Odes

Horace

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

  • When the false swain was hurrying o'er the deep
  • His Spartan hostess in the Idaean bark,
  • Old Nereus laid the unwilling winds asleep,
  • That all to Fate might hark,
  • Speaking through him:—“Home in ill hour you take
  • A prize whom Greece shall claim with troops untold,
  • Leagued by an oath your marriage tie to break
  • And Priam's kingdom old.
  • Alas! what deaths you launch on Dardan realm!
  • What tolls are waiting, man and horse to tire!
  • See! Pallas trims her aegis and her helm,
  • Her chariot and her ire.
  • Vainly shall you; in Venus' favour strong,
  • Your tresses comb, and for your dames divide
  • On peaceful lyre the several parts of song;
  • Vainly in chamber hide
  • From spears and Gnossian arrows, barb'd with fate,
  • And battle's din, and Ajax in the chase
  • Unconquer'd; those adulterous locks, though late,
  • Shall gory dust deface.