Odes

Horace

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

Affect the sea: but fierce Alarm

Can clamber to the master's side:

Black Cares can up ihe galley swarm,

And close behind the horseman ride.

If Phrygian marbles soothe not pain,

Nor star-bright purple's costliest wear,

Nor vines of true Falernian strain,

Nor Achaemenian spices rare,

Why with rich gate and pillard range

Upbuild new mansions, twice as high,

Or why my Sabine vale exchange

For more laborious luxury?

To suffer hardness with good cheer,

In sternest school of warfare bred,

Our youth should learn; let steed and spear

Make him one day the Parthian's dread;

Cold skies, keen perils, brace his life.

Methinks I see from rampired town

Some battling tyrant's matron wife,

Some maiden, look in terror down,—