The Odes/Book I

The Odes
Book I
written by Horace

To Lydia: Stop Ruining Sybaris!

I: XXII Singing of Lalage (Integer Vitae)

The man who is pure of life, and free of sin, 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.

I: XXIII Chloë, Don’t Run.

You run away from me as a fawn does, Chloë, 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.

I: XXIV A Lament For Quintilius

What limit, or restraint, should we show at the loss 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.

I: XXV A Prophecy of Age

Now the young men come less often, violently 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.

I: XXVI A Garland For Lamia

Friend of the Muses, I’ll throw sadness and fear 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.

I: XXVII Entanglement

To fight with wine-cups intended for pleasure 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.

I: XXVIII Three Handfuls of Earth

You, my Archytas, philosopher, and measurer of land, of the sea, of wide sands, are entombed 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.

I: XXIX Off To The Wars

Iccius, are you gazing with envy, now, 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?

I: XXX Ode To Venus

O Venus, the queen of Cnidos and Paphos, 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.

I: XXXI A Prayer to Apollo

What is the poet’s request to Apollo? 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.

I: XXXII To the Lyre

I’m called on. O Lyre, if I’ve ever played 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!

I: XXXIII Tibullus, Don’t Grieve

Tibullus, don’t grieve too much, when you remember 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.

I: XXXIV Fortune’s Changes

Once I wandered, an expert in crazy wisdom, 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.

I: XXXV To Fortune

O goddess, who rules our lovely Antium, 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.

I: XXXVI Numida’s Back Again

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.

I: XXXVII Cleopatra

Now’s the time for drinking deep, and now’s the time 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.

I: XXXVIII The Simple Myrtle

My child, how I hate Persian ostentation, 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.

Index of First Lines

Maecenas, descendant of royal ancestors,6 The Father’s sent enough dread hail7 May the goddess, queen of Cyprus,9 Fierce winter slackens its grip: it’s spring and the west wind’s sweet ……11 What slender boy, Pyrrha, drowned in liquid perfume,12 You should be penned as brave, and a conqueror13 Let others sing in praise of Rhodes, or Mytilene,14 Lydia, by all the gods,16 See how Soracte stands glistening with snowfall,17 Mercury, eloquent grandson of Atlas,18 Leuconoë, don’t ask, we never know, what fate the gods grant us,19 What god, man, or hero do you choose to praise. 20 When you, Lydia, start to praise. 22 O ship the fresh tide carries back to sea again.23 While Paris, the traitorous shepherd, her guest,24 O lovelier child of a lovely mother,26 Swift Faunus, the god, will quite often exchange. 27 Cultivate no plant, my Varus, before the rows of sacred vines,28 Cruel Venus, Cupid’s mother,29 Come and drink with me, rough Sabine in cheap cups,30 O tender virgins sing, in praise of Diana,31 The man who is pure of life, and free of sin,32 You run away from me as a fawn does, Chloë,33 What limit, or restraint, should we show at the loss. 34 Now the young men come less often, violently. 35 Friend of the Muses, I’ll throw sadness and fear36 To fight with wine-cups intended for pleasure. 37 You, my Archytas, philosopher, and measurer of land,38 of the sea, of wide sands, are entombed. 38 Iccius, are you gazing with envy, now,40 O Venus, the queen of Cnidos and Paphos,41 What is the poet’s request to Apollo?. 42 I’m called on. O Lyre, if I’ve ever played. 43 Tibullus, don’t grieve too much, when you remember44 Once I wandered, an expert in crazy wisdom,45 O goddess, who rules our lovely Antium,46 Now’s the time for drinking deep, and now’s the time. 49 My child, how I hate Persian ostentation,51

Metres Used in Book I.

The number of syllables most commonly employed in each standard line of the verse is given. This may vary slightly for effect (two beats substituted for three etc.) in a given line.

Alcaic Strophe: 11 (5+6) twice, 9, 10 used in Odes: 9,16,17,26,27,29,31,34,35,37

Sapphic and Adonic: 11(5+6) three times, 5 Odes: 2,10,12,20,22,25,30,32,38

First Asclepiadean: 12 (6+6) all lines Ode: 1

Second Asclepiadean: 8, 12 (6+6), alternating Odes: 3,13,19,36

Third Asclepiadean: 12 (6+6) three times, 8 Odes: 6,15,24,33

Fourth Asclepiadean: 12 (6+6) twice, 7, 8 Odes: 5,14,21,23

Fifth Asclepiadean: 16 (6+4+6) all lines Ode: 11, 18

Alcmanic Strophe: 17 (7+10) or less, 11 or less, alternating Odes: 7,28

First Archilochian: 17 (7+10) or less, 7 alternating Odes: None in Book I

Fourth Archilochian Strophe: 18 (7+11) or less, 11 (5+6) alternating Ode: 4

Second Sapphic Strophe: 7, 15 (5+10) alternating Ode: 8

Trochaic Strophe: 7,11 alternating Odes: None in Book I

Ionic a Minore: 16 twice, 8 Odes: None in Book I