IBIS Liburnis inter alta navium,
Amice, propugnacula,
Paratus omne Caesaris periculum
Subire, Maecenas, tuo.
Quid nos, quibus te vita sit superstite
Jucunda, si contra gravis?
Utrumne jussi persequemur otium,
Non dulce ni tecum simul?
An hunc laborem mente laturi, decet
Qua ferre non molles viros?
Feremus; et te vel per Alpium juga,
Inhospitalem et Caucasum,
Vel Occidentis usque ad ultimum sinum,
Forti sequemur pectore.
Roges, tuum labore quid juvem meo,
Imbellis ac firmus parum?
Attending you, less fear shall I have then
Which more hold on the absent takes;
Even, as for her unfledged brood the hen
When left, more dreads the gliding snake's
Approach-yet not that of more service she
Could, if still present with them, prove.
Cheerfully, this, yea every war shall be
Engaged in by me for your love;
Not that my ploughs, yoked with more beeves of mine,
Be dragged; or that for pasturing range
My flocks, before the torrid dog-star shine,
Calabria for Lucania exchange;
Not that mine be a marble villa nigh
Steep Tusculum's Circaean wall.
Enough and more has your benignity
Enriched me. Naught, to hide it all
Like miser Chremes under ground, will I
Amass-nor yet to squander wantonly.
Whether a money-getting usurer was precisely the person into whose mouth these praises of a country life should have been placed, may be, and of course has been, questioned. But be this as it may, there is no doubt that the picture painted is a very pleasing one.
HAPPY is he, who, far from broil
Of traffic, like the earliest race
Of mortals, through ancestral soil,
Unmortgaged, guides his oxen's pace.
Comes minore sum futurus in metu,
Qui major absentes habet;
Ut assidens implumibus pullis avis
Serpentium allapsus timet,
Magis relictis, non, ut adsit, auxili
Latura plus praesentibus.
Libenter hoc et omne militabitur
Bellum in tuae spem gratiae;
Non ut juvencis illigata pluribus
Aratra nitantur mea,
Pecusve Calabris ante sidus fervidum
Lucana mutet pascuis,
Neque ut superni villa candens Tusculi
Circaea tangat moenia.
Satis superque me benignitas tua
Ditavit: haud paravero
Quod aut avarus, ut Chremes, terra premam, Discinctus aut perdam nepos.
BEATUS ille, qui procul negotiis,
Ut prisca gens mortalium,
Paterna rura bobus exercet suis,
Solutus omni fenore:
He starts not at the trumpet's call,
Nor shudders at the angry sea:
The law-court and patrician's hall
Alike he shuns,-no suit has he.
But, to the poplar tall, for spouse,
He yokes the marriageable vine,
And, pruning off the useless boughs,
Grafts in their place a fruitage fine:
Or, in secluded valley, watches
The lowing herd their pasture choose;
Or, in clean jars, squeezed honey catches,
Or shears the unresisting ewes.
And when, in the ripe fields, appears,
With brow fruit-laden, Autumn's shape,
How he delights to pluck the pears
Of his own growth, or purple grape,
Gifts for thee, Sylvan, thee, Priape!
Sometimes, beneath an old oak's shade,
Sometimes, on the thick grass, he lies,
And, while the clink of the cascade
Joins with the grove's bird melodies,
And tune by purling brooklet played,
Slumber lights gently on his eyes.
But when the stormy months arrive,
Full fraught with wintry snow and sleet,
He and his dogs fierce wild boars drive
Upon strong nets laid opposite;
Or, on light twigs, a meshy snare
He hangs, the greedy thrushes' bane,
And traps, beside, the timid hare,
Neque excitatur classico miles truci,
Neque horret iratum mare:
Forumque vitat, et superba civium
Potentiorum limina.
Ergo aut adulta vitium propagine
Altas maritat populos,
Inutilesque falce ramos amputans,
Feliciores inserit:
Aut in reducta valle mugientium
Prospectat errantes greges;
Aut pressa puris mella condit amphoris,
Aut tondet infirmas oves.
Vel, cum decorum mitibus pomis caput
Auctumnus agris extulit,
Ut gaudet insitiva decerpens pira,
Certantem et uvam purpurae,
Qua muneretur te, Priape, et te, pater
Silvane, tutor finium!
Libet jacere modo sub antiqua ilice,
Modo in tenaci gramine. Labuntur altis interim ripis aquae; Queruntur in silvis ayes;
Fontesque lymphis obstrepunt manantibus, Somnos quod invitet leves.
At cum tonantis annus hibernus Jovis
Imbres nivesque comparat,
Aut trudit acres hinc et hinc multa cane
Apros in obstantes plagas;
Aut amite levi rara tendit retia,
Turdis edacibus dolos;
|