The Complete Odes and Epodes (Classics) by Horace

Author:Horace
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780141960715
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2006-04-26T16:00:00+00:00

4

Descende caelo

Come down from heaven, Calliope, articulate

on the flute a melody long drawn out,

or with your incisive voice, if you prefer,

or upon the strings of Phoebus’ cithara.

–Do you hear her, or does an amiable

delusion mock me? I seem to hear,

and to wander through sacred groves

where soothing waters and breezes rise.

On pathless Vultur, beyond the threshold

of my nurse Apulia, when I was exhausted 10

with play and oppressed with sleep,

legendary wood-doves once wove for me

new-fallen leaves, to be

a marvel to all who lodge in lofty

Acherontia’s eyrie and Bantia’s woodlands

and the rich valley farms of Forentum,

as I slept with my flesh secure

from bears and black snakes, covered

with holy laurel and gathered myrtle,

a brave child by the Gods’ assent. 20

Yours, my Muses, yours, I climb

to the Sabine heights, or visit cool

Praeneste or hillside Tibur

or lucent Baiae, just as I feel inclined:

neither the broken line at Philippi,

nor that cursèd tree, nor Sicilian seas

off Palinurus’ cape, have quite destroyed me,

a friend to your springs and choirs.

Whenever you go with me,

I shall gladly attempt as sailor 30

the raving Bosphorus, as voyager

the scorching sands of Syrian shores;

shall visit the Britons savage to guests,

the Concanian merry on horses’ blood,

shall visit unscathed the quiver-

bearing Geloni, the Scythian stream.

It is you who refresh high Caesar

in some Pierian grotto when he seeks

to rest from his labours, and has billeted

in the towns his campaign-weary legions. 40

You give calm wisdom, kindly ones,

and having given, rejoice. We know

how the mutinous Titans and their foul

horde suffered the falling thunderbolt

of him who controls still earth, the wind

swept sea, the cities, the realms of the dead,

who rules alone with equitable power

both the Gods and the throngs of mortals.

That arrogant progeny bristling with hands

and the brothers striving to heap 50

Pelion on shadowy Olympus

inflicted great fear on Jove.

But what could Typhoeus do, or powerful Mimas,

what Porphyrion, for all his menacing posture,

what Rhoetus, or Enceladus,

brave hurler of tree-trunks uprooted,

by charging against the resounding shield

of Minerva? Here stood avid

Vulcan, here matronly Juno and he

who shall never leave bow from shoulder 60

and washes his waving hair in pure

Castalian dew, who keeps his native woods

and the Lycian thickets,

Patara’s and Delos’ Apollo.

Force without polity falls by its weight:

force directed the Gods themselves

make greater–but force that cogitates

in its heart fell sin, they loathe.

(Hundred-handed Gyas be witness

to my maxims, and Orion the known 70

assailant of chaste Diana,

but tamed by the virgin’s arrows.)

Heaped on her monsters, Earth mourns

and laments the offspring the thunderbolt sent

to ashen Orcus; nor has the quick

fire eaten through Aetna superimposed;

nor does the vulture (set to guard

his iniquity) relinquish the liver

of immoderate Tityos; and three hundred chains

hold fast the amorous Pirithous. 80

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