Chapter 5

SPOUSE of penniless Ibycus, Thus late, bring to a close all thy delinquencies, All thy studious infamy:— Nearing swiftly the grave—(that not an early one)— Cease girls’ sport to participate, Blurring stars which were else cloudlessly brilliant. What suits her who is beautiful Suits not equally thee: rightly devastates Thy fair daughter the homes of men, Wild as Thyad, who wakes stirred by the kettle-drums. Nothus’ beauty constraining her, Like some kid at his play, holds she her revelry: Thy years stately Luceria’s Wools more fitly become—not din of harpsichords, Not pink-petallèd roseblossoms, Not casks drained by an old lip to the sediment.

SORACTE. OD. i. 9.

ONE dazzling mass of solid snow Soracte stands; the bent woods fret Beneath their load; and, sharpest-set With frost, the streams have ceased to flow.

Pile on great faggots and break up The ice: let influence more benign Enter with four-years-treasured wine, Fetched in the ponderous Sabine cup:

Leave to the Gods all else. When they Have once bid rest the winds that war Over the passionate seas, no more Grey ash and cypress rock and sway.

Ask not what future suns shall bring, Count to-day gain, whate’er it chance To be: nor, young man, scorn the dance, Nor deem sweet Love an idle thing,

Ere Time thy April youth hath changed To sourness. Park and public walk Attract thee now, and whispered talk At twilight meetings pre-arranged;

Hear now the pretty laugh that tells In what dim corner lurks thy love; And snatch a bracelet or a glove From wrist or hand that scarce rebels.

TO LEUCONÖE. OD. i. 11.

SEEK not, for thou shalt not find it, what my end, what thine shall be; Ask not of Chaldæa’s science what God wills, Leuconöe: Better far, what comes, to bear it. Haply many a wintry blast Waits thee still; and this, it may be, Jove ordains to be thy last, Which flings now the flagging sea-wave on the obstinate sandstone-reef. Be thou wise: fill up the wine-cup; shortening, since the time is brief, Hopes that reach into the future. While I speak, hath stol’n away Jealous Time. Mistrust To-morrow, catch the blossom of To-day.

JUNO’S SPEECH. OD. iii. 3.

THE just man’s single-purposed mind Not furious mobs that prompt to ill May move, nor kings’ frowns shake his will Which is as rock; not warrior-winds

That keep the seas in wild unrest; Nor bolt by Jove’s own finger hurled: The fragments of a shivered world Would crash round him still self-possest.

Jove’s wandering son reached, thus endowed, The fiery bastions of the skies; Thus Pollux; with them Cæsar lies Beside his nectar, radiant-browed.

For this rewarded, tiger-drawn Rode Bacchus, reining necks before Untamed; for this War’s horses bore Quirinus up from Acheron,

When in heav’n’s conclave Juno said, Thrice welcomed: “Troy is in the dust; Troy, by a judge accursed, unjust, And that strange woman prostrated.

“The day Laomedon ignored His god-pledged word, resigned to me And Pallas ever-pure, was she, Her people, and their traitor lord.

“No more the Greek girl’s guilty guest Sits splendour-girt: Priam’s perjured sons Find not against the mighty ones Of Greece a shield in Hector’s breast:

“And, long drawn out by private jars, The war sleeps. Lo! my wrath is o’er: And him the Trojan vestal bore (Sprung of that hated line) to Mars,

“To Mars restore I. His be rest In halls of light: by him be drained The nectar-bowl, his place obtained In the calm companies of the blest.

“While betwixt Rome and Ilion raves A length of ocean, where they will Rise empires for the exiles still: While Paris’s and Priam’s graves

“Are hoof-trod, and the she-wolf breeds Securely there, unharmed shall stand Rome’s lustrous Capitol, her hand Impose proud laws on trampled Medes.

“Wide-feared, to far-off climes be borne Her story; where the central main Europe and Libya parts in twain, Where full Nile laves a land of corn:

“The buried secret of the mine, (Best left there) resolute to spurn, And not to man’s base uses turn With hand that spares not things divine.

“Earth’s utmost end, where’er it be, May her hosts reach; careering proud O’er lands where watery rain and cloud, Or where wild suns hold revelry.

“But, to the soldier-sons of Rome, Tied by this law, such fates are willed; That they seek never to rebuild, Too fond, too bold, their grandsires’ home.

“With darkest omens, deadliest strife, Shall Troy, raised up again, repeat Her history; I the victor-fleet Shall lead, Jove’s sister and his wife.

“Thrice let Apollo rear the wall Of brass; and thrice my Greeks shall hew The fabric down; thrice matrons rue In chains their sons’, their husbands’ fall.”

Ill my light lyre such notes beseem. Stay, Muse; nor, wayward still, rehearse God-utterances in puny verse That may but mar a mighty theme.

TO A FAUN. OD. iii. 18.

WOOER of young Nymphs who fly thee, Lightly o’er my sunlit lawn Trip, and go, nor injured by thee Be my weanling herds, O Faun:

If the kid his doomed head bows, and Brims with wine the loving cup, When the year is full; and thousand Scents from altars hoar go up.

Each flock in the rich grass gambols When the month comes which is thine; And the happy village rambles Fieldward with the idle kine:

Lambs play on, the wolf their neighbour: Wild woods deck thee with their spoil; And with glee the sons of labour Stamp thrice on their foe, the soil.

TO LYCE. OD. iv. 13.

LYCE, the gods have listened to my prayer; The gods have listened, Lyce. Thou art grey, And still would’st thou seem fair; Still unshamed drink, and play,

And, wine-flushed, woo slow-answering Love with weak Shrill pipings. With young Chia He doth dwell, Queen of the harp; her cheek Is his sweet citadel:—

He marked the withered oak, and on he flew Intolerant; shrank from Lyce grim and wrinkled, Whose teeth are ghastly-blue, Whose temples snow-besprinkled:—

Not purple, not the brightest gem that glows, Brings back to her the years which, fleeting fast, Time hath once shut in those Dark annals of the Past.

Oh, where is all thy loveliness? soft hue And motions soft? Oh, what of Her doth rest, Her, who breathed love, who drew My heart out of my breast?

Fair, and far-famed, and subtly sweet, thy face Ranked next to Cinara’s. But to Cinara fate Gave but a few years’ grace; And lets live, all too late,

Lyce, the rival of the beldam crow: That fiery youth may see with scornful brow The torch that long ago Beamed bright, a cinder now.

TO HIS SLAVE. OD. i. 38.

PERSIAN grandeur I abhor; Linden-wreathèd crowns, avaunt: Boy, I bid thee not explore Woods which latest roses haunt:

Try on nought thy busy craft Save plain myrtle; so arrayed Thou shalt fetch, I drain, the draught Fitliest ’neath the scant vine-shade.

THE DEAD OX. GEORG. IV.

LO! smoking in the stubborn plough, the ox Falls, from his lip foam gushing crimson-stained, And sobs his life out. Sad of face the ploughman Moves, disentangling from his comrade’s corpse The lone survivor: and its work half-done, Abandoned in the furrow stands the plough. Not shadiest forest-depths, not softest lawns, May move him now: not river amber-pure, That volumes o’er the cragstones to the plain. Powerless the broad sides, glazed the rayless eye, And low and lower sinks the ponderous neck. What thank hath he for all the toil he toiled, The heavy-clodded land in man’s behoof Upturning? Yet the grape of Italy, The stored-up feast hath wrought no harm to him: Green leaf and taintless grass are all their fare; The clear rill or the travel-freshen’d stream Their cup: nor one care mars their honest sleep.

FROM THEOCRITUS. IDYLL. VII.

SCARCE midway were we yet, nor yet descried The stone that hides what once was Brasidas: When there drew near a wayfarer from Crete, Young Lycidas, the Muses’ votary. The horned herd was his care: a glance might tell So much: for every inch a herdsman he. Slung o’er his shoulder was a ruddy hide Torn from a he-goat, shaggy, tangle-haired, That reeked of rennet yet: a broad belt clasped A patched cloak round his breast, and for a staff A gnarled wild-olive bough his right hand bore. Soon with a quiet smile he spoke—his eye Twinkled, and laughter sat upon his lip: “And whither ploddest thou thy weary way Beneath the noontide sun, Simichides? For now the lizard sleeps upon the wall, The crested lark hath closed his wandering wing. Speed’st thou, a bidd’n guest, to some reveller’s board? Or townwards, to the treading of the grape? For lo! recoiling from thy hurrying feet The pavement-stones ring out right merrily.”

SPEECH OF AJAX. SOPH. AJ. 645.

ALL strangest things the multitudinous years Bring forth, and shadow from us all we know. Falter alike great oath and steeled resolve; And none shall say of aught, ‘This may not be.’ Lo! I myself, but yesterday so strong, As new-dipt steel am weak and all unsexed By yonder woman: yea I mourn for them, Widow and orphan, left amid their foes. But I will journey seaward—where the shore Lies meadow-fringed—so haply wash away My sin, and flee that wrath that weighs me down. And, lighting somewhere on an untrodden way, I will bury this my lance, this hateful thing, Deep in some earth-hole where no eye shall see— Night and Hell keep it in the underworld! For never to this day, since first I grasped The gift that Hector gave, my bitterest foe, Have I reaped aught of honour from the Greeks. So true that byword in the mouths of men, “A foeman’s gifts are no gifts, but a curse.” Wherefore henceforward shall I know that God Is great; and strive to honour Atreus’ sons. Princes they are, and should be obeyed. How else? Do not all terrible and most puissant things Yet bow to loftier majesties? The Winter, Who walks forth scattering snows, gives place anon To fruitage-laden Summer; and the orb Of weary Night doth in her turn stand by, And let shine out, with her white steeds, the Day: Stern tempest-blasts at last sing lullaby To groaning seas: even the arch-tyrant, Sleep, Doth loose his slaves, not hold them chained for ever. And shall not mankind too learn discipline? _I_ know, of late experience taught, that him Who is my foe I must but hate as one Whom I may yet call Friend: and him who loves me Will I but serve and cherish as a man Whose love is not abiding. Few be they Who, reaching Friendship’s port, have there found rest. But, for these things they shall be well. Go thou, Lady, within, and there pray that the Gods May fill unto the full my heart’s desire. And ye, my mates, do unto me with her Like honour: bid young Teucer, if he come, To care for me, but to be _your_ friend still. For where my way leads, thither I shall go: Do ye my bidding; haply ye may hear, Though now is my dark hour, that I have peace.

FROM LUCRETIUS. BOOK II.

SWEET, when the great sea’s water is stirred to his depths by the storm-winds, Standing ashore to descry one afar-off mightily struggling: Not that a neighbour’s sorrow to you yields blissful enjoyment; But that the sight hath a sweetness, of ills ourselves are exempt from. Sweet ’tis too to behold, on a broad plain mustering, war-hosts Arm them for some great battle, one’s self unscathed by the danger:— Yet still happier this:—To possess, impregnably guarded, Those calm heights of the sages, which have for an origin Wisdom; Thence to survey our fellows, observe them this way and that way Wander amidst Life’s paths, poor stragglers seeking a highway: Watch mind battle with mind, and escutcheon rival escutcheon; Gaze on that untold strife, which is waged ’neath the sun and the starlight, Up as they toil to the surface whereon rest Riches and Empire. O race born unto trouble! O minds all lacking of eyesight! ’Neath what a vital darkness, amidst how terrible dangers, Move ye thro’ this thing, Life, this fragment! Fools, that ye hear not Nature clamour aloud for the one thing only; that, all pain Parted and past from the Body, the Mind too bask in a blissful Dream, all fear of the future and all anxiety over! So, as regards Man’s Body, a few things only are needful, (Few, tho’ we sum up all,) to remove all misery from him; Aye, and to strew in his path such a lib’ral carpet of pleasures, That scarce Nature herself would at times ask happiness ampler. Statues of youth and of beauty may not gleam golden around him, (Each in his right hand bearing a great lamp lustrously burning, Whence to the midnight revel a light may be furnished always); Silver may not shine softly, nor gold blaze bright, in his mansion, Nor to the noise of the tabret his halls gold-cornicèd echo:— Yet still he, with his fellow, reposed on the velvety greensward, Near to a rippling stream, by a tall tree canopied over, Shall, though they lack great riches, enjoy all bodily pleasure. Chiefliest then, when above them a fair sky smiles, and the young year Flings with a bounteous hand over each green meadow the wild-flowers:— Not more quickly depart from his bosom fiery fevers, Who beneath crimson hangings and pictures cunningly broidered Tosses about, than from him who must lie in beggarly raiment. Therefore, since to the Body avail not Riches, avails not Heraldry’s utmost boast, nor the pomp and the pride of an Empire; Next shall you own, that the Mind needs likewise nothing of these things. Unless—when, peradventure, your armies over the champaign Spread with a stir and a ferment, and bid War’s image awaken, Or when with stir and with ferment a fleet sails forth upon Ocean— Cowed before these brave sights, pale Superstition abandon Straightway your mind as you gaze, Death seem no longer alarming, Trouble vacate your bosom, and Peace hold holiday in you. But, if (again) all this be a vain impossible fiction; If of a truth men’s fears, and the cares which hourly beset them, Heed not the jav’lin’s fury, regard not clashing of broadswords; But all-boldly amongst crowned heads and the rulers of empires Stalk, not shrinking abashed from the dazzling glare of the red gold, Not from the pomp of the monarch, who walks forth purple-apparelled: These things shew that at times we are bankrupt, surely, of Reason; When too all Man’s life through a great Dark laboureth onward. For, as a young boy trembles, and in that mystery, Darkness, Sees all terrible things: so do we too, ev’n in the daylight, Ofttimes shudder at that, which is not more really alarming Than boys’ fears, when they waken, and say some danger is o’er them. So this panic of mind, these clouds which gather around us, Fly not the bright sunbeam, nor the ivory shafts of the Day-star: Nature, rightly revealed, and the Reason only, dispel them. Now, how moving about do the prime material atoms Shape forth this thing and that thing; and, once shaped, how they resolve them; What power says unto each, This must be; how an inherent Elasticity drives them about Space vagrantly onward;— I shall unfold: thou simply give all thyself to my teaching. Matter mingled and massed into indissoluble union Does not exist. For we see how wastes each separate substance; So flow piecemeal away, with the length’ning centuries, all things, Till from our eye by degrees that old self passes, and is not. Still Universal Nature abides unchanged as aforetime. Whereof this is the cause. When the atoms part from a substance, That suffers loss; but another is elsewhere gaining an increase: So that, as one thing wanes, still a second bursts into blossom, Soon, in its turn, to be left. Thus draws this Universe always Gain out of loss; thus live we mortals one on another. Bourgeons one generation, and one fades. Let but a few years Pass, and a race has arisen which was not: as in a racecourse, One hands on to another the burning torch of Existence.

FROM HOMER. _Il_. I.