Odes

Horace

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

Of strength more potent to disdain

Hid gold, best buried in the mine,

Than gather it with hand profane,

That for man's greed would rob a shrine.

Whate'er the bound to earth ordain'd,

There let her reach the arm of power,

Travelling, where raves the fire unrein'd,

And where the storm-cloud and the shower.

Yet, warlike Roman, know thy doom,

Nor, drunken with a conqueror's joy,

Or blind with duteous zeal, presume

To build again ancestral Troy.

Should Troy revive to hateful life,

Her star again should set in gore,

While I, Jove's sister and his wife,

To victory led my host once more.

Though Phoebus thrice in brazen mail

Should case her towers, they thrice should fall,

Storm'd by my Greeks: thrice wives should wail

Husband and son, themselves in thrall.”—