Book 4

Yet again thou wak'st the flame

That long had slumber'd! Spare me, Venus, spare!

Trust me, I am not the same

As in the reign of Cinara, kind and fair.

Cease thy softening spells to prove

On this old heart, by fifty years made hard,

Cruel Mother of sweet Love!

Haste, where gay youth solicits thy regard.

With thy purple cygnets fly

To Paullus' door, a seasonable guest;

There within hold revelry,

There light thy flame in that congenial breast.

He, with birth and beauty graced,

The trembling client's champion, ne'er tongue-tied,

Master of each manly taste,

Shall bear thy conquering banners far and wide.

Let him smile in triumph gay,

True heart, victorious over lavish hand,

By the Alban lake that day

'Neath citron roof all marble shalt thou stand:

Incense there and fragrant spice

With odorous fumes thy nostrils shall salute;

Blended notes thine ear entice,

The lyre, the pipe, the Berecyntine flute:

Graceful youths and maidens bright

Shall twice a day thy tuneful praise resound,

While their feet, so fair and white,

In Salian measure three times beat the ground.

I can relish love no more,

Nor flattering hopes that tell me hearts are true,

Nor the revel's loud uproar,

Nor fresh-wreathed flowerets, bathed in vernal dew.

Ah! but why, my Ligurine,

Steal trickling tear-drops down my wasted cheek?

Wherefore halts this tongue of mine,

So eloquent once, so faltering now and weak?

Now I hold you in my chain,

And clasp you close, all in a nightly dream;

Now, still dreaming, o'er the plain

I chase you; now, ah cruel! down the stream.

Who fain at Pindar's flight would aim,

On waxen wings, Iulus, he

Soars heavenward, doom'd to give his name

To some new sea.

Pindar, like torrent from the steep

Which, swollen with rain, its banks o'erflows,

With mouth unfathomably deep,

Foams, thunders, glows,

All worthy of Apollo's bay,

Whether in dithyrambic roll

Pouring new words he burst away

Beyond control,

Or gods and god-born heroes tell,

Whose arm with righteous death could tame

Grim Centaurs, tame Chimaeras fell,

Out-breathing flame,

Or bid the boxer or the steed

In deathless pride of victory live,

And dower them with a nobler meed

Than sculptors give,

Or mourn the bridegroom early torn

From his young bride, and set on high

Strength, courage, virtue's golden morn,

Too good to die.

Antonius! yes, the winds blow free,

When Dirce's swan ascends the skies,

To waft him. I, like Matine bee,

In act and guise,

That culls its sweets through toilsome hours,

Am roaming Tibur 's banks along,

And fashioning with puny powers

A laboured song.

Your Muse shall sing in loftier strain

How Caesar climbs the sacred height,

The fierce Sygambrians in his train,

With laurel dight,

Than whom the Fates ne'er gave mankind

A richer treasure or more dear,

Nor shall, though earth again should find

The golden year.

Your Muse shall tell of public sports,

And holyday, and votive feast,

For Caesar's sake, and brawling courts

Where strife has ceased.

Then, if my voice can aught avail,

Grateful for him our prayers have won,

My song shall echo, “Hail, all hail,

Auspicious Sun!”

There as you move, “Ho! Triumph, ho!

Great Triumph!” once and yet again

All Rome shall cry, and spices strow

Before your train.

Ten bulls, ten kine, your debt discharge:

A calf new-wean'd from parent cow,

Battening on pastures rich and large,

Shall quit my vow.

Like moon just dawning on the night

The crescent honours of his head;

One dapple spot of snowy white,

The rest all red.

He whom thou, Melpomene,

Hast welcomed with thy smile, in life arriving,

Ne'er by boxer's skill shall be

Renown'd abroad, for Isthmian mastery striving;

Him shall never fiery steed

Draw in Achaean car a conqueror seated;

Him shall never martial deed

Show, crown'd with bay, after proud kings defeated,

Climbing Capitolian steep:

But the cool streams that make green Tibur flourish,

And the tangled forest deep,

On soft Aeolian airs his fame shall nourish.

Rome, of cities first and best,

Deigns by her sons' according voice to hail me

Fellow-bard of poets blest,

And faint and fainter envy's growls assail me.

Goddess, whose Pierian art

The lyre's sweet sounds can modulate and measure,

Who to dumb fish canst impart

The music of the swan, if such thy pleasure:

O, 'tis all of thy dear grace

That every finger points me out in going

Lyrist of the Roman race;

Breath, power to charm, if mine, are thy bestowing!

E'en as the lightning's minister,

Whom Jove o'er all the feather'd breed

Made sovereign, having proved him sure

Erewhile on auburn Ganymede;

Stirr'd by warm youth and inborn power,

He quits the nest with timorous wing,

For winter's storms have ceased to lower,

And zephyrs of returuing spring

Tempt him to launch on unknown skies

Next on the fold he stoops downright;

Last on resisting serpents flies,

Athirst for foray and for flight:

As tender kidling on the grass

Espies, uplooking from her food,

A lion's whelp, and knows, alas!

Those new-set teeth shall drink her blood:

So look'd the Raetian mountaineers

On Drusus:—whence in every field

They learn'd through immemorial years

The Amazonian axe to wield,

I ask not now: not all of truth

We seekers find: enough to know

The wisdom of the princely youth

Has taught our erst victorious foe

What prowess dwells in boyish hearts

Rear'd in the shrine of a pure home,

What strength Augustus' love imparts

To Nero's seed, the hope of Rome.

Good sons and brave good sires approve:

Strong bullocks, fiery colts, attest

Their fathers' worth, nor weakling dove

Is hatch'd in savage eagle's nest.

But care draws forth the power within,

And cultured minds are strong for good:

Let manners fail, the plague of sin

Taints e'en the course of gentle blood.

How great thy debt to Nero's race,

O Rome, let red Metaurus say,

Slain Hasdrubal, and victory's grace

First granted on that glorious day

Which chased the clouds, and show'd the sun,

When Hannibal o'er Italy

Ran, as swift flames o'er pine-woods run,

Or Eurus o'er Sicilia 's sea.

Henceforth, by fortune aiding toil,

Rome 's prowess grew: her fanes, laid waste

By Punic sacrilege and spoil,

Beheld at length their gods replaced.

Then the false Libyan own'd his doom:—

“Weak deer, the wolves' predestined prey,

Blindly we rush on foes, from whom

'Twere triumph won to steal away.

That race which, strong from Ilion 's fires,

Its gods, on Tuscan waters tost,

Its sons, its venerable sires,

Bore to Ausonia's citied coast;

That race, like oak by axes shorn

On Algidus with dark leaves rife,

Laughs carnage, havoc, all to scorn,

And draws new spirit from the knife.

Not the lopp'd Hydra task'd so sore

Alcides, chafing at the foil:

No pest so fell was born of yore

From Colchian or from Theban soil.

Plunged in the deep, it mounts to sight

More splendid: grappled, it will quell

Unbroken powers, and fight a fight

Whose story widow'd wives shall tell.

No heralds shall my deeds proclaim

To Carthage now: lost, lost is all:

A nation's hope, a nation's name,

They died with dying Hasdrubal.”

What will not Claudian hands achieve?

Jove's favour is their guiding star,

And watchful potencies unweave

For them the tangled paths of war.

Best guardian of Rome 's people, dearest boon

Of a kind Heaven, thou lingerest all too long:

Thou bad'st thy senate look to meet thee soon:

Do not thy promise wrong.

Restore, dear chief, the light thou tak'st away:

Ah! when, like spring, that gracious mien of thine

Dawns on thy Rome, more gently glides the day,

And suns serener shine.

See her whose darling child a long year past

Has dwelt beyond the wild Carpathian foam;

That long year o'er, the envious southern blast

Still bars him from his home:

Weeping and praying to the shore she clings,

Nor ever thence her straining eyesight turns:

So, smit by loyal passion's restless stings,

Rome for her Caesar yearns.

In safety range the cattle o'er the mead:

Sweet Peace, soft Plenty, swell the golden grain:

O'er unvex'd seas the sailors blithely speed:

Fair Honour shrinks from stain:

No guilty lusts the shrine of home defile:

Cleansed is the hand without, the heart within:

The father's features in his children smile

Swift vengeance follows sin.

Who fears the Parthian or the Scythian horde,

Or the rank growth that German forests yield,

While Caesar lives? who trembles at the sword

The fierce Iberians wield?

In his own hills each labours down the day,

Teaching the vine to clasp the widow'd tree:

Then to his cups again, where, feasting gay,

He hails his god in thee.

A household power, adored with prayers and wine,

Thou reign'st auspicious o'er his hour of ease:

Thus grateful Greece her Castor made divine,

And her great Hercules.

Ah! be it thine long holydays to give

To thy Hesperia! thus, dear chief, we pray

At sober sunrise; thus at mellow eve,

When ocean hides the day.

Thou who didst make thy vengeful might

To Niobe and Tityos known,

And Peleus' son, when Troy 's tall height

Was nigh his own,

Victorious else, for thee no peer,

Though, strong in his sea-parent's power,

He shook with that tremendous spear

The Dardan tower.

He, like a pine by axes sped,

Or cypress sway'd by angry gust,

Fell ruining, and laid his head

In Trojan dust.

Not his to lie in covert pent

Of the false steed, and sudden fall

On Priam's ill-starr'd merriment

In bower and hail:

His ruthless arm in broad bare day

The infant from the breast had torn,

Nay, given to flame, ah, well a way!

The babe unborn:

But, won by Venus' voice and thine,

Relenting Jove Aeneas will'd

With other omens more benign

New walls to build.

Sweet tuner of the Grecian lyre,

Whose locks are laved in Xanthus ' dews,

Blooming Agyieus! help, inspire

My Daunian Muse!

'Tis Phoebus, Phoebus gifts my tongue

With minstrel art and minstrel fires:

Come, noble youths and maidens sprung

From noble sires,

Blest in your Dian's guardian smile,

Whose shafts the flying silvans stay,

Come, foot the Lesbian measure, while

The lyre I play:

Sing of Latona 's glorious boy,

Sing of night's queen with crescent horn,

Who wings the fleeting months with joy,

And swells the corn.

And happy brides shall say, “'Twas mine,

When years the cyclic season brought,

To chant the festal hymn divine

By Horace taught.”

The snow is fled: the trees their leaves put on,

The fields their green:

Earth owns the change, and rivers lessening run

Their banks between.

Naked the Nymphs and Graces in the meads

The dance essay:

“No 'scaping death” proclaims the year, that speeds

This sweet spring day.

Frosts yield to zephyrs; Summer drives out Spring,

To vanish, when

Rich Autumn sheds his fruits; round wheels the ring,—

Winter again!

Yet the swift moons repair Heaven's detriment:

We, soon as thrust

Where good Aeneas, Tullus, Ancus went,

What are we? dust.

Can Hope assure you one more day to live

From powers above?

You rescue from your heir whate'er you give

The self you love.

When life is o'er, and Minos has rehearsed

The grand last doom,

Not birth, nor eloquence, nor worth, shall burst

Torquatus' tomb.

Not Dian's self can chaste Hippolytus

To life recall,

Nor Theseus free his loved Pirithous

From Lethe's thrall.

Ah Censorinus! to my comrades true

Rich cups, rare bronzes, gladly would I send:

Choice tripods from Olympia on each friend

Would I confer, choicer on none than you,

Had but my fate such gems of art bestow'd

As cunning Scopas or Parrhasius wrought,

This with the brush, that with the chisel taught

To image now a mortal, now a god.

But these are not my riches: your desire

Such luxury craves not, and your means disdain:

A poet's strain you love; a poet's strain

Accept, and learn the value of the lyre.

Not public gravings on a marble base,

Whence comes a second life to men of might

E'en in the tomb: not Hannibal's swift flight,

Nor those fierce threats flung back into his face,

Not impious Carthage in its last red blaze,

In clearer light sets forth his spotless fame,

Who from crush'd Afric took away—a name,

Than rude Calabria 's tributary lays.

Let silence hide the good your hand has wrought,

Farewell, reward! Had blank oblivion's power

Dimm'd the bright deeds of Romulus, at this hour,

Despite his sire and mother, he were nought.

Thus Aeacus has 'scaped the Stygian wave,

By grace of poets and their silver tongue,

Henceforth to live the happy isles among.

No, trust the Muse: she opes the good man's grave,

And lifts him to the gods. So Hercules,

His labours o'er, sits at the board of Jove:

So Tyndareus' offspring shine as stars above,

Saving lorn vessels from the yawning seas:

So Bacchus, with the vine-wreath round his hair,

Gives prosperous issue to his votary's prayer.

Think not those strains can e'er expire,

Which, cradled 'mid the echoing roar

Of Aufidus, to Latium 's lyre

I sing with arts unknown before.

Though Homer fill the foremost throne,

Yet grave Stesichorus still can please,

And fierce Alcaeus holds his own

With Pindar and Simonides.

The songs of Teos are not mute,

And Sappho's love is breathing still:

She told her secret to the lute,

And yet its chords with passion thrill.

Not Sparta 's queen alone was fired

By broider'd robe and braided tress,

And all the splendours that attired

Her lover's guilty loveliness:

Not only Teucer to the field

His arrows brought, nor Ilion

Beneath a single conqueror reel'd:

Not Crete 's majestic lord alone,

Or Sthenelus, earn'd the Muses' crown:

Not Hector first for child and wife,

Or brave Deiphobus, laid down

The burden of a manly life.

Before Atrides men were brave:

But ah! oblivion, dark and long,

Has lock'd them in a tearless grave,

For lack of consecrating song.

'Twixt worth and baseness, lapp'd in death,

What difference? You shall ne'er be dumb,

While strains of mine have voice and breath:

The dull neglect of days to come

Those hard-won honours shall not blight:

No, Lollius, no: a soul is yours,

Clear-sighted, keen, alike upright

When fortune smiles, and when she lowers:

To greed and rapine still severe,

Spurning the gain men find so sweet:

A consul, not of one brief year,

But oft as on the judgment-seat

You bend the expedient to the right,

Turn haughty eyes from bribes away,

Or bear your banners through the fight,

Scattering the foeman's firm array.

The lord of boundless revenues,

Salute not him as happy: no,

Call him the happy, who can use

The bounty that the gods bestow,

Can bear the load of poverty,

And tremble not at death, but sin:

No recreant he when called to die

In cause of country or of kin.

Here is a cask of Alban, more

Than nine years old: here grows for you

Green parsley, Phyllis, and good store

Of ivy too

(Wreathed ivy suits your hair, you know):

The plate shines bright: the altar, strew'd

With vervain, hungers for the flow

Of lambkin's blood.

There's stir among the serving folk;

They bustle, bustle, boy and girl;

The flickering flames send up the smoke

In many a curl.

But why, you ask, this special cheer?

We celebrate the feast of Ides,

Which April's month, to Venus dear,

In twain divides.

O, 'tis a day for reverence,

E'en my own birthday scarce so dear,

For my Maecenas counts from thence

Each added year.

'Tis Telephus that you'd bewitch:

But he is of a high degree;

Bound to a lady fair and rich,

He is not free.

O think of Phaethon half burn'd,

And moderate your passion's greed:

Think how Bellerophon was spurn'd

By his wing'd steed.

So learn to look for partners meet,

Shun lofty things, nor raise your aims

Above your fortune. Come then, sweet,

My last of flames

(For never shall another fair

Enslave me), learn a tune, to sing

With that dear voice: to music care

Shall yield its sting.

The gales of Thrace, that hush the unquiet sea,

Spring's comrades, on the bellying canvas blow:

Clogg'd earth and brawling streams alike are free

From winter's weight of snow.

Wailing her Itys in that sad, sad strain,

Builds the poor bird, reproach to after time

Of Cecrops' house, for bloody vengeance ta'en

On foul barbaric crime.

The keepers of fat lambkins chant their loves

To silvan reeds, all in the grassy lea,

And pleasure Him who tends the flocks and groves

Of dark-leaved Arcady.

It is a thirsty season, Virgil mine:

But would you taste the grape's Calenian juice,

Client of noble youths, to earn your wine

Some nard you must produce.

A tiny box of nard shall bring to light

The cask that in Sulpician cellar lies:

O, it can give new hopes, so fresh and bright,

And gladden gloomy eyes.

You take the bait? then come without delay

And bring your ware: be sure, 'tis not my plan

To let you drain my liquor and not pay,

As might some wealthy man.

Come, quit those covetous thoughts, those knitted brows,

Think on the last black embers, while you may,

And be for once unwise. When time allows,

'Tis sweet the fool to play.

The gods have heard, the gods have heard my prayer;

Yes, Lyce! you are growing old, and still

You struggle to look fair;

You drink, and dance, and trill

Your songs to youthful Love, in accents weak

With wine, and age, and passion. Youthful Love!

He dwells in Chia 's cheek,

And hears her harp-strings move.

Rude boy, he flies like lightning o'er the heath

Past wither'd trees like you; you're wrinkled now;

The white has left your teeth

And settled on your brow.

Your Coan silks, your jewels bright as stars,

Ah no! they bring not back the days of old,

In public calendars

By flying Time enroll'd.

Where now that beauty? where those movements? where

That colour? what of her, of her is left,

Who, breathing Love's own air,

Me of myself bereft,

Who reign'd in Cinara's stead, a fair, fair face,

Queen of sweet arts? but Fate to Cinara gave

A life of little space;

And now she cheats the grave

Of Lyce, spared to raven's length of days,

That youth may see, with laughter and disgust,

A fire-brand, once ablaze,

Now smouldering in grey dust.

What honours can a grateful Rome,

A grateful senate, Caesar, give

To make thy worth through days to come

Emblazon'd on our records live,

Mightiest of chieftains whomsoe'er

The sun beholds from heaven on high?

They know thee now, thy strength in war,

Those unsubdued Vindelici.

Thine was the sword that Drusus drew,

When on the Breunian hordes he fell,

And storm'd the fierce Genaunian crew

E'en in their Alpine citadel,

And paid them back their debt twice told

'Twas then the elder Nero came

To conflict, and in ruin roll'd

Stout Raetian kernes of giant frame.

O, 'twas a gallant sight to see

The shocks that beat upon the brave

Who chose to perish and be free!

As south winds scourge the rebel wave

When through rent clouds the Pleiads weep,

So keen his force to smite, and smite

The foe, or make his charger leap

Through the red furnace of the fight.

Thus Daunia's ancient river fares,

Proud Aufidus, with bull-like horn,

When swoln with choler he prepares

A deluge for the fields of corn.

So Claudius charged and overthrew

The grim barbarian's mail-clad host,

The foremost and the hindmost slew,

And conquer'd all, and nothing lost.

The force, the forethought, were thine own,

Thine own the gods. The selfsame day

When, port and palace open thrown,

Low at thy footstool Egypt lay,

That selfsame day, three lustres gone,

Another victory to thine hand

Was given; another field was won

By grace of Caesar's high command.

Thee Spanish tribes, unused to yield,

Mede, Indian, Scyth that knows no home,

Acknowledge, sword at once and shield

Of Italy and queenly Rome.

Ister to thee, and Tanais fleet,

And Nile that will not tell his birth,

To thee the monstrous seas that beat

On Britain 's coast, the end of earth,

To thee the proud Iberians bow,

And Gauls, that scorn from death to flee;

The fierce Sygambrian bends his brow,

And drops his arms to worship thee.

Of battles fought I fain had told,

And conquer'd towns, when Phoebus smote

His harp-string: “Sooth, 'twere over-bold.

To tempt wide seas in that frail boat.”

Thy age, great Caesar, has restored

To squalid fields the plenteous grain,

Given back to Rome 's almighty Lord

Our standards, torn from Parthian fane,

Has closed Quirinian Janus' gate,

Wild passion's erring walk controll'd,

Heal'd the foul plague-spot of the state,

And brought again the life of old,

Life, by whose healthful power increased

The glorious name of Latium spread

To where the sun illumes the east

From where he seeks his western bed.

While Caesar rules, no civil strife

Shall break our rest, nor violence rude,

Nor rage, that whets the slaughtering knife

And plunges wretched towns in feud.

The sons of Danube shall not scorn

The Julian edicts; no, nor they

By Tanais ' distant river horn,

Nor Persia, Scythia, or Cathay.

And we on feast and working-tide,

While Bacchus' bounties freely flow,

Our wives and children at our side,

First paying Heaven the prayers we owe,

Shall sing of chiefs whose deeds are done,

As wont our sires, to flute or shell,

And Troy, Anchises, and the son

Of Venus on our tongues shall dwell.