HORACE ODES BOOK II Translated by Charles Stewart
I
The strife Metellus’ consulship saw growing and the Civil War’s cause and its course and crimes and the game Fortune played and the grave effects of great men’s friendships and all that unexpiated guilt for so much bloodshed, this is perilous stuff to dice about with, work it as though you walked on fires smouldering still under deceitful ash. Not for long can the strict Muse of tragedy spare you from the stage: when you have chronicled these recent events, duty will bid a return to elevated Greek themes, renowned as you are both at court-room defence and for advising, Pollio, the Senate, having found eternal honour with laurels in Dalmatia won triumphant. But now the bugle radiant with menace deafens our eardrums, now hear the trumpet blast, now glinting weapons fill with terror horses fleeing and the horsemen’s faces; hear we now and see our mighty generals thick with the battle’s not inglorious dust and the entire world subjected save the unbending strength of Cato’s soul. Juno and the gods while remaining true to Africa withdrew helpless leaving all still unavenged, to make of our grandsons sacrificial victims to Iugurtha: Where is there a field not by our Latin blood enriched with no graves to conflicts impious attesting which sounds not to the Medes Western culture tumbling to ruin?
What waters wild or what streams have not rumoured this disastrous war? Where has Apulian carnage not discoloured the ocean? What coast is unacquainted with our blood? Yet disregard not, impudent Muse, my tone nor rework dirges fit for the Spartan dead; with me rather to Love’s grotto go seeking in nimble measures lyric verse.
II There is no glamour in silver ore concealed in the greedy earth, O money despising Crispus Sallustius, unless it should glint from moderate usage. Life was prolonged for Proculeius surely by his becoming father to his brothers; borne on unbroken wings his soul’s immortal Fame will survive him; a wider kingdom is ruled by mastering a greedy heart than by joining Libya to remote Gades or Spain and Africa under the one yoke; indulge the dreadful dropsy and it grows worse nor can thirst be quenched, unless the disorder is treated at source and all fluid expelled from the pale body. Restored to Cyrus’ throne deposed Phraates loved by the masses yet from every blessedness removed by Virtue’s lack can teach the people the falseness of their use of words, power and a secure crown reserve for one their everlasting laurels, whoever can spurn the riches of the world and not look backward.
III Remember with times arduous an even temperament keep, just so when things prosper all immoderate exaltation Dellius check, for surely you must die, whether you brood life sorrowfully away, whether you recline upon the grass at each opportune feast-day delighting in the finest vintage Falernian wine. Why do the vast pine and the pallid poplar relish extending their shady welcoming branches? Why does the half-seen river labour to send its waters racing by? Here bid your slaves bring wines and perfumed unguents and from the rose-bush pluck the fugacious rose, while means and youthfulness allow you and the three sisters still spin their dark thread: for leave you must your purchased lands and your home and your villa washed by the yellow Tiber, yes leave and the riches the years have amassed an heir shall take possession of; the millionaire descended from great kings signifies no more than the pauper dwelling beneath the vast dome of the heavens, victims alike of unrelenting death; we are all gathered for one end, each of us finding our ticket drawn later or sooner from the revolving urn with passage to embark for everlasting exile.
IV Loving a slave-girl shouldn’t make you ashamed, Xanthias you Greek: all his old arrogance failed when Briseis with her white-as-snow skin stirred up Achilles, stirred by beauty too Telamon’s son Ajax became more than lord to his slave Tecmessa, while in his triumph did Agamemnon burn for a captive maid, when those foreign troops were defeated by your Thessalian prince and the loss of Hector handed over Troy for easy destruction to exhausted Greeks. How can you be sure you won’t become through your golden-haired Phyllis a wealthy son-in-law; she seems in fact most royal though sad the gods have not been kinder; never believe that you could love a girl of plebeian descent nor that one so faithful, so averse to wealth could have been the child of a shameful mother: her arms and her face and shapely calves I praise dispassionately - allay all suspicion of one past forty whose last five years have got so quickly away.
V Not yet capable or ready for the yoke on her neck, not yet equal to the demands of breeding nor able to endure the rush and weight of the bull upon her: in grassy meadows dreaming still of her youth your shy heifer stirs, now assuaging her heat in the summer streams, now with young friends near cool willows in girlish games above all else delighting. Let not your longing dwell on the unripe grape: already the autumn is painting with its many colours the swelling clusters a purplish blue; already she turns (time gets away from us so fast and those things the years subtract from you they increase in her); already bold with nudging horns Lalage comes to you, then you’ll love, love not as Pholoe you loved, nor Chloris with her white shoulders glistening like a clear moon resplendent at night upon the sea or Cnidus-born Gyges, so girlish that seen with a crowd of maidens, even the keenest to whom he was unknown would fail to distinguish the boy with his flowing locks and ambiguous glance.
VI Septimus, Gades you and I could see and Cantabrians not yet trained to bear our yolk and barbarous Syrtes, where the African sea is heaving ever: Tibur though with its ancient Greek origins will be the fitter setting for my old age, when wandering palls as the sea does and our military life; but if that spot the unjust Fates prohibit, then where the pampered sheep delighting Galaesus flows let me reside amid fields once ruled by Spartan Phalanthus. That little corner of the earth smiles for me above all others, where the honey yields not to Hymettus and the olive harvest vies with green Venafrum, where spring tarries long and the mildest winter Jupiter bestows and fertile Mount Aulon beloved of Bacchus envies not in the least the Falernum grape; that place seems to call both to me and to you from its blessĂŠd heights: there one day you will come and wet with your tears the still glowing ashes of your poet friend.
VII O often with me led into extremest danger when Brutus commanded all our troops, who has restored you to civil life your country’s gods and our Italian skies, Pompey, dearest and first of my companions, who often helped me while away the long days with wine, my shining garlanded head anointed with Syrian unguents rare? With you Philippi and its hasty retreat became more shameful for my shield abandoned, with manhood breached and fearful soldiers dying as men before their bodies died; but me in terror Mercury swiftly bore through enemy lines concealed in a dense cloud, you the tide of battle carried back into the raging sea of civil war. Therefore keep your pledge with solemn feast to Jove and that abused and campagne-wearied body set down beneath my laurel-tree nor stint yourself the wine for you intended; fill to the brim with Massic oblivion the chalices bright, pour out the perfumed oils from their capacious shells; who then will hasten to prepare the garlands of soft parsley and myrtle? Whom shall the dice proclaim master of drinking? I’ll not be rational but raging Bacchante: it is sweet to play the fool for a friend recovered.
VIII If for your false oaths you have suffered any punishment, Barine, if your way of life showed, even by so much as a single black tooth or damaged toe-nail, I’d trust you: but no sooner have you given your perfidious promise, than you appear more the beautiful object of desire to all who meet you. To get your own way you would lyingly swear by your own mother’s ashes and the silent stars not to mention the heavens and the gods who do not know death; this pleases, and how, Venus herself, is fun for the guileless Nymphs and reckless Cupid too ever sharpening his ardent shafts upon that blood-stained whetstone; added to that all our lads get big for you, long to become your lovers and replace those old boys who still hang around their stern mistress threatening to go; You fill mothers with alarm for their young sons, you old misers dread and wretched girls, virgin yesterday now brides, in case your glamour holds their tardy husbands.
IX Not always do clouds releasing their torrents inundate our fields nor is the Caspian forever troubled by wave-making winds, nor on Armenia’s far borders, Valgius my friend, does the sullen ice stay frozen every month, nor are the Northern gales afflicting Garganus’ oak-forests and depriving the ash-trees of their leaves; yet always you sing dolefully on the theme of your lost Mystes as rising and setting the Evening Star knows of your love and is chased by the swiftly fleeing sun. Yet that agéd man who had lived three lifetimes did not his beloved Antilochus always bewail nor over adolescent Troilus did bereft parents and sisters lament forever. Enough of unmanly querulous complaints and let us rather sing of Caesar Augustus and trophies newly won, of steep Niphates’ summit and subjected Medes in whose land the boundless Euphrates becomes a gently swirling stream, of Scythian horsemen who must ride strictly within the boundaries prescribed.
X Better to live life, Licinius, neither always too far out nor yet, overcautious of sudden tempest, steering dangerously close to the foreshore: for whoever clasps golden moderation to his breast, dose not hazard existence in a sordid dwelling, nor is he envied for his sober mansion. Oftentimes strong winds buffet the loftiest pine-trees even as the highest towers fall with the greatest weight and the thunder-bolt strikes the mountain summit; hopeful in trouble, fearful in good-fortune is the heart equipped for whatever fate may offer: inchoate winters are sent down by Jupiter, as they are withdrawn; no, if times are hard, they will not always be: see how from silence Apollo wakes the sleeping Muse with his lyre instead of bending his bow. In adversity be undaunted and show to the world your strength, in the same way be wise when the wind is most favourable and furl your billowing sails.
XI What warmongering Spaniard and Scythian, my dear Hirpinus, are plotting behind our Adriatic fortress, desist from inquiring nor trouble yourself over a life whose demands are few. Already past are youth and smooth-faced comeliness, withered age will take away our pleasure in love and grey hairs our ability to sleep; the blossoming spring can not return the same flowers nor the moon be always bright and at the full: why then endlessly fatigue with future plans an ill-equipped spirit? Why not linger here under this tall plane-tree or beneath this pine recline at our ease perfumed roses twined in our grey hair, while we can, with fragrant nard anointed enjoying this wine? Baccus will drive away all gnawing worries: which fleet-footed slave-boy will our Falernian bowl dilute with cooling water from the nearby stream? Which entice from home our shy but compliant Lyde? with lyre, come on now, ivory trimmed she comes, fashionably Spartan hair caught up and tied in a simple knot.
XII You would not desire war with Numantia nor rough-hewn Hannibal nor Sicily’s waters crimson with Punic blood beautifully set to pleasing lute accompaniment nor savage Lapithae and over-imbibing Hylaeus or mighty Hercules defeating the first race of giants, at whose assault ancient Saturn’s whole glittering mansion shook to its foundations: you with your earth-bound prose far more eloquently could tell of Caesar’s wars, Maecenas, and of once-menacing kings brought low and led along streets by the neck. My Muse would have me dwell upon Licymnia singing, commands me to commemorate in verse her bright sparkling eyes and more than answering heart ever faithful in its love, never more so than when she joins in the dancing and light-hearted banter while offering her arms to the shining virgins gathered to celebrate Diana’s sacred festal day. Would you for the splendour of all the Persian kings or fertile Phrygia’s Mygdonian riches barter one lock of hair from this Licymnia, for all the wealth of Araby, when to burning kisses tenderly she inclines her curved neck or in mock-savagery refuses, delighting the more in such kisses when taken if not snatching them first herself?
XIII That was a bad day when they first planted out, whoever did it, and with impious hand nurtured you, O tree, for the ruin of heirs and harm of the environment; indeed I believe he would be capable of choking parents and bedewing at night the shrine in his own home with the blood of a guest; Colchian magic no doubt and whatever crime anywhere imagined he practiced, that man who on my land set down you, unhappy log, merely to fall upon the head of your innocent lord. What things he should spurn, man never at the time can cautiously judge: Punic sailors will dread the Bosphorus but not the unseen danger that comes from a different source; soldiers the arrows Parthians loose in swift retreat, even as Parthians do the might of Rome: yet unforeseen and deadly is the force that snatches off a man’s life. How close did I come to seeing for myself Proserpine’s realm and Aeacus’ judgement-seat and that region assigned to the blessed where on her Aeolian lyre thus Sappho still laments the girls of her country, while you with golden plectrum ring the changes, Alcaeus, on a seaman’s harsh life, harsh cruelty of exile, harshness of war; either song is deemed worth the holy silence of the wonder-struck multitude, yet it is the changing fortunes of war to which the densest throng of spirits lend an ear.
What wonder then if, enthralled by such singing the hundred-headed guardian lowers his black ears and the snakes entwined in the hair of the Eumenides pause for rest? the sounds so soothe that even Prometheus forgets his torments as Pelops’ father does neither will Orion still pursue lions or the ever-watchful lynxes.
XIV Alas how the years, Posthumus, Posthumus, swiftly slip away, no piety or wit can ward off the ravages of time nor keep at bay inexorable death; no, though your best bulls, seventy times seven, my dear friend, daily are offered as victims Pluto is unmoved, while Tityas and triple Geryon he holds confined by his mournful stream, which plainly all of ue, everyone who has eaten of the earth’s gifts, must one day traverse, be we princes or scraping a meagre life from the soil. In vain we absent ourselves from bloody wars and seek to avoid the Adriatic’s waves, in vain throughout the autumn we dread the pestilential wind from the south-west; still must we behold the sluggish black river Cocytus flowing and Danaus’ daughters so infamous and Aeolus’ son Sisyphus condemned to endless labour; we must leave the earth and our home and our own dear wife, and not one, not a branch of your trees except for the hated cypresses will their briefly tending master follow; a fitter heir shall liberate your cellars secured by an hundred keys and pavements will be half-awash with vintage wines, better than those served at the pontiffs’ feasts.
XV Not long now before our splendid mansions leave nothing for the plough, when everywhere we look enormous man-made Lake Lucrinos extend their bounds and the plane-tree supplants the vine-bearing elm; then banks of violets and myrtle copses and sweet-smelling flowers will waste their fragrance where the olive groves were tended once by better masters; then thickly clustered laurel-boughs will shut out the heat of the sun. Not thus did Romulus lay down laws nor austere Cato nor was it the rule of our founding fathers: Ownership for them was a modest estate, common land prevailed; no private citizen considered the measure of all things a shaded porch facing towards the north nor in law could he disdain the chance turf cut for humble uses, public funds divided between town improvement and richly refurbishing the temples of the gods.
XVI Calm of mind men ask of the gods when storm-tossed on the Aegean, with the moon obscured by threatening clouds and uncertain starlight to guide the sailor, calm of mind in war the furious Thracian, calm of mind the Mede with his ornate quiver, Grosphus, not with gems or with influence purchased and not with gold. For no wealth indeed and no consul’s lictor can disperse the hoard of blue devils filling our mind nor the cares as they flutter about our panelled ceilings. Small is beautiful he learns, whose ancestral salt-cellar glistens on his frugal table and whose peaceful sleep is not disturbed by fear or squalid longings. Why in our brief life do we strive so hard for so much? Why for some warm foreign sun do we seek to change our own? Who leaving his country can escape himself? Our attendant cares climb aboard brazen ships nor are left behind in cavalry charges, fleeter than the deer and at gathering clouds fleeter than the wind. Let the soul rejoice in the present moment by scorning future cares and with sober laughter temper bitterness: Nothing is or can be unmixed happiness. Famed Achilles was taken by early death, long-lived Tithonus sunk in senility: and the hour may, what it refuses you, perhaps give to me.
Vast lowing herds of Sicilian cattle graze in your pastures, as do the whinnying mares bred for chariot racing, your woollen clothes are double dyed in African purple: to me a little farm and inspiration rare from the Muse of Greek song fair-playing Fate has granted plus contempt for the spite of the mob.
XVII Why must you kill me with your endless complaints? Neither would it please me or the gods to die before you, Maecenas, who are both glory and support of my existence. Ah, if the half-me that is you should be snatched untimely away, how then could I linger, without esteem and friendship rendered incomplete? death for one can only mean death for the other. This is no false promise but a solemn oath: when we go, when we go, if you should lead the way, that selfsame journey shall I travel not long after; me no Chimaera breathing hot fire or no, if it should come, hundred-handed Giant can divide from you: this the mighty Fates and all-powerful Justice decree. Be it that Libra or dreadful Scorpio were in ascendence at the time of my birth or that the undoubted monarch of the western ocean Capricorn held sway, I know that the stars extraordinarily unite our two lives: recall how Jupiter outshining Saturn’s malignant force snatched you from Fate by holding its swift wings with protecting hands, even as the theatre three times resounded with delighted clapping: while I when that tree fell on my head would have been crushed, had not Faunus’ right hand averted the blow, Mercury defended one of his scholars. Remember then to build an altar fit for sacred victims: there we will offer up an humble lamb.
XVIII Neither gold or ivory catches the light from the ceilings of my house, nor do Greek marble facings adorn vast columns hewn in rock from distant Africa, nor have I found that I am heir to some great Roman villa, nor do distinguished women visiting me trail purple robes behind them, yet faithful I am and have a streak of genius, and though poor the rich man pays me court: nothing more I entreat of the gods nor from my powerful friend ask for greater bounty, sufficiently blessed in my small Sabine farm. Day follows close upon day and each crescent moon hastens towards its close: You though quarry marble slabs blithely unaware of death’s proximity intent on your building schemes reclaiming the land to erect a mansion where flowed once the sounding sea, finding the shoreline not sufficiently rich; what if you must relocate your boundary marks and thereby dispossess some few poor tenants in your insatiable greed? driven out of their home carrying their household gods go husband and wife and their grimy offspring. Yet our only certain home is that dark mansion ravenous death has built wherein even the wealthy must dwell: why then strive for more? an open grave
welcomes equally paupers and sons of princes, nor from Pluto’s minion did artful Prometheus by a bribe gain remission; here arrogant Tantalus and his offspring are alike confined, here is promised relief when the poor man’s work is done who whether he calls or does not will be heard.
XIX Bacchus I saw you on remotest cliff tops where you taught your songs - O future times believe and nymphs your willing pupils listened and goat-footed satyrs with pointed ears. Di-aee, still-fresh fear causes me to tremble even as Bacchus fills my heart with confused rejoicing, di-aee, mercy my God, mercy for I fear the wrath of your rod. Yet right and fitting it is to persevere in singing of these Bacchantes and fountains of wine and copious streams of milk and hollow tree-trunks dripping with honey, right also to sing of your blesséd bride’s crown set amid the stars and of stiff Pentheus tumbled to ruin and the dreadful fate of the Thracian king Lycurgus. You bend the rivers, tame the unruly seas, and when sequestered and tipsy you have used a viper to catch up in a knot your follower’s hair without any harm; you, when that cohort of impious giants attempted to storm the abode of the gods, flung down from heaven great Rhoetus lion-like with frightful tooth and fiery claw; although thought apter for the dance and in games and jests and said not ideally suitable for war and war’s alarms; all the same you can in peace arbitrate as in war; and seeing you thus in his domain with horns wonderfully gold, Cerberus softly moved his tail and tamely watched you depart with his three tongues merely licking your feet.
XX Ascending upon no ordinary wing I rise in two-forms through the upper air a poet every envy overcome content to quit this earth at last and its cities relinquish. Not I though, the offspring of such poor parents, not I though, as your guest, belovĂŠd Maecenas, shall perish nor can the Styx confine me in its waves: already I feel the rough skin covering my feet even as dazzling whiteness transforms my torso spreading over both arms from shoulder to finger-tip soft plumage. My art the fame of Daedalus outstripping shall carry past the Bosphorus and Sidra to distant Africa and beyond Icarus-like the swan-song that I sing; the Colchi and, who still profess no fear of our mighty cohorts, Daci and Geloni shall know of my name, my skills shall teach the Spaniard and the dweller by the Rhone. Empty graves forbid unseemly exequies conspicuous grief or querulous complaint; silence best and certainly omit the more than empty honour of a tomb.