Odes

Horace

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

  • He whom thou, Melpomene,
  • Hast welcomed with thy smile, in life arriving,
  • Ne'er by boxer's skill shall be
  • Renown'd abroad, for Isthmian mastery striving;
  • Him shall never fiery steed
  • Draw in Achaean car a conqueror seated;
  • Him shall never martial deed
  • Show, crown'd with bay, after proud kings defeated,
  • Climbing Capitolian steep:
  • But the cool streams that make green Tibur flourish,
  • And the tangled forest deep,
  • On soft Aeolian airs his fame shall nourish.
  • Rome, of cities first and best,
  • Deigns by her sons' according voice to hail me
  • Fellow-bard of poets blest,
  • And faint and fainter envy's growls assail me.
  • Goddess, whose Pierian art
  • The lyre's sweet sounds can modulate and measure,
  • Who to dumb fish canst impart
  • The music of the swan, if such thy pleasure: