Quintus Horatius Flaccus

“ You're well supplied: and Jove himself could tell
No way to make you better off than well.
A truce to murmuring: with another's store
To use at pleasure, who shall call you poor?
Sides, stomach, feet, if these are all in health,
What more could man procure with princely wealth?
If, with a well-spread table, when you dine,
To plain green food your eating you confine,
Though some fine day a rich Pactolian rill
Should flood your house, you'd munch your pot-herbs still,
From habit or conviction, which o'er-ride
The power of gold, and league on virtue's side. ”

“ 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.
Monarchs and people, every rank and age,
That sweeping clause includes,—except the sage.
"Now listen while I show you, how the rest
Who call you madman, are themselves possessed. ”

“ That none will live like a contented man
Where choice or chance directs, but each must praise
The folk who pass through life by other ways?
"Those lucky merchants!" cries the soldier stout,
When years of toil have well-nigh worn him out:
What says the merchant, tossing o'er the brine?
"Yon soldier's lot is happier, sure, than mine:
One short, sharp shock, and presto! all is done:
Death in an instant comes, or victory's won." ”

“ To chant the wrath that fill'd Pelides' breast,
Nor dark Ulysses' wanderings o'er the brine,
Nor Pelops' house unblest.
Vast were the task, I feeble; inborn shame,
And she, who makes the peaceful lyre submit,
Forbid me to impair great Cæsar's fame
And yours by my weak wit.
But who may fitly sing of Mars array'd
In adamant mail, or Merion, black with dust
Of Troy, or Tydeus' son by Pallas' aid
Strong against gods to thrust?
Feasts are my theme, my warriors maidens fair,
Who with pared nails encounter youths in fight ”

“ He burns bought sticks at night to boil his pot;
Yet all the plain, he fancies, to the stone
That stands beside the poplars, is his own.
But who can talk of property in lands
Exposed to ceaseless risk of changing hands,
Whose owner purchase, favour, lawless power,
And lastly death, may alter in an hour?
So, with heirs following heirs like waves at sea,
And no such thing as perpetuity,
What good are farmsteads, granaries, pasture-grounds
That stretch long leagues beyond Calabria's bounds,
If Death, unbribed by riches, mows down all
With his unsparing sickle, great and small? ”

“ And shun all blame, I do not merit praise?
My friends, make Greece your model when you write,
And turn her volumes over day and night.
"But Plautus pleased our sires, the good old folks;
They praised his numbers, and they praised his jokes."
They did: 'twas mighty tolerant in them
To praise where wisdom would perhaps condemn;
That is, if you and I and our compeers
Can trust our tastes, our fingers, and our ears,
Know polished wit from horse-play, and can tell
What verses do, and what do not, run well. ”

“ There's not a man can turn a verse so soon,
Or dance so nimbly when he hears a tune:
While, as for singing—ah! my forte is there:
Tigellius' self might envy me, I'll swear."
He paused for breath: I falteringly strike in:
"Have you a mother? have you kith or kin
To whom your life is precious?" "Not a soul:
My line's extinct: I have interred the whole." ”

“ With porker's blood the Earth they would appease,
With milk Silvanus, guardian of their trees,
With flowers and wine the Genius, who repeats
That life is short, and so should have its sweets.
'Twas hence Fescennia's privilege began,
Where wit had licence, and man bantered man;
And the wild sport, though countrified and rough,
Passed off each year acceptably enough;
Till jokes grew virulent, and rabid spite
Ran loose through houses, free to bark and bite. ”

“ Why does one good man want while you abound?
Why are Jove's temples tumbling to the ground?
O selfish! what? devote no modicum
To your dear country from so vast a sum?
Ay, you're the man: the world will go your way....
O how your foes will laugh at you one day!
Take measure of the future: which will feel
More confidence in self, come woe, come weal,
He that, like you, by long indulgence plants
In body and in mind a thousand wants,
Or he who, wise and frugal, lays in stores
In view of war ere war is at the doors? ”

“ You can live here, friend, on this hill's rough brow:
Take my advice, and leave these ups and downs,
This hill and dale, for humankind and towns.
Come now, go home with me: remember, all
Who live on earth are mortal, great and small:
Then take, good sir, your pleasure while you may;
With life so short, 'twere wrong to lose a day. ”

“ We Weep and Laugh as we see others doe,
He only makes me sad who shews the way,
And first is sad himself, then (Telephus)
I feel the weight of your Calamities,
And fancy all your miseries my Own,
But if you Act them ill, I sleep or laugh:
Your looks must needs alter, as your Subject does
From kind to fierce, from wanton to severe,
For Nature forms, and softens us within,
And writes our fortunes changes in our face.
Pleasure enchants, impetuous Rage transports,
And grief dejects, and wrings the tortur'd Soul,
And these are all interpreted by Speech ”

“ Make our poor eyes to water in our head.
Then four and twenty miles, a good long way,
Our coaches take us, in a town to stay
Whose name no art can squeeze into a line,
Though otherwise 'tis easy to define:
For water there, the cheapest thing on earth,
Is sold for money: but the bread is worth
A fancy price, and travellers who know
Their business take it with them when they go:
For at Canusium, town of Diomed,
The drink's as bad, and grits are in the bread.
Here to our sorrow Varius takes his leave,
And, grieved himself, compels his friends to grieve. ”

“ Nine to three or three to nine,
As each man pleases, makes proportion true.
Who the uneven Muses loves,
Will fire his dizzy brain with three times three;
Three once told the Grace approves;
She with her two bright sisters, gay and free,
Shrinks, as maiden should, from strife:
But I'm for madness. What has dull'd the fire
Of the Berecyntian fife?
Why hangs the flute in silence with the lyre?
Out on niggard-handed boys!
Bain showers of roses; let old Lycus hear,
Envious churl, our senseless noise,
And she, our neighbour, his ill-sorted fere. ”

“ Terseness there wants, to make the thought ring clear,
Nor with a crowd of words confuse the ear:
There wants a plastic style, now grave, now light,
Now such as bard or orator would write,
And now the language of a well-bred man,
Who masks his strength, and says not all he can:
And pleasantry will often cut clean through
Hard knots that gravity would scarce undo. ”