You have an
hospitable
breast, and
unpolluted hands; and Pactumeius is your son, and thee the midwife has
tended; and, whenever you bring forth, you spring up with unabated
vigor.
unpolluted hands; and Pactumeius is your son, and thee the midwife has
tended; and, whenever you bring forth, you spring up with unabated
vigor.
Horace - Works
Sometimes he delights
to lie under an aged holm, sometimes on the matted grass: meanwhile the
waters glide along in their deep channels; the birds warble in the
woods; and the fountains murmur with their purling streams, which
invites gentle slumbers. But when the wintery season of the tempestuous
air prepares rains and snows, he either drives the fierce boars, with
many a dog, into the intercepting toils; or spreads his thin nets with
the smooth pole, as a snare for the voracious thrushes; or catches in
his gin the timorous hare, or that stranger the crane, pleasing rewards
[for his labor]. Among such joys as these, who does not forget those
mischievous anxieties, which are the property of love. But if a chaste
wife, assisting on her part [in the management] of the house, and
beloved children (such as is the Sabine, or the sun-burned spouse of the
industrious Apulian), piles up the sacred hearth with old wood, just at
the approach of her weary husband; and, shutting up the fruitful cattle
in the woven hurdles, milks dry their distended udders: and, drawing
this year's wine out of a well-seasoned cask, prepares the unbought
collation: not the Lucrine oysters could delight me more, nor the
turbot, nor the scar, should the tempestuous winter drive any from the
eastern floods to this sea: not the turkey, nor the Asiatic wild-fowl,
can come into my stomach more agreeably, than the olive gathered from
the richest branches from the trees, or the sorrel that loves the
meadows, or mallows salubrious for a sickly body, or a lamb slain at the
feast of Terminus, or a kid rescued from the wolf. Amid these dainties,
how it pleases one to see the well-fed sheep hastening home! to see the
weary oxen, with drooping neck, dragging the inverted ploughshare! and
slaves, the test of a rich family, ranged about the smiling household
gods! When Alfius, the usurer, now on the point of turning countryman,
had said this, he collected in all his money on the Ides; and endeavors
to put it out again at the Calends.
* * * * *
ODE III.
TO MAECENAS.
If any person at any time with an impious hand has broken his aged
father's neck, let him eat garlic, more baneful than hemlock. Oh! the
hardy bowels of the mowers! What poison is this that rages in my
entrails? Has viper's blood, infused in these herbs, deceived me? Or has
Canidia dressed this baleful food? When Medea, beyond all the [other]
argonauts, admired their handsome leader, she anointed Jason with this,
as he was going to tie the untried yoke on the bulls: and having
revenged herself on [Jason's] mistress, by making her presents besmeared
with this, she flew away on her winged dragon. Never did the steaming
influence of any constellation so raging as this rest upon the thirsty
Appulia: neither did the gift [_of Dejanira_] burn hotter upon the
shoulders of laborious Hercules. But if ever, facetious Maecenas, you
should have a desire for any such stuff again, I wish that your girl may
oppose her hand to your kiss, and lie at the furthest part of the bed.
* * * * *
ODE IV.
TO MENAS.
As great an enmity as is allotted by nature to wolves and lambs, [so
great a one] have I to you, you that are galled at your back with
Spanish cords, and on your legs with the hard fetter. Though,
purse-proud with your riches, you strut along, yet fortune does not
alter your birth. Do you not observe while you are stalking along the
sacred way with a robe twice three ells long, how the most open
indignation of those that pass and repass turns their looks on thee?
This fellow, [say they,] cut with the triumvir's whips, even till the
beadle was sick of his office, plows a thousand acres of Falernian land,
and wears out the Appian road with his nags; and, in despite of Otho,
sits in the first rows [of the circus] as a knight of distinction. To
what purpose is it, that so many brazen-beaked ships of immense bulk
should be led out against pirates and a band of slaves, while this
fellow, this is a military tribune?
* * * * *
ODE V.
THE WITCHES MANGLING A BOY.
But oh, by all the gods in heaven, who rule the earth and human race,
what means this tumult? And what the hideous looks of all these [hags,
fixed] upon me alone? I conjure thee by thy children (if invoked Lucina
was ever present at any real birth of thine), I [conjure] thee by this
empty honor of my purple, by Jupiter, who must disapprove these
proceedings, why dost thou look at me as a step-mother, or as a wild
beast stricken with a dart? While the boy made these complaints with a
faltering voice, he stood with his bandages of distinction taken from
him, a tender frame, such as might soften the impious breasts of the
cruel Thracians; Canidia, having interwoven her hair and uncombed head
with little vipers, orders wild fig-trees torn up from graves, orders
funeral cypresses and eggs besmeared with the gore of a loathsome toad,
and feathers of the nocturnal screech-owl, and those herbs, which
lolchos, and Spain, fruitful in poisons, transmits, and bones snatched
from the mouth of a hungry bitch, to be burned in Colchian flames. But
Sagana, tucked up for expedition, sprinkling the waters of Avernus all
over the house, bristles up with her rough hair like a sea-urchin, or a
boar in the chase. Veia, deterred by no remorse of conscience, groaning
with the toil, dug up the ground with the sharp spade; where the boy,
fixed in, might long be tormented to death at the sight of food varied
two or three times in a day: while he stood out with his face, just as
much at bodies suspended by the chin [in swimming] project from the
water, that his parched marrow and dried liver might be a charm for
love; when once the pupils of his eyes had wasted away, fixed on the
forbidden food. Both the idle Naples, and every neighboring town
believed, that Folia of Ariminum, [a witch] of masculine lust, was not
absent: she, who with her Thessalian incantations forces the charmed
stars and the moon from heaven. Here the fell Canidia, gnawing her
unpaired thumb with her livid teeth, what said she? or what did she not
say? O ye faithful witnesses to my proceedings, Night and Diana, who
presidest over silence, when the secret rites are celebrated: now, now
be present, now turn your anger and power against the houses of our
enemies, while the savage wild beasts lie hid in the woods, dissolved in
sweet repose; let the dogs of Suburra (which may be matter of ridicule
for every body) bark at the aged profligate, bedaubed with ointment,
such as my hands never made any more exquisite. What is the matter? Why
are these compositions less efficacious than those of the barbarian
Medea? by means of which she made her escape, after having revenged
herself on [Jason's] haughty mistress, the daughter of the mighty Creon;
when the garment, a gift that was injected with venom, took off his new
bride by its inflammatory power. And yet no herb, nor root hidden in
inaccessible places, ever escaped my notice. [Nevertheless,] he sleeps
in the perfumed bed of every harlot, from his forgetfulness [of me]. Ah!
ah! he walks free [from my power] by the charms of some more knowing
witch. Varus, (oh you that will shortly have much to lament! ) you shall
come back to me by means of unusual spells; nor shall you return to
yourself by all the power of Marsian enchantments, I will prepare a
stronger philter: I will pour in a stronger philter for you, disdainful
as you are; and the heaven shall subside below the sea, with the earth
extended over it, sooner than you shall not burn with love for me, in
the same manner as this pitch [burns] in the sooty flames. At these
words, the boy no longer [attempted], as before, to move the impious
hags by soothing expressions; but, doubtful in what manner he should
break silence, uttered Thyestean imprecations. Potions [said he] have a
great efficacy in confounding right and wrong, but are not able to
invert the condition of human nature; I will persecute you with curses;
and execrating detestation is not to be expiated by any victim.
Moreover, when doomed to death I shall have expired, I will attend you
as a nocturnal fury; and, a ghost, I will attack your faces with my
hooked talons (for such is the power of those divinities, the Manes),
and, brooding upon your restless breasts, I will deprive you of repose
by terror. The mob, from village to village, assaulting you on every
side with stones, shall demolish you filthy hags. Finally, the wolves
and Esquiline vultures shall scatter abroad your unburied limbs. Nor
shall this spectacle escape the observation of my parents, who, alas!
must survive me.
ODE. VI.
AGAINST CASSIUS SEVERUS.
O cur, thou coward against wolves, why dost thou persecute innocent
strangers? Why do you not, if you can, turn your empty yelpings hither,
and attack me, who will bite again? For, like a Molossian, or tawny
Laconian dog, that is a friendly assistant to shepherds, I will drive
with erected ears through the deep snows every brute that shall go
before me. You, when you have filled the grove with your fearful
barking, you smell at the food that is thrown to you. Have a care, have
a care; for, very bitter against bad men, I exert my ready horns uplift;
like him that was rejected as a son-in-law by the perfidious Lycambes,
or the sharp enemy of Bupalus. What, if any cur attack me with malignant
tooth, shall I, without revenge, blubber like a boy?
* * * * *
ODE VII.
TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE.
Whither, whither, impious men are you rushing? Or why are the swords
drawn, that were [so lately] sheathed? Is there too little of Roman
blood spilled upon land and sea? [And this,] not that the Romans might
burn the proud towers of envious Carthage, or that the Britons, hitherto
unassailed, might go down the sacred way bound in chains: but that,
agreeably to the wishes of the Parthians, this city may fall by its own
might. This custom [of warfare] never obtained even among either wolves
or savage lions, unless against a different species. Does blind phrenzy,
or your superior valor, or some crime, hurry you on at this rate? Give
answer. They are silent: and wan paleness infects their countenances,
and their stricken souls are stupefied. This is the case: a cruel
fatality and the crime of fratricide have disquieted the Romans, from
that time when the blood of the innocent Remus, to be expiated by his
descendants, was spilled upon the earth.
* * * * *
ODE VIII.
UPON A WANTON OLD WOMAN.
Can you, grown rank with lengthened age, ask what unnerves my vigor?
When your teeth are black, and old age withers your brow with wrinkles:
and your back sinks between your staring hip-bones, like that of an
unhealthy cow. But, forsooth! your breast and your fallen chest, full
well resembling a broken-backed horse, provoke me; and a body flabby,
and feeble knees supported by swollen legs. May you be happy: and may
triumphal statues adorn your funeral procession; and may no matron
appear in public abounding with richer pearls. What follows, because the
Stoic treatises sometimes love to be on silken pillows? Are unlearned
constitutions the less robust? Or are their limbs less stout? But for
you to raise an appetite, in a stomach that is nice, it is necessary
that you exert every art of language.
* * * * *
ODE IX.
TO MAECENAS.
When, O happy Maecenas, shall I, overjoyed at Caesar's being victorious,
drink with you under the stately dome (for so it pleases Jove) the
Caecuban reserved for festal entertainments, while the lyre plays a
tune, accompanied with flutes, that in the Doric, these in the Phrygian
measure? As lately, when the Neptunian admiral, driven from the sea,
and his navy burned, fled, after having menaced those chains to Rome,
which, like a friend, he had taken off from perfidious slaves. The Roman
soldiers (alas! ye, our posterity, will deny the fact), enslaved to a
woman, carry palisadoes and arms, and can be subservient to haggard
eunuchs; and among the military standards, oh shame! the sun beholds an
[Egyptian] canopy. Indignant at this the Gauls turned two thousand of
their cavalry, proclaiming Caesar; and the ships of the hostile navy,
going off to the left, lie by in port. Hail, god of triumph! Dost thou
delay the golden chariots and untouched heifers? Hail, god of triumph!
You neither brought back a general equal [to Caesar] from the Jugurthine
war; nor from the African [war, him], whose valor raised him a monument
over Carthage. Our enemy, overthrown both by land and sea, has changed
his purple vestments for mourning. He either seeks Crete, famous for her
hundred cities, ready to sail with unfavorable winds; or the Syrtes,
harassed by the south; or else is driven by the uncertain sea. Bring
hither, boy, larger bowls, and the Chian or Lesbian wine; or, what may
correct this rising qualm of mine, fill me out the Caecuban. It is my
pleasure to dissipate care and anxiety for Caesar's danger with
delicious wine.
* * * * *
ODE X.
AGAINST MAEVIUS.
The vessel that carries the loathsome Maevius, makes her departure under
an unlucky omen. Be mindful, O south wind, that you buffet it about with
horrible billows. May the gloomy east, turning up the sea, disperse its
cables and broken oars. Let the north arise as mighty as when be rives
the quivering oaks on the lofty mountains; nor let a friendly star
appear through the murky night, in which the baleful Orion sets: nor let
him be conveyed in a calmer sea, than was the Grecian band of
conquerors, when Pallas turned her rage from burned Troy to the ship of
impious Ajax. Oh what a sweat is coming upon your sailors, and what a
sallow paleness upon you, and that effeminate wailing, and those prayers
to unregarding Jupiter; when the Ionian bay, roaring with the
tempestuous south-west, shall break your keel. But if, extended along
the winding shore, you shall delight the cormorants as a dainty prey, a
lascivious he-goat and an ewe-lamb shall be sacrificed to the Tempests.
* * * * *
ODE XI.
TO PECTIUS.
It by no means, O Pectius, delights me as heretofore to write Lyric
verses, being smitten with cruel love: with love, who takes pleasure to
inflame me beyond others, either youths or maidens. This is the third
December that has shaken the [leafy] honors from the woods, since I
ceased to be mad for Inachia. Ah me! (for I am ashamed of so great a
misfortune) what a subject of talk was I throughout the city! I repent
too of the entertainments, at which both a languishing and silence and
sighs, heaved from the bottom of my breast, discovered the lover. As
soon as the indelicate god [Bacchus] by the glowing wine had removed, as
I grew warm, the secrets of [my heart] from their repository, I made my
complaints, lamenting to you, "Has the fairest genius of a poor man no
weight against wealthy lucre? Wherefore, if a generous indignation boil
in my breast, insomuch as to disperse to the winds these disagreeable
applications, that give no ease to the desperate wound; the shame [of
being overcome] ending, shall cease to contest with rivals of such a
sort. " When I, with great gravity, had applauded these resolutions in
your presence, being ordered to go home, I was carried with a wandering
foot to posts, alas! to me not friendly, and alas! obdurate gates,
against which I bruised my loins and side. Now my affections for the
delicate Lyciscus engross all my time; from them neither the unreserved
admonitions, nor the serious reprehensions of other friends can recall
me [to my former taste for poetry]; but, perhaps, either a new flame for
some fair damsel, or for some graceful youth who binds his long hair in
a knot, [may do so].
* * * * *
ODE XII.
TO A WOMAN WHOSE CHARMS WERE OVER.
What would you be at, you woman fitter for the swarthy monsters? Why do
you send tokens, why billet-doux to me, and not to some vigorous youth,
and of a taste not nice? For I am one who discerns a polypus, or fetid
ramminess, however concealed, more quickly than the keenest dog the
covert of the boar. What sweatiness, and how rank an odor every where
rises from her withered limbs! when she strives to lay her furious rage
with impossibilities; now she has no longer the advantage of moist
cosmetics, and her color appears as if stained with crocodile's ordure;
and now, in wild impetuosity, she tears her bed, bedding, and all she
has. She attacks even my loathings in the most angry terms:--"You are
always less dull with Inachia than me: in her company you are threefold
complaisance; but you are ever unprepared to oblige me in a single
instance. Lesbia, who first recommended you--so unfit a help in time of
need--may she come to an ill end! when Coan Amyntas paid me his
addresses; who is ever as constant in his fair one's service, as the
young tree to the hill it grows on. For whom were labored the fleeces of
the richest Tyrian dye? For you? Even so that there was not one in
company, among gentlemen of your own rank, whom his own wife admired
preferably to you: oh, unhappy me, whom you fly, as the lamb dreads the
fierce wolves, or the she-goats the lions! "
* * * * *
ODE XIII.
TO A FRIEND.
A horrible tempest has condensed the sky, and showers and snows bring
down the atmosphere: now the sea, now the woods bellow with the Thracian
North wind. Let us, my friends, take occasion from the day; and while
our knees are vigorous, and it becomes us, let old age with his
contracted forehead become smooth. Do you produce the wine, that was
pressed in the consulship of my Torquatus. Forbear to talk of any other
matters. The deity, perhaps, will reduce these [present evils], to your
former [happy] state by a propitious change. Now it is fitting both to
be bedewed with Persian perfume, and to relieve our breasts of dire
vexations by the lyre, sacred to Mercury. Like as the noble Centaur,
[Chiron,] sung to his mighty pupil: "Invincible mortal, son of the
goddess Thetis, the land of Assaracus awaits you, which the cold
currents of little Scamander and swift-gliding Simois divide: whence the
fatal sisters have broken off your return, by a thread that cannot be
altered: nor shall your azure mother convey you back to your home. There
[then] by wine and music, sweet consolations, drive away every symptom
of hideous melancholy. "
* * * * *
ODE XIV.
TO MAECENAS.
You kill me, my courteous Maecenas, by frequently inquiring, why a
soothing indolence has diffused as great a degree of forgetfulness on my
inmost senses, as if I had imbibed with a thirsty throat the cups that
bring on Lethean slumbers. For the god, the god prohibits me from
bringing to a conclusion the verses I promised [you, namely those]
iambics which I had begun. In the same manner they report that Anacreon
of Teios burned for the Samian Bathyllus; who often lamented his love to
an inaccurate measure on a hollow lyre. You are violently in love
yourself; but if a fairer flame did not burn besieged Troy, rejoice in
your lot. Phryne, a freed-woman, and not content with a single admirer,
consumes me.
* * * * *
ODE XV.
TO NEAERA.
It was night, and the moon shone in a serene sky among the lesser stars;
when you, about to violate the divinity of the great gods, swore [to be
true] to my requests, embracing me with your pliant arms more closely
than the lofty oak is clasped by the ivy; that while the wolf should
remain an enemy to the flock, and Orion, unpropitious to the sailors,
should trouble the wintery sea, and while the air should fan the
unshorn locks of Apollo, [so long you vowed] that this love should be
mutual. O Neaera, who shall one day greatly grieve on account of my
merit: for, if there is any thing of manhood in Horace, he will not
endure that you should dedicate your nights continually to another, whom
you prefer; and exasperated, he will look out for one who will return
his love; and though an unfeigned sorrow should take possession of you,
yet my firmness shall not give way to that beauty which has once given
me disgust. But as for you, whoever you be who are more successful [than
me], and now strut proud of my misfortune; though you be rich in flocks
and abundance of land, and Pactolus flow for you, nor the mysteries of
Pythagoras, born again, escape you, and you excel Nireus in beauty;
alas! you shall [hereafter] bewail her love transferred elsewhere; but I
shall laugh in my turn.
* * * * *
ODE XVI.
TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE.
Now is another age worn away by civil wars, and Rome herself falls by
her own strength. Whom neither the bordering Marsi could destroy, nor
the Etrurian band of the menacing Porsena, nor the rival valor of Capua,
nor the bold Spartacus, and the Gauls perfideous with their innovations;
nor did the fierce Germany subdue with its blue-eyed youth, nor Annibal,
detested by parents; but we, an impious race, whose blood is devoted to
perdition, shall destroy her: and this land shall again be possessed by
wild beasts. The victorious barbarian, alas! shall trample upon the
ashes of the city, and the horsemen shall smite it with the sounding
hoofs; and (horrible to see! ) he shall insultingly disperse the bones of
Romulus, which [as yet] are free from the injuries of wind and sun.
Perhaps you all in general, or the better part of you, are inquisitive
to know, what may be expedient, in order to escape [such] dreadful
evils. There can be no determination better than this; namely, to go
wherever our feet will carry us, wherever the south or boisterous
south-west shall summon us through the waves; in the same manner as the
state of the Phocaeans fled, after having uttered execrations [against
such as should return], and left their fields and proper dwellings and
temples to be inhabited by boars and ravenous wolves. Is this
agreeable? has any one a better scheme to advise? Why do we delay to go
on ship-board under an auspicious omen? But first let us swear to these
conditions--the stones shall swim upward, lifted from the bottom of the
sea, as soon as it shall not be impious to return; nor let it grieve us
to direct our sails homeward, when the Po shall wash the tops of the
Matinian summits; or the lofty Apennine shall remove into the sea, or a
miraculous appetite shall unite monsters by a strange kind of lust;
Insomuch that tigers may delight to couple with hinds, and the dove be
polluted with the kite; nor the simple herds may dread the brindled
lions, and the he-goat, grown smooth, may love the briny main. After
having sworn to these things, and whatever else may cut off the
pleasing: hope of returning, let us go, the whole city of us, or at
least that part which is superior to the illiterate mob: let the idle
and despairing part remain upon these inauspicious habitations. Ye, that
have bravery, away with effeminate grief, and fly beyond the Tuscan
shore. The ocean encircling the land awaits us; let us seek the happy
plains and prospering Islands, where the untilled land yearly produces
corn, and the unpruned vineyard punctually flourishes; and where the
branch of the never-failing olive blossoms forth, and the purple fig
adorns its native tree: honey distills from the hollow oaks; the light
water bounds down from the high mountains with a murmuring pace. There
the she-goats come to the milk-pails of their own accord, and the
friendly flock return with their udders distended; nor does the bear at
evening growl about the sheepfold, nor does the rising ground swell with
vipers; and many more things shall we, happy [Romans], view with
admiration: how neither the rainy east lays waste the corn-fields with
profuse showers, nor is the fertile seed burned by a dry glebe; the king
of gods moderating both [extremes]. The pine rowed by the Argonauts
never attempted to come hither; nor did the lascivious [Medea] of
Colchis set her foot [in this place]: hither the Sidonian mariners never
turned their sail-yards, nor the toiling crew of Ulysses. No contagious
distempers hurt the flocks; nor does the fiery violence of any
constellation scorch the herd. Jupiter set apart these shores for a
pious people, when he debased the golden age with brass: with brass,
then with iron he hardened the ages; from which there shall be a happy
escape for the good, according to my predictions.
* * * * *
ODE XVII.
DIALOGUE BETWEEN HORACE AND CANIDIA.
Now, now I yield to powerful science; and suppliant beseech thee by the
dominions of Proserpine, and by the inflexible divinity of Diana, and by
the books of incantations able to call down the stars displaced from the
firmament; O Canidia, at length desist from thine imprecations, and
quickly turn, turn back thy magical machine. Telephus moved [with
compassion] the grandson of Nereus, against whom he arrogantly had put
his troops of Mysians in battle-array, and against whom he had darted
his sharp javelins. The Trojan matrons embalmed the body of the
man-slaying Hector, which had been condemned to birds of prey, and dogs,
after king [Priam], having left the walls of the city, prostrated
himself, alas! at the feet of the obstinate Achilles. The mariners of
the indefatigable Ulysses, put off their limbs, bristled with the hard
skins [of swine], at the will of Circe: then their reason and voice were
restored, and their former comeliness to their countenances. I have
suffered punishment enough, and more than enough, on thy account, O thou
so dearly beloved by the sailors and factors. My vigor is gone away, and
my ruddy complexion has left me; my bones are covered with a ghastly
skin; my hair with your preparations is grown hoary. No ease respites me
from my sufferings: night presses upon day, and day upon night: nor is
it in my power to relieve my lungs, which are strained with gasping.
Wherefore, wretch that I am, I am compelled to credit (what was denied,
by me) that the charms of the Samnites discompose the breast, and the
head splits in sunder at the Marsian incantations. What wouldst thou
have more? O sea! O earth! I burn in such a degree as neither Hercules
did, besmeared with the black gore of Nessus, nor the fervid flame
burning In the Sicilian Aetna. Yet you, a laboratory of Colchian
poisons, remain on fire, till I [reduced to] a dry ember, shall be
wafted away by the injurious winds. What event, or what penalty awaits
me? Speak out: I will with honor pay the demanded mulct; ready to make
an expiation, whether you should require a hundred steers, or chose to
be celebrated on a lying lyre. You, a woman of modesty, you, a woman of
probity, shall traverse the stars, as a golden constellation. Castor and
the brother of the great Castor, offended at the infamy brought on
[their sister] Helen, yet overcome by entreaty, restored to the poet his
eyes that were taken away from him. And do you (for it is in your power)
extricate me from this frenzy; O you, that are neither defiled by family
meanness, nor skillful to disperse the ashes of poor people, after they
have been nine days interred.
You have an hospitable breast, and
unpolluted hands; and Pactumeius is your son, and thee the midwife has
tended; and, whenever you bring forth, you spring up with unabated
vigor.
CANIDIA'S ANSWER.
Why do you pour forth your entreaties to ears that are closely shut
[against them]? The wintery ocean, with its briny tempests, does not
lash rocks more deaf to the cries of the naked mariners. What, shall
you, without being made an example of, deride the Cotyttian mysteries,
sacred to unrestrained love, which were divulged [by you]? And shall
you, [assuming the office] of Pontiff [with regard to my] Esquilian
incantations, fill the city with my name unpunished? What did it avail
me to have enriched the Palignian sorceress [with my charms], and to
have prepared poison of greater expedition, if a slower fate awaits you
than is agreeable to my wishes? An irksome life shall be protracted by
you, wretch as you are, for this purpose, that you may perpetually be
able to endure new tortures. Tantalus, the perfidious sire of Pelops,
ever craving after the plenteous banquet [which is always before him],
wishes for respite; Prometheus, chained to the vulture, wishes [for
rest]; Sisyphus wishes to place the stone on the summit of the mountain:
but the laws of Jupiter forbid. Thus you shall desire at one time to
leap down from a high tower, at another to lay open your breast with the
Noric sword; and, grieving with your tedious indisposition, shall tie
nooses about your neck in vain. I at that time will ride on your odious
shoulders; and the whole earth shall acknowledge my unexampled power.
What shall I who can give motion to waxen images (as you yourself,
inquisitive as you are, were convinced of) and snatch the moon from
heaven by my incantations; I, who can raise the dead after they are
burned, and duly prepare the potion of love, shall I bewail the event of
my art having no efficacy upon you?
* * * * *
THE SECULAR POEM OF HORACE.
TO APOLLO AND DIANA.
Phoebus, and thou Diana, sovereign of the woods, ye illustrious
ornaments of the heavens, oh ever worthy of adoration, and ever adored,
bestow what we pray for at this sacred season: at which the Sibylline
verses have given directions, that select virgins and chaste youths
should sing a hymn to the deities, to whom the seven hills [of Rome] are
acceptable. O genial sun, who in your splendid car draw forth and
obscure the day, and who arise another and the same, may it never be in
your power to behold anything more glorious than the city of Rome! O
Ilithyia, of lenient power to produce the timely birth, protect the
matrons [in labor]; whether you choose the title of Lucina, or
Genitalis. O goddess multiply our offspring; and prosper the decrees of
the senate in relation to the joining of women in wedlock, and the
matrimonial law about to teem with a new race; that the stated
revolution of a hundred and ten years may bring back the hymns and the
games, three times by bright daylight restored to in crowds, and as
often in the welcome night. And you, ye fatal sisters, infallible in
having predicted what is established, and what the settled order of
things preserves, add propitious fates to those already past. Let the
earth, fertile in fruits and flocks, present Ceres with a sheafy crown;
may both salubrious rains and Jove's air cherish the young blood!
Apollo, mild and gentle with your sheathed arrows, hear the suppliant
youths: O moon, thou horned queen of stars, hear the virgins. If Rome be
your work, and the Trojan troops arrived on the Tuscan shore (the part,
commanded [by your oracles] to change their homes and city) by a
successful navigation: for whom pious Aeneas, surviving his country,
secured a free passage through Troy, burning not by his treachery, about
to give them more ample possessions than those that were left behind. O
ye deities, grant to the tractable youth probity of manners; to old age,
ye deities, grant a pleasing retirement; to the Roman people, wealth,
and progeny, and every kind of glory. And may the illustrious issue of
Anchises and Venus, who worships you with [offerings of] white bulls,
reign superior to the warring enemy, merciful to the prostrate. Now the
Parthian, by sea and land, dreads our powerful forces and the Roman
axes: now the Scythians beg [to know] our commands, and the Indians but
lately so arrogant. Now truth, and peace, and honor, and ancient
modesty, and neglected virtue dare to return, and happy plenty appears,
with her horn full to the brim. Phoebus, the god of augury, and
conspicuous for his shining bow, and dear to the nine muses, who by his
salutary art soothes the wearied limbs of the body; if he, propitious,
surveys the Palatine altars--may he prolong the Roman affairs, and the
happy state of Italy to another lustrum, and to an improving age. And
may Diana, who possesses Mount Aventine and Algidus, regard the prayers
of the Quindecemvirs, and lend a gracious ear to the supplications of
the youths. We, the choir taught to sing the praises of Phoebus and
Diana, bear home with us a good and certain hope, that Jupiter, and all
the other gods, are sensible of these our supplications.
* * * * *
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE SATIRES OF HORACE.
SATIRE I.
_That all, but especially the covetous, think their own condition the
hardest_.
How comes it to pass, Maecenas, that no one lives content with his
condition, whether reason gave it him, or chance threw it in his way
[but] praises those who follow different pursuits? "O happy merchants! "
says the soldier, oppressed with years, and now broken down in his limbs
through excess of labor. On the other side, the merchant, when the south
winds toss his ship [cries], "Warfare is preferable;" for why? the
engagement is begun, and in an instant there comes a speedy death or a
joyful victory. The lawyer praises the farmer's state when the client
knocks at his door by cock-crow. He who, having entered into a
recognizance, is dragged from the country into the city, cries, "Those
only are happy who live in the city. " The other instances of this kind
(they are so numerous) would weary out the loquacious Fabius; not to
keep you in suspense, hear to what an issue I will bring the matter. If
any god should say, "Lo! I will effect what you desire: you, that were
just now a soldier, shall be a merchant; you, lately a lawyer [shall be]
a farmer. Do ye depart one way, and ye another, having exchanged the
parts [you are to act] in life. How now! why do you stand? " They are
unwilling; and yet it is in their power to be happy. What reason can be
assigned, but that Jupiter should deservedly distend both his cheeks in
indignation, and declare that for the future he will not be so indulgent
as to lend an ear to their prayers? But further, that I may not run over
this in a laughing manner, like those [who treat] on ludicrous subjects
(though what hinders one being merry, while telling the truth? as
good-natured teachers at first give cakes to their boys, that they may
be willing to learn their first rudiments: railery, however, apart, let
us investigate serious matters). He that turns the heavy glebe with the
hard ploughshare, this fraudulent tavern-keeper, the soldier, and the
sailors, who dauntless run through every sea, profess that they endure
toil with this intention, that as old men they may retire into a secure
resting place, when once they have gotten together a sufficient
provision.
Thus the little ant (for she is an example), of great industry, carries
in her mouth whatever she is able, and adds to the heap which she piles
up, by no means ignorant and not careless for the future. Which [ant,
nevertheless], as soon, as Aquarius saddens the changed year, never
creeps abroad, but wisely makes use of those stores which were provided
beforehand: while neither sultry summer, nor winter, fire, ocean, sword,
can drive you from gain. You surmount every obstacle, that no other man
may be richer than yourself. What pleasure is it for you, trembling to
deposit an immense weight of silver and gold in the earth dug up by
stealth? Because if you lessen it, it may be reduced to a paltry
farthing.
But unless that be the case, what beauty has an accumulated hoard?
Though your thrashing-floor should yield a hundred thousand bushels of
corn, your belly will not on that account contain more than mine: just
as if it were your lot to carry on your loaded shoulder the basket of
bread among slaves, you would receive no more [for your own share] than
he who bore no part of the burthen. Or tell me, what is it to the
purpose of that man, who lives within the compass of nature, whether he
plow a hundred or a thousand acres?
"But it is still delightful to take out of a great hoard. "
While you leave us to take as much out of a moderate store, why should
you extol your granaries, more than our corn-baskets? As if you had
occasion for no more than a pitcher or glass of water, and should say,
"I had rather draw [so much] from a great river, than the very same
quantity from this little fountain. " Hence it comes to pass, that the
rapid Aufidus carries away, together with the bank, such men as an
abundance more copious than what is just delights. But he who desires
only so much as is sufficient, neither drinks water fouled with the mud,
nor loses his life in the waves.
But a great majority of mankind, misled by a wrong desire cry, "No sum
is enough; because you are esteemed in proportion to what you possess. "
What can one do to such a tribe as this? Why, bid them be wretched,
since their inclination prompts them to it. As a certain person is
recorded [to have lived] at Athens, covetous and rich, who was wont to
despise the talk of the people in this manner: "The crowd hiss me; but I
applaud myself at home, as soon as I contemplate my money in my chest. "
The thirsty Tantalus catches at the streams, which elude his lips. Why
do you laugh? The name changed, the tale is told of you. You sleep upon
your bags, heaped up on every side, gaping over them, and are obliged to
abstain from them, as if they were consecrated things, or to amuse
yourself with them as you would with pictures. Are you ignorant of what
value money has, what use it can afford? Bread, herbs, a bottle of wine
may be purchased; to which [necessaries], add [such others], as, being
withheld, human nature would be uneasy with itself. What, to watch half
dead with terror, night and day, to dread profligate thieves, fire, and
your slaves, lest they should run away and plunder you; is this
delightful? I should always wish to be very poor in possessions held
upon these terms.
But if your body should be disordered by being seized with a cold, or
any other casualty should confine you to your bed, have you one that
will abide by you, prepare medicines, entreat the physician that he
would set you upon your feet, and restore you to your children and dear
relations?
Neither your wife, nor your son, desires your recovery; all your
neighbors, acquaintances, [nay the very] boys and girls hate you. Do you
wonder that no one tenders you the affection which you do not merit,
since you prefer your money to everything else? If you think to retain,
and preserve as friends, the relations which nature gives you, without
taking any pains; wretch that you are, you lose your labor equally, as
if any one should train an ass to be obedient to the rein, and run in
the Campus [Martius]. Finally, let there be some end to your search;
and, as your riches increase, be in less dread of poverty; and begin to
cease from your toil, that being acquired which you coveted: nor do as
did one Umidius (it is no tedious story), who was so rich that he
measured his money, so sordid that he never clothed him self any better
than a slave; and, even to his last moments, was in dread lest want of
bread should oppress him: but his freed-woman, the bravest of all the
daughters of Tyndarus, cut him in two with a hatchet.
"What therefore do you persuade me to? That I should lead the life of
Naevius, or in such a manner as a Nomentanus? "
You are going [now] to make things tally, that are contradictory in
their natures. When I bid you not be a miser, I do not order you to
become a debauchee or a prodigal. There is some difference between the
case of Tanais and his son-in-law Visellius, there is a mean in things;
finally, there are certain boundaries, on either side of which moral
rectitude can not exist. I return now whence I digressed. Does no one,
after the miser's example, like his own station, but rather praise those
who have different pursuits; and pines, because his neighbor's she-goat
bears a more distended udder: nor considers himself in relation to the
greater multitude of poor; but labors to surpass, first one and then
another? Thus the richer man is always an obstacle to one that is
hastening [to be rich]: as when the courser whirls along the chariot
dismissed from the place of starting; the charioteer presses upon those
horses which outstrip his own, despising him that is left behind coming
on among the last. Hence it is, that we rarely find a man who can say he
has lived happy, and content with his past life, can retire from the
world like a satisfied guest. Enough for the present: nor will I add one
word more, lest you should suspect that I have plundered the escrutoire
of the blear-eyed Crispinus.
* * * * *
SATIRE II.
_Bad men, when they avoid certain vices, fall into their opposite
extremes. _
The tribes of female flute-players, quacks, vagrants, mimics,
blackguards; all this set is sorrowful and dejected on account of the
death of the singer Tigellius; for he was liberal [toward them]. On the
other hand, this man, dreading to be called a spendthrift, will not give
a poor friend wherewithal to keep off cold and pinching hunger. If you
ask him why he wickedly consumes the noble estate of his grandfather and
father in tasteless gluttony, buying with borrowed money all sorts of
dainties; he answers, because he is unwilling to be reckoned sordid, or
of a mean spirit: he is praised by some, condemned by others. Fufidius,
wealthy in lands, wealthy in money put out at interest, is afraid of
having the character of a rake and spendthrift. This fellow deducts 5
per cent. Interest from the principal [at the time of lending]; and, the
more desperate in his circumstances any one is, the more severely be
pinches him: he hunts out the names of young fellows that have just put
on the toga virilis under rigid fathers. Who does not cry out, O
sovereign Jupiter! when he has heard [of such knavery]? But [you will
say, perhaps,] this man expends upon himself in proportion to his gain.
You can hardly believe how little a friend he is to himself: insomuch
that the father, whom Terence's comedy introduces as living miserable
after he had caused his son to run away from him, did not torment
himself worse than he. Now if any one should ask, "To what does this
matter tend? " To this: while fools shun [one sort of] vices, they fall
upon their opposite extremes. Malthinus walks with his garments trailing
upon the ground; there is another droll fellow who [goes] with them
tucked up even to his middle; Rufillus smells like perfume itself,
Gorgonius like a he-goat. There is no mean. There are some who would not
keep company with a lady, unless her modest garment perfectly conceal
her feet. Another, again, will only have such as take their station in a
filthy brothel. When a certain noted spark came out of a stew, the
divine Cato [greeted] him with this sentence: "Proceed (says he) in your
virtuous course. For, when once foul lust has inflamed the veins, it is
right for young fellows to come hither, in comparison of their meddling
with other men's wives. " I should not be willing to be commended on such
terms, says Cupiennius, an admirer of the silken vail.
Ye, that do not wish well to the proceedings of adulterers, it is worth
your while to hear how they are hampered on all sides; and that their
pleasure, which happens to them but seldom, is interrupted with a great
deal of pain, and often in the midst of very great dangers. One has
thrown himself headlong from the top of a house; another has been
whipped almost to death: a third, in his flight, has fallen into a
merciless gang of thieves: another has paid a fine, [to avoid] corporal
[punishment]: the lowest servants have treated another with the vilest
indignities. Moreover, this misfortune happened to a certain person, he
entirely lost his manhood. Every body said, it was with justice: Galba
denied it.
But how much safer is the traffic among [women] of the second rate! I
mean the freed-women: after which Sallustius is not less mad, than he
who commits adultery. But if he had a mind to be good and generous, as
far as his estate and reason would direct him, and as far as a man might
be liberal with moderation; he would give a sufficiency, not what would
bring upon himself ruin and infamy. However, he hugs himself in this one
[consideration]; this he delights in, this he extols: "I meddle with no
matron. " Just as Marsaeus, the lover of Origo, he who gives his paternal
estate and seat to an actress, says, "I never meddle with other men's
wives. " But you have with actresses, you have with common strumpets:
whence your reputation derives a greater perdition, than your estate.
What, is it abundantly sufficient to avoid the person, and not the
[vice] which is universally noxious? To lose one's good name, to
squander a father's effects, is in all cases an evil. What is the
difference [then, with regard to yourself,] whether you sin with the
person of a matron, a maiden, or a prostitute?
Villius, the son-in-law of Sylla (by this title alone he was misled),
suffered [for his commerce] with Fausta, an adequate and more than
adequate punishment, by being drubbed and stabbed, while he was shut
out, that Longarenus might enjoy her within. Suppose this [young man's]
mind had addressed him in the words of his appetite, perceiving such
evil consequences: "What would you have? Did I ever, when my ardor was
at the highest, demand a woman descended from a great consul, and
covered with robes of quality? " What could he answer? Why, "the girl was
sprung from an illustrious father. " But how much better things, and how
different from this, does nature, abounding in stores of her own,
recommend; if you would only make a proper use of them, and not confound
what is to be avoided with that which is desirable! Do you think it is
of no consequence, whether your distresses arise from your own fault or
from [a real deficiency] of things? Wherefore, that you may not repent
[when it is too late], put a stop to your pursuit after matrons; whence
more trouble is derived, than you can obtain of enjoyment from success.
Nor has [this particular matron], amid her pearls and emeralds, a softer
thigh, or-limbs mere delicate than yours, Cerinthus; nay, the
prostitutes are frequently preferable. Add to this, that [the
prostitute] bears about her merchandize without any varnish, and openly
shows what she has to dispose of; nor, if she has aught more comely than
ordinary, does she boast and make an ostentation of it, while she is
industrious to conceal that which is offensive. This is the custom with
men of fortune: when they buy horses, they inspect them covered: that,
if a beautiful forehand (as often) be supported by a tender hoof, it may
not take in the buyer, eager for the bargain, because the back is
handsome, the head little, and the neck stately. This they do
judiciously. Do not you, [therefore, in the same manner] contemplate the
perfections of each [fair one's] person with the eyes of Lynceus; but be
blinder than Hypsaea, when you survey such parts as are deformed. [You
may cry out,] "O what a leg! O, what delicate arms! " But [you suppress]
that she is low-hipped, short-waisted, with a long nose, and a splay
foot. A man can see nothing but the face of a matron, who carefully
conceals her other charms, unless it be a Catia. But if you will seek
after forbidden charms (for the [circumstance of their being forbidden]
makes you mad after them), surrounded as they are with a fortification,
many obstacles will then be in your way: such as guardians, the sedan,
dressers, parasites, the long robe hanging down to the ankles, and
covered with an upper garment; a multiplicity of circumstances, which
will hinder you from having a fair view. The other throws no obstacle in
your way; through the silken vest you may discern her, almost as well as
if she was naked; that she has neither a bad leg, nor a disagreeable
foot, you may survey her form perfectly with your eye. Or would you
choose to have a trick put upon you, and your money extorted, before the
goods are shown you? [But perhaps you will sing to me these verses out
of Callimachus. ] As the huntsman pursues the hare in the deep snow, but
disdains to touch it when it is placed before him: thus sings the rake,
and applies it to himself; my love is like to this, for it passes over
an easy prey, and pursues what flies from it. Do you hope that grief,
and uneasiness, and bitter anxieties, will be expelled from your breast
by such verses as these? Would It not be more profitable to inquire what
boundary nature has affixed to the appetites, what she can patiently do
without, and what she would lament the deprivation of, and to separate
what is solid from what is vain? What! when thirst parches your jaws,
are you solicitous for golden cups to drink out of? What! when you are
hungry, do you despise everything but peacock and turbot? When your
passions are inflamed, and a common gratification is at hand, would you
rather be consumed with desire than possess it? I would not: for I love
such pleasures as are of easiest attainment. But she whose language is,
"By and by," "But for a small matter more," "If my husband should be out
of the way. " [is only] for petit-maitres: and for himself, Philodemus
says, he chooses her, who neither stands for a great price, nor delays
to come when she is ordered. Let her be fair, and straight, and so far
decent as not to appear desirous of seeming fairer than nature has made
her. When I am in the company of such an one, she is my Ilia and
Aegeria; I give her any name. Nor am I apprehensive, while I am in her
company, lest her husband should return from the country: the door
should be broken open; the dog should bark; the house, shaken, should
resound on all sides with a great noise; the woman, pale [with fear],
should bound away from me; lest the maid, conscious [of guilt], should
cry out, she is undone; lest she should be in apprehension for her
limbs, the detected wife for her portion, I for myself: lest I must run
away with my clothes all loose, and bare-footed, for fear my money, or
my person, or, finally my character should be demolished. It is a
dreadful thing to be caught; I could prove this, even if Fabius were the
judge.
* * * * *
SATIRE III.
_We might to connive at the faults of our friends, and all offences are
not to be ranked in the catalogue of crimes_.
This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they
never are inclined to sing when they are asked, [but] unasked, they
never desist. Tigellius, that Sardinian, had this [fault]. Had Caesar,
who could have forced him to compliance, besought him on account of his
father's friendship and his own, he would have had no success; if he
himself was disposed, he would chant lo Bacche over and over, from the
beginning of an entertainment to the very conclusion of it; one while at
the deepest pitch of his voice, at another time with that which answers
to the highest string of the tetrachord. There was nothing uniform in
that fellow; frequently would he run along, as one flying from an enemy;
more frequently [he walked] as if he bore [in procession] the sacrifice
of Juno: he had often two hundred slaves, often but ten: one while
talking of kings and potentates, every thing that was magnificent; at
another--"Let me have a three-legged table, and a cellar of clean salt,
and a gown which, though coarse, may be sufficient to keep out the
cold. " Had you given ten hundred thousand sesterces to this moderate man
who was content with such small matters, in five days' time there would
be nothing in his bags. He sat up at nights, [even] to day-light; he
snored out all the day. Never was there anything so inconsistent with
itself. Now some person may say to me, "What are you? Have you no
faults? " Yes, others; but others, and perhaps of a less culpable nature.
When Maenius railed at Novius in his absence: "Hark ye," says a certain
person, "are you ignorant of yourself? or do you think to impose
yourself upon us a person we do not know? " "As for me, I forgive
myself," quoth Maenius. This is a foolish and impious self-love, and
worthy to be stigmatized. When you look over your own vices, winking at
them, as it were, with sore eyes; why are you with regard to those of
your friends as sharp-sighted as an eagle, or the Epidaurian serpent?
But, on the other hand, it is your lot that your friends should inquire
into your vices in turn. [A certain person] is a little too hasty in his
temper; not well calculated for the sharp-witted sneers of these men: he
may be made a jest of because his gown hangs awkwardly, he [at the same
time] being trimmed in a very rustic manner, and his wide shoe hardly
sticks to his foot. But he is so good, that no man can be better; but he
is your friend; but an immense genius is concealed under this unpolished
person of his. Finally, sift yourself thoroughly, whether nature has
originally sown the seeds of any vice in you, or even an ill-habit [has
done it]. For the fern, fit [only] to be burned, overruns the neglected
fields.
Let us return from our digression. As his mistress's disagreeable
failings escape the blinded lover, or even give him pleasure (as Hagna's
wen does to Balbinus), I could wish that we erred in this manner with
regard to friendship, and that virtue had affixed a reputable
appellation to such an error. And as a father ought not to contemn his
son, if he has any defect, in the same manner we ought not [to contemn]
our friend. The father calls his squinting boy a pretty leering rogue;
and if any man has a little despicable brat, such as the abortive
Sisyphus formerly was, he calls it a sweet moppet; this [child] with
distorted legs, [the father] in a fondling voice calls one of the Vari;
and another, who is club-footed, he calls a Scaurus. [Thus, does] this
friend of yours live more sparingly than ordinarily? Let him be styled a
man of frugality. Is another impertinent, and apt to brag a little? He
requires to be reckoned entertaining to his friends. But [another] is
too rude, and takes greater liberties than are fitting. Let him be
esteemed a man of sincerity and bravery. Is he too fiery, let him be
numbered among persons of spirit. This method, in my opinion, both
unites friends, and preserves them in a state of union. But we invert
the very virtues themselves, and are desirous of throwing dirt upon the
untainted vessel. Does a man of probity live among us? he is a person of
singular diffidence; we give him the name of a dull and fat-headed
fellow. Does this man avoid every snare, and lay himself open to no
ill-designing villain; since we live amid such a race, where keen envy
and accusations are flourishing? Instead of a sensible and wary man, we
call him a disguised and subtle fellow. And is any one more open, [and
less reserved] than usual in such a degree as I often have presented
myself to you, Maecenas, so as perhaps impertinently to interrupt a
person reading, or musing, with any kind of prate? We cry, "[this
fellow] actually wants common sense.
to lie under an aged holm, sometimes on the matted grass: meanwhile the
waters glide along in their deep channels; the birds warble in the
woods; and the fountains murmur with their purling streams, which
invites gentle slumbers. But when the wintery season of the tempestuous
air prepares rains and snows, he either drives the fierce boars, with
many a dog, into the intercepting toils; or spreads his thin nets with
the smooth pole, as a snare for the voracious thrushes; or catches in
his gin the timorous hare, or that stranger the crane, pleasing rewards
[for his labor]. Among such joys as these, who does not forget those
mischievous anxieties, which are the property of love. But if a chaste
wife, assisting on her part [in the management] of the house, and
beloved children (such as is the Sabine, or the sun-burned spouse of the
industrious Apulian), piles up the sacred hearth with old wood, just at
the approach of her weary husband; and, shutting up the fruitful cattle
in the woven hurdles, milks dry their distended udders: and, drawing
this year's wine out of a well-seasoned cask, prepares the unbought
collation: not the Lucrine oysters could delight me more, nor the
turbot, nor the scar, should the tempestuous winter drive any from the
eastern floods to this sea: not the turkey, nor the Asiatic wild-fowl,
can come into my stomach more agreeably, than the olive gathered from
the richest branches from the trees, or the sorrel that loves the
meadows, or mallows salubrious for a sickly body, or a lamb slain at the
feast of Terminus, or a kid rescued from the wolf. Amid these dainties,
how it pleases one to see the well-fed sheep hastening home! to see the
weary oxen, with drooping neck, dragging the inverted ploughshare! and
slaves, the test of a rich family, ranged about the smiling household
gods! When Alfius, the usurer, now on the point of turning countryman,
had said this, he collected in all his money on the Ides; and endeavors
to put it out again at the Calends.
* * * * *
ODE III.
TO MAECENAS.
If any person at any time with an impious hand has broken his aged
father's neck, let him eat garlic, more baneful than hemlock. Oh! the
hardy bowels of the mowers! What poison is this that rages in my
entrails? Has viper's blood, infused in these herbs, deceived me? Or has
Canidia dressed this baleful food? When Medea, beyond all the [other]
argonauts, admired their handsome leader, she anointed Jason with this,
as he was going to tie the untried yoke on the bulls: and having
revenged herself on [Jason's] mistress, by making her presents besmeared
with this, she flew away on her winged dragon. Never did the steaming
influence of any constellation so raging as this rest upon the thirsty
Appulia: neither did the gift [_of Dejanira_] burn hotter upon the
shoulders of laborious Hercules. But if ever, facetious Maecenas, you
should have a desire for any such stuff again, I wish that your girl may
oppose her hand to your kiss, and lie at the furthest part of the bed.
* * * * *
ODE IV.
TO MENAS.
As great an enmity as is allotted by nature to wolves and lambs, [so
great a one] have I to you, you that are galled at your back with
Spanish cords, and on your legs with the hard fetter. Though,
purse-proud with your riches, you strut along, yet fortune does not
alter your birth. Do you not observe while you are stalking along the
sacred way with a robe twice three ells long, how the most open
indignation of those that pass and repass turns their looks on thee?
This fellow, [say they,] cut with the triumvir's whips, even till the
beadle was sick of his office, plows a thousand acres of Falernian land,
and wears out the Appian road with his nags; and, in despite of Otho,
sits in the first rows [of the circus] as a knight of distinction. To
what purpose is it, that so many brazen-beaked ships of immense bulk
should be led out against pirates and a band of slaves, while this
fellow, this is a military tribune?
* * * * *
ODE V.
THE WITCHES MANGLING A BOY.
But oh, by all the gods in heaven, who rule the earth and human race,
what means this tumult? And what the hideous looks of all these [hags,
fixed] upon me alone? I conjure thee by thy children (if invoked Lucina
was ever present at any real birth of thine), I [conjure] thee by this
empty honor of my purple, by Jupiter, who must disapprove these
proceedings, why dost thou look at me as a step-mother, or as a wild
beast stricken with a dart? While the boy made these complaints with a
faltering voice, he stood with his bandages of distinction taken from
him, a tender frame, such as might soften the impious breasts of the
cruel Thracians; Canidia, having interwoven her hair and uncombed head
with little vipers, orders wild fig-trees torn up from graves, orders
funeral cypresses and eggs besmeared with the gore of a loathsome toad,
and feathers of the nocturnal screech-owl, and those herbs, which
lolchos, and Spain, fruitful in poisons, transmits, and bones snatched
from the mouth of a hungry bitch, to be burned in Colchian flames. But
Sagana, tucked up for expedition, sprinkling the waters of Avernus all
over the house, bristles up with her rough hair like a sea-urchin, or a
boar in the chase. Veia, deterred by no remorse of conscience, groaning
with the toil, dug up the ground with the sharp spade; where the boy,
fixed in, might long be tormented to death at the sight of food varied
two or three times in a day: while he stood out with his face, just as
much at bodies suspended by the chin [in swimming] project from the
water, that his parched marrow and dried liver might be a charm for
love; when once the pupils of his eyes had wasted away, fixed on the
forbidden food. Both the idle Naples, and every neighboring town
believed, that Folia of Ariminum, [a witch] of masculine lust, was not
absent: she, who with her Thessalian incantations forces the charmed
stars and the moon from heaven. Here the fell Canidia, gnawing her
unpaired thumb with her livid teeth, what said she? or what did she not
say? O ye faithful witnesses to my proceedings, Night and Diana, who
presidest over silence, when the secret rites are celebrated: now, now
be present, now turn your anger and power against the houses of our
enemies, while the savage wild beasts lie hid in the woods, dissolved in
sweet repose; let the dogs of Suburra (which may be matter of ridicule
for every body) bark at the aged profligate, bedaubed with ointment,
such as my hands never made any more exquisite. What is the matter? Why
are these compositions less efficacious than those of the barbarian
Medea? by means of which she made her escape, after having revenged
herself on [Jason's] haughty mistress, the daughter of the mighty Creon;
when the garment, a gift that was injected with venom, took off his new
bride by its inflammatory power. And yet no herb, nor root hidden in
inaccessible places, ever escaped my notice. [Nevertheless,] he sleeps
in the perfumed bed of every harlot, from his forgetfulness [of me]. Ah!
ah! he walks free [from my power] by the charms of some more knowing
witch. Varus, (oh you that will shortly have much to lament! ) you shall
come back to me by means of unusual spells; nor shall you return to
yourself by all the power of Marsian enchantments, I will prepare a
stronger philter: I will pour in a stronger philter for you, disdainful
as you are; and the heaven shall subside below the sea, with the earth
extended over it, sooner than you shall not burn with love for me, in
the same manner as this pitch [burns] in the sooty flames. At these
words, the boy no longer [attempted], as before, to move the impious
hags by soothing expressions; but, doubtful in what manner he should
break silence, uttered Thyestean imprecations. Potions [said he] have a
great efficacy in confounding right and wrong, but are not able to
invert the condition of human nature; I will persecute you with curses;
and execrating detestation is not to be expiated by any victim.
Moreover, when doomed to death I shall have expired, I will attend you
as a nocturnal fury; and, a ghost, I will attack your faces with my
hooked talons (for such is the power of those divinities, the Manes),
and, brooding upon your restless breasts, I will deprive you of repose
by terror. The mob, from village to village, assaulting you on every
side with stones, shall demolish you filthy hags. Finally, the wolves
and Esquiline vultures shall scatter abroad your unburied limbs. Nor
shall this spectacle escape the observation of my parents, who, alas!
must survive me.
ODE. VI.
AGAINST CASSIUS SEVERUS.
O cur, thou coward against wolves, why dost thou persecute innocent
strangers? Why do you not, if you can, turn your empty yelpings hither,
and attack me, who will bite again? For, like a Molossian, or tawny
Laconian dog, that is a friendly assistant to shepherds, I will drive
with erected ears through the deep snows every brute that shall go
before me. You, when you have filled the grove with your fearful
barking, you smell at the food that is thrown to you. Have a care, have
a care; for, very bitter against bad men, I exert my ready horns uplift;
like him that was rejected as a son-in-law by the perfidious Lycambes,
or the sharp enemy of Bupalus. What, if any cur attack me with malignant
tooth, shall I, without revenge, blubber like a boy?
* * * * *
ODE VII.
TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE.
Whither, whither, impious men are you rushing? Or why are the swords
drawn, that were [so lately] sheathed? Is there too little of Roman
blood spilled upon land and sea? [And this,] not that the Romans might
burn the proud towers of envious Carthage, or that the Britons, hitherto
unassailed, might go down the sacred way bound in chains: but that,
agreeably to the wishes of the Parthians, this city may fall by its own
might. This custom [of warfare] never obtained even among either wolves
or savage lions, unless against a different species. Does blind phrenzy,
or your superior valor, or some crime, hurry you on at this rate? Give
answer. They are silent: and wan paleness infects their countenances,
and their stricken souls are stupefied. This is the case: a cruel
fatality and the crime of fratricide have disquieted the Romans, from
that time when the blood of the innocent Remus, to be expiated by his
descendants, was spilled upon the earth.
* * * * *
ODE VIII.
UPON A WANTON OLD WOMAN.
Can you, grown rank with lengthened age, ask what unnerves my vigor?
When your teeth are black, and old age withers your brow with wrinkles:
and your back sinks between your staring hip-bones, like that of an
unhealthy cow. But, forsooth! your breast and your fallen chest, full
well resembling a broken-backed horse, provoke me; and a body flabby,
and feeble knees supported by swollen legs. May you be happy: and may
triumphal statues adorn your funeral procession; and may no matron
appear in public abounding with richer pearls. What follows, because the
Stoic treatises sometimes love to be on silken pillows? Are unlearned
constitutions the less robust? Or are their limbs less stout? But for
you to raise an appetite, in a stomach that is nice, it is necessary
that you exert every art of language.
* * * * *
ODE IX.
TO MAECENAS.
When, O happy Maecenas, shall I, overjoyed at Caesar's being victorious,
drink with you under the stately dome (for so it pleases Jove) the
Caecuban reserved for festal entertainments, while the lyre plays a
tune, accompanied with flutes, that in the Doric, these in the Phrygian
measure? As lately, when the Neptunian admiral, driven from the sea,
and his navy burned, fled, after having menaced those chains to Rome,
which, like a friend, he had taken off from perfidious slaves. The Roman
soldiers (alas! ye, our posterity, will deny the fact), enslaved to a
woman, carry palisadoes and arms, and can be subservient to haggard
eunuchs; and among the military standards, oh shame! the sun beholds an
[Egyptian] canopy. Indignant at this the Gauls turned two thousand of
their cavalry, proclaiming Caesar; and the ships of the hostile navy,
going off to the left, lie by in port. Hail, god of triumph! Dost thou
delay the golden chariots and untouched heifers? Hail, god of triumph!
You neither brought back a general equal [to Caesar] from the Jugurthine
war; nor from the African [war, him], whose valor raised him a monument
over Carthage. Our enemy, overthrown both by land and sea, has changed
his purple vestments for mourning. He either seeks Crete, famous for her
hundred cities, ready to sail with unfavorable winds; or the Syrtes,
harassed by the south; or else is driven by the uncertain sea. Bring
hither, boy, larger bowls, and the Chian or Lesbian wine; or, what may
correct this rising qualm of mine, fill me out the Caecuban. It is my
pleasure to dissipate care and anxiety for Caesar's danger with
delicious wine.
* * * * *
ODE X.
AGAINST MAEVIUS.
The vessel that carries the loathsome Maevius, makes her departure under
an unlucky omen. Be mindful, O south wind, that you buffet it about with
horrible billows. May the gloomy east, turning up the sea, disperse its
cables and broken oars. Let the north arise as mighty as when be rives
the quivering oaks on the lofty mountains; nor let a friendly star
appear through the murky night, in which the baleful Orion sets: nor let
him be conveyed in a calmer sea, than was the Grecian band of
conquerors, when Pallas turned her rage from burned Troy to the ship of
impious Ajax. Oh what a sweat is coming upon your sailors, and what a
sallow paleness upon you, and that effeminate wailing, and those prayers
to unregarding Jupiter; when the Ionian bay, roaring with the
tempestuous south-west, shall break your keel. But if, extended along
the winding shore, you shall delight the cormorants as a dainty prey, a
lascivious he-goat and an ewe-lamb shall be sacrificed to the Tempests.
* * * * *
ODE XI.
TO PECTIUS.
It by no means, O Pectius, delights me as heretofore to write Lyric
verses, being smitten with cruel love: with love, who takes pleasure to
inflame me beyond others, either youths or maidens. This is the third
December that has shaken the [leafy] honors from the woods, since I
ceased to be mad for Inachia. Ah me! (for I am ashamed of so great a
misfortune) what a subject of talk was I throughout the city! I repent
too of the entertainments, at which both a languishing and silence and
sighs, heaved from the bottom of my breast, discovered the lover. As
soon as the indelicate god [Bacchus] by the glowing wine had removed, as
I grew warm, the secrets of [my heart] from their repository, I made my
complaints, lamenting to you, "Has the fairest genius of a poor man no
weight against wealthy lucre? Wherefore, if a generous indignation boil
in my breast, insomuch as to disperse to the winds these disagreeable
applications, that give no ease to the desperate wound; the shame [of
being overcome] ending, shall cease to contest with rivals of such a
sort. " When I, with great gravity, had applauded these resolutions in
your presence, being ordered to go home, I was carried with a wandering
foot to posts, alas! to me not friendly, and alas! obdurate gates,
against which I bruised my loins and side. Now my affections for the
delicate Lyciscus engross all my time; from them neither the unreserved
admonitions, nor the serious reprehensions of other friends can recall
me [to my former taste for poetry]; but, perhaps, either a new flame for
some fair damsel, or for some graceful youth who binds his long hair in
a knot, [may do so].
* * * * *
ODE XII.
TO A WOMAN WHOSE CHARMS WERE OVER.
What would you be at, you woman fitter for the swarthy monsters? Why do
you send tokens, why billet-doux to me, and not to some vigorous youth,
and of a taste not nice? For I am one who discerns a polypus, or fetid
ramminess, however concealed, more quickly than the keenest dog the
covert of the boar. What sweatiness, and how rank an odor every where
rises from her withered limbs! when she strives to lay her furious rage
with impossibilities; now she has no longer the advantage of moist
cosmetics, and her color appears as if stained with crocodile's ordure;
and now, in wild impetuosity, she tears her bed, bedding, and all she
has. She attacks even my loathings in the most angry terms:--"You are
always less dull with Inachia than me: in her company you are threefold
complaisance; but you are ever unprepared to oblige me in a single
instance. Lesbia, who first recommended you--so unfit a help in time of
need--may she come to an ill end! when Coan Amyntas paid me his
addresses; who is ever as constant in his fair one's service, as the
young tree to the hill it grows on. For whom were labored the fleeces of
the richest Tyrian dye? For you? Even so that there was not one in
company, among gentlemen of your own rank, whom his own wife admired
preferably to you: oh, unhappy me, whom you fly, as the lamb dreads the
fierce wolves, or the she-goats the lions! "
* * * * *
ODE XIII.
TO A FRIEND.
A horrible tempest has condensed the sky, and showers and snows bring
down the atmosphere: now the sea, now the woods bellow with the Thracian
North wind. Let us, my friends, take occasion from the day; and while
our knees are vigorous, and it becomes us, let old age with his
contracted forehead become smooth. Do you produce the wine, that was
pressed in the consulship of my Torquatus. Forbear to talk of any other
matters. The deity, perhaps, will reduce these [present evils], to your
former [happy] state by a propitious change. Now it is fitting both to
be bedewed with Persian perfume, and to relieve our breasts of dire
vexations by the lyre, sacred to Mercury. Like as the noble Centaur,
[Chiron,] sung to his mighty pupil: "Invincible mortal, son of the
goddess Thetis, the land of Assaracus awaits you, which the cold
currents of little Scamander and swift-gliding Simois divide: whence the
fatal sisters have broken off your return, by a thread that cannot be
altered: nor shall your azure mother convey you back to your home. There
[then] by wine and music, sweet consolations, drive away every symptom
of hideous melancholy. "
* * * * *
ODE XIV.
TO MAECENAS.
You kill me, my courteous Maecenas, by frequently inquiring, why a
soothing indolence has diffused as great a degree of forgetfulness on my
inmost senses, as if I had imbibed with a thirsty throat the cups that
bring on Lethean slumbers. For the god, the god prohibits me from
bringing to a conclusion the verses I promised [you, namely those]
iambics which I had begun. In the same manner they report that Anacreon
of Teios burned for the Samian Bathyllus; who often lamented his love to
an inaccurate measure on a hollow lyre. You are violently in love
yourself; but if a fairer flame did not burn besieged Troy, rejoice in
your lot. Phryne, a freed-woman, and not content with a single admirer,
consumes me.
* * * * *
ODE XV.
TO NEAERA.
It was night, and the moon shone in a serene sky among the lesser stars;
when you, about to violate the divinity of the great gods, swore [to be
true] to my requests, embracing me with your pliant arms more closely
than the lofty oak is clasped by the ivy; that while the wolf should
remain an enemy to the flock, and Orion, unpropitious to the sailors,
should trouble the wintery sea, and while the air should fan the
unshorn locks of Apollo, [so long you vowed] that this love should be
mutual. O Neaera, who shall one day greatly grieve on account of my
merit: for, if there is any thing of manhood in Horace, he will not
endure that you should dedicate your nights continually to another, whom
you prefer; and exasperated, he will look out for one who will return
his love; and though an unfeigned sorrow should take possession of you,
yet my firmness shall not give way to that beauty which has once given
me disgust. But as for you, whoever you be who are more successful [than
me], and now strut proud of my misfortune; though you be rich in flocks
and abundance of land, and Pactolus flow for you, nor the mysteries of
Pythagoras, born again, escape you, and you excel Nireus in beauty;
alas! you shall [hereafter] bewail her love transferred elsewhere; but I
shall laugh in my turn.
* * * * *
ODE XVI.
TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE.
Now is another age worn away by civil wars, and Rome herself falls by
her own strength. Whom neither the bordering Marsi could destroy, nor
the Etrurian band of the menacing Porsena, nor the rival valor of Capua,
nor the bold Spartacus, and the Gauls perfideous with their innovations;
nor did the fierce Germany subdue with its blue-eyed youth, nor Annibal,
detested by parents; but we, an impious race, whose blood is devoted to
perdition, shall destroy her: and this land shall again be possessed by
wild beasts. The victorious barbarian, alas! shall trample upon the
ashes of the city, and the horsemen shall smite it with the sounding
hoofs; and (horrible to see! ) he shall insultingly disperse the bones of
Romulus, which [as yet] are free from the injuries of wind and sun.
Perhaps you all in general, or the better part of you, are inquisitive
to know, what may be expedient, in order to escape [such] dreadful
evils. There can be no determination better than this; namely, to go
wherever our feet will carry us, wherever the south or boisterous
south-west shall summon us through the waves; in the same manner as the
state of the Phocaeans fled, after having uttered execrations [against
such as should return], and left their fields and proper dwellings and
temples to be inhabited by boars and ravenous wolves. Is this
agreeable? has any one a better scheme to advise? Why do we delay to go
on ship-board under an auspicious omen? But first let us swear to these
conditions--the stones shall swim upward, lifted from the bottom of the
sea, as soon as it shall not be impious to return; nor let it grieve us
to direct our sails homeward, when the Po shall wash the tops of the
Matinian summits; or the lofty Apennine shall remove into the sea, or a
miraculous appetite shall unite monsters by a strange kind of lust;
Insomuch that tigers may delight to couple with hinds, and the dove be
polluted with the kite; nor the simple herds may dread the brindled
lions, and the he-goat, grown smooth, may love the briny main. After
having sworn to these things, and whatever else may cut off the
pleasing: hope of returning, let us go, the whole city of us, or at
least that part which is superior to the illiterate mob: let the idle
and despairing part remain upon these inauspicious habitations. Ye, that
have bravery, away with effeminate grief, and fly beyond the Tuscan
shore. The ocean encircling the land awaits us; let us seek the happy
plains and prospering Islands, where the untilled land yearly produces
corn, and the unpruned vineyard punctually flourishes; and where the
branch of the never-failing olive blossoms forth, and the purple fig
adorns its native tree: honey distills from the hollow oaks; the light
water bounds down from the high mountains with a murmuring pace. There
the she-goats come to the milk-pails of their own accord, and the
friendly flock return with their udders distended; nor does the bear at
evening growl about the sheepfold, nor does the rising ground swell with
vipers; and many more things shall we, happy [Romans], view with
admiration: how neither the rainy east lays waste the corn-fields with
profuse showers, nor is the fertile seed burned by a dry glebe; the king
of gods moderating both [extremes]. The pine rowed by the Argonauts
never attempted to come hither; nor did the lascivious [Medea] of
Colchis set her foot [in this place]: hither the Sidonian mariners never
turned their sail-yards, nor the toiling crew of Ulysses. No contagious
distempers hurt the flocks; nor does the fiery violence of any
constellation scorch the herd. Jupiter set apart these shores for a
pious people, when he debased the golden age with brass: with brass,
then with iron he hardened the ages; from which there shall be a happy
escape for the good, according to my predictions.
* * * * *
ODE XVII.
DIALOGUE BETWEEN HORACE AND CANIDIA.
Now, now I yield to powerful science; and suppliant beseech thee by the
dominions of Proserpine, and by the inflexible divinity of Diana, and by
the books of incantations able to call down the stars displaced from the
firmament; O Canidia, at length desist from thine imprecations, and
quickly turn, turn back thy magical machine. Telephus moved [with
compassion] the grandson of Nereus, against whom he arrogantly had put
his troops of Mysians in battle-array, and against whom he had darted
his sharp javelins. The Trojan matrons embalmed the body of the
man-slaying Hector, which had been condemned to birds of prey, and dogs,
after king [Priam], having left the walls of the city, prostrated
himself, alas! at the feet of the obstinate Achilles. The mariners of
the indefatigable Ulysses, put off their limbs, bristled with the hard
skins [of swine], at the will of Circe: then their reason and voice were
restored, and their former comeliness to their countenances. I have
suffered punishment enough, and more than enough, on thy account, O thou
so dearly beloved by the sailors and factors. My vigor is gone away, and
my ruddy complexion has left me; my bones are covered with a ghastly
skin; my hair with your preparations is grown hoary. No ease respites me
from my sufferings: night presses upon day, and day upon night: nor is
it in my power to relieve my lungs, which are strained with gasping.
Wherefore, wretch that I am, I am compelled to credit (what was denied,
by me) that the charms of the Samnites discompose the breast, and the
head splits in sunder at the Marsian incantations. What wouldst thou
have more? O sea! O earth! I burn in such a degree as neither Hercules
did, besmeared with the black gore of Nessus, nor the fervid flame
burning In the Sicilian Aetna. Yet you, a laboratory of Colchian
poisons, remain on fire, till I [reduced to] a dry ember, shall be
wafted away by the injurious winds. What event, or what penalty awaits
me? Speak out: I will with honor pay the demanded mulct; ready to make
an expiation, whether you should require a hundred steers, or chose to
be celebrated on a lying lyre. You, a woman of modesty, you, a woman of
probity, shall traverse the stars, as a golden constellation. Castor and
the brother of the great Castor, offended at the infamy brought on
[their sister] Helen, yet overcome by entreaty, restored to the poet his
eyes that were taken away from him. And do you (for it is in your power)
extricate me from this frenzy; O you, that are neither defiled by family
meanness, nor skillful to disperse the ashes of poor people, after they
have been nine days interred.
You have an hospitable breast, and
unpolluted hands; and Pactumeius is your son, and thee the midwife has
tended; and, whenever you bring forth, you spring up with unabated
vigor.
CANIDIA'S ANSWER.
Why do you pour forth your entreaties to ears that are closely shut
[against them]? The wintery ocean, with its briny tempests, does not
lash rocks more deaf to the cries of the naked mariners. What, shall
you, without being made an example of, deride the Cotyttian mysteries,
sacred to unrestrained love, which were divulged [by you]? And shall
you, [assuming the office] of Pontiff [with regard to my] Esquilian
incantations, fill the city with my name unpunished? What did it avail
me to have enriched the Palignian sorceress [with my charms], and to
have prepared poison of greater expedition, if a slower fate awaits you
than is agreeable to my wishes? An irksome life shall be protracted by
you, wretch as you are, for this purpose, that you may perpetually be
able to endure new tortures. Tantalus, the perfidious sire of Pelops,
ever craving after the plenteous banquet [which is always before him],
wishes for respite; Prometheus, chained to the vulture, wishes [for
rest]; Sisyphus wishes to place the stone on the summit of the mountain:
but the laws of Jupiter forbid. Thus you shall desire at one time to
leap down from a high tower, at another to lay open your breast with the
Noric sword; and, grieving with your tedious indisposition, shall tie
nooses about your neck in vain. I at that time will ride on your odious
shoulders; and the whole earth shall acknowledge my unexampled power.
What shall I who can give motion to waxen images (as you yourself,
inquisitive as you are, were convinced of) and snatch the moon from
heaven by my incantations; I, who can raise the dead after they are
burned, and duly prepare the potion of love, shall I bewail the event of
my art having no efficacy upon you?
* * * * *
THE SECULAR POEM OF HORACE.
TO APOLLO AND DIANA.
Phoebus, and thou Diana, sovereign of the woods, ye illustrious
ornaments of the heavens, oh ever worthy of adoration, and ever adored,
bestow what we pray for at this sacred season: at which the Sibylline
verses have given directions, that select virgins and chaste youths
should sing a hymn to the deities, to whom the seven hills [of Rome] are
acceptable. O genial sun, who in your splendid car draw forth and
obscure the day, and who arise another and the same, may it never be in
your power to behold anything more glorious than the city of Rome! O
Ilithyia, of lenient power to produce the timely birth, protect the
matrons [in labor]; whether you choose the title of Lucina, or
Genitalis. O goddess multiply our offspring; and prosper the decrees of
the senate in relation to the joining of women in wedlock, and the
matrimonial law about to teem with a new race; that the stated
revolution of a hundred and ten years may bring back the hymns and the
games, three times by bright daylight restored to in crowds, and as
often in the welcome night. And you, ye fatal sisters, infallible in
having predicted what is established, and what the settled order of
things preserves, add propitious fates to those already past. Let the
earth, fertile in fruits and flocks, present Ceres with a sheafy crown;
may both salubrious rains and Jove's air cherish the young blood!
Apollo, mild and gentle with your sheathed arrows, hear the suppliant
youths: O moon, thou horned queen of stars, hear the virgins. If Rome be
your work, and the Trojan troops arrived on the Tuscan shore (the part,
commanded [by your oracles] to change their homes and city) by a
successful navigation: for whom pious Aeneas, surviving his country,
secured a free passage through Troy, burning not by his treachery, about
to give them more ample possessions than those that were left behind. O
ye deities, grant to the tractable youth probity of manners; to old age,
ye deities, grant a pleasing retirement; to the Roman people, wealth,
and progeny, and every kind of glory. And may the illustrious issue of
Anchises and Venus, who worships you with [offerings of] white bulls,
reign superior to the warring enemy, merciful to the prostrate. Now the
Parthian, by sea and land, dreads our powerful forces and the Roman
axes: now the Scythians beg [to know] our commands, and the Indians but
lately so arrogant. Now truth, and peace, and honor, and ancient
modesty, and neglected virtue dare to return, and happy plenty appears,
with her horn full to the brim. Phoebus, the god of augury, and
conspicuous for his shining bow, and dear to the nine muses, who by his
salutary art soothes the wearied limbs of the body; if he, propitious,
surveys the Palatine altars--may he prolong the Roman affairs, and the
happy state of Italy to another lustrum, and to an improving age. And
may Diana, who possesses Mount Aventine and Algidus, regard the prayers
of the Quindecemvirs, and lend a gracious ear to the supplications of
the youths. We, the choir taught to sing the praises of Phoebus and
Diana, bear home with us a good and certain hope, that Jupiter, and all
the other gods, are sensible of these our supplications.
* * * * *
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE SATIRES OF HORACE.
SATIRE I.
_That all, but especially the covetous, think their own condition the
hardest_.
How comes it to pass, Maecenas, that no one lives content with his
condition, whether reason gave it him, or chance threw it in his way
[but] praises those who follow different pursuits? "O happy merchants! "
says the soldier, oppressed with years, and now broken down in his limbs
through excess of labor. On the other side, the merchant, when the south
winds toss his ship [cries], "Warfare is preferable;" for why? the
engagement is begun, and in an instant there comes a speedy death or a
joyful victory. The lawyer praises the farmer's state when the client
knocks at his door by cock-crow. He who, having entered into a
recognizance, is dragged from the country into the city, cries, "Those
only are happy who live in the city. " The other instances of this kind
(they are so numerous) would weary out the loquacious Fabius; not to
keep you in suspense, hear to what an issue I will bring the matter. If
any god should say, "Lo! I will effect what you desire: you, that were
just now a soldier, shall be a merchant; you, lately a lawyer [shall be]
a farmer. Do ye depart one way, and ye another, having exchanged the
parts [you are to act] in life. How now! why do you stand? " They are
unwilling; and yet it is in their power to be happy. What reason can be
assigned, but that Jupiter should deservedly distend both his cheeks in
indignation, and declare that for the future he will not be so indulgent
as to lend an ear to their prayers? But further, that I may not run over
this in a laughing manner, like those [who treat] on ludicrous subjects
(though what hinders one being merry, while telling the truth? as
good-natured teachers at first give cakes to their boys, that they may
be willing to learn their first rudiments: railery, however, apart, let
us investigate serious matters). He that turns the heavy glebe with the
hard ploughshare, this fraudulent tavern-keeper, the soldier, and the
sailors, who dauntless run through every sea, profess that they endure
toil with this intention, that as old men they may retire into a secure
resting place, when once they have gotten together a sufficient
provision.
Thus the little ant (for she is an example), of great industry, carries
in her mouth whatever she is able, and adds to the heap which she piles
up, by no means ignorant and not careless for the future. Which [ant,
nevertheless], as soon, as Aquarius saddens the changed year, never
creeps abroad, but wisely makes use of those stores which were provided
beforehand: while neither sultry summer, nor winter, fire, ocean, sword,
can drive you from gain. You surmount every obstacle, that no other man
may be richer than yourself. What pleasure is it for you, trembling to
deposit an immense weight of silver and gold in the earth dug up by
stealth? Because if you lessen it, it may be reduced to a paltry
farthing.
But unless that be the case, what beauty has an accumulated hoard?
Though your thrashing-floor should yield a hundred thousand bushels of
corn, your belly will not on that account contain more than mine: just
as if it were your lot to carry on your loaded shoulder the basket of
bread among slaves, you would receive no more [for your own share] than
he who bore no part of the burthen. Or tell me, what is it to the
purpose of that man, who lives within the compass of nature, whether he
plow a hundred or a thousand acres?
"But it is still delightful to take out of a great hoard. "
While you leave us to take as much out of a moderate store, why should
you extol your granaries, more than our corn-baskets? As if you had
occasion for no more than a pitcher or glass of water, and should say,
"I had rather draw [so much] from a great river, than the very same
quantity from this little fountain. " Hence it comes to pass, that the
rapid Aufidus carries away, together with the bank, such men as an
abundance more copious than what is just delights. But he who desires
only so much as is sufficient, neither drinks water fouled with the mud,
nor loses his life in the waves.
But a great majority of mankind, misled by a wrong desire cry, "No sum
is enough; because you are esteemed in proportion to what you possess. "
What can one do to such a tribe as this? Why, bid them be wretched,
since their inclination prompts them to it. As a certain person is
recorded [to have lived] at Athens, covetous and rich, who was wont to
despise the talk of the people in this manner: "The crowd hiss me; but I
applaud myself at home, as soon as I contemplate my money in my chest. "
The thirsty Tantalus catches at the streams, which elude his lips. Why
do you laugh? The name changed, the tale is told of you. You sleep upon
your bags, heaped up on every side, gaping over them, and are obliged to
abstain from them, as if they were consecrated things, or to amuse
yourself with them as you would with pictures. Are you ignorant of what
value money has, what use it can afford? Bread, herbs, a bottle of wine
may be purchased; to which [necessaries], add [such others], as, being
withheld, human nature would be uneasy with itself. What, to watch half
dead with terror, night and day, to dread profligate thieves, fire, and
your slaves, lest they should run away and plunder you; is this
delightful? I should always wish to be very poor in possessions held
upon these terms.
But if your body should be disordered by being seized with a cold, or
any other casualty should confine you to your bed, have you one that
will abide by you, prepare medicines, entreat the physician that he
would set you upon your feet, and restore you to your children and dear
relations?
Neither your wife, nor your son, desires your recovery; all your
neighbors, acquaintances, [nay the very] boys and girls hate you. Do you
wonder that no one tenders you the affection which you do not merit,
since you prefer your money to everything else? If you think to retain,
and preserve as friends, the relations which nature gives you, without
taking any pains; wretch that you are, you lose your labor equally, as
if any one should train an ass to be obedient to the rein, and run in
the Campus [Martius]. Finally, let there be some end to your search;
and, as your riches increase, be in less dread of poverty; and begin to
cease from your toil, that being acquired which you coveted: nor do as
did one Umidius (it is no tedious story), who was so rich that he
measured his money, so sordid that he never clothed him self any better
than a slave; and, even to his last moments, was in dread lest want of
bread should oppress him: but his freed-woman, the bravest of all the
daughters of Tyndarus, cut him in two with a hatchet.
"What therefore do you persuade me to? That I should lead the life of
Naevius, or in such a manner as a Nomentanus? "
You are going [now] to make things tally, that are contradictory in
their natures. When I bid you not be a miser, I do not order you to
become a debauchee or a prodigal. There is some difference between the
case of Tanais and his son-in-law Visellius, there is a mean in things;
finally, there are certain boundaries, on either side of which moral
rectitude can not exist. I return now whence I digressed. Does no one,
after the miser's example, like his own station, but rather praise those
who have different pursuits; and pines, because his neighbor's she-goat
bears a more distended udder: nor considers himself in relation to the
greater multitude of poor; but labors to surpass, first one and then
another? Thus the richer man is always an obstacle to one that is
hastening [to be rich]: as when the courser whirls along the chariot
dismissed from the place of starting; the charioteer presses upon those
horses which outstrip his own, despising him that is left behind coming
on among the last. Hence it is, that we rarely find a man who can say he
has lived happy, and content with his past life, can retire from the
world like a satisfied guest. Enough for the present: nor will I add one
word more, lest you should suspect that I have plundered the escrutoire
of the blear-eyed Crispinus.
* * * * *
SATIRE II.
_Bad men, when they avoid certain vices, fall into their opposite
extremes. _
The tribes of female flute-players, quacks, vagrants, mimics,
blackguards; all this set is sorrowful and dejected on account of the
death of the singer Tigellius; for he was liberal [toward them]. On the
other hand, this man, dreading to be called a spendthrift, will not give
a poor friend wherewithal to keep off cold and pinching hunger. If you
ask him why he wickedly consumes the noble estate of his grandfather and
father in tasteless gluttony, buying with borrowed money all sorts of
dainties; he answers, because he is unwilling to be reckoned sordid, or
of a mean spirit: he is praised by some, condemned by others. Fufidius,
wealthy in lands, wealthy in money put out at interest, is afraid of
having the character of a rake and spendthrift. This fellow deducts 5
per cent. Interest from the principal [at the time of lending]; and, the
more desperate in his circumstances any one is, the more severely be
pinches him: he hunts out the names of young fellows that have just put
on the toga virilis under rigid fathers. Who does not cry out, O
sovereign Jupiter! when he has heard [of such knavery]? But [you will
say, perhaps,] this man expends upon himself in proportion to his gain.
You can hardly believe how little a friend he is to himself: insomuch
that the father, whom Terence's comedy introduces as living miserable
after he had caused his son to run away from him, did not torment
himself worse than he. Now if any one should ask, "To what does this
matter tend? " To this: while fools shun [one sort of] vices, they fall
upon their opposite extremes. Malthinus walks with his garments trailing
upon the ground; there is another droll fellow who [goes] with them
tucked up even to his middle; Rufillus smells like perfume itself,
Gorgonius like a he-goat. There is no mean. There are some who would not
keep company with a lady, unless her modest garment perfectly conceal
her feet. Another, again, will only have such as take their station in a
filthy brothel. When a certain noted spark came out of a stew, the
divine Cato [greeted] him with this sentence: "Proceed (says he) in your
virtuous course. For, when once foul lust has inflamed the veins, it is
right for young fellows to come hither, in comparison of their meddling
with other men's wives. " I should not be willing to be commended on such
terms, says Cupiennius, an admirer of the silken vail.
Ye, that do not wish well to the proceedings of adulterers, it is worth
your while to hear how they are hampered on all sides; and that their
pleasure, which happens to them but seldom, is interrupted with a great
deal of pain, and often in the midst of very great dangers. One has
thrown himself headlong from the top of a house; another has been
whipped almost to death: a third, in his flight, has fallen into a
merciless gang of thieves: another has paid a fine, [to avoid] corporal
[punishment]: the lowest servants have treated another with the vilest
indignities. Moreover, this misfortune happened to a certain person, he
entirely lost his manhood. Every body said, it was with justice: Galba
denied it.
But how much safer is the traffic among [women] of the second rate! I
mean the freed-women: after which Sallustius is not less mad, than he
who commits adultery. But if he had a mind to be good and generous, as
far as his estate and reason would direct him, and as far as a man might
be liberal with moderation; he would give a sufficiency, not what would
bring upon himself ruin and infamy. However, he hugs himself in this one
[consideration]; this he delights in, this he extols: "I meddle with no
matron. " Just as Marsaeus, the lover of Origo, he who gives his paternal
estate and seat to an actress, says, "I never meddle with other men's
wives. " But you have with actresses, you have with common strumpets:
whence your reputation derives a greater perdition, than your estate.
What, is it abundantly sufficient to avoid the person, and not the
[vice] which is universally noxious? To lose one's good name, to
squander a father's effects, is in all cases an evil. What is the
difference [then, with regard to yourself,] whether you sin with the
person of a matron, a maiden, or a prostitute?
Villius, the son-in-law of Sylla (by this title alone he was misled),
suffered [for his commerce] with Fausta, an adequate and more than
adequate punishment, by being drubbed and stabbed, while he was shut
out, that Longarenus might enjoy her within. Suppose this [young man's]
mind had addressed him in the words of his appetite, perceiving such
evil consequences: "What would you have? Did I ever, when my ardor was
at the highest, demand a woman descended from a great consul, and
covered with robes of quality? " What could he answer? Why, "the girl was
sprung from an illustrious father. " But how much better things, and how
different from this, does nature, abounding in stores of her own,
recommend; if you would only make a proper use of them, and not confound
what is to be avoided with that which is desirable! Do you think it is
of no consequence, whether your distresses arise from your own fault or
from [a real deficiency] of things? Wherefore, that you may not repent
[when it is too late], put a stop to your pursuit after matrons; whence
more trouble is derived, than you can obtain of enjoyment from success.
Nor has [this particular matron], amid her pearls and emeralds, a softer
thigh, or-limbs mere delicate than yours, Cerinthus; nay, the
prostitutes are frequently preferable. Add to this, that [the
prostitute] bears about her merchandize without any varnish, and openly
shows what she has to dispose of; nor, if she has aught more comely than
ordinary, does she boast and make an ostentation of it, while she is
industrious to conceal that which is offensive. This is the custom with
men of fortune: when they buy horses, they inspect them covered: that,
if a beautiful forehand (as often) be supported by a tender hoof, it may
not take in the buyer, eager for the bargain, because the back is
handsome, the head little, and the neck stately. This they do
judiciously. Do not you, [therefore, in the same manner] contemplate the
perfections of each [fair one's] person with the eyes of Lynceus; but be
blinder than Hypsaea, when you survey such parts as are deformed. [You
may cry out,] "O what a leg! O, what delicate arms! " But [you suppress]
that she is low-hipped, short-waisted, with a long nose, and a splay
foot. A man can see nothing but the face of a matron, who carefully
conceals her other charms, unless it be a Catia. But if you will seek
after forbidden charms (for the [circumstance of their being forbidden]
makes you mad after them), surrounded as they are with a fortification,
many obstacles will then be in your way: such as guardians, the sedan,
dressers, parasites, the long robe hanging down to the ankles, and
covered with an upper garment; a multiplicity of circumstances, which
will hinder you from having a fair view. The other throws no obstacle in
your way; through the silken vest you may discern her, almost as well as
if she was naked; that she has neither a bad leg, nor a disagreeable
foot, you may survey her form perfectly with your eye. Or would you
choose to have a trick put upon you, and your money extorted, before the
goods are shown you? [But perhaps you will sing to me these verses out
of Callimachus. ] As the huntsman pursues the hare in the deep snow, but
disdains to touch it when it is placed before him: thus sings the rake,
and applies it to himself; my love is like to this, for it passes over
an easy prey, and pursues what flies from it. Do you hope that grief,
and uneasiness, and bitter anxieties, will be expelled from your breast
by such verses as these? Would It not be more profitable to inquire what
boundary nature has affixed to the appetites, what she can patiently do
without, and what she would lament the deprivation of, and to separate
what is solid from what is vain? What! when thirst parches your jaws,
are you solicitous for golden cups to drink out of? What! when you are
hungry, do you despise everything but peacock and turbot? When your
passions are inflamed, and a common gratification is at hand, would you
rather be consumed with desire than possess it? I would not: for I love
such pleasures as are of easiest attainment. But she whose language is,
"By and by," "But for a small matter more," "If my husband should be out
of the way. " [is only] for petit-maitres: and for himself, Philodemus
says, he chooses her, who neither stands for a great price, nor delays
to come when she is ordered. Let her be fair, and straight, and so far
decent as not to appear desirous of seeming fairer than nature has made
her. When I am in the company of such an one, she is my Ilia and
Aegeria; I give her any name. Nor am I apprehensive, while I am in her
company, lest her husband should return from the country: the door
should be broken open; the dog should bark; the house, shaken, should
resound on all sides with a great noise; the woman, pale [with fear],
should bound away from me; lest the maid, conscious [of guilt], should
cry out, she is undone; lest she should be in apprehension for her
limbs, the detected wife for her portion, I for myself: lest I must run
away with my clothes all loose, and bare-footed, for fear my money, or
my person, or, finally my character should be demolished. It is a
dreadful thing to be caught; I could prove this, even if Fabius were the
judge.
* * * * *
SATIRE III.
_We might to connive at the faults of our friends, and all offences are
not to be ranked in the catalogue of crimes_.
This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they
never are inclined to sing when they are asked, [but] unasked, they
never desist. Tigellius, that Sardinian, had this [fault]. Had Caesar,
who could have forced him to compliance, besought him on account of his
father's friendship and his own, he would have had no success; if he
himself was disposed, he would chant lo Bacche over and over, from the
beginning of an entertainment to the very conclusion of it; one while at
the deepest pitch of his voice, at another time with that which answers
to the highest string of the tetrachord. There was nothing uniform in
that fellow; frequently would he run along, as one flying from an enemy;
more frequently [he walked] as if he bore [in procession] the sacrifice
of Juno: he had often two hundred slaves, often but ten: one while
talking of kings and potentates, every thing that was magnificent; at
another--"Let me have a three-legged table, and a cellar of clean salt,
and a gown which, though coarse, may be sufficient to keep out the
cold. " Had you given ten hundred thousand sesterces to this moderate man
who was content with such small matters, in five days' time there would
be nothing in his bags. He sat up at nights, [even] to day-light; he
snored out all the day. Never was there anything so inconsistent with
itself. Now some person may say to me, "What are you? Have you no
faults? " Yes, others; but others, and perhaps of a less culpable nature.
When Maenius railed at Novius in his absence: "Hark ye," says a certain
person, "are you ignorant of yourself? or do you think to impose
yourself upon us a person we do not know? " "As for me, I forgive
myself," quoth Maenius. This is a foolish and impious self-love, and
worthy to be stigmatized. When you look over your own vices, winking at
them, as it were, with sore eyes; why are you with regard to those of
your friends as sharp-sighted as an eagle, or the Epidaurian serpent?
But, on the other hand, it is your lot that your friends should inquire
into your vices in turn. [A certain person] is a little too hasty in his
temper; not well calculated for the sharp-witted sneers of these men: he
may be made a jest of because his gown hangs awkwardly, he [at the same
time] being trimmed in a very rustic manner, and his wide shoe hardly
sticks to his foot. But he is so good, that no man can be better; but he
is your friend; but an immense genius is concealed under this unpolished
person of his. Finally, sift yourself thoroughly, whether nature has
originally sown the seeds of any vice in you, or even an ill-habit [has
done it]. For the fern, fit [only] to be burned, overruns the neglected
fields.
Let us return from our digression. As his mistress's disagreeable
failings escape the blinded lover, or even give him pleasure (as Hagna's
wen does to Balbinus), I could wish that we erred in this manner with
regard to friendship, and that virtue had affixed a reputable
appellation to such an error. And as a father ought not to contemn his
son, if he has any defect, in the same manner we ought not [to contemn]
our friend. The father calls his squinting boy a pretty leering rogue;
and if any man has a little despicable brat, such as the abortive
Sisyphus formerly was, he calls it a sweet moppet; this [child] with
distorted legs, [the father] in a fondling voice calls one of the Vari;
and another, who is club-footed, he calls a Scaurus. [Thus, does] this
friend of yours live more sparingly than ordinarily? Let him be styled a
man of frugality. Is another impertinent, and apt to brag a little? He
requires to be reckoned entertaining to his friends. But [another] is
too rude, and takes greater liberties than are fitting. Let him be
esteemed a man of sincerity and bravery. Is he too fiery, let him be
numbered among persons of spirit. This method, in my opinion, both
unites friends, and preserves them in a state of union. But we invert
the very virtues themselves, and are desirous of throwing dirt upon the
untainted vessel. Does a man of probity live among us? he is a person of
singular diffidence; we give him the name of a dull and fat-headed
fellow. Does this man avoid every snare, and lay himself open to no
ill-designing villain; since we live amid such a race, where keen envy
and accusations are flourishing? Instead of a sensible and wary man, we
call him a disguised and subtle fellow. And is any one more open, [and
less reserved] than usual in such a degree as I often have presented
myself to you, Maecenas, so as perhaps impertinently to interrupt a
person reading, or musing, with any kind of prate? We cry, "[this
fellow] actually wants common sense.
