LIBER I

I

MAECENAS atavis edite regibus,
o et praesidium et dulce decus meum,
sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum
collegisse iuvat metaque fervidis

.est

evitata rotis palmaque nobilis

terrarum dominos evehit ad deos;
hunc, si mobilium turba Quiritium
certat tergeminis tollere honoribus;
illum, si proprio condidit horreo,
quicquid de Libycis verritur areis.
gaudentem patrios findere sarculo
agros Attalicis condicionibus
numquam demoveas, ut trabe Cypria
Myrtoum pavidus nauta secet mare.
luctantem Icariis fluctibus Africum
mercator metuens otium et oppidi
laudat rura sui; mox reficit rates
quassas, indocilis pauperiem pati.
est qui nec veteris pocula Massici

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BOOK I

ODE I

Dedication to Maecenas

MAECENAS, sprung from royal stock, my bulwark and my glory dearly cherished, some there are whose one delight it is to gather Olympic dust upon the racing car, and whom the turning-post cleared with glowing wheel and the glorious palm exalt as masters of the earth to the very gods. One man is glad if the mob of fickle Romans strive to raise him to triple honours; another, if he has stored away in his own granary everything swept up from Libyan threshing-floors. The peasant who loves to break the clods of his ancestral acres with the hoe, you could never induce by the terms of an Attalus to become a trembling sailor and to plough the Myrtoan Sea in Cyprian bark. The trader, fearing the southwester as it wrestles with the Icarian waves, praises the quiet of the fields about his native town, yet presently refits his shattered barks, untaught to brook privation. Many a one there is who scorns not bowls of ancient Massic nor to steal a portion of the day's busy hours,

nec partem solido demere de die
spernit, nunc viridi membra sub arbuto
stratus, nunc ad aquae lene caput sacrae.
multos castra iuvant et lituo tubae
permixtus sonitus bellaque matribus
detestata. manet sub Iove frigido
venator tenerae coniugis immemor,
seu visa est catulis cerva fidelibus,
seu rupit teretes Marsus aper plagas.
me doctarum hederae praemia frontium
dis miscent superis, me gelidum nemus
nympharumque leves cum Satyris chori
secernunt populo, si neque tibias
Euterpe cohibet nec Polyhymnia
Lesboum refugit tendere barbiton
quodsi me lyricis vatibus inseris,
sublimi feriam sidera vertice.

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stretching his limbs now 'neath the verdant arbutetree, now by the sacred source of some gently murmuring rill.

"Many delight in the camp, in the sound of the trumpet mingled with the clarion, and in the wars that mothers hate. Out beneath the cold sky, forgetful of his tender wife, stays the hunter, whether a deer has been sighted by the trusty hounds, or a Marsian boar has broken the finely twisted nets.

→Me the ivy, the reward of poets' brows, links with the gods above; me the cool grove and the lightly tripping bands of the nymphs and satyrs withdraw from the vulgar throng, if only Euterpe withhold not the flute, nor Polyhymnia refuse to tune the Lesbian lyre. But if you rank me among lyric bards, I shall touch the stars with my exalted head.