Haerere ingenuus puer,

Venarique timet; ludere doctior Seu Graeco jubeas trocho,

Seu malis vetita legibus alea : Cum perjura patris fides

Consortem socium fallat et hospitem : Indignoque pecuniam

Heredi properet. Scilicet improbae Crescunt divitiae; tamen

Curtae nescio quid semper abest rei.

XXV. AD BACCHUM.

Quo me, Bacche, rapis tui

Plenum quae nemora aut quos agor in specus,

Velox mente nova! quibus

Antris egregii Caesaris audiar

Aeternum meditans decus

Stellis inserere et consilio Jovis !

Dicam insigne, recens, adhuc

Indictum ore alio. Non secus in jugis

Exsomnis stupet Evias,

Hebrum prospiciens, et nive candidam

Thracen, ac pede barbaro

Lustratam Rhodopen. Ut mihi devio

By river bank, through lonely wood.

To rove admiring! Oh, o'er Naiads absolute

And Bacchant priestesses, endued

With hands of force enow tall ash-trees to uproot,

Naught petty, naught in lowly mode,

Naught mortal, will I utter.

Peril 'tis, yet sweet,

Lenaeus to pursue the god

Around whose cinctured brows verdurous vine-leaves meet.

Whether this was written when the poet was becoming painfully conscious of getting on in years, or whether it is an ordinarily successful suitor's exclamation of disgust at his first rebuff, is a fair specimen of 'Quaestiones Horatianae.' Fortunately the words of the Ode will warrant either interpretation: so the reader can choose for himself between the two.

A PROPER ladies' man of late was I,
And fought love's battles not ingloriously:

Now, with my arms discharged from fight,
And cithern, shall this wall be dight,
Which sea-born Venus on the leftward side
Protects. Leave here, let here abide

Torch, crowbar, bow, which heretofore
Beleaguered the opposing door.

Goddess, who happy Cyprus own'st, and whose
Is Memphis, lacking the Sithonian snows,

Ah queen! let by thy scourge upraised
Just once be haughty Chloe grazed.

Ripas et vacuum nemus

Mirari libet! O Naïadum potens, Baccharumque valentium

Proceras manibus vertere fraxinos,

Nil parvum aut humili modo,

Nil mortale loquar. Dulce periculum est, O Lenaee, sequi deum

Cingentem viridi tempora pampino.

XXVI.

VIXI puellis nuper idoneus,
Et militavi non sine gloria:
Nunc arma defunctumque bello
Barbiton hic paries habebit,
Laevum marinae qui Veneris latus
Custodit. Hic, hic ponite lucida
Funalia, et vectes, et arcus

Oppositis foribus minaces.

O quae beatum diva tenes Cyprum, et
Memphin carentem Sithonia nive

Regina, sublimi flagello

Tange Chloën semel arrogantem.

Galatea, a lady of Horace's acquaintance, was meditating a voyage to Greece, when Horace, having the story of Europa to tell, ingeniously turned that into an occasion for telling it. Under stress of rhyme I have been compelled, if not to coin a new

word, at least to employ an old word in a new sense. By 'iron stile,' in the twelfth stanza, the critical reader is entreated to understand, not the stilus used by the ancients in writing, but the weapon which would be indicated by the augmentative of the Italian stiletto-that is to say, a short pointed sword like that which formed part of the equipment of a Roman foot-soldier.

LET to the impious, the chattering jay

And pregnant bitch, as omens lead the way,
And fox with cub, and, from his haunts, a gray
Lanuvine wolf descending.

Let serpent interrupt their destined course
As, athwart darting with an arrow's force,
It frights the steeds. With provident resource
Will I, as augur, tending

Her whom I fear for, from the east invoke
With prayers, the raven of propitious croak,
Ere it, presaging rain's impending stroke,
Re-seek the still morasses.

Be happy, Galatea, wheresoe'er

You please of me live mindful: nor forbear
To go, for vagrant crow, or woodpecker
That on the left-hand passes.

XXVII.

IMPIOS parrae recinentis omen

Ducat, et praegnans canis, aut ab agro
Rava decurrens lupa Lanuvino,
Fetaque vulpes:

Rumpat et serpens iter institutum,
Si per obliquum similis sagittae

Terruit mannos.

Ego cui timebo

Providus auspex,

Antequam stantes repetat paludes
Imbrium divina avis imminentum,

Oscinem corvum prece suscitabo
Solis ab ortu.

Sis licet felix ubicunque mavis,
Et memor nostri, Galatea, vivas:
Teque nec laevus vetat ire picus,
Nec vaga cornix.