metre he selects and that of the original depends,' as Mr. Conington observes, 'rather on the length of the respective lines than on any similarity in the cadences,' and his rhythm is perhaps somewhat too cramped to convey the lyrical spirit in lighter and livelier odes of the same measure in the original;-even in this translation such contractions as 'T' whom thou untried seem'st fair! Me, in my vowed are not without a certain harshness. But all minor defects are amply compensated by the masterly closeness and elegance of the general version. The metre is ranked with the Asclepiadeans, and is repeated, Book I. 14, 21, 23; III. 7, 13; IV. 13. CARM. V. Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa1 Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro ?2 Cui flavam religas comam, Simplex munditiis? Heu! quoties fidem Nigris æquora ventis Emirabitur insolens, Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea ; Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem Fallacis. Miseri, quibus ODE VI. TO M. VIPSANIUS AGRIPPA. No public man among the partisans of Augustus is more remarkable for the union of extraordinary talents with extraordinary fortune than the Vipsanius Agrippa to whom this ode is addressed. Sprung from a very obscure family, he might have failed in obtaining a fair career for his powers but for the accident of being a fellow-student with the young Octavius at Apollonia. He thus, at the age of twenty, became one of the most intimate associates, and one of the most influential advisers, of the future emperor of the world. While he was yet in youth he had achieved the highest distinctions, and secured the most eminent station. He had passed through the office of prætor and consul, and established, by a series of brilliant successes, the fame of a great general. As a naval commander he became yet more illustriously distinguished. He constructed the Roman navy; defeated Sextus Pompeius, then master of the şea; commanded the fleet against M. Antony; and the victory at Actium was mainly owing to his skill. It was soon after that last victory that this ode is supposed to have been written. All the honours Augustus could confer were heaped on him; the emperor united him to his own family, first by a marriage with his niece Marcella, subsequently, yet more closely, by marriage with his daughter. Julia. Fortune never deserted Agrippa to the close of his life at the age of fifty-one. His character seems to have been a union of qualities rarely found together,-sagacity of design, rapidity 'Tis by Varius that Song, borne on pinions Homeric, rapidity of action, a brilliant genius in construction, devoted to practical purposes. When he was forming a fleet he turned the Lucrine Lake into a harbour for a school to the mariners by whom he afterwards defeated the tried sailors of Sextus Pompeius. As ædile his first care was to supply Rome with water, restoring the Appian, Marcian, and Anienian aqueducts, and building a new one fifteen miles long from the Tepula to Rome. With this utility of purpose he combined great magnificence in taste, adorning the city with public buildings and statues by the ablest artists he could find. All these daring and splendid qualities were accompanied by a modesty or a prudence which preserved the affection of the people and avoided all chance of exciting the jealousy of Augustus. He twice refused a triumph. The reader will observe with what ease Horace avoids all servility in the brief homage he delicately renders to Agrippa, and the playfulness of the concluding stanza would seem to intimate a certain familiarity of intercourse, or at all events that there was nothing in the temper of Agrippa, two years younger than himself, so austere as to be shocked by the poet's favourite subjects for song. Of the poems of Varius, to whose muse Horace refers the due celebration of Agrippa's deeds, only a few fragmentary lines have been preserved. Among these is the description of a hound, which is vigorous and striking. The fragment has been imitated by Virgil, whom he preceded as an epic poet. His tragedy of 'Thyestes' seems to have survived in repute his epics, since Quintilian does not mention those, while he accords to 'Thyestes' the high praise of saying 'that it might have stood comparison with any of the Greek dramatic masterpieces.' CARM. VI. Scriberis Vario fortis et hostium Victor Mæonii carminis alite. Quam rem cunque ferox navibus aut equis Miles, te duce, gesserit : Themes so lofty we slight ones attempt not, Agrippa, Not the course thro' strange seas of the crafty1 Ulysses, While the Muse that presides over lute-strings unwarlike, And my own sense of shame would forbid me to lessen, By the inborn defect of a genius unequal, The glories of Cæsar and thee. Who can worthily sing Mars in adamant tunic, We of feasts, we of battles, on youths rashly daring Waged by maids armed with nails too well pared for much slaughter, Sing, devoid of love's flame; or, if somewhat it scorch us, Still wont to make light of the pain. 1 'Duplicis-Ulixei.' Horace very naturally, in speaking of Ulysses, adopts the characteristic epithet employed from the Greek. In Latin 'duplex' is very rarely used in the sense of crafty or deceitful. I know not of any other instance in which it is so used by the Latin poets except in Catullus, lxviii. 51, 'duplex Amathusia.' Nos, Agrippa, neque hæc dicere, nec gravem Nec cursus duplicis' per mare Ulixei, Conamur, tenues grandia: dum pudor Quis Martem tunica tectum adamantina Nos convivia, nos prælia virginum |