Odes

Horace

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

  • Not birth, nor eloquence, nor worth, shall burst
  • Torquatus' tomb.
  • Not Dian's self can chaste Hippolytus
  • To life recall,
  • Nor Theseus free his loved Pirithous
  • From Lethe's thrall.
  • Ah Censorinus! to my comrades true
  • Rich cups, rare bronzes, gladly would I send:
  • Choice tripods from Olympia on each friend
  • Would I confer, choicer on none than you,
  • Had but my fate such gems of art bestow'd
  • As cunning Scopas or Parrhasius wrought,
  • This with the brush, that with the chisel taught
  • To image now a mortal, now a god.
  • But these are not my riches: your desire
  • Such luxury craves not, and your means disdain:
  • A poet's strain you love; a poet's strain
  • Accept, and learn the value of the lyre.
  • Not public gravings on a marble base,
  • Whence comes a second life to men of might