Ancient Roman Poetry, Drama and Literature
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Topic: Ancient Roman Poetry, Drama and Literature
Posted By: Don Quixote
Subject: Ancient Roman Poetry, Drama and Literature
Date Posted: 29-Jan-2012 at 18:06
I'm thinking this thread as one on which one can post examples of ancient Roman literature that one likes, as well as historical notes on it, comments, etc. I generally like posting one part of a work apiece, so I'll start with Horace and his odes:
Horace, Odes 1:1
Maecenas, born of monarch ancestors,
The shield at once and glory of my life!
There are who joy them in the Olympic strife
And love the dust they gather in the course;
The goal by hot wheels shunn'd, the famous prize,
Exalt them to the gods that rule mankind;
This joys, if rabbles fickle as the wind
Through triple grade of honours bid him rise,
That, if his granary has stored away
Of http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/entityvote?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0025:book=1:poem=1&auth=tgn,1000172&n=1&type=place - Libya 's thousand floors the yield entire;
The man who digs his field as did his sire,
With honest pride, no Attalus may sway
By proffer'd wealth to tempt Myrtoan seas,
The timorous captain of a Cyprian bark.
The winds that make Icarian billows dark
The merchant fears, and hugs the rural ease
Of his own village home; but soon, ashamed
Of penury, he refits his batter'd craft.
There is, who thinks no scorn of Massic draught,
Who robs the daylight of an hour unblamed,
Now stretch'd beneath the arbute on the sward,
Now by some gentle river's sacred spring;
Some love the camp, the clarion's joyous ring,
And battle, by the mother's soul abhorr'd.
See, patient waiting in the clear keen air,
The hunter, thoughtless of his delicate bride,
Whether the trusty hounds a stag have eyed,
Or the fierce Marsian boar has burst the snare.
To me the artist's meed, the ivy wreath
Is very heaven: me the sweet cool of woods,
Where Satyrs frolic with the Nymphs, secludes
From rabble rout, so but Euterpe's breath
Fail not the flute, nor Polyhymnia fly
Averse from stringing new the Lesbian lyre.
O, write my name among that minstrel choir,
And my proud head shall strike upon the sky!
The first 3 books are dedicated to Maecenas. Some notes and commentaries on the ode can be found here http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0067:text=Carm.:book=1:poem=1 - http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0067:text=Carm.:book=1:poem=1
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Replies:
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 06-Feb-2012 at 00:40
Horace, 1:2:
The Father’s sent enough dread hail
and snow to earth already, striking
sacred hills with fiery hand,
to scare the city,
and scare the people, lest again
we know Pyrrha’s age of pain
when Proteus his sea-herds drove
across high mountains,
and fishes lodged in all the elms,
that used to be the haunt of doves,
and the trembling roe-deer swam
the whelming waters.
We saw the yellow Tiber’s waves
hurled backwards from the Tuscan shore,
toppling Numa’s Regia and
the shrine of Vesta,
far too fierce now, the fond river,
in his revenge of wronged Ilia,
drowning the whole left bank, deep,
without permission.
Our children, fewer for their father’s
vices, will hear metal sharpened
that’s better destined for the Persians,
and of battles too.
Which gods shall the people call on
when the Empire falls in ruins?
With what prayer shall the virgins
tire heedless Vesta?
Whom will Jupiter assign to
expiate our sins? We pray you,
come, cloud veiling your bright shoulders,
far-sighted Apollo:
or laughing Venus Erycina,
if you will, whom Cupid circles,
or you, if you see your children
neglected, Leader,
you sated from the long campaign,
who love the war-shouts and the helmets,
and the Moor’s cruel face among his
blood-stained enemies.
Or you, winged son of kindly Maia,
changing shape on earth to human
form, and ready to be named as
Caesar’s avenger:
Don’t rush back to the sky, stay long
among the people of Quirinus,
no swifter breeze take you away,
unhappy with our
sins: here to delight in triumphs,
in being called our prince and father,
making sure the Medes are punished,
lead us, O Caesar.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 08-Feb-2012 at 23:23
and Helen’s brothers, the brightest of stars,
and father of the winds, Aeolus,
confining all except Iapyga, guide you,
ship, that owes us Virgil, given
to your care, guide you to Attica’s shores,
bring him safely there I beg you,
and there watch over half of my spirit.
Triple bronze and oak encircled
the breast of the man who first committed
his fragile bark to the cruel sea,
without fearing the fierce south-westerlies
fighting with the winds from the north,
the sad Hyades, or the raging south,
master of the Adriatic,
whether he stirs or he calms the ocean.
What form of death could he have feared,
who gazed, dry-eyed, on swimming monsters,
saw the waves of the sea boiling,
and Acroceraunia’s infamous cliffs?
Useless for a wise god to part
the lands, with a far-severing Ocean,
if impious ships, in spite of him,
travel the depths he wished inviolable.
Daring enough for anything,
the human race deals in forbidden sin.
That daring son of Iapetus
brought fire, by impious cunning, to men.
When fire was stolen from heaven
its home, wasting disease and a strange crowd
of fevers covered the whole earth,
and death’s powers, that had been slow before
and far away, quickened their step.
Daedalus tried the empty air on wings
that were never granted to men:
Hercules’ labours shattered Acheron.
Nothing’s too high for mortal men:
like fools, we aim at the heavens themselves,
sinful, we won’t let Jupiter
set aside his lightning bolts of anger.
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Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 10-Feb-2012 at 10:06
First part of Juvenal, Satire VIII
What avail your pedigrees? What boots it, Ponticus, to be valued for one's ancient blood, and to display the painted visages of one's forefathers; an Aemilianus standing in his car; a half-crumbled Curius; a Corvinus who has lost a shoulder, or a Galba that has neither ear nor nose? Of what profit is it to boast a Fabius on your ample family chart, and thereafter to trace kinship through many a branch with grimy Dictators and Masters of the Horse, if in presence of the Lepidi you live an evil life? What signify all these effigies of warriors if you gamble all night long before your Numantine ancestors, and begin your sleep with the rise of Lucifer, at an hour when our Generals of old would be moving their standards and their camps? Why should a Fabius, born in the home of Hercules, take pride in the title Allobrogicus, and in the Great Altar, if he be covetous and empty-headed and more effeminate than a Euganean lambkin; if his loins, rubbed smooth by Catanian pumice, throw shame on his shaggy-haired grandfathers; or if, as a trafficker in poison, he dishonour his unhappy race by a statue that will have to be broken in pieces? Though you deck your hall from end to end with ancient waxen images, Virtue is the one and only true nobility. Be a Paulus, or a Cossus, or a Drusus in character; rank them before the statues of your ancestors; let them precede the fasces themselves when you are Consul. You owe me, first of all things, the virtues of the soul; prove yourself stainless in life, one who holds fast to the right both in word and deed, and I acknowledge you as a lord; all hail to you, Gaetulicus, or you, Silanus, or from whatever stock you come, if you have proved yourself to a rejoicing country a rare and illustrious citizen, we would fain cry what Egypt shouts when Osiris has been found. For who can be called "noble" who is unworthy of his race, and distinguished in nothing but his name? We call some one's dwarf an "Atlas," his blackamoor "a swan"; an ill-favoured, misshapen girl we call "Europa"; lazy hounds that are bald with chronic mange, and who lick the edges of a dry lamp, will bear the names of "Pard," "Tiger," "Lion," or of any other animal in the world that roars more fiercely: take you care that it be not on that principle that you are a Creticus or a Camerinus!
Who is it whom I admonish thus? It is to you, Rubellius Blandus, that I speak. You are puffed up with the lofty pedigree of the Drusi, as though you had done something to make you noble, and to be conceived by one glorying in the blood of Iulus, rather than by one who weaves for hire under the windy rampart. "You others are dirt," you say; "the very scum of our populace; not one of you can point to his father's birthplace; but I am one of the Cecropidae!" Long life to you! May you long enjoy the glories of your birth! And yet among the lowest rabble you will find a Roman, who has eloquence, one who will plead the cause of the unlettered noble; you must go to the toga-clad herd for a man to untie the knots and riddles of the law. From them will come the brave young soldier who marches to the Euphrates, or to the eagles that guard the conquered Batavians, while you are nothing but a Cecropid, the image of a limbless Hermes! For in no respect but one have you the advantage over him: his head is of marble, while yours is a living effigy!
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 14-Feb-2012 at 21:45
Horace
Fierce winter slackens its grip: it’s spring and the
west wind’s sweet change:
the ropes are hauling dry hulls towards the shore,
The flock no longer enjoys the fold, or the ploughman the
fire,
no more are the meadows white with hoary frost.
Now Cytherean Venus leads out her dancers, under the pendant
moon,
and the lovely Graces have joined with the Nymphs,
treading the earth on tripping feet, while Vulcan, all on
fire, visits
the tremendous Cyclopean forges.
Now its right to garland our gleaming heads, with green
myrtle or flowers,
whatever the unfrozen earth now bears:
now it’s right to sacrifice to Faunus, in groves that are
filled with shadow,
whether he asks a lamb, or prefers a kid.
Pale death knocks with impartial foot, at the door of the
poor man’s cottage,
and at the prince’s gate. O Sestus, my friend,
the span of brief life prevents us from ever depending on
distant hope.
Soon the night will crush you, the fabled spirits,
and Pluto’s bodiless halls: where once you’ve passed inside
you’ll no longer
be allotted the lordship of wine by dice,
or marvel at Lycidas, so tender, for whom, already, the boys
are burning, and soon the girls will grow hotter.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 15-Feb-2012 at 20:34
Horace BkI:V Treacherous Girl
What slender boy, Pyrrha, drowned in liquid perfume,
urges you on, there, among showers of roses,
deep down in some pleasant cave?
For whom did you tie up your hair,
with simple elegance? How often he’ll cry at
the changes of faith and of gods, ah, he’ll wonder,
surprised by roughening water,
surprised by the darkening storms,
who enjoys you now and believes you’re golden,
who thinks you’ll always be single and lovely,
ignoring the treacherous
breeze. Wretched are those you dazzle
while still untried. As for me the votive tablet
that hangs on the temple wall reveals, suspended,
my dripping clothes, for the god,
who holds power over the sea.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 16-Feb-2012 at 19:26
Horace, Odes
You should be penned as brave, and a conqueror
by Varius, winged with his Homeric poetry,
whatever fierce soldiers, with vessels or horses,
have carried out, at your command.
Agrippa, I don’t try to speak of such things,
not Achilles’ anger, ever unyielding,
nor crafty Ulysses’ long sea-wanderings,
nor the cruel house of Pelops,
I’m too slight for grandeur, since shame and the Muse,
who’s the power of the peaceful lyre, forbids me
to lessen the praise of great Caesar and you,
by my defective artistry.
Who could write worthily of Mars in his armour
Meriones the Cretan, dark with Troy’s dust,
or Tydides, who with the help of Athene,
was the equal of all the gods?
I sing of banquets, of girls fierce in battle
with closely-trimmed nails, attacking young men:
idly, as I’m accustomed to do, whether
fancy free or burning with love.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2012 at 19:03
Horace
Let others sing in praise of Rhodes, or Mytilene,
or Ephesus, or Corinth on the Isthmus,
or Thebes that’s known for Bacchus, or Apollo’s isle
of Delphi, or Thessalian Tempe.
There’s some whose only purpose is to celebrate
virgin Athene’s city forever,
and set indiscriminately gathered olive on their heads.
Many a poet in honour of Juno
will speak fittingly of horses, Argos, rich Mycenae.
As for me not even stubborn Sparta
or the fields of lush Larisa are quite as striking,
as Albunea’s echoing cavern,
her headlong Anio, and the groves of Tiburnus,
and Tibur’s orchards, white with flowing streams.
Bright Notus from the south often blows away the clouds
from dark skies, without bringing endless rain,
so Plancus, my friend, remember to end a sad life
and your troubles, wisely, with sweet wine,
whether it’s the camp, and gleaming standards, that hold you
or the deep shadows of your own Tibur.
They say that Teucer, fleeing from Salamis and his
father, still wreathed the garlands, leaves of poplar,
round his forehead, flushed with wine, and in speech to his
friends
said these words to them as they sorrowed:
‘Wherever fortune carries us, kinder than my father,
there, O friends and comrades, we’ll adventure!
Never despair, if Teucer leads, of Teucer’s omens!
Unerring Apollo surely promised,
in the uncertain future, a second Salamis
on a fresh soil. O you brave heroes, you
who suffered worse with me often, drown your cares with wine:
tomorrow we’ll sail the wide seas again.’
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 20-Feb-2012 at 21:46
Horace:
say why you’re set on ruining poor Sybaris, with passion:
why he suddenly can’t stand
the sunny Campus, he, once tolerant of the dust and sun:
why he’s no longer riding
with his soldier friends, nor holds back the Gallic mouth,
any longer,
with his sharp restraining bit.
Why does he fear to touch the yellow Tiber? Why does he keep
away from the wrestler’s oil
like the viper’s blood: he won’t appear with arms bruised by
weapons,
he who was often noted
for hurling the discus, throwing the javelin out of bounds?
Why does he hide, as they say
Achilles, sea-born Thetis’ son, hid, before sad Troy was
ruined,
lest his male clothing
had him dragged away to the slaughter, among the Lycian troops?
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 23-Feb-2012 at 01:40
and the labouring woods bend under the weight:
see how the mountain streams are frozen,
cased in the ice by the shuddering cold?
Drive away bitterness, and pile on the logs,
bury the hearthstones, and, with generous heart,
out of the four-year old Sabine jars,
O Thaliarchus, bring on the true wine.
Leave the rest to the gods: when they’ve stilled the winds
that struggle, far away, over raging seas,
you’ll see that neither the cypress trees
nor the old ash will be able to stir.
Don’t ask what tomorrow brings, call them your gain
whatever days Fortune gives, don’t spurn sweet love,
my child, and don’t you be neglectful
of the choir of love, or the dancing feet,
while life is still green, and your white-haired old age
is far away with all its moroseness. Now,
find the Campus again, and the squares,
soft whispers at night, at the hour agreed,
and the pleasing laugh that betrays her, the girl
who’s hiding away in the darkest corner,
and the pledge that’s retrieved from her arm,
or from a lightly resisting finger.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 24-Feb-2012 at 01:41
Horace
I’ll sing of you, who wise with your training, shaped
the uncivilised ways of our new-born race,
with language, and grace
in the ways of wrestling, you the messenger
of Jove and the gods, and the curved lyre’s father,
skilful in hiding whatever pleases you,
with playful deceit.
While he tried to scare you, with his threatening voice,
unless you returned the cattle you’d stolen,
and so craftily, Apollo was laughing
missing his quiver.
And indeed, with your guidance, Priam carrying
rich gifts left Troy, escaped the proud Atridae,
Thessalian fires, and the menacing camp
threatening Ilium.
You bring virtuous souls to the happy shores,
controlling the bodiless crowds with your wand
of gold, pleasing to the gods of the heavens
and the gods below.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 27-Feb-2012 at 02:10
Horace
whether your fate or mine, don’t waste your time on
Babylonian,
futile, calculations. How much better to suffer what
happens,
whether Jupiter gives us more winters or this is the last
one,
one debilitating the Tyrrhenian Sea on opposing cliffs.
Be wise, and mix the wine, since time is short: limit that
far-reaching hope.
The envious moment is flying now, now, while we’re speaking:
Seize the day, place in the hours that come as little faith
as you can.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 28-Feb-2012 at 00:57
Horace:
on the high pitched flute or the lyre, Clio?
Whose name will it be that joyfully resounds
in playful echoes,
either on shadowed slopes of Mount Helicon,
or on Pindus’s crest, or on cool Haemus,
where the trees followed thoughtlessly after
Orpheus’s call,
that held back the swift-running streams and the rush
of the breeze, by his mother the Muse’s art,
and seductively drew the listening oaks
with enchaining song?
Which shall I sing first of the praises reserved
for the Father, who commands mortals and gods,
who controls the seas, and the land, and the world’s
various seasons?
From whom nothing’s born that’s greater than he is,
and there’s nothing that’s like him or near him,
though Athene has honour approaching his,
she’s bravest in war:
I won’t be silent about you, O Bacchus,
or you Diana, virgin inimical
to wild creatures, or you Apollo, so feared
for your sure arrows.
I’ll sing Hercules, too, and Leda’s twin boys,
one famed for winning with horses, the other
in boxing. When their clear stars are shining bright
for those on the sea,
the storm-tossed water streams down from the headland,
the high winds die down, and the clouds disappear,
and, because they wish it, the menacing waves
repose in the deep.
I don’t know whether to speak next, after those,
of Romulus, or of Numa’s peaceful reign,
of Tarquin’s proud axes, or of that younger
Cato’s noble death.
Gratefully, I speak in distinguished verses
of Regulus: and the Scauri: and Paulus
careless of his life, when Hannibal conquered:
of Fabricius.
Of him, and of Curius with uncut hair,
and Camillus too, whom their harsh poverty
and their ancestral gods, and their ancient farms,
inured to struggle.
Marcellus’ glory grows like a tree, quietly
with time: the Julian constellation shines,
among the other stars, as the Moon among
the lesser fires.
Father, and guardian of the human race,
son of Saturn, the care of mighty Caesar
was given you by fate: may you reign forever
with Caesar below.
Whether its the conquered Persians, menacing
Latium, that he leads, in well-earned triumph,
or the Seres and the Indians who lie
beneath Eastern skies,
under you, he’ll rule the wide earth with justice:
you’ll shake Olympus with your heavy chariot,
you’ll send your hostile lightning down to shatter
once-pure sacred groves.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 28-Feb-2012 at 19:44
Horace:
When you, Lydia, start to praise
Telephus’ rosy neck, Telephus’ waxen arms,
alas, my burning passion starts
to mount deep inside me, with troubling anger.
Neither my feelings, nor my hue
stay as they were before, and on my cheek a tear
slides down, secretly, proving how
I’m consumed inwardly with lingering fires.
I burn, whether it’s madhouse
quarrels that have, drunkenly, marked your gleaming
shoulders, or whether the crazed boy
has placed a love-bite, in memory, on your lips.
If you’d just listen to me now,
you’d not bother to hope for constancy from him
who wounds that sweet mouth, savagely,
that Venus has imbued with her own pure nectar.
Three times happy are they, and more,
held by unbroken pledge, one which no destruction
of love, by evil quarrels,
will ever dissolve, before life’s final day.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 29-Feb-2012 at 22:18
Horace:
Where are you going! Quickly, run for harbour.
Can’t you see how your sides
have been stripped bare of oars,
how your shattered masts and yards are groaning loudly
in the swift south-westerly, and bare of rigging,
your hull can scarce tolerate
the overpowering waters?
You haven’t a single sail that’s still intact now,
no gods, that people call to when they’re in trouble.
Though you’re built of Pontic pine,
a child of those famous forests,
though you can boast of your race, and an idle name:
the fearful sailor puts no faith in gaudy keels.
You must beware of being
merely a plaything of the winds.
You, who not long ago were troubling weariness
to me, and now are my passion and anxious care,
avoid the glistening seas
between the shining Cyclades.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 02-Mar-2012 at 00:01
Horace:
bore Helen over the waves, in a ship from Troy,
Nereus, the sea-god, checked the swift breeze
with an unwelcome calm, to tell
their harsh fate: ‘You’re taking a bird of ill-omen,
back home, whom the Greeks, new armed, will look for again,
having sworn to destroy the marriage your planning
and the empire of old Priam.
Ah, what sweated labour for men and for horses
draws near! What disaster you bring for the Trojan
people! Athene’s already prepared her helm,
breastplate, chariot, and fury.
Uselessly daring, through Venus’ protection,
you’ll comb your hair and pluck at the peace-loving lyre,
make the music for songs that please girls: uselessly
you’ll hide, in the depths of your room,
from the heavy spears, from the arrows of Cretan
reeds, and the noise of the battle, and swift-footed
Ajax quick to follow: yet, ah too late, you’ll bathe
your adulterous hair in the dust!
Have you thought of Ulysses, the bane of your race,
have you even considered Pylian Nestor?
Teucer of Salamis presses you fearlessly,
Sthenelus, skilful in warfare,
and if it’s a question of handling the horses
he’s no mean charioteer. And Meriones
you’ll know him too. See fierce Tydides, his father’s
braver, he’s raging to find you.
As the deer sees the wolf there, over the valley,
and forgets its pastures, a coward, you’ll flee him,
breathing hard, as you run, with your head thrown high,
not as you promised your mistress.
The anger of Achilles’ armies may delay
the day of destruction for Troy and its women:
but after so many winters the fires of Greece
will burn the Dardanian houses.’
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 02-Mar-2012 at 23:25
end as you will, then, my guilty iambics
whether in flames or whether instead
deep down in the Adriatic’s waters.
Neither Cybele, nor Apollo, who troubles
the priestess’s mind in the Pythian shrine,
nor Bacchus, nor the Corybants who
clash their shrill, ringing cymbals together,
pain us like anger, that’s undefeated by
swords out of Noricum, or sea, the wrecker,
or cruel fire, or mighty Jupiter
when he sweeps down in terrible fury.
They say when Prometheus was forced to add
something from every creature to our first clay
he chose to set in each of our hearts
the violence of the irascible lion.
Anger brought Thyestes down, to utter ruin,
and it’s the prime reason powerful cities
vanished in their utter destruction,
and armies, in scorn, sent the hostile plough
over the levelled spoil of their shattered walls.
Calm your mind: the passions of the heart have made
their attempt on me, in my sweet youth,
and drove me, maddened, as well, to swift verse:
I wish to change the bitter lines to sweet, now,
since I’ve charmed away all of my hostile words,
if you might become my friend, again,
and if you, again, might give me your heart.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 05-Mar-2012 at 03:03
Horace
Arcady for my sweet Mount Lucretilis,
and while he stays he protects my goats
from the midday heat and the driving rain.
The wandering wives of the rank he-goats search,
with impunity, through the safe woodland groves,
for the hidden arbutus, and thyme,
and their kids don’t fear green poisonous snakes,
or the wolf of Mars, my lovely Tyndaris,
once my Mount Ustica’s long sloping valleys,
and its smooth worn rocks, have re-echoed
to the music of sweet divine piping.
The gods protect me: my love and devotion,
and my Muse, are dear to the gods. Here the rich
wealth of the countryside’s beauties will
flow for you, now, from the horn of plenty.
Here you’ll escape from the heat of the dog-star,
in secluded valleys, sing of bright Circe,
labouring over the Teian lyre,
and of Penelope: both loved one man.
Here you’ll bring cups of innocent Lesbian
wine, under the shade, nor will Semele’s son,
that Bacchus, battle it out with Mars,
nor shall you fear the intemperate hands
of insolent Cyrus, jealously watching,
to possess you, girl, unequal to evil,
to tear off the garland that clings to
your hair, or tear off your innocent clothes.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 05-Mar-2012 at 23:19
Horace
set in Tibur’s gentle soil, and by the walls Catilus
founded:
because the god decreed all things are hard for those who
never drink,
and he gave us no better way to lessen our anxieties.
Deep in wine, who rattles on, about harsh campaigns or
poverty?
Who doesn’t rather speak of you, Bacchus, and you, lovely
Venus?
And lest the gifts of Liber pass the bounds of moderation
set,
we’ve the battle over wine, between the Lapiths and the
Centaurs,
as a warning to us all, and the frenzied Thracians, whom
Bacchus
hates, when they split right from wrong, by too fine a line
of passion.
Lovely Bacchus, I’ll not be the one to stir you, against
your will,
nor bring to open light of day what’s hidden under all those
leaves.
Hold back the savagery of drums, and the Berecyntian horns,
and those deeds that, afterwards, are followed by a blind
self-love,
by pride that lifts its empty head too high, above itself,
once more,
and wasted faith in mysteries much more transparent than the
glass.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 06-Mar-2012 at 22:51
Horace
Bacchus, too, commands me, Theban Semele’s son,
and you, lustful Licentiousness,
to recall to mind that love I thought long-finished.
I burn for Glycera’s beauty,
who gleams much more brightly than Parian marble:
I burn for her lovely boldness
and her face too dangerous to ever behold.
Venus bears down on me, wholly,
deserting her Cyprus, not letting me sing of
the Scythians, or Parthians
eager at wheeling their horses, nor anything else.
Here set up the green turf altar,
boys, and the sacred boughs of vervain, and incense,
place here a bowl of last year’s wine:
if a victim’s sacrificed, she’ll come more gently.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 07-Mar-2012 at 18:18
Horace
yet wine that I sealed myself, and laid up
in a Grecian jar, when you dear Maecenas,
flower of knighthood,
received the theatre’s applause, so your native
river-banks, and, also, the Vatican Hill,
together returned that praise again, to you,
in playful echoes.
Then, drink Caecubum, and the juice of the grape
crushed in Campania’s presses, my cups are
unmixed with what grows on Falernian vines,
or Formian hills.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 10-Mar-2012 at 14:26
Horace:
and, you boys, sing in praise, of long-haired Apollo,
and of Latona, deeply
loved by all-conquering Jove.
You girls, she who enjoys the streams and the green leaves
of the groves that clothe the cool slopes of Algidus,
or dark Erymanthian
trees, or the woods of green Cragus.
You boys, sounding as many praises, of Tempe
and Apollo’s native isle Delos, his shoulder
distinguished by his quiver,
and his brother Mercury’s lyre.
He’ll drive away sad war, and miserable famine,
the plague too, from our people and Caesar our prince,
and, moved by all your prayers,
send them to Persians and Britons.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 11-Mar-2012 at 21:30
Horace
has no need, dear Fuscus, for Moorish javelins,
nor a bow and a quiver, fully loaded
with poisoned arrows,
whether his path’s through the sweltering Syrtes,
or through the inhospitable Caucasus,
or makes its way through those fabulous regions
Hydaspes waters.
While I was wandering, beyond the boundaries
of my farm, in the Sabine woods, and singing
free from care, lightly-defended, of my Lalage,
a wolf fled from me:
a monster not even warlike Apulia
nourishes deep in its far-flung oak forests,
or that Juba’s parched Numidian land breeds,
nursery of lions.
Set me down on the lifeless plains, where no trees
spring to life in the burning midsummer wind,
that wide stretch of the world that’s burdened by mists
and a gloomy sky:
set me down in a land denied habitation,
where the sun’s chariot rumbles too near the earth:
I’ll still be in love with my sweetly laughing,
sweet talking Lalage.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 13-Mar-2012 at 19:32
Horace:
searching the trackless hills for its frightened mother,
not without aimless terror
of the pathless winds, and the woods.
For if the coming of spring begins to rustle
among the trembling leaves, or if a green lizard
pushes the brambles aside,
then it trembles in heart and limb.
And yet I’m not chasing after you to crush you
like a fierce tiger, or a Gaetulian lion:
stop following your mother,
now, you’re prepared for a mate.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 14-Mar-2012 at 13:31
Horace:
of so dear a life? Melpomene, teach me, Muse,
a song of mourning, you, whom the Father granted
a clear voice, the sound of the lyre.
Does endless sleep lie heavy on Quintilius,
now? When will Honour, and unswerving Loyalty,
that is sister to Justice, and our naked Truth,
ever discover his equal?
Many are the good men who weep for his dying,
none of them, Virgil, weep more profusely than you.
Piously, you ask the gods for him, alas, in vain:
not so was he given to us.
Even if you played on the Thracian lyre, listened
to by the trees, more sweetly than Orpheus could,
would life then return, to that empty phantom,
once Mercury, with fearsome wand,
who won’t simply re-open the gates of Fate
at our bidding, has gathered him to the dark throng?
It is hard: but patience makes more tolerable
whatever wrong’s to be righted.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 15-Mar-2012 at 23:56
Horace:
beating your shutters, with blow after blow, or
stealing away your sleep, while the door sits tight,
hugging the threshold,
yet was once known to move its hinges, more than
readily. You’ll hear, less and less often now:
‘Are you sleeping, Lydia, while your lover
dies in the long night?’
Old, in your turn, you’ll bemoan coarse adulterers,
as you tremble in some deserted alley,
while the Thracian wind rages, furiously,
through the moonless nights,
while flagrant desire, libidinous passion,
those powers that will spur on a mare in heat,
will storm all around your corrupted heart, ah,
and you’ll complain,
that the youths, filled with laughter, take more delight
in the green ivy, the dark of the myrtle,
leaving the withering leaves to this East wind,
winter’s accomplice.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 16-Mar-2012 at 12:02
Horace:
to the winds, to blow over the Cretan Sea,
untroubled by whoever he is, that king
of the icy Arctic shores we’re afraid of,
or whatever might terrify the Armenians.
O Sweet Muse, that joys in fresh fountains,
weave them together all the bright flowers,
weave me a garland for my Lamia.
Without you there’s no worth in my tributes:
it’s fitting that you, that all of your sisters,
should immortalise him with new strains
of the lyre, with the Lesbian plectrum.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 17-Mar-2012 at 23:11
Horace:
only suits Thracians: forget those barbarous
games, and keep modest Bacchus away
from all those bloodthirsty quarrels of yours.
The Persian scimitar’s quite out of keeping
with the wine and the lamplight: my friends restrain
all that impious clamour, and rest
on the couches, lean back on your elbows.
So you want me to drink up my share, as well,
of the heavy Falernian? Then let’s hear
Opuntian Megylla’s brother tell
by what wound, and what arrow, blessed, he dies.
Does your will waver? I’ll drink on no other
terms. Whatever the passion rules over you,
it’s not with a shameful fire it burns,
and you always sin with the noblest
of lovers. Whoever it is, ah, come now,
let it be heard by faithful ears – oh, you wretch!
What a Charybdis you’re swimming in,
my boy, you deserve a far better flame!
What magician, with Thessalian potions,
what enchantress, or what god could release you?
Caught by the triple-formed Chimaera,
even Pegasus could barely free you.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 18-Mar-2012 at 21:57
Horace:
in a small mound of meagre earth near the Matinian shore,
and it’s of no use to you in the least,
that you, born to die, have explored the celestial houses
crossed, in spirit, the rounds of the sky.
Tantalus, Pelop’s father, died too, a guest of the gods,
and Tithonus took off to the heavens,
Minos gained entry to great Jupiter’s secrets, Tartarus
holds Euphorbus, twice sent to Orcus,
though he bore witness, carrying his shield there, to Trojan
times,
and left nothing more behind, for black Death,
but his skin and his bones, and that certainly made him,
Archytas,
to your mind, no trivial example
of Nature and truth. But there’s still one night that awaits
us all,
and each, in turn, makes the journey of death.
The Furies deliver some as a spectacle for cruel Mars,
the greedy sea’s the sailor’s ruin:
the funerals of the old, and the young, close ranks
together,
and no one’s spared by cruel Proserpine.
Me too, the south wind, Notus, swift friend of setting
Orion,
drowned deep in Illyrian waters.
O, sailor, don’t hesitate, from spite, to grant a little treacherous
sand, to my unburied bones and skull.
So that, however the east wind might threaten the Italian
waves, thrashing the Venusian woods,
you’ll be safe, yourself, and rich rewards will flow from
the source,
from even-handed Jupiter, and from
Neptune, who is the protector of holy Tarentum. Are you
indifferent to committing a wrong
that will harm your innocent children hereafter? Perhaps
a need for justice, and arrogant
disdain, await you, too: don’t let me be abandoned here
my prayers unanswered: no offering
will absolve you. Though you hurry away, it’s a brief delay:
three scattered handfuls of earth will free you.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 19-Mar-2012 at 19:59
Horace:
at Arabian riches, and preparing
for bitter war on unbeaten kings
of Saba, weaving bonds for those dreadful
Medes? What barbaric virgin
will be your slave, when you’ve murdered her lover?
What boy, from the palace, with scented
hair, will handle your wine-cups, one taught
by his father’s bow how to manage eastern
arrows? Who’ll deny, now, that rivers can flow
backwards, to the summits of mountains,
and Tiber reverse the course of his streams,
when you, who gave promise of much better things,
are intent on changing Panaetius’s
noble books, the school of Socrates,
for a suit of Iberian armour?
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 20-Mar-2012 at 17:57
Horace:
spurn your beloved Cyprus, and summoned
by copious incense, come to the lovely shrine
of my Glycera.
And let that passionate boy of yours, Cupid,
and the Graces with loosened zones, and the Nymphs,
and Youth, less lovely without you, hasten here,
and Mercury too.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 22-Mar-2012 at 04:09
Horace:
What does he pray for as he pours out the wine
from the bowl? Not for the rich harvests
of fertile Sardinia, nor the herds,
(they’re delightful), of sunlit Calabria,
not for India’s gold or its ivory,
nor fields our silent Liris’s stream
carries away in the calm of its flow.
Let those that Fortune allows prune the vines,
with a Calenian knife, so rich merchants
can drink their wine from a golden cup,
wine they’ve purchased with Syrian goods,
who, dear to the gods, three or four times yearly,
revisit the briny Atlantic, unscathed.
I browse on olives, and chicory
and simple mallow. Apollo, the son
of Latona, let me enjoy what I have,
and, healthy in body and mind, as I ask,
live an old age not without honour,
and one not lacking the art of the lyre.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 22-Mar-2012 at 17:14
Horace
idle things with you in the shade, that will live,
for a year or more, come and utter a song
now, of Italy:
you were first tuned by Alcaeus of Lesbos,
a man daring in war, yet still, amongst arms,
or after he’d moored his storm-driven boat
on a watery shore,
he sang of the Muses, Bacchus, and Venus
that boy of hers, Cupid, that hangs around her,
and that beautiful Lycus, with his dark eyes
and lovely dark hair.
O tortoiseshell, Phoebus’s glory, welcome
at the feasts of Jupiter, the almighty,
O sweet comfort and balm of our troubles, heal,
if I call you true!
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 23-Mar-2012 at 11:02
Horace:
your cruel Glycera, and don’t keep on singing
those wretched elegies, or ask why, trust broken,
you’re outshone by a younger man.
Lovely Lycoris, the narrow-browed one, is on fire
with love for Cyrus, Cyrus leans towards bitter
Pholoë, but does in the wood are more likely
to mate with Apulian wolves,
than Pholoë to sin with some low-down lover.
So Venus has it, who delights in the cruel
game of mating unsuitable bodies and minds,
under her heavy yoke of bronze.
I, myself, when a nobler passion was called for,
was held in the charming bonds of Myrtale,
that freed slave, more bitter than Hadria’s waves
that break in Calabria’s bay.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 24-Mar-2012 at 13:27
Horace:
a scant and infrequent adorer of gods,
now I’m forced to set sail and return,
to go back to the paths I abandoned.
For Jupiter, Father of all of the gods,
who generally splits the clouds with his lightning,
flashing away, drove thundering horses,
and his swift chariot, through the clear sky,
till the dull earth, and the wandering rivers,
and Styx, and dread Taenarus’ hateful headland,
and Atlas’s mountain-summits shook.
The god has the power to replace the highest
with the lowest, bring down the famous, and raise
the obscure to the heights. And greedy Fortune
with her shrill whirring, carries away
the crown and delights in setting it, there.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 25-Mar-2012 at 23:12
Horace:
always ready to lift up our mortal selves,
from humble position, or alter
proud triumphs to funeral processions,
the poor farmer, in the fields, courts your favour
with anxious prayers: you, mistress of ocean,
the sailor who cuts the Carpathian
Sea, in a Bithynian sailing boat:
you, the fierce Dacian, wandering Scythian,
cities, and peoples, and warlike Latium,
mothers of barbarous kings, tyrants,
clothed in their royal purple, all fear you,
in case you demolish the standing pillar
with a careless foot, or the tumultuous crowd
incite the peaceful: ‘To arms, to arms’,
and shatter the supreme authority.
Grim Necessity always treads before you,
and she’s carrying the spikes and the wedges
in her bronze hand, and the harsh irons
and the molten lead aren’t absent either.
Hope cultivates you, and rarest Loyalty,
her hands bound in sacred white, will not refuse
her friendship when you, their enemy,
desert the great houses plunged in mourning.
But the disloyal mob, and the perjured whores
vanish, and friends scatter when they’ve drunk our wine
to the lees, unequal to bearing
the heavy yoke of all our misfortunes.
Guard our Caesar who’s soon setting off again
against the earth’s far-off Britons, and guard
the fresh young levies, who’ll scare the East
in those regions along the Red Sea’s shores.
Alas, the shame of our scars and wickedness,
and our dead brothers. What has our harsh age spared?
What sinfulness have we left untried?
What have the young men held their hands back from,
in fear of the gods? Where are the altars they’ve left
alone? O may you remake our blunt weapons
on fresh anvils so we can turn them
against the Scythians and the Arabs.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 27-Mar-2012 at 01:23
Horace:
With music, and incense, and blood
of a bullock, delight in placating the gods
that guarded our Numida well,
who’s returned safe and sound, from the farthest West, now,
showering a host of kisses
on every dear friend, but on none of us more than
lovely Lamia, remembering
their boyhood spent under the self-same master,
their togas exchanged together.
Don’t allow this sweet day to lack a white marker,
no end to the wine jars at hand,
no rest for our feet in the Salian fashion,
Don’t let wine-heavy Damalis
conquer our Bassus in downing the Thracian draughts.
Don’t let our feast lack for roses,
or the long-lasting parsley, or the brief lilies:
we’ll all cast our decadent eyes
on Damalis, but Damalis won’t be parted
from that new lover of hers she’s
clasping, more tightly than the wandering ivy.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 28-Mar-2012 at 00:26
Horace:
to beat the earth with unfettered feet, the time
to set out the gods’ sacred couches,
my friends, and prepare a Salian feast.
It would have been wrong, before today, to broach
the Caecuban wines from out the ancient bins,
while a maddened queen was still plotting
the Capitol’s and the empire’s ruin,
with her crowd of deeply-corrupted creatures
sick with turpitude, she, violent with hope
of all kinds, and intoxicated
by Fortune’s favour. But it calmed her frenzy
that scarcely a single ship escaped the flames,
and Caesar reduced the distracted thoughts, bred
by Mareotic wine, to true fear,
pursuing her close as she fled from Rome,
out to capture that deadly monster, bind her,
as the sparrow-hawk follows the gentle dove
or the swift hunter chases the hare,
over the snowy plains of Thessaly.
But she, intending to perish more nobly,
showed no sign of womanish fear at the sword,
nor did she even attempt to win
with her speedy ships to some hidden shore.
And she dared to gaze at her fallen kingdom
with a calm face, and touch the poisonous asps
with courage, so that she might drink down
their dark venom, to the depths of her heart,
growing fiercer still, and resolving to die:
scorning to be taken by hostile galleys,
and, no ordinary woman, yet queen
no longer, be led along in proud triumph.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 29-Mar-2012 at 23:57
Horace:
garlands twined around lime-tree bark displease me:
forget your chasing, to find all the places
where late roses fade.
You’re eager, take care, that nothing enhances
the simple myrtle: it’s not only you that
it graces, the servant, but me as I drink,
beneath the dark vine.
This was the last poem from Horace's "Odes"; I have to find something else to start from tomorrow on.
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Posted By: Leroy
Date Posted: 01-Apr-2012 at 08:21
Aeneid, 428-433
Aeneas wakes up to see the Greeks ravaging his city
Insane, I seize my weapons. There's no sense
in weapons, yet my spirit burns to gather
a band for battle, to rush out against
the citadel with my companions. Rage
and anger drive my mind. My only thought:
how fine a thing it is to die in arms.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 02-Apr-2012 at 13:58
I'm starting Horace, Odes, Book II
was Consul, the causes, errors, and stages,
Fortune’s game, and the heavy friendships
of princes, and the un-expiated
stain of blood over various weapons,
a task that’s filled with dangerous pitfalls,
so that you’re walking over embers
hidden under the treacherous ashes.
Don’t let the Muse of dark actions be long away
from the theatre: soon, when you’ve finished writing
public events, reveal your great gifts
again in Athenian tragedy,
you famous defendant of troubled clients,
Pollio, support of the Senate’s councils,
whom the laurel gave lasting glory
in the form of your Dalmatian triumph.
Already you’re striking our ears with the sounds,
the menace of blaring horns, and the trumpets,
already the glitter of weapons
terrifies horses, and riders’ faces.
Now I seem to hear magnificent leaders,
heads darkened, but not with inglorious dust,
and all the lands of earth are subdued,
but not implacable Cato’s spirit.
Juno, and those gods friendly to Africa,
who, powerless to avenge the land, withdrew,
make funeral offerings to Jugurtha,
of the grandchildren of his conquerors.
What fields are not enriched with the blood of Rome,
to bear witness with their graves to this impious
struggle of ours, and the sound, even heard
by the Persians, of Italy’s ruin?
What river or pool is ignorant of these
wretched wars? What sea has Roman slaughter failed
to discolour, and show me the shores
that are, as yet, still unstained by our blood.
But Muse, lest you dare to leave happy themes,
and take up Simonides’ dirges again,
search out a lighter plectrum’s measures,
with me, in some deep cavern of Venus.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 05-Apr-2012 at 00:46
Horace
has no colour, and you are an enemy
to all such metal unless, indeed, it gleams
from sensible use.
Proculeius will be famous in distant
ages for his generous feelings towards
his brothers: enduring fame will carry him
on its tireless wings.
You may rule a wider kingdom by taming
a greedy spirit, than by joining Spain
to far-off Libya, while Carthaginians
on both sides, serve one.
A fatal dropsy grows worse with indulgence,
the patient can’t rid himself of thirst unless
his veins are free of illness, and his pale flesh
of watery languor.
Though Phraates is back on the Armenian
throne, Virtue, differing from the rabble, excludes
him from the blessed, and instructs the people
not to misuse words,
instead conferring power, and security
of rule, and lasting laurels, on him alone
who can pass by enormous piles of treasure
without looking back.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 06-Apr-2012 at 01:40
Horace:
keep an even mind, and in prosperity
be careful of too much happiness:
since my Dellius, you’re destined to die,
whether you live a life that’s always sad,
or reclining, privately, on distant lawns,
in one long holiday, take delight
in drinking your vintage Falernian.
Why do tall pines, and white poplars, love to merge
their branches in the hospitable shadows?
Why do the rushing waters labour
to hurry along down the winding rivers?
Tell them to bring us the wine, and the perfume,
and all-too-brief petals of lovely roses,
while the world, and the years, and the dark
threads of the three fatal sisters allow.
You’ll leave behind all those meadows you purchased,
your house, your estate, yellow Tiber washes,
you’ll leave them behind, your heir will own
those towering riches you’ve piled so high.
Whether you’re rich, of old Inachus’s line,
or live beneath the sky, a pauper, blessed with
humble birth, it makes no difference:
you’ll be pitiless Orcus’s victim.
We’re all being driven to a single end,
all our lots are tossed in the urn, and, sooner
or later, they’ll emerge, and seat us
in Charon’s boat for eternal exile.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 09-Apr-2012 at 03:29
Horace:
for your serving-girl. Once before, Briseis
the Trojan slave with her snow-white skin stirred
angry Achilles:
and captive Tecmessa’s loveliness troubled
her master Ajax, the son of Telamon:
and Agamemnon, in his mid-triumph, burned
for a stolen girl,
while the barbarian armies, defeated
in Greek victory, and the loss of Hector,
handed Troy to the weary Thessalians,
an easier prey.
You don’t know your blond Phyllis hasn’t parents
who are wealthy, and might grace their son-in-law.
Surely she’s royally born, and grieves at her
cruel household gods.
Believe that the girl you love’s not one who comes
from the wicked masses, that one so faithful
so averse to gain, couldn’t be the child of
a shameful mother.
I’m unbiased in praising her arms and face,
and shapely ankles: reject all suspicion
of one whose swiftly vanishing life has known
its fortieth year.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 10-Apr-2012 at 02:43
Horace:
neck yet, she’s not yet equal to the duty
of coupling, or bearing the heavy
weight of a charging bull in the mating act.
The thoughts of your heifer are on green pastures,
on easing her burning heat in the river,
and sporting with the eager calves
in the depths of moist willow plantations.
Forget this passion of yours for the unripe
grape: autumn, the season of many-colours,
will soon be dyeing bluish clusters
a darker purple, on the vine, for you.
Soon she’ll pursue you, since fierce time rushes on
and will add to her the years it takes from you,
soon Lalage herself will be eager
to search you out as a husband, Lalage,
beloved as shy Pholoë was not, nor your
Chloris, with shoulders gleaming white, like a clear
moon shining over a midnight sea,
nor Cnidian Gyges, that lovely boy,
whom you could insert in a choir of girls,
and the wisest of strangers would fail to tell
the difference, with him hidden behind
his flowing hair, and ambiguous looks.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 17-Apr-2012 at 02:36
Horace:
Cadiz with me, and its tribes (they’re not used
to bearing our yoke) and barbarous Syrtes,
by the Moors’ fierce Sea,
I’d rather Tibur, founded by men of Greece,
were my home when I’m old, let it be my goal,
when I’m tired of the seas, and the roads, and all
this endless fighting.
But if the cruel Fates deny me that place,
I’ll head for the river Galaesus, sweet
with its precious sheep, on Spartan fields, once ruled
by King Phalanthus.
That corner of earth is the brightest to me,
where the honey gives nothing away to that
of Hymettus, and its olives compete with
green Venafrum:
where Jupiter grants a lengthy spring, and mild
winters, and Aulon’s hill-slopes, dear to fertile
Bacchus, are filled with least envy for those rich
grapes of Falernum.
That place, and its lovely heights, call out to me,
to you: and there’ll you’ll scatter your debt of sad
tears, over the still-glowing ashes of this,
the poet, your friend.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 08-May-2012 at 01:50
Horace
the head of our army, into great danger,
who’s sent you back, as a citizen,
to your country’s gods and Italy’s sky,
Pompey, the very dearest of my comrades,
with whom I’ve often drawn out the lingering
day in wine, my hair wreathed, and glistening
with perfumed balsam, of Syrian nard?
I was there at Philippi, with you, in that
headlong flight, sadly leaving my shield behind,
when shattered Virtue, and what threatened
from an ignoble purpose, fell to earth.
While in my fear Mercury dragged me, swiftly,
through the hostile ranks in a thickening cloud:
the wave was drawing you back to war,
carried once more by the troubled waters.
So grant Jupiter the feast he’s owed, and stretch
your limbs, wearied by long campaigning, under
my laurel boughs, and don’t spare the jars
that were destined to be opened by you.
Fill the smooth cups with Massic oblivion,
pour out the perfume from generous dishes,
Who’ll hurry to weave the wreathes for us
of dew-wet parsley or pliant myrtle?
Who’ll throw high Venus at dice and so become
the master of drink? I’ll rage as insanely
as any Thracian: It’s sweet to me
to revel when a friend is home again.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 09-May-2012 at 01:13
Horace
you, Barine, for all your perjuries, if you
were ever harmed at all by a darkened tooth,
a spoilt fingernail,
I’d trust you. But no sooner have you bound your
faithless soul by promises, than you appear
much lovelier, and shine out, as everyone’s
dearest young thing.
It helps you to swear by your mother’s buried
ashes, by all night’s silent constellations,
by the heavens, and the gods, who are free from
the icy chill of death.
Venus herself smiles at it all, yes she does:
the artless Nymphs, smile too, and cruel Cupid,
who’s always sharpening his burning arrows
on a blood-stained stone.
Add that all our youths are being groomed for you,
groomed as fresh slaves, while none of your old lovers
leave the house of their impious mistress, as
they often threatened.
All the mothers fear you, because of their sons,
and the thrifty old fathers, and wretched brides,
who once were virgins, in case your radiance
makes husbands linger.
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