jove rushing
down in a fearful tempest.
It is said that Prometheus, obliged to add
to our primal substance particles drawn
from wherever, put in our stomachs
the urge of the ravening lion.
Anger laid Thyestes low in tragic
ruin and has always been the basic cause
why lofty cities have been razed
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to the ground and conquering armies have
haughtily ploughed across their walls.
Govern your spirit: in sweet youth
heart’s passion tried me too
and set me to raving
in rash lampoons. Now I would change
those acid lines for sweet, if only (since I take
back all my taunts) you’ll be my friend
and give me back my heart.
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Velox amoenum
Swift Faunus often exchanges
Lycaeus for picturesque Lucretilis
to protect my flocks from the scorching
summer and rainy winds.
The rank billygoat’s inconspicuous
wives in safety search the woods
for hidden arbutus and thyme,
nor do their kids fear virid snakes
nor the wolves of Mars whenever,
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Tyndaris, Ustica’s sloping valleys
and smooth-worn rocks have
resounded with that sweet piping.
The Gods are my guard, have at heart both
my worship and Muse. Here, lady,
shall a fruitful abundance of rustic glories
pour out for you from a lavish horn.
In this sequestered valley avoid
the Dog-Star’s heat and sing to a Teian
lyre of Penelope and glass-green Circe
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contending both for the one man;
here in the shade receive innocuous
wine of Lesbos; Semele’s Thyoneus shall not
engage in a fracas with Mars;
nor, watched over, need you fear
ineligible, insolent Cyrus
lest he lay on greedy hands,
lest he tear the garlands clinging
