Quin, et Ixion, Tityosque voltu
Risit invito stetit urna paullum
Sicca, dum grato Danai puellas
Carmine mulces.

Audiat Lyde scelus atque notas
Virginum poenas, et inane lymphae
Dolium fundo pereuntis imo,
Seraque fata,

Quae manent culpas etiam sub Orco.
Impiae (nam quid potuere majus ?)
Impiae sponsos potuere duro
Perdere ferro.

Una de multis, face nuptiali
Digna, perjurum fuit in parentem
Splendide mendax, et in omne virgo
Nobilis aevum :

Surge, quae dixit juveni marito,

Surge; ne longus tibi somnus, unde

Non times, detur : socerum et scelestas Falle sorores;

Quae, velut nactae vitulos leaenae,
Singulos (eheu!) lacerant; ego illis
Mollior, nec te feriam, neque intra
Claustra tenebo.

Me let my father load with cruel fetters

For that, humane, I spared my hapless consort;
Me let his squadrons exile to remotest

Plains of Numidia.

Go where thy feet and where the winds may bear thee,
While as yet night and Venus are propitious;
Go with good omen. Only on my tombstone
Grave our sad story.'

Editors differ as to whether Neobule is to be regarded as lamenting over a love she must not indulge, or as congratulating herself that her own lot is not as that of women in general. I follow Mr. Macleane is preferring the former theory.

Ан, wretched women, who must needs from amorous play forbear,

Nor yet with bowls of genial wine may wash away their care,

But 'neath an uncle's slashing tongue for ever swooning

are!

Thee, Cytherea's wingèd son has, Neobule, reft

Of web and basket; nor with thee, in arts Palladian deft, Has blooming Hebrus aught of taste for such employment left.

Soon as in Tiber's bath he has his oily shoulders shown, A better horseman forth he comes than erst Bellerophon; Fine boxer too, nor in the race, as slow of foot, undone.

Me pater saevis oneret catenis,

Quod viro clemens misero peperci:

Me vel extremos Numidarum in agros
Classe releget.

I, pedes quo te rapiunt et aurae,
Dum favet nox et Venus: i secundo
Omine, et nostri memorem sepulcro
Scalpe querelam.

XII. AD NEOBULEN.

MISERARUM est neque amori dare ludum neque dulci

Mala vino lavere, aut exanimari metuentes

Patruae verbera linguae.

Tibi qualum Cythereae puer ales, tibi telas
Operosaeque Minervae studium aufert, Neobule,
Liparaei nitor Hebri,

Simul unctos Tiberinis humeros lavit in undis,

Eques ipso melior Bellerophonte, neque pugno

Neque segni pede victus;

The same, when hunting, and at hand a herd of deer

descrying,

Spears with sure aim the startled stags athwart the open

flying:

Quick too he is wild boar to track, deep in close covert lying.

The researches of Capmartin de Chaupy have placed beyond doubt that there was an Apulian Fons Bandusiae a few miles from Horace's birthplace, Venusia. Still it is not improbable that, as Tate suggests, the poet may have honoured with the same name some spring on or near his Sabine farm.

THOU art worthy, O fount Bandusian,
Whose brilliance doth glass outshine,
That the vineyard's luscious effusion,
Not without flowers, were thine.

To-morrow shalt thou be gifted
With a kid, on whose tumefied brow
Horns, vainly now first uplifted,
Of Venus and battle foreshow:

For, in honour of thee, the slaughter
Of that offspring of parentage lewd
Shall tinge the refrigerant water,
With crimsoning life-blood imbued.

Catus idem per apertum fugientes agitato

Grege cervos jaculari et celer alto latitantem

Fruticeto excipere aprum.

XIII. AD FONTEM BANDUSIAE.

O FONS Bandusiae, splendidior vitro,

Dulci digne mero, non sine floribus,

Cras donaberis haedo,

Cui frons turgida cornibus

Primis et Venerem et proelia destinat,

Frustra: nam gelidos inficiet tibi

Rubro sanguine rivos

Lascivi suboles gregis.