CARMEN IX. AD MARCUM LOLLIUM. Ejus nomen suis carminibus ab hominum oblivione, conatur vindicare. NE forte credas interitura, quæ Verba loquor socianda chordis. Non sola comptos, arsit adulteri Et comites, Helene Lacæna: 5 10 15 20 ODE IX. TO MARCUS LOLLIUS. The poet endeavours, by his verses, to rescue Lob lius's name from obl vion. DO not imagine that those words will perhaps be lost, which I, though born on the far resounding Aufidus, utter, to be accompanied with the lyre, by arts hitherto undivulged. If Mæonian Homer does possess the first rank, yet the Pindaric and Cean* muses, and the menacing strains of Alcæus, and the majestic ones of Stesichorus, are by no means obscure: neither, if Anacreon, though long ago, and ever so lightly, sung any thing, hath time destroyed it even now breathes the love, and live the ardours of the Æolian † maid, committed to her lyre. The Lacedæmonian Helen is not the only fair who hath been inflamed by admiring the delicate ringlets of a gallant, and garments embroidered with gold, and courtly accomplishments, and retinue; or was Teucer the first that directed arrows from the Cydonian bow: Troy was more than once harassed; the great Idomeneus and Sthenelus were not the only heroes that fought battles worthy to be recorded by the muses: The fierce Hector, or the strenuous Deiphobus, were not the first that received heavy blows in defence of virtuous wives and children; many brave men lived before Aga↑ Sapple. * Simonides was a Cean. VOL. I. Vixêre fortes ante Agamemnona Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. Totve tuos patiar labores Sed quoties bonus atque fidus Aut patriâ timidus perire. * Distat inertia. Bentl. +Chartis inornatum silebo. 25 30 35 40 45 50 memnon: but all of them, unlamented and unknown, are overwhelmed with endless obscurity, because they were destitute of a sacred bard. Vafour, uncelebrated, differs but little from cowardice, when in the grave. I will not, therefore, O Lollius, pass you over in silence, uncelebrated in my writings, or suffer envious forgetfulness with inpunity to seize so many glorious toils of yours. You have a mind ever prudent in the conduct of affairs, and steady alike amidst success or danger: You are an avenger of avaricious fraud, and proof against money, that attracts every thing by its influence; and a consul not of the year only, but as often as the good and upright magistrate has preferred the honourable to the profitable, and has rejected, with a disdainful brow, the bribes of wicked men, and triumphant through opposing bands, has displayed the arms of his integrity. You cannot with propriety call him happy, that possesses much; he more justly claims the title of Happy Man, who well understands how to make a wise use of the gifts of the Gods, and how to bear severe poverty, and dreads a reproachful action worse than death such a man as this is not afraid to perish in defence of his dear friends, or his country. CARMEN X. AD LIGURINUM. Monet ne sibi de formâ nimiùm placeat. O CRUDELIS adhuc, et Veneris muneribus potens, Insperata tuæ cùm veniet* pluma superbiæ, Et, quæ nunc humeris involitant, deciderint comæ, Nunc et qui color est puniceæ flore prior rosæ, Mutatus, Ligurine, in faciem verterit hispidam, 5 Dices, Heu! quoties te in speculo videris alterum, Quæ mens est hodiè, cur eadem non puero fuit? Vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt genæ ? * Veniet bruma superbiæ. Bentl. |