The Works of Horace

So far of this matter; at another opportunity [I may investigate] whether [a comedy] be a true poem or not: now I shall only consider this point, whether this [satiric] kind of...

If, because the most ancient writings of the Greeks are also the best, Roman authors are to be weighed in the same scale, there is no need we should say much: there is nothing h...

By what gift are you able to distinguish, whether this lupus, that now opens its jaws before us, was taken in the Tiber, or in the sea? whether it was tossed between the bridges...

Formerly I was the trunk of a wild fig-tree, an useless log: when the artificer, in doubt whether he should make a stool or a Priapus of me, determined that I should be a god. H...

Father of the morning, or Janus, if with more pleasure thou hearest thyself [called by that name], from whom men commence the toils of business, and of life (such is the will of...

You live well, if you take care to support the character which you bear. Long ago, all Rome has proclaimed you happy: but I am apprehensive, lest you should give more credit con...

It was night, and the moon shone in a serene sky among the lesser stars; when you, about to violate the divinity of the great gods, swore [to be true] to my requests, embracing...

In a word, it is of the first consequence to be wise in the rejection of trifles, and leave childish play to boys for whom it is in season, and not to scan words to be set to mu...

Now, come on, arraign with me luxury and Nomentanus; for reason will evince that foolish spendthrifts are mad. This fellow, as soon as he received a thousand talents of patrimon...

It is virtue, to fly vice; and the highest wisdom, to have lived free from folly. You see with what toil of mind and body you avoid those things which you believe to be the grea...

I abominate the uninitiated vulgar, and keep them at a distance. Preserve a religious silence: I, the priest of the Muses, sing to virgins and boys verses not heard before. The...

Augustus Caesar, O ye people, who was lately said, like another Hercules, to have sought for the laurel to be purchased only by death, revisits his domestic gods, victorious fro...

Phoebus chid me, when I was meditating to sing of battles And conquered cities on the lyre: that I might not set my little sails along the Tyrrhenian Sea. Your age, O Caesar, ha...

Whoever endeavors, O Iulus, to rival Pindar, makes an effort on wings fastened with wax by art Daedalean, about to communicate his name to the glassy sea. Like a river pouring d...

O Varus, you can plant no tree preferable to the sacred vine, about the mellow soil of Tibur, and the walls of Catilus. For God hath rendered every thing cross to the sober; nor...

Maecenas, descended from royal ancestors, O both my protection and my darling honor! There are those whom it delights to have collected Olympic dust in the chariot race; and [wh...

Ye, that do not wish well to the proceedings of adulterers, it is worth your while to hear how they are hampered on all sides; and that their pleasure, which happens to them but...

"I would inquire of him himself all this, which you report; bid him come to sup with me." Maena can not believe it; he wonders silently within himself. Why many words? He answer...

Let not, O Xanthias Phoceus, your passion for your maid put you out of countenance; before your time, the slave Briseis moved the haughty Achilles by her snowy complexion. The b...

Thespis is said to have invented a new kind of tragedy, and to have carried his pieces about in carts, which [certain strollers], who had their faces besmeared with lees of wine...