Odes and Carmen Saeculare | Page 9

PEEFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
I am very sensible of the favour which has carried this translation from
a first edition into a second. The interval between the two has been too
short to admit of my altering my judgment in any large number of
instances; but I have been glad to employ the present opportunity in
amending, as I hope, an occasional word or expression, and, in one or
two cases, recasting a stanza. The notices which my book has received,
and the opinions communicated by the kindness of friends, have been
gratifying to me, both in themselves, and as showing the interest which

is being felt in the subject of Horatian translation. It is not surprising
that there should be considerable differences of opinion about the
manner in which Horace is to be rendered, and also about the metre
appropriate to particular Odes; but I need not say that it is through such
discussion that questions like these advance towards settlement. It
would indeed be a satisfaction to me to think that the question of
translating Horace had been brought a step nearer to its solution by the
experiment which I again venture to submit to the public.
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.
The changes which I have made in this impression of my translation are
somewhat more numerous than those which I was able to introduce into
the last, as might be expected from the longer interval between the
times of publication; but the work may still be spoken of as
substantially unaltered.
THE ODES OF HORACE.
BOOK I.
I.
MAECENAS ATAVIS.
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 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!
II.
JAM SATIS TERRIS.
Enough of snow and hail at last
The Sire has sent in vengeance down:

His bolts, at His own temple cast,
Appall'd the town,
Appall'd the lands, lest Pyrrha's time
Return,
with all its monstrous sights,
When Proteus led his flocks to climb
The flatten'd heights,
When fish were in the elm-tops caught,

Where once the stock-dove wont to bide,
And does were floating, all
distraught,
Adown the tide.
Old Tiber, hurl'd in tumult back
From mingling
with the Etruscan main,
Has threaten'd Numa's court with wrack
And Vesta's fane.
Roused by his Ilia's plaintive woes,
He vows
revenge for guiltless blood,
And, spite of Jove, his banks o'erflows,
Uxorious flood.
Yes, Fame shall tell of civic steel
That better

Persian lives had spilt,
To youths, whose minish'd numbers feel
Their parents' guilt.
What god shall Rome invoke to stay
Her fall?
Can suppliance overbear
The ear of Vesta, turn'd away
From chant and prayer?
Who comes, commission'd to atone
For
crime like ours? at length appear,
A cloud round thy bright shoulders
thrown,
Apollo seer!
Or Venus, laughter-loving dame,
Round whom gay
Loves and Pleasures fly;
Or thou, if slighted sons may claim
A parent's eye,
O weary--with thy long, long game,
Who lov'st
fierce shouts and helmets bright,
And Moorish warrior's glance of
flame
Or e'er he smite!
Or Maia's son, if now awhile
In youthful guise we
see thee here,
Caesar's avenger--such the style
Thou deign'st to bear;
Late be thy journey home, and long
Thy
sojourn with Rome's family;
Nor let thy wrath at our great wrong
Lend wings to fly.
Here take our homage, Chief and Sire;
Here
wreathe with bay thy conquering brow,
And bid the prancing Mede
retire,
Our Caesar thou!
III.
SIC TE DIVA.
Thus may Cyprus' heavenly queen,
Thus Helen's brethren, stars of
brightest sheen,
Guide thee! May the Sire of wind
Each truant gale,
save only Zephyr, bind!
So do thou, fair ship, that ow'st
Virgil, thy
precious freight, to Attic coast,
Safe restore