Concines majore poëta plectro
Caesarem, quandoque trahet feroces
Per sacrum clivum, merita decorus
Fronde, Sigambros;

Quo nihil majus meliusve terris
Fata donavere bonique divi,

Nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum

Tempora priscum.

Concines laetosque dies, et Urbis
Publicum ludum, super impetrato
Fortis Augusti reditu, forumque
Litibus orbum.

Tum meae (si quid loquar audiendum)
Vocis accedet bona pars: et, O Sol
Pulcher, o laudande, canam, recepto
Caesare felix.

Tuque dum procedis, io Triumphe,
Non semel dicemus, io Triumphe,
Civitas omnis, dabimusque divis
Tura benignis.

Te decem tauri totidemque vaccae,
Me tener solvet vitulus relicta

Matre, qui largis juvenescit herbis

In mea vota;

Fronte curvatos imitatus ignes
Tertium lunae referentis ortum,
Qua notam duxit, niveus videri,
Cetera fulvus.

An outburst of exultation at the general approval with which the first three Books of Odes, and the Secular Hymn had been received.

HIM on whose birth, Melpomene,

Thou once hast looked with gentle eye,
Never shall athlete's mastery
In Isthmian conflict glorify.
Him, victor, in Achaian car,
Impetuous horse shall never bear :
In him, no enterprise of war,
Upon the Capitol, shall e'er,

A general wreathed with laurel show,
Who quelled the tumid threats of kings:
But him shall rivulets that flow

Welling from fertile Tibur's springs,
And groves with clustering ringlets hung,
Ennoble with Aeolian strains.

Me, Rome, of cities chief, among
Her favourite bards a place ordains:
And hushed is Envy's mordant tongue.
O Muse who, of my burnished shell
The dulcet clamour temperest,
Who with the swan's sonorous swell
Canst, if thou wilt, mute fish invest,
Wholly thy gift it is that I,
Inventor of the Roman lyre,
Am pointed out by passers by:
Thine that I breathe and please, if I

Indeed do please-thy gift entire !

III.

QUEM tu, Melpomene, semel

Nascentem placido lumine videris, Illum non labor Isthmius

Clarabit pugilem; non equus impiger Curru ducet Achaico

Victorem; neque res bellica Deliis Ornatum foliis ducem,

Quod regum tumidas contuderit minas, Ostendet Capitolio:

Sed quae Tibur aquae fertile praefluunt, Et spissae nemorum comae,

Fingent Aeolio carmine nobilem.

Romae principis urbium

Dignatur suboles inter amabiles

Vatum ponere me choros;

Et jam dente minus mordeor invido.

O testudinis aureae

Dulcem quae strepitum, Pieri, temperas !

O mutis quoque piscibus

Donatura cycni, si libeat, sonum !

Totum muneris hoc tui est,

Quod monstror digito praetereuntium

Romanae fidicen lyrae:

Quod spiro, et placeo (si placeo) tuum est.

In B.C. 15 the Vindelici, inhabitants of a district lying between the Danube and the Lake of Constance, and their southern neighbours, the Rhaeti, commenced a series of predatory incursions into Cisalpine Gaul. Augustus, who together with his stepson Tiberius was at that time in Transalpine Gaul, having gone there to oppose the Sicambri, ordered Drusus, younger brother of Tiberius, to proceed against them from Rome, where he was serving the office of Quaestor. Drusus signally defeated the Vindelici, but Augustus nevertheless found it necessary to send Tiberius with more troops to his brother's assistance, and the two together completely subdued the offending tribes, whose territories thereupon became the Roman provinces of Rhaetia Prima and Secunda. In honour of these achievements Horace composed this Ode, and also the 14th of the 4th Book, the one more particularly in praise of Drusus, the other in that of Tiberius.

LIKE as the levin's wingèd minister

(To whom, found faithful with fair Ganymed,
The sovereign of the gods, great Jupiter,
The kingdom of the roving birds conveyed)
Is by his youth and inborn energy
Forth from his nest to unknown labours sped,
And, when the rains are past, is taught to try
By vernal breezes, unaccustomed things:
Timorous at first, on sheepcotes presently
A keen impetuous enemy he springs;
Nay, urged by lust of feasting and of fight,
Onslaught 'gainst reluctating dragons flings:
Or like as a she-goat with sudden fright,
While browsing on luxuriant pasture, sees
A lion cub, weaned newly, opposite

Armed with young tooth that her death-warrant is :

IV. DRUSI LAUDES.

QUALEM ministrum fulminis alitem (Cui rex deorum regnum in aves vagas Permisit, expertus fidelem

Juppiter in Ganymede flavo)

Olim juventas et patrius vigor
Nido laborum propulit inscium,
Vernique, jam nimbis remotis,

Insolitos docuere nisus
Venti paventem: mox in ovilia
Demisit hostem vividus impetus:
Nunc in reluctantes dracones

Egit amor dapis atque pugnae :
Qualemve laetis caprea pascuis
Intenta, fulvae matris ab ubere
Jam lacte depulsum leonem,
Dente novo peritura vidit:

S