Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/31

Whether Jupiter have granted us more winters, or [this as] the last, which now breaks the Etrurian waves against the opposing rocks. Be wise; rack off^[1] your wines, and abridge your hopes [in proportion] to the shortness of your life. While we are conversing, envious age has been flying; seize the present day, not giving the least credit to the succeeding one.

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ODE XII.

TO AUGUSTUS.

What man, what hero, O Clio, do you undertake to celebrate on the harp, or the shrill pipe? What god? Whose name shall the sportive echo resound, either in the shady borders of Helicon,^[2] or on the top of Pindus,^[3] or on cold Hæmus?^[4] Whence the woods followed promiscuously the tuneful Orpheus, who by his maternal art^[5] retarded the rapid courses of rivers, and the fleet winds; and was so sweetly persuasive, that he drew along the listening oaks with his harmonious strings. But what can I sing prior to the usual praises of the Sire, who governs the affairs of men and gods; who [governs] the sea, the earth, and the whole world with the vicissitudes of seasons? Whence nothing is produced greater than him; nothing springs either like him, or even in a second degree to him: nevertheless, Pallas has acquired these honors, which are next after him.

pati quicquid erit!" How much better is it to bear whatsoever shall happen, than to depend upon the idle predictions of astrologers! San.

1. Vina liques. The ancients used to filter their wines, to render them more soft and smooth. Cruq.
2. Helicon, a hill of Bœotia near Thebes, now called Zagaya, consecrated to Apollo and the Muses. Watson.
3. Pindus, a mountain of Arcadia, running with a long ridge into Thessaly and Macedonia, sacred also to the nine muses. Watson.
4. Hæmus, the greatest mountain of Thrace, dividing it from the lower Mysia: it hath divers names by the inhabitants through which it passes; by the Turks it is called Balkan, by the Sclavonians Cumo. Watson.
5. Maternal art, that is, the art of music, of singing with his voice, and playing upon the harp, as instructed by Calliope his mother, one of the nine Muses. Watson.