THE EPODES

EPODE I.

TO MECENAS.

F thou in thy Liburnians go

Amid the bulwarked galleys of the foe, Resolved, my friend Mæcenas, there

All Cæsar's dangers as thine own to share, What shall we do, whose life is gay Whilst thou art here, but sad with thee away?

Obedient to thy will, shall we

Seek ease, not sweet, unless 'tis shared by thee?
Or shall we with such spirit share

Thy toils, as men of gallant heart should bear?
Bear them we will; and Alpine peak
Scale by thy side, or Caucasus the bleak;
Or follow thee with dauntless breast
Into the farthest ocean of the West.

And shouldst thou ask, how I could aid
Thy task, unwarlike I, and feebly made?
Near thee my fears, I answer, would
Be less, than did I absent o'er them brood;
As of her young, if they were left,

The bird more dreads by snakes to be bereft,
Than if she brooded on her nest,

Although she could not thus their doom arrest.
Gladly, in hopes your grace to gain,

I'll share in this or any fresh campaign!

Not, trust me, that more oxen may, Yoked in my ploughshares, turn the yielding clay, Nor that, to 'scape midsummer's heat, My herds may to Leucanian pastures sweet From my Calabrian meadows change; Nor I erect upon the sunny range

Of Tusculum, by Circe's walls,

A gorgeous villa's far-seen marble halls!
Enough and more thy bounty has

Bestowed on me; I care not to amass

Wealth, either, like old Chremes in the play, To hide in earth; or fool, like spendthrift heir, away!

EPODE II.

ALPHIUS.

HAPPY the man, in busy schemes unskilled,

Who, living simply, like our sires of old,

Tills the few acres which his father tilled,
Vexed by no thoughts of usury or gold;*

"

"Felix ille animi, divisque simillimus ipsis,
Quem non mendaci resplendens gloria fuco
Sollicitat, non fastosi mala gaudia luxus,
Sed tacitos sinit ire dies, et paupere cultu
Exigit amena tranquilla silentia vitæ."

-FRACASTORIUS.

Happy the man, and to the gods akin,
Whom dazzling glory with its treacherous glare,
And luxury's harmful joys disquiet never;

But who, in settled low humility,

Lets all his days glide noiselessly away,

And moves, with soul serene, amid the nooks
And silent byways of a blameless life."