Emerging, vacant, from the ivory gate
Delude me? Is then bettered my estate,
Reduced a widening flood to navigate

Than when fresh flowrets culling?

How, to mine anger were that monster vile,
That bull vouchsafed, would I with iron stile
Rend him, and break those horns of his, erewhile
So much my fondness gulling.

Shameless, I quitted the paternal home:

Shameless, I put off death. Ah, should there some One of the gods be listening-may I roam

Naked 'mid lions raging:

Ere ugly leanness my fair cheeks depress,
Or ere of juice the tender prey have less,
Let me, I pray, in all my comeliness
Be tiger's ravin 'suaging.

My absent father taunts me: 'Why delay
To die, Europa base? With girdle, aye
Faithfully following, your neck you may
Break, from an elm suspended.

Do rather rocks, death-pointed, captivate,
Or precipices? Do not hesitate:

Trust the swift storm, unless from royal state
To harlotry descended,

Vana, quae porta fugiens eburna
Somnium ducit? Meliusne fluctus
Ire per longos fuit, an recentes
Carpere flores?

Si quis infamem mihi nunc juvencum
Dedat iratae lacerare ferro, et
Frangere enitar modo multum amati
Cornua monstri.

Impudens liqui patrios Penates: Impudens Orcum moror. O Deorum Si quis haec audis, utinam inter errem Nuda leones:

Antequam turpis macies decentes
Occupet malas, teneraeque succus
Defluat praedae, speciosa quaero
Pascere tigres.

'Vilis Europe,' pater urget absens :

'Quid mori cessas? Potes hac ab orno Pendulum zona bene te secuta

Laedere collum.

Sive te rupes, et acuta leto
Saxa delectant; age, te procellae

Crede veloci, nisi herile mavis

Carpere pensum,

For a barbarian mistress you prefer

The wool to card.' As thus she wails, to her
False-smiling Venus and her son draw near,
He with his bow unbended.

After enow of jeers, 'Abstain,' says she
'From anger and intemperate contumely.
That same detested bull will give to thee
His horns up to be broken.

'Thou know'st not thou art wife of conquering Jove,
Cease now from sobbing. Thy good fortune prove
That thou canst well sustain. Thy name, my love,
Shall half of earth betoken.'

One commentator has satisfied himself that the Lyde of this Ode is the same, only with altered feelings towards the poet, as she of the tenth of the same Book, 'ubi quidem obstinata, hic amica et favens.' This of course is mere fancy; but the idea is not a bad one, and its adoption may lend some additional zest to verses in which, whoever the lady may have been, Horace is apparently inviting himself to sup with her.

WHAT better upon Neptune's feast

Can I do, Lyde? Be at once released

Your hoarded Caecuban; and ply,

With brisk assault, discretion's panoply.

You see how fast declines mid-day,

And yet, as though the fleeting hours would stay, You tarry from their bin for us

To draw coy flasks of Consul Bibulus.

Regius sanguis, dominaeque tradi
Barbarae pellex.' Aderat querenti
Perfidum ridens Venus, et remisso
Filius arcu.

6

Mox ubi lusit satis; Abstineto,

Dixit, irarum calidaeque rixae;
Cum tibi invisus laceranda reddet
Cornua taurus.

Uxor invicti Jovis esse nescis?
Mitte singultus: bene ferre magnam
Disce fortunam: tua sectus orbis
Nomina ducet.'

XXVIII.

FESTO quid potius die

Neptuni faciam? Prome reconditum Lyde strenua, Caecubum,

Munitaeque adhibe vim sapientiae.

Inclinare meridiem

Sentis; ac, veluti stet volucris dies, Parcis deripere horreo

Cessantem Bibuli consulis amphoram.

Q

Come, let us with alternate lays

Neptune and verdant locks of Nereids praise.
Do you, curved lyre companioning,

Latona, and swift Cynthia's arrows sing:
Her, too, and with your highest strains,
Who o'er bright Cyclades and Cnidos reigns,
And with yoked swans to Paphos hies.

Her requiem due shall Night obtain likewise.

An invitation to Maecenas to visit Horace at his Sabine farm. In line 6 I have substituted 'Ut' for 'Ne,' in accordance with what Tate (Horatius Restitutus, p. 24) calls the 'noble emendation of Nicholas Hardinge, recommended by Markland, approved by Bentley, and applauded by Parr.' It seems indeed almost indispensable to make sense of the passage, if, as Tate argues, Maecenas could not see Tibur, Aesula, or the Tusculan hills from Rome, and could scarcely help seeing them from Digentia. By Molem' in line Io is to be understood the palace of Maecenas on the Esquiline.

OFFSPRING of Tyrrhene kings, long time for thee
A jar of wine, Maecenas, of my best,

Untilted yet, balm for thine hair expressed,
And blooming roses there have been with me.
Arouse thee from delay, that hence upon
The ever dewy Tibur thou may'st gaze,
And the slant field that Aesula displays,

And range of parricidal Telegon.

Thine irksome grandeur, and the stately dome
That to the lofty clouds seems to aspire,

Forsake, and cease a little to admire

The fume, the wealth, the din of prosperous Rome.