The Complete Odes and Epodes

by Horace

  Pleased with her cruel dealings, resolved

  50

  to play her high-handed game, Fortune

  shuffles her doubtful benefits

  benign now to me, but now to some other.

  I praise her as long as she stays: if she spreads

  her swift wings, I renounce her gifts

  and clad in my manhood pay court to honest

  Poverty, though she brings no dowry.

  It is not my way, when the mast is groaning

  with southerly squalls, to rush

  into craven prayer and bargain with vows

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  in case my Cyprian and Tyrian wares

  should add to the wealth of the gaping sea:

  then Pollux, his twin, and the breeze

  shall bring me safe in my two-oared dinghy

  through this Aegean tumult.

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  Exegi monumentum

  I have achieved a monument more lasting

  than bronze, and loftier than the pyramids of kings,

  which neither gnawing rain nor blustering wind

  may destroy nor innumerable series of ears

  nor the passage of ages. I shall not wholly die,

  a large part of me will escape Libitina:

  while Pontiff and Vestal shall climb the Capitol Hill,

  I shall be renewed and flourish in further praise.

  Where churning Aufidus resounds, where Daunus

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  poor in water governed his rustic people,

  I shall be spoken of as one who was princely

  though of humble birth, the first to have brought

  Greek song into Latin numbers. Take hard-won pride

  in your success, Melpomene, and willingly

  wreathe my hair with Apollo’s laurel.

  CENTENNIAL HYMN

  Phoebe silvarumque

  Phoebus, bright glory of heaven,

  Diana, queen of the forests, o worshipped

  and ever to be so, grant what we pray

  at this sacred time

  when the Sibyl’s verses have ordered

  chosen virgins and virtuous boys

  to sing a hymn to the Gods who

  love the Seven Hills.

  Kind Sun, who in your shining chariot reveal

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  and then conceal the day, reborn another and yet

  the same, may you view nothing greater than

  the City of Rome.

  Ilithyia, gently bringing on birth

  at the proper time, whether you more approve

  the name Lucina or Genitalis,

  protect our mothers.

  Goddess, rear our young and prosper

  the Senate’s edicts on wedlock, that the new

  law on the marriage of women produce

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  abundant children,

  and the sure cycle of eleven decades

  bring round once more the singing and games

  thronged thrice by broad day and thrice

  in the pleasant night.

  And you veracious Fates, may the outcome

  of events confirm what has been pronounced,

  and link our happy destinies with those

  already performed.

  Let the earth, so fertile in crops and cattle,

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  deck Ceres with a wheaten wreath:

  may the wholesome breezes and rains of Jove

  sustain the new-born.

  Calm and peaceful, your bow laid aside,

  Apollo, hear our suppliant boys;

  and Luna, twin-horned queen of

  the stars, hear our girls.

  If Rome is your work and from Ilium

  the bands that gained the Tuscan shore (the remnant

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  commanded to change their homes and city in an

  auspicious process,

  for whom righteous Aeneas, his country’s survivor,

  unharmed through burning Troy secured

  the way to freedom, destined to provide more

  than was left behind),

  Gods! give proven morals to our ductile youth,

  Gods! give rest to our sober elders,

  give profit, progeny and every honour

  to Romulus’ race.

  Whatever he of Anchises’ and Venus’ pure blood

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  (a warrior heretofore, now lenient to the fallen

  foe) entreats of you with white bulls,

  grant him his prayers.

  Now the Parthian fears the Alban axes,

  the forces mighty by sea and land;

  now Scythians and Indians, lately so proud,

  await our answer.

  Now Faith, and Peace, and Honour,

  and pristine Modesty, and Manhood neglected,

  dare to return, and blesséd Plenty appears

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  with her laden horn.

  Phoebus, adorned with his shining bow,

  a prophet, companion of the nine Muses,

  who with his healing art relieves the

  body’s weary limbs,

  if he looks with favour on the Palatine altars,

  prolongs the Roman State and Latium’s

  affluence through cycles ever new and

  ages ever better.

  Diana, who keeps the Aventine

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  and Algidus, heeds the prayers of

  the Fifteen Men and lends a friendly ear

  to the children’s vows.

  The chorus trained to sing the praises

  of Phoebus and Diana, we carry home the good

  and steadfast hope that Jove and all the Gods

  approve these wishes.

  ODES

  BOOK IV

  1

  Intermissa, Venus

  Then is it war again, Venus,

  after so long a truce? Mercy, mercy, please.

  I am not as I was in the reign

  of my dear Cinara. Desist, fierce mother

  of pretty Cupids;

  do not bend my inflexible five decades

  to your tender command; go away –

  attend to the fluent prayers of younger men.

  Carousal would be

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  more timely in Paulus Maximus’ house:

  take your silver swans to him

  if you seek a suitable liver to inflame.

  Both high-born and handsome,

  not silent on behalf of the anxious defendant,

  this youth has a hundred arts

  to advance your standards far and wide:

  and when he has mocked

  and surpassed some rival’s lavish gifts,

  Paulus will erect your statue

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  under citrus beams by the Alban lake.

  There you shall snuff

  much incense; and a choir concerted with lyres

  and Berecyntian flutes,

  and recorders too, shall strive to attract you:

  there twice a day youths

  and tender girls praising your godhead

  shall pace with gleaming feet

  in the triple step of the Salian dance.

  But me – neither woman, boy,

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  nor credulous hope of sharing souls,

  nor contests in wine,

  nor garlands about my hair, can move me now.

  Then why, my Ligurinus, why

  these unaccustomed tears on my cheeks?

  -Why does my eloquent tongue

  ineptly fall silent among the words?

  Each night in my dreams

  I hold you captive, or else pursue

  your obdurate flight

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  across the Field of Mars, through swirling water.

  2

  Pindarum quisquis

  Whoever attempts to emulate Pindar, Julus,

  depends from wings that are fastened with wax

  by Daedalian art and shall give his name


  to some glassy sea.

  As a river swollen by the rains above its usual

  banks rushes down from the mountain,

  so does Pindar surge and his deep

  voice rushes on,

  commanding the prize of Apollo’s bays

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  whether he rolls new words along in audacious

  dithyrambs and is carried by numbers

  freed from convention;

  or tells of Gods or kings of the blood

  of Gods, through whom the Centaurs in just

  execution died, and died the fire of

  the daunting Chimaera;

  whether he speaks of those boxers

  and charioteers whom Elean palms bring

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  God-like home (an honour more signal than

  a hundred statues);

  or laments the young hero torn from his

  weeping bride, and extols to the stars (and grudges

  to Orcus’ darkness) his strength, his spirit,

  his golden virtue.

  A mighty wind lifts the swan of Dirce,

  Antonius, whenever he strives for some high tract

  of clouds; but I, very much in the manner

  of a Matine bee

  laboriously harvesting thyme

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  from numerous groves and the banks of many–

  streamed Tibur, inconspicuously accrete

  my intricate verses.

  A maker of larger mettle, you shall celebrate

  Caesar deservèdly, fittingly wreathed,

  dragging the wild Sygambri along

  the Sacred Way;

  than whom the Fates and good Gods have given

  and shall give the world nothing greater or better,

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  though time itself ran back to the

  pristine age of gold.

  You shall celebrate festive days

  and the City’s games that mark the return

  of brave Augustus and the Forum free

  from litigation.

  And then, if I can tell something worth

  the hearing, the better part of my voice shall join

  and bless’d in Caesar I’ll sing: ‘O beauteous day,

  o worthy of praise!’

  And as you take the lead, the State entire

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  shall cry ‘Hail Triumph!’ and again ‘Hail Triumph!’

  And plenteous incense shall be offered up

  to the kindly Gods.

  Ten bulls and as many cows shall acquit

  your vow: a tender calf mine,

  which has left its mother and attained its youth

  amid lush pastures,

  its brow resembling the crescent curve

  of the new moon at its third rising,

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  snowy white where it bears that mark,

  all else pure ochre.

  3

  Quem tu, Melpomene

  He whom once you, Melpomene,

  have looked on at his birth with peaceful eyes,

  shall not by Isthmian strife

  become a famous boxer, and no impetuous stallion

  shall draw him to victory in

  his Achaean chariot, nor shall martial deeds

  display him to the Capitol,

  an officer decked with a Delian wreath, for crushing

  the vengeful threats of kings;

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  but the waters that flow past fertile Tibur

  and the groves’ dense manes

  shall build him a reputation for Aeolian song.

  The children of Rome, the queen

  of cities, consider me worthy to rank among

  the choir of the poets whom

  they love, and already envy’s teeth bite less.

  Pierian virgin who governs

  the golden tones of the tortoise-shell lyre,

  you that could give, should

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  you want, the voices of swans to dumb fish,

  this is the sum of your gifts:

  that I am pointed out by passers-by as an adept

  of the Roman lyre; and if

  I please, I please because inspired by you.

  4

  Qualem ministrum

  As the winged bearer of lightning,

  to whom the king of the Gods granted sway

  over the birds of the air, having found him loyal

  in the case of longhaired Ganymede;

  whom, ignorant of difficulties, youth

  and hereditary liveliness thrust

  from the eyrie; whom, fearful,

  rain-clouds removed, the vernal gales

  teach unaccustomed efforts; who soon

  plummets down in joyous attack on the

  sheep-fold; whose love of feasting and fighting

  drives him down against struggling snakes:

  as a lion just weaned from his tawny

  mother’s rich milk, by whose

  young teeth shall perish

  a she-goat intent on rich pasture:

  such was Drusus when the Vindelici saw

  his advance beneath the Rhaetian Alps.

  (Whence was derived the custom

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  that for all time has equipped them with

  the Amazonian axe, I have omitted to inquire,

  nor is it good to know all.) Their long

  and widely victorious hordes

  were defeated by that young tactician;

  were made to feel what intellect, what inborn talent

  correctly raised beneath an auspicious roof,

  could do, and Augustus’ paternal purpose

  toward the youthful Neros.

  Brave men are born to the brave and good;

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  their fathers’ sternness appears in bulls

  and stallions; fierce eagles

  beget no pacific doves.

  But nurture increases native powers, development

  of righteousness strengthens the heart:

  whenever character has been unmade,

  weakness has dirtied things born sound.

  What you owe to the Neros, Rome,

  witness the river Metaurus and Hasdrubal

  overthrown and the fair day

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  darkness was driven from Latium –

  the first to smile with victory’s reward

  since the dire Carthaginian rode

  through Italy’s towns like fire through pines

  or Eurus across the Sicilian waves.

  Thereafter the youth of Rome grew strong

  (its efforts ever successful) and set upright

  its Gods in the shrines laid waste

  by sacrilegious devastation.