Horace

The towers made of bronze, and the doors made of oak,

been enough, to protect imprisoned Danaë,from adulterers in the night,if Jupiter, and then Venus, hadn’t been laughingat Acrisius, the girl’s anxious guardian:since they knew that the path would be safe and open,with the god as a shower of gold.Gold loves to travel in the midst of fine servants,and break through the rocks, since it’s far…

Maecenas, son of Etruscan kings, a jar

you, at my house, and with rose-petals,and balsam, for your hair, squeezed from the press.Escape from what delays you: don’t always bethinking of moist Tibur, and of Aefula’ssloping fields, and of the towering heightsof Telegonus, who killed his father.Forget the fastidiousness of riches,and those efforts to climb to the lofty clouds,stop being so amazed by…

Cruel Venus, Cupid’s mother,

and you, lustful Licentiousness,to recall to mind that love I thought long-finished.I burn for Glycera’s beauty,who gleams much more brightly than Parian marble:I burn for her lovely boldnessand her face too dangerous to ever behold.Venus bears down on me, wholly,deserting her Cyprus, not letting me sing ofthe Scythians, or Parthianseager at wheeling their horses, nor…

What god, man, or hero do you choose to praise

Whose name will it be that joyfully resoundsin playful echoes,either on shadowed slopes of Mount Helicon,or on Pindus’s crest, or on cool Haemus,where the trees followed thoughtlessly afterOrpheus’s call,that held back the swift-running streams and the rushof the breeze, by his mother the Muse’s art,and seductively drew the listening oakswith enchaining song?Which shall I sing…

O, dear wife of poor Ibycus,

of your infamous goings-on:now you are nearer the season for dying,stop playing about with the girls,and scattering a mist over shining stars.What fits Pholoe is not quitefitting for you, Chloris: while your daughter’s moresuited to storming the houses of lovers,like a Bacchante stirred by the beating drum.Her love for Nothus forces herto gambol like a…

O royal Calliope, come from heaven,

or, if you prefer, use your clear voice,or pluck at the strings of Apollo’s lute.Do you hear her, or does some lovely fancytoy with me? I hear, and seem to wander, now,through the sacred groves, where delightfulwaters steal, where delightful breezes stray.In my childhood, once, on pathless Vultur’s slopes,beyond the bounds of nurturing Apulia,exhausted with…