Odes

Horace

Horace. The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace. Conington, John, translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1882.

  • O lovelier than the lovely dame
  • That bore you, sentence as you please
  • Those scurril verses, be it flame
  • Your vengeance craves, or Hadrian seas.
  • Not Cybele, nor he that haunts
  • Rich Pytho, worse the brain confounds,
  • Not Bacchus, nor the Corybants
  • Clash their loud gongs with fiercer sounds
  • Than savage wrath; nor sword nor spear
  • Appals it, no, nor ocean's frown,
  • Nor ravening fire, nor Jupiter
  • In hideous ruin crashing down.
  • Prometheus, forced, they say, to add
  • To his prime clay some favourite part
  • From every kind, took lion mad,
  • And lodged its gall in man's poor heart.
  • 'Twas wrath that laid Thyestes low;
  • 'Tis wrath that oft destruction calls
  • On cities, and invites the foe
  • To drive his plough o'er ruin'd walls.