The Odes
Book III
Translated by A. S. Kline ã2003 All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.
Horace fully exploited the metrical possibilities offered to him by Greek lyric verse. I have followed the original Latin metre in all cases, giving a reasonably close English version of Horace’s strict forms. Rhythm not rhyme is the essence. Please try reading slowly to identify the rhythm of the first verse of each poem, before reading the whole poem through. Counting syllables, and noting the natural rhythm of individual phrases, may help. Those wishing to understand the precise scansion of Latin lyric verse should consult a specialist text. The Collins Latin Dictionary, for example, includes a good summary. The metres used by Horace in each of the Odes, giving the standard number of syllables per line only, are listed at the end of this text (see the Index below).
Contents
BkIII:IV Temper Power With Wisdom
BkIII:XVII The Approaching Storm
grant me your silence. A priest of the Muses,
I sing a song never heard before,
I sing a song for young women and boys.
The power of dread kings over their peoples,
is the power Jove has over those kings themselves,
famed for his defeat of the Giants,
controlling all with a nod of his head.
It’s true that one man will lay out his vineyards
over wider acres than will his neighbour,
that one candidate who descends to
the Campus, will maintain that he’s nobler,
another’s more famous, or has a larger
crowd of followers: but Necessity sorts
the fates of high and low with equal
justice: the roomy urn holds every name.
Sicilian feasts won’t supply sweet flavours
to the man above whose impious head hangs
a naked sword, nor will the singing
of birds or the playing of zithers bring back
soft sleep. But gentle slumber doesn’t despise
the humble house of a rural labourer,
or a riverbank deep in the shade,
or the vale of Tempe, stirred by the breeze.
He who only longs for what is sufficient,
is never disturbed by tumultuous seas,
nor the savage power of Arcturus
setting, nor the strength of the Kids rising,
nor his vineyards being lashed by the hailstones,
nor his treacherous farmland, rain being blamed
for the state of the trees, the dog-star
parching the fields, or the cruel winter.
The fish can feel that the channel’s narrowing,
when piles are driven deep: the builder, his team
of workers, the lord who scorns the land
pour the rubble down into the waters.
But Fear and Menace climb up to the same place
where the lord climbs up, and dark Care will not leave
the bronze-clad trireme, and even sits
behind the horseman when he’s out riding.
So if neither Phrygian stone, nor purple,
brighter than the constellations, can solace
the grieving man, nor Falernian
wine, nor the perfumes purchased from Persia,
why should I build a regal hall in modern
style, with lofty columns to stir up envy?
Why should I change my Sabine valley,
for the heavier burden of excess wealth?
learn how to make bitterest hardship his friend,
and as a horseman, with fearful lance,
go to vex the insolent Parthians,
spending his life in the open, in the heart
of dangerous action. And seeing him, from
the enemy’s walls, let the warring
tyrant’s wife, and her grown-up daughter, sigh:
‘Ah, don’t let the inexperienced lover
provoke the lion that’s dangerous to touch,
whom a desire for blood sends raging
so swiftly through the core of destruction.’
It’s sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.
Yet death chases after the soldier who runs,
and it won’t spare the cowardly back
or the limbs, of peace-loving young men.
Virtue, that’s ignorant of sordid defeat,
shines out with its honour unstained, and never
takes up the axes or puts them down
at the request of a changeable mob.
Virtue, that opens the heavens for those who
did not deserve to die, takes a road denied
to others, and scorns the vulgar crowd
and the bloodied earth, on ascending wings.
And there’s a true reward for loyal silence:
I forbid the man who divulged those secret
rites of Ceres, to exist beneath
the same roof as I, or untie with me
the fragile boat: often careless Jupiter
included the innocent with the guilty,
but lame-footed Punishment rarely
forgets the wicked man, despite his start.
is wrong, never shakes the man of just and firm
intention, from his settled purpose,
nor the tyrant’s threatening face, nor the winds
the stormy masters of the troubled Adriatic,
nor Jupiter’s mighty hand with its lightning:
if the heavens fractured in their fall,
still their ruin would strike him, unafraid.
By these means Pollux, and wandering Hercules,
in their effort, reached the fiery citadels,
where Augustus shall recline one day,
drinking nectar to stain his rosy lips.
Bacchus, for such virtues your tigers drew you,
pulling at the yoke holding their untamed necks:
for these virtues, Romulus, escaped
with horses that were Mars’, from Acheron,
while Juno, in the council of the gods, spoke
welcome words: ‘Ilium, Ilium is in
the dust, through both Paris’s fatal,
sinful judgement, and that foreign woman:
Ilium was mine, and virgin Minerva’s,
and its citizens, and its treacherous king,
from the time when Laomedon robbed
the gods, withholding the payment agreed.
The infamous guest no longer shines for his
Spartan adulteress, nor does Priam’s house,
betrayed, hold back the fierce Achaeans,
with Hector’s help: now the ten-year battle,
which our quarrels long extended, is ended.
From this moment on I’ll abandon my fierce
anger, and I’ll restore my hated
grandson, he who was born of a priestess
of Troy, to Mars: I’ll allow him to enter
the regions of light, and to drink sweet nectar,
and to be enrolled, and take his place,
here, among the quiet ranks of the gods.
Let the exiles rule happily in any
place they choose, so long as there’s a width of sea,
roaring, between Ilium and Rome,
so long as the cattle trample over
the tombs of Paris and of Priam, and wild
beasts hide their offspring there with impunity:
and let their Capitol stand gleaming,
let warlike Rome make laws for conquered Medes.
Let her extend her dreaded name to farthest
shores, there where the straits separate Africa
and Europe, there where the swollen Nile
irrigates the lands beside the river,
firm in ignoring gold still undiscovered,
that’s better where it is while earth conceals it,
than mining it for our human use,
with hands that grasp everything that’s sacred.
Whatever marks the boundaries of the world,
let Rome’s might reach it, eager to see regions
where solar fires perform their revels,
or places where the mists and rain pour down.
But I prophesy such fate for her warlike citizens,
with this proviso: that they show no excess
of piety, or faith in their powers,
wishing to rebuild Troy’s ancestral roofs.
Troy’s fortunes would revive with evil
omens, and they’d repeat their sad disaster,
while I, who am Jove’s wife and sister,
would lead the victorious armies.
If her bronze walls were to rise again three times
with Apollo’s help, three times they’d be destroyed,
shattered by my Argives, and, three times,
the captive wife would mourn sons and husband.’
What are you saying, Muse? This theme doesn’t suit
the happy lyre. Stop wilfully repeating
divine conversations, and weakening
great matters with these trivial metres.
and play a lengthy melody on the flute,
or, if you prefer, use your clear voice,
or pluck at the strings of Apollo’s lute.
Do you hear her, or does some lovely fancy
toy with me? I hear, and seem to wander, now,
through the sacred groves, where delightful
waters steal, where delightful breezes stray.
In my childhood, once, on pathless Vultur’s slopes,
beyond the bounds of nurturing Apulia,
exhausted with my play and weariness,
the fabled doves covered me with new leaves,
which was a wonder to everyone who holds
Acherontia’s high nest, and Bantia’s
woodland pastures, and the rich meadows
of low-lying Forentum, since I slept
safe from the bears and from the dark vipers,
the sacred laurel and the gathered myrtle
spread above me, a courageous child,
though it was thanks to the power of the gods.
Yours Muses, yours, I climb the high Sabine Hills,
or I’m carried off to my cool Praeneste,
to the slopes of Tibur, if I please,
or the cloudless loveliness of Baiae.
A friend of your sacred fountains and your
choirs, the rout of the army at Philippi
failed to kill me, and that accursed
tree, and Palinurus’ Sicilian Sea.
Whenever you are with me, as a sailor
I’ll attempt the raging Bosphorus, or be
a traveller in the burning sands
of the Syrian shore: as a stranger
I’ll see the fierce inhospitable Britons,
the Spaniards that love drinking horses’ blood,
I’ll see the quiver-bearing Thracians,
and, unharmed, visit the Scythian stream.
It’s you then who refresh our noble Caesar,
in your Pierian caves, when he’s settled
his weary troops in all the cities,
and he’s ready to complete his labours.
You give calm advice, and you delight in that
giving, kindly ones. We know how the evil
Titans, how their savage supporters
were struck down by the lightning from above,
by him who rules the silent earth, the stormy
sea, the cities, and the kingdoms of darkness,
alone, in imperial justice,
commanding the gods and the mortal crowd.
Great terror was visited on Jupiter
by all those bold warriors bristling with hands,
and by the brothers who tried to set
Pelion on shadowy Olympus.
But what power could Giant Typhoeus have,
or mighty Mimas, or that Porphyrion
with his menacing stance, Rhoetus,
or Enceladus, audacious hurler
of uprooted trees, against the bronze breastplate,
Minerva’s aegis? On one side stood eager
Vulcan, on the other maternal
Juno, and Apollo of Patera
and Delos, who is never without the bow
on his shoulder, who bathes his flowing hair
in Castalia’s pure dew, who holds
the forests, and thickets of Lycia.
Power without wisdom falls by its own weight:
The gods themselves advance temperate power:
and likewise hate force that, with its whole
consciousness, is intent on wickedness.
Let hundred-handed Gyas be the witness
to my statement: Orion too, well-known as
chaste Dian’s attacker, and tamed
by the arrows of the virgin goddess.
Earth, heaped above her monstrous children, laments
and grieves for her offspring, hurled down to murky
Orcus by the lightning bolt: The swift
fires have not yet eaten Aetna, set there,
nor the vultures ceased tearing at the liver
of intemperate Tityus, those guardians placed
over his sin: and three hundred chains
hold the amorous Pirithous fast.
Augustus is considered a god on earth,
for adding the Britons, and likewise
the weight of the Persians to our empire.
Didn’t Crassus’ soldiers live in vile marriage
with barbarian wives, and (because of our
Senate and its perverse ways!) grow old,
in the service of their hostile fathers.
Marsians, Apulians ruled by a Mede,
forgetting their shields, Roman names, and togas,
and eternal Vesta, though Jove’s shrines
and the city of Rome remained unharmed?
Regulus’s far-seeing mind warned of this,
when he objected to shameful surrender,
and considered from its example
harm would come to the following age,
unless captured men were killed without pity.
‘I’ve seen standards and weapons,’ he said,
‘taken bloodlessly from our soldiers,
hung there in the Carthaginian shrines,
I’ve seen the arms of our freemen twisted
behind their backs, enemy gates wide open,
and the fields that our warfare ravaged
being freely cultivated again.
Do you think that our soldiers ransomed for gold,
will fight more fiercely next time! You’ll add
harm to shame: the wool that’s dyed purple
never regains the colour that vanished,
and true courage, when once departed, never
cares to return to an inferior heart.
When a doe that’s set free, from the thick
hunting nets, turns to fight, then he’ll be brave
who trusts himself to treacherous enemies
and he’ll crush Carthage, in a second battle,
who’s felt the chains on his fettered wrists,
without a struggle, afraid of dying.
He’s one who, not knowing how life should be lived,
confuses war with peace. O, shame! O mighty
Carthage, made mightier now because
of Italy’s disgraceful decadence.’
It’s said he set aside his wife’s chaste kisses,
and his little ones, as of less importance,
and, grimly, he set his manly face
to the soil, until he might be able
to strengthen the Senate’s wavering purpose,
by making of himself an example no
other man had made, and hurrying,
among grieving friends, to noble exile.
Yet he knew what the barbarous torturer
was preparing for him. Still he pushed aside
the kinsmen who were blocking his way,
and the people who delayed his going,
as if, with some case decided, and leaving
all that tedious business of his clients,
he headed for Venafrum’s meadows,
or Lacedaemonian Tarentum.
your fathers’ sins, till you’ve restored the temples,
and the tumbling shrines of all the gods,
and their images, soiled with black smoke.
You rule because you are lower than the gods
you worship: all things begin with them: credit
them with the outcome. Neglected gods
have made many woes for sad Italy.
Already Parthians, and Monaeses
and Pacorus, have crushed our inauspicious
assaults, and laugh now to have added
our spoils to their meagre treasures.
Dacians and Ethiopians almost toppled
the City, mired in civil war, the last feared
for their fleet of ships, and the others
who are best known for their flying arrows.
Our age, fertile in its wickedness, has first
defiled the marriage bed, our offspring, and homes:
disaster’s stream has flowed from this source
through the people and the fatherland.
The young girl early takes delight in learning
Greek dances, in being dressed with all the arts,
and soon meditates sinful affairs,
with every fibre of her new being:
later at her husband’s dinners she searches
for younger lovers, doesn’t mind to whom she
grants all her swift illicit pleasures
when the lights are far removed, but she rises,
openly, when ordered to do so, and not
without her husband’s knowledge, whether it’s for
some peddler, or Spanish ship’s captain,
an extravagant buyer of her shame.
The young men who stained the Punic Sea with blood
they were not born of such parentage, those who
struck at Pyrrhus, and struck at great
Antiochus, and fearful Hannibal:
they were a virile crowd of rustic soldiers,
taught to turn the furrow with a Sabine hoe,
to bring in the firewood they had cut
at the instruction of their strict mothers.
when the sun had lengthened the mountain shadows,
and lifted the yokes from the weary bullocks,
bringing a welcome time of rest,
with the departure of his chariot.
What do the harmful days not render less?
Worse than our grandparents’ generation, our
parents’ then produced us, even worse,
and soon to bear still more sinful children.
will bring back to you at the first breath of springtime,
your lover constant in faith,
blessed with goods, from Bithynia?
Driven by easterlies as far as Epirus,
now, after Capella’s wild rising, he passes
chill nights of insomnia,
and not without many a tear.
Yet messages from his solicitous hostess,
telling how wretched Chloë sighs for your lover,
and burns with desire, tempts him
subtly and in a thousand ways.
She tells how a treacherous woman, making
false accusations, drove credulous Proteus
to bring a too-hasty death
to a too-chaste Bellerophon:
she tells of Peleus, nearly doomed to Hades,
fleeing Magnesian Hippolyte in abstinence:
and deceitfully teaches
tales that encourage wrongdoing.
All in vain: still untouched, he hears her voice, as deaf
as the Icarian cliffs. But take care yourself
lest Enipeus, next door,
pleases you more than is proper:
even though no one else is considered as fine
at controlling his horse, on the Campus’s turf,
and no one else swims as fast
as him, down the Tiber’s channel.
Close your doors when it’s dark, and don’t you go gazing
into the street, at the sound of his plaintive flute,
and when he keeps calling you
cruel, you still play hard to get.
wonder what I, a bachelor, am doing
on the Kalends of March, what do the flowers mean,
the box of incense,
and the embers laid out on the fresh cut turf.
I vowed sweet meats to Bacchus, vowed a pure white
goat, at that time when I was so nearly killed
by a falling tree.
When this festive day returns again I’ll draw
a tight-fitting cork, sealed with pitch, from a jar
laid down to gather the dust in that year when
Tullus was Consul.
So drink a whole gallon of wine, Maecenas,
celebrating your friend’s escape, and we’ll quench
the flickering lamps at dawn: keep far away
the noise and anger.
Leave the cares of state behind in the City:
Cotiso’s Dacian army’s been destroyed,
the dangerous Medes are fighting each other,
in grievous battle,
our old Cantabrian enemies are slaves,
subdued, in chains, at last, on the Spanish coast,
and now the Scythians, their bows unstrung, plan
to give up their plains.
A private citizen for now, don’t worry
yourself, overmuch, what troubles the people,
and gladly accept the gifts of the moment,
and forget dark things.
while no young man, you loved more dearly, was clasping
his arms around your snow-white neck,
I lived in greater blessedness than Persia’s king.’
‘While you were on fire for no one
else, and Lydia was not placed after Chloë,
I, Lydia, of great renown,
lived more gloriously than Roman Ilia.’
‘Thracian Chloe commands me now,
she’s skilled in sweet verses, she’s the queen of the lyre,
for her I’m not afraid to die,
if the Fates spare her, and her spirit survives me.’
‘I’m burnt with a mutual flame
by Calais, Thurian Ornytus’s son,
for whom I would die twice over
if the Fates spare him, and his spirit survives me.’
‘What if that former love returned,
and forced two who are estranged under her bronze yoke:
if golden Chloë was banished,
and the door opened to rejected Lydia?’
‘Though he’s lovelier than the stars,
and you’re lighter than cork, and more irascible
than the cruel Adriatic,
I’d love to live with you, with you I’d gladly die!’
married to some fierce husband, you’d still expose me
to the wailing winds of your native North country,
stretched out here by your cruel door.
Hear how the frame creaks, how the trees that are planted
inside your beautiful garden moan in the wind,
and how Jupiter’s pure power and divinity
ices over the fallen snow.
Set aside your disdain, it’s hateful to Venus,
lest the rope fly off, while the wheel is still turning:
you’re no Penelope, resistant to suitors,
nor born of Etruscan parents.
O, spare your suppliants, though nothing moves you,
not gifts, not my prayers, not your lover’s pallor,
that’s tinged with violet, nor your husband smitten
with a Pierian mistress,
you, no more pliant than an unbending oak-tree,
no gentler in spirit than a Moorish serpent.
My body won’t always put up with your threshold,
or the rain that falls from the sky.
Amphion could move the stones, with his singing),
and you, tortoise shell, clever at making your
seven strings echo,
you, who were neither eloquent nor lovely,
but welcomed, now, by rich tables and temples,
play melodies to which Lyde might apply
a reluctant ear,
who gambols friskily, like a three year old
filly, over the widening plain, fears being
touched, a stranger to marriage, who’s not yet ripe
for a forceful mate.
You’ve the power to lead tigers and forests as
attendants, and hold back the swift-running streams:
Cerberus, the frightful doorkeeper of Hell,
yielded to your charms,
though a hundred snakes guarded his fearful head,
and a hideous breath flowed out of his mouth
and poisoned venom was frothing around
his triple-tongued jaws.
Even Ixion and Tityos smiled, with
unwilling faces, and, for a little while,
the urns were dry, as your sweet song delighted
Danaus’ daughters.
Lyde should listen to those girls’ wickedness
and their punishment, it’s well known: their wine jars
empty, water vanishing through the bottom:
that fate long-delayed
that still waits for wrongdoers down in Orcus.
Impious (what worse could they have committed?)
impious, they had the power to destroy their
lovers with cruel steel.
Hypermnestra alone of the many was
worthy of marriage, splendidly deceiving
her lying father, a girl rendered noble
for ages to come,
‘Up, up,’ she cried to her young husband, ‘lest sleep,
that lasts forever, comes, to you, from a source
you wouldn’t expect: escape from my father,
my wicked sisters,
ah, they’re like lionesses who each has seized
a young bullock, and tears at it: I, gentler
than them, will never strike you, or hold you
under lock and key.
Let my father weigh me down with cruel chains,
because in mercy I spared my wretched man:
let him banish me in a ship to the far
Numidian lands.
Go, wherever your feet and the winds take you,
while Venus, and Night, both favour you: luck be
with you: and carve an epitaph on my tomb,
in fond memory.
with sweet wine, those who, terrified, go around in fear of a tongue
lashing from one of their uncles.
Neobule, Cytherea’s winged boy snatches your wool stuff away
and your work, your devotion to busy Minerva, whenever
shining Liparean Hebrus,
that lover of yours, has bathed his oiled shoulders in Tiber’s waters,
even better a horseman than Bellerephon, never beaten
through slowness of fists or of feet,
clever too at spearing the deer, as they pour, in a startled herd,
across the wide open spaces, and quick to come at the wild boar
as it lurks in the dense thicket.
worthy of sweet wine, not lacking in flowers,
tomorrow we’ll honour you
with a kid, whose brow is budding
with those horns that are destined for love and battle.
All in vain: since this child of the playful herd will
darken your ice-cool waters,
with the stain of its crimson blood.
The implacable hour of the blazing dog-star
knows no way to touch you, you offer your lovely
coolness to bullocks, weary
of ploughing, and to wandering flocks.
And you too will be one of the famous fountains,
now I write of the holm oak that’s rooted above
the cave in the rock where your
clear babbling waters run down.
from the Spanish shores, who, like Hercules, now
was said to be seeking that laurel, that’s bought
at the price of death.
May his wife rejoice in a matchless husband,
having sacrificed to true gods, appear now
with our famous leader’s sister, and, all dressed
in holy ribbons,
the mothers of virgins and youths, now safe and
sound. And you, O you boys and you young girls who
are still without husbands, spare us any of
your ill-omened words
This day will be a true holiday for me,
and banish dark care: I’ll not fear civil war,
nor sudden death by violence, while Caesar has
command of the earth.
Go, now, you boys, seek out perfumes and garlands
and a jar that’s old as the Marsian War,
if any of them have managed to escape
Spartacus’s eyes.
And tell that graceful Neaera to hurry
and fasten all her perfumed hair in a knot:
if her hateful doorkeeper causes
delay, come away.
My greying hair softens a spirit eager
for arguments and passionate fights:
I’d not have endured it in my hot youth, while
Plancus was Consul.
put an end to your wickedness, at last, and all
of your infamous goings-on:
now you are nearer the season for dying,
stop playing about with the girls,
and scattering a mist over shining stars.
What fits Pholoe is not quite
fitting for you, Chloris: while your daughter’s more
suited to storming the houses of lovers,
like a Bacchante stirred by the beating drum.
Her love for Nothus forces her
to gambol like a lascivious she-goat:
the wool that’s shorn near to noble
Luceria’s fitting for you, sad old thing,
not the dark red flower of the rose,
nor the lyre, nor the wine-jars drained to their dregs.
and the watch-dogs sombre vigil, would, surely, have
been enough, to protect imprisoned Danaë,
from adulterers in the night,
if Jupiter, and then Venus, hadn’t been laughing
at Acrisius, the girl’s anxious guardian:
since they knew that the path would be safe and open,
with the god as a shower of gold.
Gold loves to travel in the midst of fine servants,
and break through the rocks, since it’s far more powerful
than lightning bolts: didn’t the Greek prophet’s house fall
because of his riches, and sink
to ruin: and with gifts, the Macedonian
burst the gates of the cities, brought rival kingdoms
to destruction: and gifts of gold, too, are able
to snare fierce naval commanders.
Anxiety, and the hunger for more, pursues
growing wealth. It’s right, then, that I shrank from raising
my head to be seen far and wide, dear Maecenas,
glory of the Equestrians.
The more that a man denies himself, then the more
will flow from the gods: so naked, I seek the camp
of those who ask for nothing, I’m a deserter,
eager to abandon the rich,
a more glorious lord of the wealth that I spurn,
than if it were said I conceal, deep in my barns,
whatever the busy Apulians harvest:
destitute among great riches.
A stream of pure water, a few woodland acres,
and a confident faith in the crops from my fields,
are more blessed than the fate that deceives the shining
master of fertile Africa.
Though it’s true the Calabrian bees don’t bring me
their honey, and no Laestrygonian wine-jar
mellows for me, with no glossy fleece thickening
for me in the pastures of Gaul:
yet there’s still no presence of grinding poverty,
nor if I wished for more would you deny it me.
I can eke out my income more effectively
by constraining what I desire,
than if I were to join the Mygdonian plains
to the Lydian kingdom. To those who want much,
much is lacking: he’s happy to whom the god grants
just enough, from a careful hand.
Lamus (and they say the Lamiae of old
were named from him, the ancestral line,
through all of our recorded history):
you come from him, the original founder,
who, it’s said, first held the walls of Formiae
and Latium’s River Liris where
it floods the shores of the nymph, Marica,
he the lord, far and wide. Tomorrow a storm
sent from the East, will fill all the woodland grove
with leaves, and the sands with useless weed,
unless the raven, old prophet of rain,
is wrong. Pile up the dry firewood while you can:
tomorrow, with your servants, released from their
labours, cheer your spirit with neat wine,
and a little pig, only two months old.
may you pass gently over my boundaries,
my sunny fields, and, as you go by, be kind
to all my new-born,
if at the end of the year a tender kid
is sacrificed to you: if the full bowls of wine,
aren’t lacking, friend of Venus: the old altar
smoking with incense.
All the flock gambols over the grassy plain,
when the fifth of December returns for you:
the festive village empties into the fields,
and the idle herd:
the wolf wanders among the audacious lambs:
for you the woods, wildly, scatter their leaves:
the ditcher delights in striking the soil he
hates, in triple time.