He confoles her in her forrow for her abfent husband, and admonishes her to preferve the faith fhe had plighted to him. ASTERIE, why do you bewail

Him, whom the zephyrs fhall restore
Which fill with vernal breath the fail,
Wafting Bithynian wealth on fhore,

The happy Gyges, whose fair truth is known,
And conftancy has made so much your own?
He, driv'n by that autumnal goat

*

And fouthern winds, is forc'd away,

His meditations to devote

year,

On fair Afterie night and day,
And joyless, fleepless, spends the
With many a melancholy tear.
And yet the bufy footman speeds

And many a fubtle art he tries,
To urge how Chloe burns and bleeds,

And how the pines, and how she dies:
And, anxious to receive him to her bed,
Has many fuch like ftories in her head,
"How a falfe woman could perfuade

King Protus, credulous too much,

"With falfe pretences that she made

"To murder him, who fhunn'd the touch

"Of all impurity and shame,

"The chafte Bellerophon by name.

* When the conftellation of the goat fets at the close of autumn, it generally stirs up fhowers and ftorms."

S 2

• How

Narrat pæne datum Pelea tartaro

Magneffam Hippolytem dum fugit abstinens :
Et peccare docentes,

Fallax hiftorias monet :

Fruftra, nam fcopulis furdior Icari
Voces audit adhuc integer. At, tibi
Ne vicinus Enipeus

Plus jufto placeat, cave:
Quamvis non alius flectere equum fciens
Æque confpicitur gramine Martio:
Nec quifquam citus æque

Tufco denatat alveo.

Prima nocte domum claude: neque in vias
Sub cantum querulæ defpice tibiæ :

Et te fæpe vocanti

Duram, difficilis mane.

PROSE INTERPRETATION.

Bellerophon he relates how near Peleus was to have been given up to the infernal regions, while, continent, he fhuns the Magnefian Hippolyte : and the diffembler remonftrates to him hiftories teaching to fin, to no purpose, however for found as yet he hears his words deafer than the rocks of Icarus-but you, by the by, beware, left your neighbour Enipeus please you more than is allowable: though no other perfon equally dextrous to manage the fteed is feen upon the Martial turf: nor does any one equally brifk fwim down the Tuscan channel. At the first hour of night shut up your house, nor look down into the streets at the playing of the complaining pipe; and perfift difficult of access to him frequently calling you hard-hearted.

"How Paleas was condemn'd almoft
"To hell, in that he had abstain'd,
"And wary 'fcap'd the am'rous poft
"Where fair Hippolyte remain'd.”

And mentions many a novel tale,
That teaches mortals to be frail.

In vain for deafer than the rocks

Of Icarus he hears the lure,

And as temptation's voice he mocks,
Afterie, thou art ftill fecure-
And yet-Enipeus-give me leave-
Do not with fo much joy receive.
Tho' (to be fair) no man can ride
Upon the Martian plain fo well:
A goodly fight, of gallant pride,
And skill equeftrian to excel;

Nor any active man alike

Can through the yielding Tibur strike.
Soon as the day begins to close,

Shut up the doors, shut up the gate, Nor in the street yourself expose,

Nor for the fcurvy minstrels waitThe more they call you hard and hard, The more your doors and ears be barr'd.

AD MECENATE M.

Quum uxorem non habeat, nihilominus Kalendas Martias cur celebret, Mecenas mirari non debet.

MARTIIS cœlebs quid agam Kalendis,

Quid velint flores, & acerra thuris

Plena, miraris, pofitufque carbo in
Cefpite vivo,

Docte fermones utriufque linguæ.
Voveram dulces epulas & album
Libero caprum, prope funeratus
Arboris ictu.

Hic dies, anno redeunte feftus,
Corticem aftrictum pice dimovebit
Amphoræ fumum bibere inftitutæ
Confule Tullo.

Sume, Mæcenas, cyathos amici
Sofpitis centum : & vigiles lucernas
Profer in lucem: procul omnis efto
Clamor & ira.

PROSE INTERPRETATION.

O Mæcenas! an adept in both languages, you admire what I, a batchelor, am doing on the calends of March; what the flowers, and the cenfer full of frankincense, and the coals placed upon the live turf, mean! I had vowed, you must know, a delicious banquet and white goat to Bacchus, well nigh brought to my grave by a blow from a falling tree. This day, on the return of the year, a festival shall remove the cork fecured with pitch from that jar which was put to imbibe the fmoke, Tullus being the conful. Take, Mæcenas,

an

Macenas is not to wonder why Horace celebrates the calends of March, notwithstanding he has no wife.

WHY, on the * first of March, so clean,

Free from the matrimonial god,

Why flow'rs and frankincense are seen,
And what these heaps of fewel mean
Upon the living fod,

Friend, is from your difcernment hid,
Tho' Greek and Latin are your own.
Know then I vow'd a feaft and kid

To him, who did my death forbid,
When down the tree was blown,

This day, the chief of all by far,

A fpecial festival denotes,

And shall remove from out the jar
The cork fmok'd down with pitch and tar,
When Tullus had the votes.

Take, for the fafety of thy friend,
An hundred bumpers at the leaft;
On high the wakeful lamps fufpend,
Let wrath and clamour have an end,
Nor interrupt our feasts.

* The calends of March were facred to Juno, and particularly celebrated by married men and their wives. + Bacchus.

PROSE INTERPRETATION.

an hundred cups to the memory of your friend's escape, and prolong the watchful lamps till day-break; all noise and wrath be far away. Omit your political anxiety concerning

S 4

the