Horace

Horace for English Readers; Being a Translation of the Poems of Quintus Horatius Flaccus Into English Prose

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ... ODES Book I I Maecenas atavts An apology for the composition of Lyric poetry as one of the very many tastes and ambitions of mankind, and not the least happy and honourable of them. It is written as a prologue to the first three Books of the Odes, and (like the first of the Epodes, of the Satires, and of the Epistles) it is addressed to Maecenas, and so serves as a dedication. MAECENAS, in lineage the child of kings, but oh! to me my protector, pride, and joy, there are whose pleasure it is to have raised a cloud of dust in the racecourse at Olympia, whom the pillar just cleared by the glowing wheels and the palm-branch of glory lift to the gods, the lords of earth. One is happy if the fickle crowd of Roman citizens rush to the poll to raise him through the triple grade of honours': another if he have housed in his own granary all that is swept from Libyan threshing-floors2. The man whose joy it is to dig the stiff soil of his paternal farm, never with the offers of an Attalus3 would you tempt away from it to plough the sea round Myrto in a bark of Cyprus, a frightened sailor. The trader with the fear before his eyes of the wind of Africa wrestling with rough Icarian waters, praises a quiet homestead near his native town: 1 Aedile, praetor, consul. 5 A hyperbolical expression for having a large property in the corn-growing districts of North Africa. 3 The Attali were kings of Pergamus, of fabulous wealth. full soon, he is repairing his shattered bark; for to be content without wealth he finds too hard a lesson. There is who scorns not cups of old Massic and to filch a part from the unbroken day, stretched at length now beneath a leafy arbutus, now near the lullaby of some haunted spring. Many there are who love the camp and the...