Odes

Horace

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

  • Let foemen's wives and children feel
  • The gathering south-wind's angry roar,
  • The black wave's crash, the thunder-peal,
  • The quivering shore.
  • So to the bull Europa gave
  • Her beauteous form, and when she saw
  • The monstrous deep, the yawning grave,
  • Grew pale with awe.
  • That morn of meadow-flowers she thought,
  • Weaving a crown the nymphs to please:
  • That gloomy night she look'd on nought
  • But stars and seas.
  • Then, as in hundred-citied Crete
  • She landed,—“O my sire!” she said,
  • “O childly duty! passion's heat
  • Has struck thee dead.
  • Whence came I? death, for maiden's shame,
  • Were little. Do I wake to weep
  • My sin? or am I pure of blame,
  • And is it sleep