Can Hope assure you one more day to live
From powers above?
You rescue from your heir whate'er you give
The self you love.
When life is o'er, and Minos has rehearsed
The grand last doom,
Hot birth, nor eloquence, nor worth, shall burst
Torquatus' tomb.
Hot Dian's self can chaste Hippolytus
To life recall,
Nor Theseus free his loved Pirithous
From Lethe's thrall.
VIII.
Donarem pateras.
All Censorinus! to my comrades true
Rich cups, rare bronzes, gladly would I send:
Choice tripods from Olympia on each friend
Would I confer, choicer on none than you,
Had but my fate such gems of art bestow'd
As cunning Scopas or Parrhasius wrought,
This with the brush, that with the chisel taught
To image now a mortal, now a god.
But these are not my riches: your desire
Such luxury craves not, and your means disdain:
A poet's strain you love; a poet's strain
Accept, and learn the value of the lyre.
