The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace

XXX
EXEGI MONUMENTUM

 
     And now 'tis done: more durable than brass
       My monument shall be, and raise its head
       O'er royal pyramids: it shall not dread
     Corroding rain or angry Boreas,
     Nor the long lapse of immemorial time.
       I shall not wholly die: large residue
       Shall 'scape the queen of funerals. Ever new
     My after fame shall grow, while pontiffs climb
     With silent maids the Capitolian height.
       "Born," men will say, "where Aufidus is loud,
       Where Daunus, scant of streams, beneath him bow'd
     The rustic tribes, from dimness he wax'd bright,
     First of his race to wed the Aeolian lay
       To notes of Italy." Put glory on,
       My own Melpomene, by genius won,
     And crown me of thy grace with Delphic bay.
 

BOOK IV

I
INTERMISSA, VENUS

 
         Yet again thou wak'st the flame
     That long had slumber'd! Spare me, Venus, spare!
         Trust me, I am not the same
     As in the reign of Cinara, kind and fair.
         Cease thy softening spells to prove
     On this old heart, by fifty years made hard,
         Cruel Mother of sweet Love!
     Haste, where gay youth solicits thy regard.
         With thy purple cygnets fly
     To Paullus' door, a seasonable guest;
         There within hold revelry,
     There light thy flame in that congenial breast.
         He, with birth and beauty graced,
     The trembling client's champion, ne'er tongue-tied,
         Master of each manly taste,
     Shall bear thy conquering banners far and wide.
         Let him smile in triumph gay,
     True heart, victorious over lavish hand,
         By the Alban lake that day
     'Neath citron roof all marble shalt thou stand:
         Incense there and fragrant spice
     With odorous fumes thy nostrils shall salute;
         Blended notes thine ear entice,
     The lyre, the pipe, the Berecyntine flute:
         Graceful youths and maidens bright
     Shall twice a day thy tuneful praise resound,
         While their feet, so fair and white,
     In Salian measure three times beat the ground.
         I can relish love no more,
     Nor flattering hopes that tell me hearts are true,
         Nor the revel's loud uproar,
     Nor fresh-wreathed flowerets, bathed in vernal dew.
         Ah! but why, my Ligurine,
     Steal trickling tear-drops down my wasted cheek?
         Wherefore halts this tongue of mine,
     So eloquent once, so faltering now and weak?
         Now I hold you in my chain,
     And clasp you close, all in a nightly dream;
         Now, still dreaming, o'er the plain
     I chase you; now, ah cruel! down the stream.
 

II
PINDARUM QUISQUIS

 
     Who fain at Pindar's flight would aim,
       On waxen wings, Iulus, he
     Soars heavenward, doom'd to give his name
            To some new sea.
     Pindar, like torrent from the steep
       Which, swollen with rain, its banks o'erflows,
     With mouth unfathomably deep,
            Foams, thunders, glows,
     All worthy of Apollo's bay,
       Whether in dithyrambic roll
     Pouring new words he burst away
             Beyond control,
     Or gods and god-born heroes tell,
       Whose arm with righteous death could tame
     Grim Centaurs, tame Chimaeras fell,
            Out-breathing flame,
     Or bid the boxer or the steed
       In deathless pride of victory live,
     And dower them with a nobler meed
            Than sculptors give,
     Or mourn the bridegroom early torn
       From his young bride, and set on high
     Strength, courage, virtue's golden morn,
            Too good to die.
     Antonius! yes, the winds blow free,
       When Dirce's swan ascends the skies,
     To waft him. I, like Matine bee,
           In act and guise,
     That culls its sweets through toilsome hours,
       Am roaming Tibur's banks along,
     And fashioning with puny powers
           A laboured song.
     Your Muse shall sing in loftier strain
       How Caesar climbs the sacred height,
     The fierce Sygambrians in his train,
           With laurel dight,
     Than whom the Fates ne'er gave mankind
       A richer treasure or more dear,
     Nor shall, though earth again should find
           The golden year.
     Your Muse shall tell of public sports,
       And holyday, and votive feast,
     For Caesar's sake, and brawling courts
           Where strife has ceased.
     Then, if my voice can aught avail,
       Grateful for him our prayers have won,
     My song shall echo, "Hail, all hail,
           Auspicious Sun!"
     There as you move, "Ho! Triumph, ho!
       Great Triumph!" once and yet again
     All Rome shall cry, and spices strow
           Before your train.
     Ten bulls, ten kine, your debt discharge:
       A calf new-wean'd from parent cow,
     Battening on pastures rich and large,
           Shall quit my vow.
     Like moon just dawning on the night
       The crescent honours of his head;
     One dapple spot of snowy white,
           The rest all red.
 

III
QUEM TU, MELPOMENE

 
         He whom thou, Melpomene,
     Hast welcomed with thy smile, in life arriving,
         Ne'er by boxer's skill shall be
     Renown'd abroad, for Isthmian mastery striving;
         Him shall never fiery steed
     Draw in Achaean car a conqueror seated;
         Him shall never martial deed
     Show, crown'd with bay, after proud kings defeated,
         Climbing Capitolian steep:
     But the cool streams that make green Tibur flourish,
         And the tangled forest deep,
     On soft Aeolian airs his fame shall nourish.
         Rome, of cities first and best,
     Deigns by her sons' according voice to hail me
         Fellow-bard of poets blest,
     And faint and fainter envy's growls assail me.
         Goddess, whose Pierian art
     The lyre's sweet sounds can modulate and measure,
            Who to dumb fish canst impart
     The music of the swan, if such thy pleasure:
            O, 'tis all of thy dear grace
     That every finger points me out in going
            Lyrist of the Roman race;
     Breath, power to charm, if mine, are thy bestowing!
 

IV
QUALEM MINISTRUM

 
     E'en as the lightning's minister,
        Whom Jove o'er all the feather'd breed
     Made sovereign, having proved him sure
       Erewhile on auburn Ganymede;
     Stirr'd by warm youth and inborn power,
       He quits the nest with timorous wing,
     For winter's storms have ceased to lower,
       And zephyrs of returning spring
     Tempt him to launch on unknown skies;
       Next on the fold he stoops downright;
     Last on resisting serpents flies,
       Athirst for foray and for flight:
     As tender kidling on the grass
       Espies, uplooking from her food,
     A lion's whelp, and knows, alas!
       Those new-set teeth shall drink her blood:
     So look'd the Raetian mountaineers
       On Drusus:—whence in every field
     They learn'd through immemorial years
       The Amazonian axe to wield,
     I ask not now: not all of truth
       We seekers find: enough to know
     The wisdom of the princely youth
       Has taught our erst victorious foe
     What prowess dwells in boyish hearts
       Rear'd in the shrine of a pure home,
     What strength Augustus' love imparts
       To Nero's seed, the hope of Rome.
     Good sons and brave good sires approve:
       Strong bullocks, fiery colts, attest
     Their fathers' worth, nor weakling dove
       Is hatch'd in savage eagle's nest.
     But care draws forth the power within,
       And cultured minds are strong for good:
     Let manners fail, the plague of sin
       Taints e'en the course of gentle blood.
     How great thy debt to Nero's race,
       O Rome, let red Metaurus say,
     Slain Hasdrubal, and victory's grace
       First granted on that glorious day
     Which chased the clouds, and show'd the sun,
       When Hannibal o'er Italy
     Ran, as swift flames o'er pine-woods run,
       Or Eurus o'er Sicilia's sea.
     Henceforth, by fortune aiding toil,
       Rome's prowess grew: her fanes, laid waste
     By Punic sacrilege and spoil,
       Beheld at length their gods replaced.
     Then the false Libyan own'd his doom:—
       "Weak deer, the wolves' predestined prey,
     Blindly we rush on foes, from whom
       'Twere triumph won to steal away.
     That race which, strong from Ilion's fires,
       Its gods, on Tuscan waters tost,
     Its sons, its venerable sires,
       Bore to Ausonia's citied coast;
     That race, like oak by axes shorn
       On Algidus with dark leaves rife,
     Laughs carnage, havoc, all to scorn,
       And draws new spirit from the knife.
     Not the lopp'd Hydra task'd so sore
       Alcides, chafing at the foil:
     No pest so fell was born of yore
       From Colchian or from Theban soil.
     Plunged in the deep, it mounts to sight
       More splendid: grappled, it will quell
     Unbroken powers, and fight a fight
       Whose story widow'd wives shall tell.
     No heralds shall my deeds proclaim
       To Carthage now: lost, lost is all:
     A nation's hope, a nation's name,
       They died with dying Hasdrubal."
     What will not Claudian hands achieve?
       Jove's favour is their guiding star,
     And watchful potencies unweave
       For them the tangled paths of war.
 

V
DIVIS ORTE BONIS

 
     Best guardian of Rome's people, dearest boon
       Of a kind Heaven, thou lingerest all too long:
     Thou bad'st thy senate look to meet thee soon:
           Do not thy promise wrong.
     Restore, dear chief, the light thou tak'st away:
       Ah! when, like spring, that gracious mien of thine
     Dawns on thy Rome, more gently glides the day,
           And suns serener shine.
     See her whose darling child a long year past
       Has dwelt beyond the wild Carpathian foam;
     That long year o'er, the envious southern blast
           Still bars him from his home:
     Weeping and praying to the shore she clings,
       Nor ever thence her straining eyesight turns:
     So, smit by loyal passion's restless stings,
           Rome for her Caesar yearns.
     In safety range the cattle o'er the mead:
       Sweet Peace, soft Plenty, swell the golden grain:
     O'er unvex'd seas the sailors blithely speed:
           Fair Honour shrinks from stain:
     No guilty lusts the shrine of home defile:
       Cleansed is the hand without, the heart within:
     The father's features in his children smile:
           Swift vengeance follows sin.
     Who fears the Parthian or the Scythian horde,
       Or the rank growth that German forests yield,
     While Caesar lives? who trembles at the sword
           The fierce Iberians wield?
     In his own hills each labours down the day,
       Teaching the vine to clasp the widow'd tree:
     Then to his cups again, where, feasting gay,
           He hails his god in thee.
     A household power, adored with prayers and wine,
       Thou reign'st auspicious o'er his hour of ease:
     Thus grateful Greece her Castor made divine,
           And her great Hercules.
     Ah! be it thine long holydays to give
       To thy Hesperia! thus, dear chief, we pray
     At sober sunrise; thus at mellow eve,
           When ocean hides the day.
 

VI
DIVE, QUEM PROLES

 
     Thou who didst make thy vengeful might
       To Niobe and Tityos known,
     And Peleus' son, when Troy's tall height
           Was nigh his own,
     Victorious else, for thee no peer,
       Though, strong in his sea-parent's power,
     He shook with that tremendous spear
           The Dardan tower.
     He, like a pine by axes sped,
       Or cypress sway'd by angry gust,
     Fell ruining, and laid his head
           In Trojan dust.
     Not his to lie in covert pent
       Of the false steed, and sudden fall
     On Priam's ill-starr'd merriment
           In bower and hall:
     His ruthless arm in broad bare day
       The infant from the breast had torn,
     Nay, given to flame, ah, well a way!
           The babe unborn:
     But, won by Venus' voice and thine,
       Relenting Jove Aeneas will'd
     With other omens more benign
           New walls to build.
     Sweet tuner of the Grecian lyre,
       Whose locks are laved in Xanthus' dews,
     Blooming Agyieus! help, inspire
           My Daunian Muse!
     'Tis Phoebus, Phoebus gifts my tongue
       With minstrel art and minstrel fires:
     Come, noble youths and maidens sprung
           From noble sires,
     Blest in your Dian's guardian smile,
       Whose shafts the flying silvans stay,
     Come, foot the Lesbian measure, while
           The lyre I play:
     Sing of Latona's glorious boy,
       Sing of night's queen with crescent horn,
     Who wings the fleeting months with joy,
           And swells the corn.
     And happy brides shall say, "'Twas mine,
       When years the cyclic season brought,
     To chant the festal hymn divine
           By HORACE taught."
 

VII
DIFFUGERE NIVES

 
     The snow is fled: the trees their leaves put on,
           The fields their green:
     Earth owns the change, and rivers lessening run.
           Their banks between.
     Naked the Nymphs and Graces in the meads
           The dance essay:
     "No 'scaping death" proclaims the year, that speeds
           This sweet spring day.
     Frosts yield to zephyrs; Summer drives out Spring,
           To vanish, when
     Rich Autumn sheds his fruits; round wheels the ring,—
           Winter again!
     Yet the swift moons repair Heaven's detriment:
           We, soon as thrust
     Where good Aeneas, Tullus, Ancus went,
           What are we? dust.
     Can Hope assure you one more day to live
           From powers above?
     You rescue from your heir whate'er you give
           The self you love.
     When life is o'er, and Minos has rehearsed
           The grand last doom,
     Not birth, nor eloquence, nor worth, shall burst
           Torquatus' tomb.
     Not Dian's self can chaste Hippolytus
           To life recall,
     Nor Theseus free his loved Pirithous
           From Lethe's thrall.
 

VIII
DONAREM PATERAS

 
     Ah Censorinus! to my comrades true
       Rich cups, rare bronzes, gladly would I send:
     Choice tripods from Olympia on each friend
       Would I confer, choicer on none than you,
     Had but my fate such gems of art bestow'd
       As cunning Scopas or Parrhasius wrought,
       This with the brush, that with the chisel taught
     To image now a mortal, now a god.
     But these are not my riches: your desire
       Such luxury craves not, and your means disdain:
       A poet's strain you love; a poet's strain
     Accept, and learn the value of the lyre.
     Not public gravings on a marble base,
       Whence comes a second life to men of might
       E'en in the tomb: not Hannibal's swift flight,
     Nor those fierce threats flung back into his face,
     Not impious Carthage in its last red blaze,
       In clearer light sets forth his spotless fame,
       Who from crush'd Afric took away—a name,
     Than rude Calabria's tributary lays.
     Let silence hide the good your hand has wrought.
       Farewell, reward! Had blank oblivion's power
       Dimm'd the bright deeds of Romulus, at this hour,
     Despite his sire and mother, he were nought.
     Thus Aeacus has 'scaped the Stygian wave,
       By grace of poets and their silver tongue,
       Henceforth to live the happy isles among.
     No, trust the Muse: she opes the good man's grave,
     And lifts him to the gods. So Hercules,
       His labours o'er, sits at the board of Jove:
       So Tyndareus' offspring shine as stars above,
     Saving lorn vessels from the yawning seas:
     So Bacchus, with the vine-wreath round his hair,
       Gives prosperous issue to his votary's prayer.
 

IX
NE FORTE CREDAS

 
     Think not those strains can e'er expire,
       Which, cradled 'mid the echoing roar
     Of Aufidus, to Latium's lyre
       I sing with arts unknown before.
     Though Homer fill the foremost throne,
       Yet grave Stesichorus still can please,
     And fierce Alcaeus holds his own,
       With Pindar and Simonides.
     The songs of Teos are not mute,
       And Sappho's love is breathing still:
     She told her secret to the lute,
       And yet its chords with passion thrill.
     Not Sparta's queen alone was fired
       By broider'd robe and braided tress,
     And all the splendours that attired
       Her lover's guilty loveliness:
     Not only Teucer to the field
       His arrows brought, nor Ilion
     Beneath a single conqueror reel'd:
       Not Crete's majestic lord alone,
     Or Sthenelus, earn'd the Muses' crown:
       Not Hector first for child and wife,
     Or brave Deiphobus, laid down
       The burden of a manly life.
     Before Atrides men were brave:
       But ah! oblivion, dark and long,
     Has lock'd them in a tearless grave,
       For lack of consecrating song.
     'Twixt worth and baseness, lapp'd in death,
       What difference? YOU shall ne'er be dumb,
     While strains of mine have voice and breath:
       The dull neglect of days to come
     Those hard-won honours shall not blight:
       No, Lollius, no: a soul is yours,
     Clear-sighted, keen, alike upright
       When fortune smiles, and when she lowers:
     To greed and rapine still severe,
       Spurning the gain men find so sweet:
     A consul, not of one brief year,
       But oft as on the judgment-seat
     You bend the expedient to the right,
       Turn haughty eyes from bribes away,
     Or bear your banners through the fight,
       Scattering the foeman's firm array.
     The lord of boundless revenues,
       Salute not him as happy: no,
     Call him the happy, who can use
       The bounty that the gods bestow,
     Can bear the load of poverty,
       And tremble not at death, but sin:
     No recreant he when called to die
       In cause of country or of kin.
 

XI
EST MIHI NONUM

 
     Here is a cask of Alban, more
       Than nine years old: here grows
     Green parsley, Phyllis, and good store
           Of ivy too
      (Wreathed ivy suits your hair, you know)
       The plate shines bright: the altar, strewn
     With vervain, hungers for the flow
           Of lambkin's blood.
     There's stir among the serving folk;
       They bustle, bustle, boy and girl;
     The flickering flames send up the smoke
           In many a curl.
     But why, you ask, this special cheer?
       We celebrate the feast of Ides,
     Which April's month, to Venus dear,
           In twain divides.
     O, 'tis a day for reverence,
       E'en my own birthday scarce so dear,
     For my Maecenas counts from thence
           Each added year.
     'Tis Telephus that you'd bewitch:
       But he is of a high degree;
     Bound to a lady fair and rich,
           He is not free.
     O think of Phaethon half burn'd,
       And moderate your passion's greed:
     Think how Bellerophon was spurn'd
           By his wing'd steed.
     So learn to look for partners meet,
       Shun lofty things, nor raise your aims
     Above your fortune. Come then, sweet,
           My last of flames
      (For never shall another fair
       Enslave me), learn a tune, to sing
     With that dear voice: to music care
           Shall yield its sting.
 

XII
JAM VERIS COMITES

 
     The gales of Thrace, that hush the unquiet sea,
       Spring's comrades, on the bellying canvas blow:
     Clogg'd earth and brawling streams alike are free
         From winter's weight of snow.
     Wailing her Itys in that sad, sad strain,
       Builds the poor bird, reproach to after time
     Of Cecrops' house, for bloody vengeance ta'en
         On foul barbaric crime.
     The keepers of fat lambkins chant their loves
       To silvan reeds, all in the grassy lea,
     And pleasure Him who tends the flocks and groves
         Of dark-leaved Arcady.
     It is a thirsty season, Virgil mine:
       But would you taste the grape's Calenian juice,
     Client of noble youths, to earn your wine
         Some nard you must produce.
     A tiny box of nard shall bring to light
       The cask that in Sulpician cellar lies:
     O, it can give new hopes, so fresh and bright,
         And gladden gloomy eyes.
     You take the bait? then come without delay
       And bring your ware: be sure, 'tis not my plan
     To let you drain my liquor and not pay,
         As might some wealthy man.
     Come, quit those covetous thoughts, those knitted brows,
       Think on the last black embers, while you may,
     And be for once unwise. When time allows,
         'Tis sweet the fool to play.