Horace

“ How through thy fascinating arts
We discount Hope, O gracious wine!
And passing rich the poor man feels
As through his veins thy affluence steals.
Now, prithee, make us frisk and sing,
And plot full many a naughty plot
With damsels fair—nor shall we care
Whether school keeps or not!
And whilst thy charms hold out to burn
We shall not deign to go to bed,
But we shall paint creation red;
So, fill, sweet wine, this friend of mine,—
My lawyer friend, as aforesaid.
TO POMPEIUS VARUS
Pompey, what fortune gives you back
To the friends and the gods who love you? ”

“ With muffled head, just plunging in the flood,
"Don't do yourself a mischief," so he cried
In friendly tones, appearing at my side:
"'Tis all false shame: you fear to be thought mad,
Not knowing that the world are just as bad.
What constitutes a madman? if 'tis shown
The marks are found in you and you alone,
Trust me, I'll add no word to thwart your plan,
But leave you free to perish like a man.
The wight who drives through life with bandaged eyes,
Ignorant of truth and credulous of lies,
He in the judgment of Chrysippus' school
And the whole porch is tabled as a fool. ”

“ He died lamented by many good men, but more lamented by none than by you, my Virgil. You, though pious, alas! in vain demand Quinctilius back from the gods, who did not lend him to us on such terms. What, though you could strike the lyre, listened to by the trees, with more sweetness than the Thracian Orpheus; yet the blood can never return to the empty shade, which Mercury, inexorable to reverse the fates, has with his dreadful Caduceus once driven to the gloomy throng. This is hard: but what it is out of our power to amend, becomes more supportable by patience. ”

“ With power to soothe and grace to charm
What ills humanity may know;
With that sweet music in the air,
'T is Love and Summer everywhere.
So, though no grief consumes our lot
(Since all our lives have been discreet) ,
Come, in this consecrated spot,
Let's see if pagan cheer be sweet.
Now, then, the songs; but, first, more wine.
The gods be with you, friends of mine! ”

“ To gain our fleet free passage o'er the flood.'
Blood! ay, your own, you madman. 'Nay, not so:
My own, I grant it: but a madman's, no.'
"He that sees things amiss, his mind distraught
By guilty deeds, a madman will be thought;
And, so the path of reason once be missed,
Who cares if rage or folly gave the twist?
When Ajax falls with fury on the fold,
He shows himself a madman, let us hold:
When you, of purpose, do a crime to gain
A meed of empty glory, are you sane?
The heart that air-blown vanities dilate,
Will medicine say 'tis in its normal state? ”

“ Nor ivory, nor a fretted ceiling adorned with gold, glitters in my house: no Hymettian beams rest upon pillars cut out of the extreme parts of Africa; nor, a pretended heir, have I possessed myself of the palace of Attalus, nor do ladies, my dependants, spin Laconian purple for my use. But integrity, and a liberal vein of genius, are mine: and the man of fortune makes his court to me, who am but poor. I importune the gods no further, nor do I require of my friend in power any larger enjoyments, sufficiently happy with my Sabine farm alone. ”

“ Strain clear the wine; this life is short, at best.
Take hope with zest,
And, trusting not To-morrow, snatch To-day for ease!
TO LEUCONÖE
II
Seek not, Leuconöe, to know how long you're going to live yet,
What boons the gods will yet withhold, or what they're going to give yet;
For Jupiter will have his way, despite how much we worry,—
Some will hang on for many a day, and some die in a hurry.
The wisest thing for you to do is to embark this diem
Upon a merry escapade with some such bard as I am.
And while we sport I'll reel you off such odes as shall surprise ye ”

“ Yet hear a fellow-student; 'tis as though
The blind should point you out the way to go,
But still give heed, and see if I produce
Aught that hereafter you may find of use.
If rest is what you like, and sleep till eight,
If dust and rumbling wheels are what you hate,
If tavern-life disgusts you, then repair
To Ferentinum, and turn hermit there;
For wealth has no monopoly of bliss,
And life unnoticed is not lived amiss:
But if you'd help your friends, and like a treat,
Then drop dry bread, and take to juicy meat. ”

“ The Thracian Chloe now commands me, skillful in sweet modulations, and a mistress of the lyre; for whom I would not dread to die, if the fates would spare her, my surviving soul.
Lyd. Calais, the son of the Thurian Ornitus, inflames me with a mutual fire; for whom I would twice endure to die, if the fates would spare my surviving youth.
Hor. What! if our former love returns, and unites by a brazen yoke us once parted? What if Chloe with her golden locks be shaken off, and the door again open to slighted Lydia. ”

“ Mæcenas, if ever on garbage like this
You express a desire to be fed,
May Mrs. Mæcenas object to your kiss,
And lie at the foot of the bed!
AN EXCUSE FOR LALAGE
To bear the yoke not yet your love's submissive neck is bent,
To share a husband's toil, or grasp his amorous intent;
Over the fields, in cooling streams, the heifer longs to go,
Now with the calves disporting where the pussy-willows grow.
Give up your thirst for unripe grapes, and, trust me, you shall learn
How quickly in the autumn time to purple they will turn.
Soon she will follow you, for age steals swiftly on the maid ”

“ To meet men's curses with a hero's front:
"Folks hiss me," said he, "but myself I clap
When I tell o'er my treasures on my lap."
So Tantalus catches at the waves that fly
His thirsty palate—Laughing, are you? why?
Change but the name, of you the tale is told:
You sleep, mouth open, on your hoarded gold;
Gold that you treat as sacred, dare not use,
In fact, that charms you as a picture does.
Come, will you hear what wealth can fairly do?
'Twill buy you bread, and vegetables too,
And wine, a good pint measure: add to this
Such needful things as flesh and blood would miss. ”

“ You are well acquainted with the songs of the Sirens, and Circe's cups: of which, if he had foolishly and greedily drunk along with his attendants, he had been an ignominious and senseless slave under the command of a prostitute: he had lived a filthy dog, or a hog delighting in mire.
We are a mere number and born to consume the fruits of the earth; like Penelope's suitors, useless drones; like Alcinous' youth, employed above measure in pampering their bodies; whose glory was to sleep till mid-day, and to lull their cares to rest by the sound of the harp. ”

“ Act as a poor man's counsel or his bail?
Blest though he be, his wealth will cloud his view,
Nor suffer him to know false friends from true.
Don't ask a man whose feelings overflow
For kindness that you've shown or mean to show
To listen to your verse: each line you read,
He'll cry, "Good! bravo! exquisite indeed!"
He'll change his colour, let his eyes run o'er
With tears of joy, dance, beat upon the floor.
Hired mourners at a funeral say and do
A little more than they whose grief is true:
'Tis just so here: false flattery displays
More show of sympathy than honest praise. ”

“ No one will lay to my charge such sordidness as he may, Tullius, to you, when five slaves follow you, a praetor, along the Tiburtian way, carrying a traveling kitchen, and a vessel of wine. Thus I live more comfortably, O illustrious senator, than you, and than thousands of others. Wherever I have a fancy, I walk by myself: I inquire the price of herbs and bread; I traverse the tricking circus, and the forum often in the evening: I stand listening among the fortune-tellers: thence I take myself home to a plate of onions, pulse, and pancakes. ”

“ Leave your dull Muse to sulkiness and sloth,
That both may feast on dainties earned by both.
'Tis a true Roman pastime, and your frame
Will gain thereby, no less than your good name:
Besides, you're strong; in running you can match
The dogs, and kill the fiercest boar you catch:
Who plays like you? you have but to appear
In Mars's field to raise a general cheer:
Remember too, you served a hard campaign,
When scarce past boyhood, in the wars of Spain,
Beneath his lead who brings our standards home,
And makes each nook of earth a prize for Rome. ”

“ Meriones also shalt thou experience. Behold! the gallant son of Tydeus, a better man than his father, glows to find you out: him, as a stag flies a wolf, which he has seen on the opposite side of the vale, unmindful of his pasture, shall you, effeminate, fly, grievously panting:—not such the promises you made your mistress. The fleet of the enraged Achilles shall defer for a time that day, which is to be fatal to Troy and the Trojan matrons: but, after a certain number of years, Grecian fire shall consume the Trojan palaces. ”

“ To Greece, fair Greece, ambitious but of praise,
The Muse gave ready wit, and rounded phrase.
Our Roman boys, by puzzling days and nights,
Bring down a shilling to a hundred mites.
Come, young Albinus, tell us, if you take
A penny from a sixpence, what 'twill make.
Fivepence. Good boy! you'll come to wealth one day.
Now add a penny. Sevenpence, he will say.
O, when this cankering rust, this greed of gain,
Has touched the soul and wrought into its grain,
What hope that poets will produce such lines
As cedar-oil embalms and cypress shrines? ”

“ Care, and a thirst for greater things, is the consequence of increasing wealth. Therefore, Mæcenas, thou glory of the [Roman] knights, I have justly dreaded to raise the far-conspicuous head. As much more as any man shall deny himself, so much more shall he receive from the gods. Naked as I am, I seek the camps of those who covet nothing; and as a deserter, rejoice to quit the side of the wealthy: a more illustrious possessor of a contemptible fortune, than if I could be said to treasure up in my granaries all that the industrious Apulian cultivates, poor amid abundance of wealth. ”

“ But what's the argument? the bards of Greece
And those of Rome must needs be of a piece;
As there the oldest hold the foremost place,
So here, 'twould seem, the same will be the case.
Is this their reasoning? they may prove as well
An olive has no stone, a nut no shell.
Soon, flattered by such dexterous logic, we
Shall think we've gained the summit of the tree;
In art, in song our rivals we outdo,
And, spite of all their oil, in wrestling too.
Or is it said that poetry's like wine
Which age, we know, will mellow and refine? ”