The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace

The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace
Полная версия:
The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace
III
JUSTUM ET TENACEM
The man of firm and righteous will, No rabble, clamorous for the wrong, No tyrant's brow, whose frown may kill, Can shake the strength that makes him strong: Not winds, that chafe the sea they sway, Nor Jove's right hand, with lightning red: Should Nature's pillar'd frame give way, That wreck would strike one fearless head. Pollux and roving Hercules Thus won their way to Heaven's proud steep, 'Mid whom Augustus, couch'd at ease, Dyes his red lips with nectar deep. For this, great Bacchus, tigers drew Thy glorious car, untaught to slave In harness: thus Quirinus flew On Mars' wing'd steeds from Acheron's wave, When Juno spoke with Heaven's assent: "O Ilium, Ilium, wretched town! The judge accurst, incontinent, And stranger dame have dragg'd thee down. Pallas and I, since Priam's sire Denied the gods his pledged reward, Had doom'd them all to sword and fire, The people and their perjured lord. No more the adulterous guest can charm The Spartan queen: the house forsworn No more repels by Hector's arm My warriors, baffled and outworn: Hush'd is the war our strife made long: I welcome now, my hatred o'er, A grandson in the child of wrong, Him whom the Trojan priestess bore. Receive him, Mars! the gates of flame May open: let him taste forgiven The nectar, and enrol his name Among the peaceful ranks of Heaven. Let the wide waters sever still Ilium and Rome, the exiled race May reign and prosper where they will: So but in Paris' burial-place The cattle sport, the wild beasts hide Their cubs, the Capitol may stand All bright, and Rome in warlike pride O'er Media stretch a conqueror's hand. Aye, let her scatter far and wide Her terror, where the land-lock'd waves Europe from Afric's shore divide, Where swelling Nile the corn-field laves— Of strength more potent to disdain Hid gold, best buried in the mine, Than gather it with hand profane, That for man's greed would rob a shrine. Whate'er the bound to earth ordain'd, There let her reach the arm of power, Travelling, where raves the fire unrein'd, And where the storm-cloud and the shower. Yet, warlike Roman, know thy doom, Nor, drunken with a conqueror's joy, Or blind with duteous zeal, presume To build again ancestral Troy. Should Troy revive to hateful life, Her star again should set in gore, While I, Jove's sister and his wife, To victory led my host once more. Though Phoebus thrice in brazen mail Should case her towers, they thrice should fall, Storm'd by my Greeks: thrice wives should wail Husband and son, themselves in thrall." —Such thunders from the lyre of love! Back, wayward Muse! refrain, refrain To tell the talk of gods above, And dwarf high themes in puny strain.IV
DESCENDE CAELO
Come down, Calliope, from above: Breathe on the pipe a strain of fire; Or if a graver note thou love, With Phoebus' cittern and his lyre. You hear her? or is this the play Of fond illusion? Hark! meseems Through gardens of the good I stray, 'Mid murmuring gales and purling streams. Me, as I lay on Vultur's steep, A truant past Apulia's bound, O'ertired, poor child, with play and sleep, With living green the stock-doves crown'd— A legend, nay, a miracle, By Acherontia's nestlings told, By all in Bantine glade that dwell, Or till the rich Forentan mould. "Bears, vipers, spared him as he lay, The sacred garland deck'd his hair, The myrtle blended with the bay: The child's inspired: the gods were there." Your grace, sweet Muses, shields me still On Sabine heights, or lets me range Where cool Praeneste, Tibur's hill, Or liquid Baiae proffers change. Me to your springs, your dances true, Philippi bore not to the ground, Nor the doom'd tree in falling slew, Nor billowy Palinurus drown'd. Grant me your presence, blithe and fain Mad Bosporus shall my bark explore; My foot shall tread the sandy plain That glows beside Assyria's shore; 'Mid Briton tribes, the stranger's foe, And Spaniards, drunk with horses' blood, And quiver'd Scythians, will I go Unharm'd, and look on Tanais' flood. When Caesar's self in peaceful town The weary veteran's home has made, You bid him lay his helmet down And rest in your Pierian shade. Mild thoughts you plant, and joy to see Mild thoughts take root. The nations know How with descending thunder He The impious Titans hurl'd below, Who rules dull earth and stormy seas, And towns of men, and realms of pain, And gods, and mortal companies, Alone, impartial in his reign. Yet Jove had fear'd the giant rush, Their upraised arms, their port of pride, And the twin brethren bent to push Huge Pelion up Olympus' side. But Typhon, Mimas, what could these, Or what Porphyrion's stalwart scorn, Rhoetus, or he whose spears were trees, Enceladus, from earth uptorn, As on they rush'd in mad career 'Gainst Pallas' shield? Here met the foe Fierce Vulcan, queenly Juno here, And he who ne'er shall quit his bow, Who laves in clear Castalian flood His locks, and loves the leafy growth Of Lycia next his native wood, The Delian and the Pataran both. Strength, mindless, falls by its own weight; Strength, mix'd with mind, is made more strong By the just gods, who surely hate The strength whose thoughts are set on wrong. Let hundred-handed Gyas bear His witness, and Orion known Tempter of Dian, chaste and fair, By Dian's maiden dart o'erthrown. Hurl'd on the monstrous shapes she bred, Earth groans, and mourns her children thrust To Orcus; Aetna's weight of lead Keeps down the fire that breaks its crust; Still sits the bird on Tityos' breast, The warder of unlawful love; Still suffers lewd Pirithous, prest By massive chains no hand may move.V
CAELO TONANTEM
Jove rules in heaven, his thunder shows; Henceforth Augustus earth shall own Her present god, now Briton foes And Persians bow before his throne. Has Crassus' soldier ta'en to wife A base barbarian, and grown grey (Woe, for a nation's tainted life!) Earning his foemen-kinsmen's pay, His king, forsooth, a Mede, his sire A Marsian? can he name forget, Gown, sacred shield, undying fire, And Jove and Rome are standing yet? 'Twas this that Regulus foresaw, What time he spurn'd the foul disgrace Of peace, whose precedent would draw Destruction on an unborn race, Should aught but death the prisoner's chain Unrivet. "I have seen," he said, "Rome's eagle in a Punic fane, And armour, ne'er a blood-drop shed, Stripp'd from the soldier; I have seen Free sons of Rome with arms fast tied; The fields we spoil'd with corn are green, And Carthage opes her portals wide. The warrior, sure, redeem'd by gold, Will fight the bolder! Aye, you heap On baseness loss. The hues of old Revisit not the wool we steep; And genuine worth, expell'd by fear, Returns not to the worthless slave. Break but her meshes, will the deer Assail you? then will he be brave Who once to faithless foes has knelt; Yes, Carthage yet his spear will fly, Who with bound arms the cord has felt, The coward, and has fear'd to die. He knows not, he, how life is won; Thinks war, like peace, a thing of trade! Great art thou, Carthage! mate the sun, While Italy in dust is laid!" His wife's pure kiss he waved aside, And prattling boys, as one disgraced, They tell us, and with manly pride Stern on the ground his visage placed. With counsel thus ne'er else aread He nerved the fathers' weak intent, And, girt by friends that mourn'd him, sped Into illustrious banishment. Well witting what the torturer's art Design'd him, with like unconcern The press of kin he push'd apart And crowds encumbering his return, As though, some tedious business o'er Of clients' court, his journey lay Towards Venafrum's grassy floor, Or Sparta-built Tarentum's bay.VI
DELICTA MAJORUM
Your fathers' guilt you still must pay, Till, Roman, you restore each shrine, Each temple, mouldering in decay, And smoke-grimed statue, scarce divine. Revering Heaven, you rule below; Be that your base, your coping still; 'Tis Heaven neglected bids o'erflow The measure of Italian ill. Now Pacorus and Monaeses twice Have given our unblest arms the foil; Their necklaces, of mean device, Smiling they deck with Roman spoil. Our city, torn by faction's throes, Dacian and Ethiop well-nigh razed, These with their dreadful navy, those For archer-prowess rather praised. An evil age erewhile debased The marriage-bed, the race, the home; Thence rose the flood whose waters waste The nation and the name of Rome. Not such their birth, who stain'd for us The sea with Punic carnage red, Smote Pyrrhus, smote Antiochus, And Hannibal, the Roman's dread. Theirs was a hardy soldier-brood, Inured all day the land to till With Sabine spade, then shoulder wood Hewn at a stern old mother's will, When sunset lengthen'd from each height The shadows, and unyoked the steer, Restoring in its westward flight The hour to toilworn travail dear. What has not cankering Time made worse? Viler than grandsires, sires beget Ourselves, yet baser, soon to curse The world with offspring baser yet.VII
QUID FLES, ASTERIE
Why weep for him whom sweet Favonian airs Will waft next spring, Asteria, back to you, Rich with Bithynia's wares, A lover fond and true, Your Gyges? He, detain'd by stormy stress At Oricum, about the Goat-star's rise, Cold, wakeful, comfortless, The long night weeping lies. Meantime his lovesick hostess' messenger Talks of the flames that waste poor Chloe's heart (Flames lit for you, not her!) With a besieger's art; Shows how a treacherous woman's lying breath Once on a time on trustful Proetus won To doom to early death Too chaste Bellerophon; Warns him of Peleus' peril, all but slain For virtuous scorn of fair Hippolyta, And tells again each tale That e'er led heart astray. In vain; for deafer than Icarian seas He hears, untainted yet. But, lady fair, What if Enipeus please Your listless eye? beware! Though true it be that none with surer seat O'er Mars's grassy turf is seen to ride, Nor any swims so fleet Adown the Tuscan tide, Yet keep each evening door and window barr'd; Look not abroad when music strikes up shrill, And though he call you hard, Remain obdurate still.VIII
MARTIIS COELEBS
The first of March! a man unwed! What can these flowers, this censer mean Or what these embers, glowing red On sods of green? You ask, in either language skill'd! A feast I vow'd to Bacchus free, A white he-goat, when all but kill'd By falling tree. So, when that holyday comes round, It sees me still the rosin clear From this my wine-jar, first embrown'd In Tullus' year. Come, crush one hundred cups for life Preserved, Maecenas; keep till day The candles lit; let noise and strife Be far away. Lay down that load of state-concern; The Dacian hosts are all o'erthrown; The Mede, that sought our overturn, Now seeks his own; A servant now, our ancient foe, The Spaniard, wears at last our chain; The Scythian half unbends his bow And quits the plain. Then fret not lest the state should ail; A private man such thoughts may spare; Enjoy the present hour's regale, And banish care.IX
DONEC GRATUS ERAM
HORACE. While I had power to bless you, Nor any round that neck his arms did fling More privileged to caress you, Happier was Horace than the Persian king. LYDIA. While you for none were pining Sorer, nor Lydia after Chloe came, Lydia, her peers outshining, Might match her own with Ilia's Roman fame. H. Now Chloe is my treasure, Whose voice, whose touch, can make sweet music flow: For her I'd die with pleasure, Would Fate but spare the dear survivor so. L. I love my own fond lover, Young Calais, son of Thurian Ornytus: For him I'd die twice over, Would Fate but spare the sweet survivor thus. H. What now, if Love returning Should pair us 'neath his brazen yoke once more, And, bright-hair'd Chloe spurning, Horace to off-cast Lydia ope his door? L. Though he is fairer, milder, Than starlight, you lighter than bark of tree, Than stormy Hadria wilder, With you to live, to die, were bliss for me.X
EXTREMUM TANAIN
Ah Lyce! though your drink were Tanais, Your husband some rude savage, you would weep To leave me shivering, on a night like this, Where storms their watches keep. Hark! how your door is creaking! how the grove In your fair court-yard, while the wild winds blow, Wails in accord! with what transparence Jove Is glazing the driven snow! Cease that proud temper: Venus loves it not: The rope may break, the wheel may backward turn: Begetting you, no Tuscan sire begot Penelope the stern. O, though no gift, no "prevalence of prayer," Nor lovers' paleness deep as violet, Nor husband, smit with a Pierian fair, Move you, have pity yet! O harder e'en than toughest heart of oak, Deafer than uncharm'd snake to suppliant moans! This side, I warn you, will not always brook Rain-water and cold stones.XI
MERCURI, NAM TE
Come, Mercury, by whose minstrel spell Amphion raised the Theban stones, Come, with thy seven sweet strings, my shell, Thy "diverse tones," Nor vocal once nor pleasant, now To rich man's board and temple dear: Put forth thy power, till Lyde bow Her stubborn ear. She, like a three year colt unbroke, Is frisking o'er the spacious plain, Too shy to bear a lover's yoke, A husband's rein. The wood, the tiger, at thy call Have follow'd: thou canst rivers stay: The monstrous guard of Pluto's hall To thee gave way, Grim Cerberus, round whose Gorgon head A hundred snakes are hissing death, Whose triple jaws black venom shed, And sickening breath. Ixion too and Tityos smooth'd Their rugged brows: the urn stood dry One hour, while Danaus' maids were sooth'd With minstrelsy. Let Lyde hear those maidens' guilt, Their famous doom, the ceaseless drain Of outpour'd water, ever spilt, And all the pain Reserved for sinners, e'en when dead: Those impious hands, (could crime do more?) Those impious hands had hearts to shed Their bridegrooms' gore! One only, true to Hymen's flame, Was traitress to her sire forsworn: That splendid falsehood lights her name Through times unborn. "Wake!" to her youthful spouse she cried, "Wake! or you yet may sleep too well: Fly—from the father of your bride, Her sisters fell: They, as she-lions bullocks rend, Tear each her victim: I, less hard Than these, will slay you not, poor friend, Nor hold in ward: Me let my sire in fetters lay For mercy to my husband shown: Me let him ship far hence away, To climes unknown. Go; speed your flight o'er land and wave, While Night and Venus shield you; go Be blest: and on my tomb engrave This tale of woe."XII
MISERARUM EST
How unhappy are the maidens who with Cupid may not play, Who may never touch the wine-cup, but must tremble all the day At an uncle, and the scourging of his tongue! Neobule, there's a robber takes your needle and your thread, Lets the lessons of Minerva run no longer in your head; It is Hebrus, the athletic and the young! O, to see him when anointed he is plunging in the flood! What a seat he has on horseback! was Bellerophon's as good? As a boxer, as a runner, past compare! When the deer are flying blindly all the open country o'er, He can aim and he can hit them; he can steal upon the boar, As it couches in the thicket unaware.XIII
O FONS BANDUSIAE
Bandusia's fount, in clearness crystalline, O worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow! To-morrow shall be thine A kid, whose crescent brow Is sprouting all for love and victory. In vain: his warm red blood, so early stirr'd, Thy gelid stream shall dye, Child of the wanton herd. Thee the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired, Forbears to touch: sweet cool thy waters yield To ox with ploughing tired, And lazy sheep afield. Thou too one day shalt win proud eminence 'Mid honour'd founts, while I the ilex sing Crowning the cavern, whence Thy babbling wavelets spring.XIV
HERCULIS RITU
Our Hercules, they told us, Rome, Had sought the laurel Death bestows: Now Glory brings him conqueror home From Spaniard foes. Proud of her spouse, the imperial fair Must thank the gods that shield from death; His sister too:—let matrons wear The suppliant wreath For daughters and for sons restored: Ye youths and damsels newly wed, Let decent awe restrain each word Best left unsaid. This day, true holyday to me, Shall banish care: I will not fear Rude broils or bloody death to see, While Caesar's here. Quick, boy, the chaplets and the nard, And wine, that knew the Marsian war, If roving Spartacus have spared A single jar. And bid Neaera come and trill, Her bright locks bound with careless art: If her rough porter cross your will, Why then depart. Soon palls the taste for noise and fray, When hair is white and leaves are sere: How had I fired in life's warm May, In Plancus' year!XV
UXOR PAUPERIS IBYCI
Wife of Ibycus the poor, Let aged scandals have at length their bound: Give your graceless doings o'er, Ripe as you are for going underground. YOU the maidens' dance to lead, And cast your gloom upon those beaming stars! Daughter Pholoe may succeed, But mother Chloris what she touches mars. Young men's homes your daughter storms, Like Thyiad, madden'd by the cymbals' beat: Nothus' love her bosom warms: She gambols like a fawn with silver feet. Yours should be the wool that grows By fair Luceria, not the merry lute: Flowers beseem not wither'd brows, Nor wither'd lips with emptied wine-jars suit.XVI
INCLUSAM DANAEN
Full well had Danae been secured, in truth, By oaken portals, and a brazen tower, And savage watch-dogs, from the roving youth That prowl at midnight's hour: But Jove and Venus mock'd with gay disdain The jealous warder of that close stronghold: The way, they knew, must soon be smooth and plain When gods could change to gold. Gold, gold can pass the tyrant's sentinel, Can shiver rocks with more resistless blow Than is the thunder's. Argos' prophet fell, He and his house laid low, And all for gain. The man of Macedon Cleft gates of cities, rival kings o'erthrew By force of gifts: their cunning snares have won Rude captains and their crew. As riches grow, care follows: men repine And thirst for more. No lofty crest I raise: Wisdom that thought forbids, Maecenas mine, The knightly order's praise. He that denies himself shall gain the more From bounteous Heaven. I strip me of my pride, Desert the rich man's standard, and pass o'er To bare Contentment's side, More proud as lord of what the great despise Than if the wheat thresh'd on Apulia's floor I hoarded all in my huge granaries, 'Mid vast possessions poor. A clear fresh stream, a little field o'ergrown With shady trees, a crop that ne'er deceives, Pass, though men know it not, their wealth, that own All Afric's golden sheaves. Though no Calabrian bees their honey yield For me, nor mellowing sleeps the god of wine In Formian jar, nor in Gaul's pasture-field The wool grows long and fine, Yet Poverty ne'er comes to break my peace; If more I craved, you would not more refuse. Desiring less, I better shall increase My tiny revenues, Than if to Alyattes' wide domains I join'd the realms of Mygdon. Great desires Sort with great wants. 'Tis best, when prayer obtains No more than life requires.XVII
AELI VETUSTO
Aelius, of Lamus' ancient name (For since from that high parentage The prehistoric Lamias came And all who fill the storied page, No doubt you trace your line from him, Who stretch'd his sway o'er Formiae, And Liris, whose still waters swim Where green Marica skirts the sea, Lord of broad realms), an eastern gale Will blow to-morrow, and bestrew The shore with weeds, with leaves the vale, If rain's old prophet tell me true, The raven. Gather, while 'tis fine, Your wood; to-morrow shall be gay With smoking pig and streaming wine, And lord and slave keep holyday.XVIII
FAUNE, NYMPHARUM
O wont the flying Nymphs to woo, Good Faunus, through my sunny farm Pass gently, gently pass, nor do My younglings harm. Each year, thou know'st, a kid must die For thee; nor lacks the wine's full stream To Venus' mate, the bowl; and high The altars steam. Sure as December's nones appear, All o'er the grass the cattle play; The village, with the lazy steer, Keeps holyday. Wolves rove among the fearless sheep; The woods for thee their foliage strow; The delver loves on earth to leap, His ancient foe.XIX
QUANTUM DISTAT
What the time from Inachus To Codrus, who in patriot battle fell, Who were sprung from Aeacus, And how men fought at Ilion,—this you tell. What the wines of Chios cost, Who with due heat our water can allay, What the hour, and who the host To give us house-room,—this you will not say. Ho, there! wine to moonrise, wine To midnight, wine to our new augur too! Nine to three or three to nine, As each man pleases, makes proportion true. Who the uneven Muses loves, Will fire his dizzy brain with three times three; Three once told the Grace approves; She with her two bright sisters, gay and free, Shrinks, as maiden should, from strife: But I'm for madness. What has dull'd the fire Of the Berecyntian fife? Why hangs the flute in silence with the lyre? Out on niggard-handed boys! Rain showers of roses; let old Lycus hear, Envious churl, our senseless noise, And she, our neighbour, his ill-sorted fere. You with your bright clustering hair, Your beauty, Telephus, like evening's sky, Rhoda loves, as young, as fair; I for my Glycera slowly, slowly die.