Quintus Horatius Pulcher

“ 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." ”

“ 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." ”

“ Save them by violence, you as good as kill.
'Tis not his first attempt: if saved to-day,
He's sure to die in some outrageous way.
Beside, none knows the reason why this curse
Was sent on him, this love of making verse,
By what offence heaven's anger he incurred,
A grave defiled, a sacred boundary stirred:
So much is plain, he's mad: like bear that beats
His prison down and ranges through the streets,
This terrible reciter puts to flight
The learned and unlearned left and right:
Let him catch one, he keeps him till he kills,
As leeches stick till they have sucked their fills. ”

“ 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 gods have heard, the gods have heard my prayer;
Yes, Lyce! you are growing old, and still
You struggle to look fair;
You drink, and dance, and trill
Your songs to youthful Love, in accents weak
With wine, and age, and passion. Youthful Love!
He dwells in Chia's cheek,
And hears her harp-strings move.
Rude boy, he flies like lightning o'er the heath
Past wither'd trees like you; you're wrinkled now ”

“ He that outshines his age is like a torch,
Which, when it blazes high, is apt to scorch:
Men hate him while he lives: at last, no doubt,
He wins affection—when his light is out.
You, while in life, are honoured as divine,
And vows and oaths are taken at your shrine;
So Rome pays homage to her man of men,
Ne'er seen on earth before, ne'er to be seen again. ”

“ And bade his comrades lay their grief to sleep:
"Where Fortune bears us, than my sire more kind,
There let us go, my own, my gallant crew.
'Tis Teucer leads, 'tis Teucer breathes the wind;
No more despair; Apollo's word is true. ”

“ No herd of mine in far-off pasture pines:
Yet ne'ertheless I suffer; hourly teased
Less by a body than a mind diseased,
No ear have I to hear, no heart to heed
The words of wisdom that might serve my need,
Frown on my doctors, with the friends am wroth
Who fain would rouse me from my fatal sloth,
Seek what has harmed me, shun what looks of use,
Town-bird at Tibur, and at Rome recluse.
Then ask him how his health is, how he fares,
How prospers with the prince and his confrères. ”

“ Who holds huge Geryon's triple frame
And Tityos in his watery ring,
That circling flood, which all must stem,
Who eat the fruits that Nature yields,
Wearers of haughtiest diadem,
Or humblest tillers of the fields. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Roused from her sleep, looks wonderingly abroad,
Looks on Thrace with snow-drifts white,
And Rhodope by barbarous footstep trod,
So my truant eyes admire
The banks, the desolate forests. O great King
Who the Naiads dost inspire,
And Bacchants, strong from earth huge trees to wring!
Not a lowly strain is mine,
No mere man's utterance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Spread unwashed cloths o'er tapestry and brocade,
Forgetting, sure, the less such things entail
Of care and cost, the more the shame to fail,
Worse than fall short in luxuries, which one sees
At no man's table but your rich grandees'? ”

“ Send on Eastern foes
Their fear, and on the Red Sea strand!
O wounds that scarce have ceased to run!
O brother's blood! O iron time!
What horror have we left undone?
Has conscience shrunk from aught of crime? ”

“ O, ask not what the morn will bring,
⁠But count as gain each day that chance
May give you; sport in life's young spring,
⁠Nor scorn sweet love, nor merry dance,
While years are green, while sullen eld
⁠Is distant. ”

“ Your Satyr folk, and mirth and morals blend,
Let not your heroes doff their robes of red
To talk low language in a homely shed,
Nor, in their fear of crawling, mount too high,
Catching at clouds and aiming at the sky. ”

“ Who spent vast pains upon the husk of man,
Slept on till mid-day, and enticed their care
To rest by listening to a favourite air.
Robbers get up by night, men's throats to knive:
Will you not wake to keep yourself alive? ”

“ At ease upon a couch with crimson dressed,
Then nimbly moves in character of host,
And offers in succession boiled and roast;
Nay, like a well-trained slave, each wish prevents,
And tastes before the tit-bits he presents. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of the Parthian, bold in flight,
Nor Scythian hordes, nor aught that breaks her spell.
Heap the grassy altar up,
Bring vervain, boys, and sacred frankincense;
Fill the sacrificial cup;
A victim's blood will soothe her vehemence. ”

“ Good sooth, the town is filled with spleen, to see
Its myrtle-groves attract no company;
To find its sulphur-wells, which forced out pain
From joint and sinew, treated with disdain
By tender chests and heads, now grown so bold,
They brave cold water in the depth of cold,
And, finding down at Clusium what they want,
Or Gabii, say, make that their winter haunt. ”

“ Extols his own young years with peevish praise,
But rates and censures these degenerate days.
Years, as they come, bring blessings in their train;
Years, as they go, take blessings back again:
Yet haste or chance may blink the obvious truth,
Make youth discourse like age, and age like youth:
Attention fixed on life alone can teach
The traits and adjuncts which pertain to each.
Sometimes an action on the stage is shown,
Sometimes 'tis done elsewhere, and there made known.
A thing when heard, remember, strikes less keen
On the spectator's mind than when 'tis seen. ”

“ To Pholoe's frown; but sooner gentle roes
Apulian wolves shall wed,
Than Pholoe to so mean a conqueror strike:
So Venus wills it; 'neath her brazen yoke
She loves to couple forms and minds unlike,
All for a heartless joke. ”

“ Without distinction seize on all they meet;
None ever scap'd that came within their reach,
Sticking like Leaches till they burst with blood,
Without remorse insatiably they read,
And never leave till they have read Men dead. ”

“ FEW roods of ground the piles we raise
Will leave to plough; ponds wider spread
Than Lucrine lake will meet the gaze
On every side; the plane unwed
Will top the elm; the violet -bed,
The myrtle, each delicious sweet,
On olive-grounds their scent will shed,
Where once were fruit-trees yielding meat ”

“ Grasp'd the fell snakes, that all her blood
⁠Might with the cold black venom blend,
Death's purpose flushing in her face;
⁠Nor to our ships the glory gave,
That she, no vulgar dame, should grace
⁠A triumph, crownless, and a slave. ”

“ Him shall never fiery steed
Draw in Achæan 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 Æolian airs his fame shall nourish. ”

“ All o'er the grass the cattle play;
The village, with the lazy steer,
Keeps holyday.
Wolves rove among the fearless sheep;
The woods for thee their foliage strow;
The delver loves on earth to leap,
His ancient foe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ay, Venus smiles; the pure nymphs smile,
⁠And Cupid, tyrant-lord of hearts,
Sharpening on bloody stone the while
⁠His fiery darts.
New captives fill the nets you weave;
⁠New slaves are bred; and those before,
Though oft they threaten, never leave
⁠Your godless door. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To writing folk the precepts of their art,
Whence come its stores, what trains and forms a bard,
And how a work is made, and how 'tis marred.
Of writing well, be sure, the secret lies
In wisdom: therefore study to be wise.
The page of Plato may suggest the thought,
Which found, the words will come as soon as sought.
The man who once has learned to comprehend
His duty to his country and his friend,
The love that parent, brother, guest may claim. ”

“ Where slave and mistress clip an old man's fleece:
Pollio in buskins chants the deeds of kings:
Varius outsoars us all on Homer's wings:
The Muse that loves the woodland and the farm
To Virgil lends her gayest, tenderest charm. ”

“ Horace, as I understand him, means to ridicule this want of connexion, while he says that the critics are so indiscriminate in their praises that Ennius may well repose on his laurels, and not trouble himself as to whether there is any real connexion or no.
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Just as an unfair sample, set to catch
The heedless customer, will sell the batch. ”

“ What things make life go happily and well;
How cure desire, the soul's perpetual dearth?
How moderate care for things of trifling worth?
Is virtue raised by culture or self-sown?
What soothes annoy, and makes your heart your own? ”

“ Purpled with Punic blood—not mine to wed
⁠These to the lyre's soft strain,
Nor cruel Lapithæ, nor, mad with wine,
⁠Centaurs, nor, by Herculean arm o'ercome,
The earth-born youth, whose terrors dimm'd the shine
⁠Of the resplendent dome
Of ancient Saturn. ”

“ XIII.
O fons Bandusiæ
BANDUSIA'S fount, in clearness crystalline,
O worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow!
To-morrow shall be thine
A kid, whose crescent brow
Is sprouting all for love and victory. ”