Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub
[graphic]

a schoolboy of genius, and all succeeding novelists had felt bound to construct their plots mainly of matches at football. It is the later books of the "Eneid" that are most marred by this mistake. In the earlier books there are, no doubt, some illjudged adaptations of Homeric incident, some labored reproductions of Homeric formulæ, but for the most part the events are really noble and pathetic,-are such as possess permanent interest for civilized men. The three last books, on the other hand, which have come down to us in a crude and unpruned condition, contain large tracts immediately imitated from Homer, and almost devoid of independent value.

Besides these defects in matter, the latter part of the poem illustrates the metrical dangers to which Latin hexameters succumbed almost as soon as Virgil was gone. The types on which they could be composed were limited in number and were becoming exhausted. Many of the lines in the later books are modeled upon lines in the earlier ones. Many passages show that peculiar form of bald artificiality into which this difficult meter so readily sinks; nay, some of the tibicines, or stop-gaps, suggest a grotesque resemblance to the well-known style of the fourth-form boy. Other more ambitious passages give the painful impression of just missing the effect at which they aim.

ODES OF HORACE.

TRANSLATED BY CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.

[QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS, the most popular of Roman poets, was born B.C. 65; superbly educated; at eighteen joined Brutus' army, and fought at Philippi; had his estate confiscated, but through Virgil's intercession with Mæcenas received it again, and gained Augustus' friendship as well as that of Mæcenas, who presented him with the immortal "Sabine Farm." He died B.C. 8. His odes are enduringly valued for their charm of style and genial Epicureanism of philosophy.]

BOOK I., ODE 9.

To Thaliarchus.

One dazzling mass of solid snow

Soracte stands; the bent woods fret
Beneath their load; and, sharpest-set
With frost, the streams have ceased to flow.

Pile on great fagots and break up
The ice: let influence more benign
Enter with four-years-treasured wine,
Fetched in the ponderous Sabine cup:
Leave to the gods all else. When they
Have once bid rest the winds that war
Over the passionate seas, no more
Gray ash and cypress rock and sway.

Ask not what future suns shall bring.
Count to-day gain, whate'er it chance
To be: nor, young man, scorn the dance,
Nor deem sweet Love an idle thing,

Ere time thy April youth hath changed
To sourness. Park and public walk
Attract thee now, and whispered talk
At twilight meetings prearranged;
Hear now the pretty laugh that tells
In what dim corner lurks thy love;
And snatch a bracelet or a glove
From wrist or hand that scarce rebels.

ODE 11.

To Leuconöe.

Seek not, for thou shalt not find it, what my end, what thine shall be;

Ask not of Chaldæa's science what God wills, Leuconöe:

Better far, what comes, to bear it. Haply many a wintry blast Waits thee still; and this, it may be, Jove ordains to be thy last, Which flings now the flagging sea wave on the obstinate sandstone reef.

Be thou wise: fill up the wine cup; shortening, since the time is brief,

Hopes that reach into the future. While I speak, hath stolen away Jealous Time. Mistrust To-morrow, catch the blossom of To-day.

Book III., ODE 1.

I scorn and shun the rabble's noise.
Abstain from idle talk. A thing
That ear hath not yet heard, I sing,
The Muses' priest, to maids and boys.

To Jove the flocks which great kings sway,
To Jove great kings allegiance owe.
Praise him he laid the giants low:
All things that are, his nod obey.

This man may plant in broader lines
His fruit trees: that, the pride of race
Enlists a candidate for place:

In worth, in fame, a third outshines

His mates; or, thronged with clients, claims Precedence. Even-handed Fate

Hath but one law for small and great: That ample urn holds all men's names.

He o'er whose doomed neck hangs the sword Unsheathed, the dainties of the South Shall lack their sweetness in his mouth: No note of bird or harpsichord

Shall bring him Sleep. Yet Sleep is kind, Nor scorns the huts of laboring men; The bank where shadows play, the glen Of Tempe dancing in the wind.

He, who but asks "Enough," defies

Wild waves to rob him of his ease;
He fears no rude shocks, when he sees
Arcturus set or Hædus rise:

When hailstones lash his vines, or fails
His farm its promise, now of rains
And now of stars that parch the plains
Complaining, or unkindly gales.

In straitened seas the fish are pent;

For dams are sunk into the deep: Pile upon pile the builders heap, And he, whom earth could not content,

The Master. Yet shall Fear and Hate

Climb where the Master climbs: nor e'er From the armed trireme parts black Care; He sits behind, the horseman's mate.

And if red marble shall not ease

The heartache; nor the shell that shines Star-bright; nor all Falernum's vines, All scents that charmed Achæmenes:

« IndietroContinua »