Horace, the Odes by Horace

Author:Horace [Horace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780691213293
Publisher: PrincetonUP
Published: 2020-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

III.1

I hate and keep away the unholy crowd.

Hush, then! for in the silence of reverence

I sing songs never heard before, as

Priest of the Muse, for girls and boys now.

Kings rule, intimidating, their flock; the kings

are governed in their turn by Jove, all glorious

in conquering the Giants, he who,

twitching his eyebrow, controls the cosmos.

One man, no doubt, has planted his vines in rows

more widely spaced apart than another’s; one

will come down to the Field of Mars, a

candidate, nobler by birth, another

of greater fame and character, and a third

with larger mobs of followers, and yet Fate

treats High and Low impartially: the

ballot urn, roomy, keeps all names shuffled.

For him above whose impious head there hangs

the naked sword, Sicilian feasts can shape

no savory delights, nor any

music of birds nor of lyres can send him

again to sleep; yet sleep untroubled will not

disdain the humblest farmer’s abode, nor bank

of shaded stream, nor, ruffled by the

gentlest of zephyrs, the Vale of Tempe.

But he who longs for no more than what he needs

is never put upon by tumultuous seas

nor by the savage battering of

setting Arcturus or Haedus rising,

non verberatae grandine vineae

fundusque mendax, arbore nunc aquas

culpante, nunc torrentia agros

sidera, nunc hiemes iniquas.

contracta pisces aequora sentiunt

iactis in altum molibus: huc frequens

caementa demittit redemptor

cum famulis dominusque terrae

fastidiosus. sed Timor et Minae

scandunt eodem quo dominus, neque

decedit aerata triremi et

post equitem sedet atra Cura.

quodsi dolentem nec Phrygius lapis

nec purpurarum sidere clarior

delenit usus nec Falerna

vitis Achaemeniumque costum,

cur invidendis postibus et novo

sublime ritu moliar atrium?

cur valle permutem Sabina

divitias operosiores?

nor by his vineyards being whipped down with hail

nor by his farm’s deceitfulness, olive trees

now blaming all the rain, now Dog Star,

scorching the fields, now uneven winters.

The fish can sense the narrowing of their streams

by rocky dams set deep, where the builder with

his gang of slaves cast rubble for the

owner disdaining to merely build on

the ground. But Fears and Menaces climb up there

around an owner, nor will black Worry quit

his bronze-bedoodled yacht, and always,

when he goes riding, sits right behind him.

And still, if neither Phrygian marble, robes

of purple far more glittering than the stars,

can ease my anguish now, nor Persian

scent, nor yet the Falernian vintage,

why should I work to pile up a lofty hall

with columns to be envied—the newest style;

why should I change my Sabine vale for

all of the heavier load of riches?

John Hollander

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