Odes of Horace, Book 5/Ode 2
II
CAN you forget, Maecenas, how together
Virgil and you and I once sped the hours
Rose-wreathed, anointed, in the summer weather,
Under the shelter of my trellised bowers?
Clear was the sky, the moon aloft was sailing,
Flooding the valley with a silver gleam;
Still was the night, save for the never-failing
Murmurous music of the rushing stream.
Dear is to me the voice of running waters,
Dearer that night was Virgil's voice of gold,
Gift of the Muses, Jove's melodious daughters,
Fraught with the wisdom of the seers of old.
How could he probe (you asked) serene, sequestered,
Hearts torn with passion, trampled in the dust;
Dido, in whom the wounds of love had festered,
Anna, the victim of her perfect trust?
"Ah! but I knew them," answered he benignly,
"Mantuan sisters, widowed ere their prime,
Ruling broad acres righteously and finely,
Deaf to the call of passion—for a time.
"Till there came one, resistless in his wooing,
Gallant and bold, who loved and rode away,
Leaving his Dido to her swift undoing,
Leaving her Anna to a slow decay.
"Turnus I saw, unshaken by disaster,
Brought out of Gaul in mighty Julius' train,
Noblest of foes, whom fate could never master,
Holding his captors in a fierce disdain."
Late was the night ere Virgil ceased from telling
How past and present mingled in his view,
And the worn features, lit by fire indwelling,
Changed to the marble mask that others knew.
Clearer uprose the murmur of the river
Hurrying onward past the orchard lawn,
And the tall poplars with their leaves aquiver