Odes

Horace

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

  • And bid Neaera come and trill,
  • Her bright locks bound with careless art:
  • If her rough porter cross your will,
  • Why then depart.
  • Soon palls the taste for noise and fray,
  • When hair is white and leaves are sere:
  • How had I fired in life's warm May,
  • In Plancus' year!
  • Wife of Ibycus the poor,
  • Let aged scandals have at length their bound:
  • Give your graceless doings o'er,
  • Ripe as you are for going underground.
  • You the maidens' dance to lead,
  • And cast your gloom upon those beaming stars!
  • Daughter Pholoe may succeed,
  • But mother Chloris what she touches mars.
  • Young men's homes your daughter storms,
  • Like Thyiad, madden'd by the cymbals' beat:
  • Nothus' love her bosom warms:
  • She gambols like a fawn with silver feet.