The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace

XIX
BACCHUM IN REMOTIS

 
     Bacchus I saw in mountain glades
       Retired (believe it, after years!)
     Teaching his strains to Dryad maids,
       While goat-hoof'd satyrs prick'd their ears.
     Evoe! my eyes with terror glare;
       My heart is revelling with the god;
     'Tis madness! Evoe! spare, O spare,
       Dread wielder of the ivied rod!
     Yes, I may sing the Thyiad crew,
       The stream of wine, the sparkling rills
     That run with milk, and honey-dew
       That from the hollow trunk distils;
     And I may sing thy consort's crown,
       New set in heaven, and Pentheus' hall
     With ruthless ruin thundering down,
       And proud Lycurgus' funeral.
     Thou turn'st the rivers, thou the sea;
       Thou, on far summits, moist with wine,
     Thy Bacchants' tresses harmlessly
       Dost knot with living serpent-twine.
     Thou, when the giants, threatening wrack,
       Were clambering up Jove's citadel,
     Didst hurl o'erweening Rhoetus back,
       In tooth and claw a lion fell.
     Who knew thy feats in dance and play
       Deem'd thee belike for war's rough game
     Unmeet: but peace and battle-fray
       Found thee, their centre, still the same.
     Grim Cerberus wagg'd his tail to see
       Thy golden horn, nor dream'd of wrong,
     But gently fawning, follow'd thee,
       And lick'd thy feet with triple tongue.
 

XX
NON USITATA

 
     No vulgar wing, nor weakly plied,
       Shall bear me through the liquid sky;
     A two-form'd bard, no more to bide
       Within the range of envy's eye
     'Mid haunts of men. I, all ungraced
       By gentle blood, I, whom you call
     Your friend, Maecenas, shall not taste
       Of death, nor chafe in Lethe's thrall.
     E'en now a rougher skin expands
       Along my legs: above I change
     To a white bird; and o'er my hands
       And shoulders grows a plumage strange:
     Fleeter than Icarus, see me float
       O'er Bosporus, singing as I go,
     And o'er Gastulian sands remote,
       And Hyperborean fields of snow;
     By Dacian horde, that masks its fear
       Of Marsic steel, shall I be known,
     And furthest Scythian: Spain shall hear
       My warbling, and the banks of Rhone.
     No dirges for my fancied death;
       No weak lament, no mournful stave;
     All clamorous grief were waste of breath,
       And vain the tribute of o grave.
 

BOOK III

I
ODI PROFANUM

 
     I bid the unhallow'd crowd avaunt!
       Keep holy silence; strains unknown
     Till now, the Muses' hierophant,
       I sing to youths and maids alone.
     Kings o'er their flocks the sceptre wield;
       E'en kings beneath Jove's sceptre bow:
     Victor in giant battle-field,
       He moves all nature with his brow.
     This man his planted walks extends
       Beyond his peers; an older name
     One to the people's choice commends;
       One boasts a more unsullied fame;
     One plumes him on a larger crowd
       Of clients. What are great or small?
     Death takes the mean man with the proud;
       The fatal urn has room for all.
     When guilty Pomp the drawn sword sees
       Hung o'er her, richest feasts in vain
     Strain their sweet juice her taste to please;
       No lutes, no singing birds again
     Will bring her sleep. Sleep knows no pride;
       It scorns not cots of village hinds,
     Nor shadow-trembling river-side,
       Nor Tempe, stirr'd by western winds.
     Who, having competence, has all,
       The tumult of the sea defies,
     Nor fears Arcturus' angry fall,
       Nor fears the Kid-star's sullen rise,
     Though hail-storms on the vineyard beat,
       Though crops deceive, though trees complain,
     One while of showers, one while of heat,
       One while of winter's barbarous reign.
     Fish feel the narrowing of the main
       From sunken piles, while on the strand
     Contractors with their busy train
       Let down huge stones, and lords of land
     Affect the sea: but fierce Alarm
       Can clamber to the master's side:
     Black Cares can up the galley swarm,
       And close behind the horseman ride.
     If Phrygian marbles soothe not pain,
       Nor star-bright purple's costliest wear,
     Nor vines of true Falernian strain,
       Nor Achaemenian spices rare,
     Why with rich gate and pillar'd range
       Upbuild new mansions, twice as high,
     Or why my Sabine vale exchange
       For more laborious luxury?
 

II
ANGUSTAM AMICE

 
     To suffer hardness with good cheer,
       In sternest school of warfare bred,
     Our youth should learn; let steed and spear
       Make him one day the Parthian's dread;
     Cold skies, keen perils, brace his life.
       Methinks I see from rampired town
     Some battling tyrant's matron wife,
       Some maiden, look in terror down,—
     "Ah, my dear lord, untrain'd in war!
       O tempt not the infuriate mood
     Of that fell lion! see! from far
       He plunges through a tide of blood!"
     What joy, for fatherland to die!
       Death's darts e'en flying feet o'ertake,
     Nor spare a recreant chivalry,
       A back that cowers, or loins that quake.
     True Virtue never knows defeat:
       HER robes she keeps unsullied still,
     Nor takes, nor quits, HER curule seat
       To please a people's veering will.
     True Virtue opens heaven to worth:
       She makes the way she does not find:
     The vulgar crowd, the humid earth,
       Her soaring pinion leaves behind.
     Seal'd lips have blessings sure to come:
       Who drags Eleusis' rite to day,
     That man shall never share my home,
       Or join my voyage: roofs give way
     And boats are wreck'd: true men and thieves
       Neglected Justice oft confounds:
     Though Vengeance halt, she seldom leaves
       The wretch whose flying steps she hounds.
 

III
JUSTUM ET TENACEM

 
     The man of firm and righteous will,
       No rabble, clamorous for the wrong,
     No tyrant's brow, whose frown may kill,
       Can shake the strength that makes him strong:
     Not winds, that chafe the sea they sway,
       Nor Jove's right hand, with lightning red:
     Should Nature's pillar'd frame give way,
       That wreck would strike one fearless head.
     Pollux and roving Hercules
       Thus won their way to Heaven's proud steep,
     'Mid whom Augustus, couch'd at ease,
       Dyes his red lips with nectar deep.
     For this, great Bacchus, tigers drew
       Thy glorious car, untaught to slave
     In harness: thus Quirinus flew
       On Mars' wing'd steeds from Acheron's wave,
     When Juno spoke with Heaven's assent:
       "O Ilium, Ilium, wretched town!
     The judge accurst, incontinent,
       And stranger dame have dragg'd thee down.
     Pallas and I, since Priam's sire
       Denied the gods his pledged reward,
     Had doom'd them all to sword and fire,
       The people and their perjured lord.
     No more the adulterous guest can charm
       The Spartan queen: the house forsworn
     No more repels by Hector's arm
       My warriors, baffled and outworn:
     Hush'd is the war our strife made long:
       I welcome now, my hatred o'er,
     A grandson in the child of wrong,
       Him whom the Trojan priestess bore.
     Receive him, Mars! the gates of flame
       May open: let him taste forgiven
     The nectar, and enrol his name
       Among the peaceful ranks of Heaven.
     Let the wide waters sever still
       Ilium and Rome, the exiled race
     May reign and prosper where they will:
       So but in Paris' burial-place
     The cattle sport, the wild beasts hide
       Their cubs, the Capitol may stand
     All bright, and Rome in warlike pride
       O'er Media stretch a conqueror's hand.
     Aye, let her scatter far and wide
       Her terror, where the land-lock'd waves
     Europe from Afric's shore divide,
       Where swelling Nile the corn-field laves—
     Of strength more potent to disdain
       Hid gold, best buried in the mine,
     Than gather it with hand profane,
       That for man's greed would rob a shrine.
     Whate'er the bound to earth ordain'd,
       There let her reach the arm of power,
     Travelling, where raves the fire unrein'd,
       And where the storm-cloud and the shower.
     Yet, warlike Roman, know thy doom,
       Nor, drunken with a conqueror's joy,
     Or blind with duteous zeal, presume
       To build again ancestral Troy.
     Should Troy revive to hateful life,
       Her star again should set in gore,
     While I, Jove's sister and his wife,
       To victory led my host once more.
     Though Phoebus thrice in brazen mail
       Should case her towers, they thrice should fall,
     Storm'd by my Greeks: thrice wives should wail
       Husband and son, themselves in thrall."
     —Such thunders from the lyre of love!
       Back, wayward Muse! refrain, refrain
     To tell the talk of gods above,
       And dwarf high themes in puny strain.
 

IV
DESCENDE CAELO

 
     Come down, Calliope, from above:
       Breathe on the pipe a strain of fire;
     Or if a graver note thou love,
       With Phoebus' cittern and his lyre.
     You hear her? or is this the play
       Of fond illusion? Hark! meseems
     Through gardens of the good I stray,
       'Mid murmuring gales and purling streams.
     Me, as I lay on Vultur's steep,
       A truant past Apulia's bound,
     O'ertired, poor child, with play and sleep,
       With living green the stock-doves crown'd—
     A legend, nay, a miracle,
       By Acherontia's nestlings told,
     By all in Bantine glade that dwell,
       Or till the rich Forentan mould.
     "Bears, vipers, spared him as he lay,
       The sacred garland deck'd his hair,
     The myrtle blended with the bay:
       The child's inspired: the gods were there."
     Your grace, sweet Muses, shields me still
       On Sabine heights, or lets me range
     Where cool Praeneste, Tibur's hill,
       Or liquid Baiae proffers change.
     Me to your springs, your dances true,
       Philippi bore not to the ground,
     Nor the doom'd tree in falling slew,
       Nor billowy Palinurus drown'd.
     Grant me your presence, blithe and fain
       Mad Bosporus shall my bark explore;
     My foot shall tread the sandy plain
       That glows beside Assyria's shore;
     'Mid Briton tribes, the stranger's foe,
       And Spaniards, drunk with horses' blood,
     And quiver'd Scythians, will I go
       Unharm'd, and look on Tanais' flood.
     When Caesar's self in peaceful town
       The weary veteran's home has made,
     You bid him lay his helmet down
       And rest in your Pierian shade.
     Mild thoughts you plant, and joy to see
       Mild thoughts take root. The nations know
     How with descending thunder He
       The impious Titans hurl'd below,
     Who rules dull earth and stormy seas,
       And towns of men, and realms of pain,
     And gods, and mortal companies,
       Alone, impartial in his reign.
     Yet Jove had fear'd the giant rush,
       Their upraised arms, their port of pride,
     And the twin brethren bent to push
       Huge Pelion up Olympus' side.
     But Typhon, Mimas, what could these,
       Or what Porphyrion's stalwart scorn,
     Rhoetus, or he whose spears were trees,
       Enceladus, from earth uptorn,
     As on they rush'd in mad career
       'Gainst Pallas' shield? Here met the foe
     Fierce Vulcan, queenly Juno here,
       And he who ne'er shall quit his bow,
     Who laves in clear Castalian flood
       His locks, and loves the leafy growth
     Of Lycia next his native wood,
       The Delian and the Pataran both.
     Strength, mindless, falls by its own weight;
       Strength, mix'd with mind, is made more strong
     By the just gods, who surely hate
       The strength whose thoughts are set on wrong.
     Let hundred-handed Gyas bear
       His witness, and Orion known
     Tempter of Dian, chaste and fair,
       By Dian's maiden dart o'erthrown.
     Hurl'd on the monstrous shapes she bred,
       Earth groans, and mourns her children thrust
     To Orcus; Aetna's weight of lead
       Keeps down the fire that breaks its crust;
     Still sits the bird on Tityos' breast,
       The warder of unlawful love;
     Still suffers lewd Pirithous, prest
       By massive chains no hand may move.
 

V
CAELO TONANTEM

 
     Jove rules in heaven, his thunder shows;
       Henceforth Augustus earth shall own
     Her present god, now Briton foes
       And Persians bow before his throne.
     Has Crassus' soldier ta'en to wife
       A base barbarian, and grown grey
     (Woe, for a nation's tainted life!)
       Earning his foemen-kinsmen's pay,
     His king, forsooth, a Mede, his sire
       A Marsian? can he name forget,
     Gown, sacred shield, undying fire,
       And Jove and Rome are standing yet?
    'Twas this that Regulus foresaw,
       What time he spurn'd the foul disgrace
     Of peace, whose precedent would draw
       Destruction on an unborn race,
     Should aught but death the prisoner's chain
       Unrivet. "I have seen," he said,
     "Rome's eagle in a Punic fane,
       And armour, ne'er a blood-drop shed,
     Stripp'd from the soldier; I have seen
       Free sons of Rome with arms fast tied;
     The fields we spoil'd with corn are green,
       And Carthage opes her portals wide.
     The warrior, sure, redeem'd by gold,
       Will fight the bolder! Aye, you heap
     On baseness loss. The hues of old
       Revisit not the wool we steep;
     And genuine worth, expell'd by fear,
       Returns not to the worthless slave.
     Break but her meshes, will the deer
       Assail you? then will he be brave
     Who once to faithless foes has knelt;
       Yes, Carthage yet his spear will fly,
     Who with bound arms the cord has felt,
       The coward, and has fear'd to die.
     He knows not, he, how life is won;
       Thinks war, like peace, a thing of trade!
     Great art thou, Carthage! mate the sun,
       While Italy in dust is laid!"
     His wife's pure kiss he waved aside,
       And prattling boys, as one disgraced,
     They tell us, and with manly pride
       Stern on the ground his visage placed.
     With counsel thus ne'er else aread
       He nerved the fathers' weak intent,
     And, girt by friends that mourn'd him, sped
       Into illustrious banishment.
     Well witting what the torturer's art
       Design'd him, with like unconcern
     The press of kin he push'd apart
       And crowds encumbering his return,
     As though, some tedious business o'er
       Of clients' court, his journey lay
     Towards Venafrum's grassy floor,
       Or Sparta-built Tarentum's bay.
 

VI
DELICTA MAJORUM

 
     Your fathers' guilt you still must pay,
       Till, Roman, you restore each shrine,
     Each temple, mouldering in decay,
       And smoke-grimed statue, scarce divine.
     Revering Heaven, you rule below;
       Be that your base, your coping still;
     'Tis Heaven neglected bids o'erflow
       The measure of Italian ill.
     Now Pacorus and Monaeses twice
       Have given our unblest arms the foil;
     Their necklaces, of mean device,
       Smiling they deck with Roman spoil.
     Our city, torn by faction's throes,
       Dacian and Ethiop well-nigh razed,
     These with their dreadful navy, those
       For archer-prowess rather praised.
     An evil age erewhile debased
       The marriage-bed, the race, the home;
     Thence rose the flood whose waters waste
       The nation and the name of Rome.
     Not such their birth, who stain'd for us
       The sea with Punic carnage red,
     Smote Pyrrhus, smote Antiochus,
       And Hannibal, the Roman's dread.
     Theirs was a hardy soldier-brood,
       Inured all day the land to till
     With Sabine spade, then shoulder wood
       Hewn at a stern old mother's will,
     When sunset lengthen'd from each height
       The shadows, and unyoked the steer,
     Restoring in its westward flight
       The hour to toilworn travail dear.
     What has not cankering Time made worse?
       Viler than grandsires, sires beget
     Ourselves, yet baser, soon to curse
       The world with offspring baser yet.
 

VII
QUID FLES, ASTERIE

 
     Why weep for him whom sweet Favonian airs
         Will waft next spring, Asteria, back to you,
           Rich with Bithynia's wares,
             A lover fond and true,
     Your Gyges? He, detain'd by stormy stress
         At Oricum, about the Goat-star's rise,
           Cold, wakeful, comfortless,
             The long night weeping lies.
     Meantime his lovesick hostess' messenger
       Talks of the flames that waste poor Chloe's heart
          (Flames lit for you, not her!)
             With a besieger's art;
     Shows how a treacherous woman's lying breath
       Once on a time on trustful Proetus won
           To doom to early death
             Too chaste Bellerophon;
     Warns him of Peleus' peril, all but slain
       For virtuous scorn of fair Hippolyta,
           And tells again each tale
             That e'er led heart astray.
     In vain; for deafer than Icarian seas
       He hears, untainted yet. But, lady fair,
           What if Enipeus please
             Your listless eye? beware!
     Though true it be that none with surer seat
       O'er Mars's grassy turf is seen to ride,
           Nor any swims so fleet
             Adown the Tuscan tide,
     Yet keep each evening door and window barr'd;
       Look not abroad when music strikes up shrill,
           And though he call you hard,
             Remain obdurate still.
 

VIII
MARTIIS COELEBS

 
     The first of March! a man unwed!
       What can these flowers, this censer mean
     Or what these embers, glowing red
           On sods of green?
     You ask, in either language skill'd!
       A feast I vow'd to Bacchus free,
     A white he-goat, when all but kill'd
           By falling tree.
     So, when that holyday comes round,
       It sees me still the rosin clear
     From this my wine-jar, first embrown'd
           In Tullus' year.
     Come, crush one hundred cups for life
       Preserved, Maecenas; keep till day
     The candles lit; let noise and strife
           Be far away.
     Lay down that load of state-concern;
       The Dacian hosts are all o'erthrown;
     The Mede, that sought our overturn,
           Now seeks his own;
     A servant now, our ancient foe,
       The Spaniard, wears at last our chain;
     The Scythian half unbends his bow
           And quits the plain.
     Then fret not lest the state should ail;
       A private man such thoughts may spare;
     Enjoy the present hour's regale,
           And banish care.
 

IX
DONEC GRATUS ERAM

 
     HORACE.
     While I had power to bless you,
       Nor any round that neck his arms did fling
             More privileged to caress you,
     Happier was Horace than the Persian king.
 
 
     LYDIA. While you for none were pining
     Sorer, nor Lydia after Chloe came,
             Lydia, her peers outshining,
     Might match her own with Ilia's Roman fame.
 
 
     H. Now Chloe is my treasure,
     Whose voice, whose touch, can make sweet music flow:
             For her I'd die with pleasure,
     Would Fate but spare the dear survivor so.
 
 
     L. I love my own fond lover,
     Young Calais, son of Thurian Ornytus:
             For him I'd die twice over,
     Would Fate but spare the sweet survivor thus.
 
 
     H. What now, if Love returning
     Should pair us 'neath his brazen yoke once more,
             And, bright-hair'd Chloe spurning,
     Horace to off-cast Lydia ope his door?
 
 
     L. Though he is fairer, milder,
     Than starlight, you lighter than bark of tree,
             Than stormy Hadria wilder,
     With you to live, to die, were bliss for me.
 

X
EXTREMUM TANAIN

 
     Ah Lyce! though your drink were Tanais,
       Your husband some rude savage, you would weep
     To leave me shivering, on a night like this,
       Where storms their watches keep.
     Hark! how your door is creaking! how the grove
       In your fair court-yard, while the wild winds blow,
     Wails in accord! with what transparence Jove
         Is glazing the driven snow!
     Cease that proud temper: Venus loves it not:
       The rope may break, the wheel may backward turn:
     Begetting you, no Tuscan sire begot
         Penelope the stern.
     O, though no gift, no "prevalence of prayer,"
       Nor lovers' paleness deep as violet,
     Nor husband, smit with a Pierian fair,
         Move you, have pity yet!
     O harder e'en than toughest heart of oak,
       Deafer than uncharm'd snake to suppliant moans!
     This side, I warn you, will not always brook
         Rain-water and cold stones.