too neighboring sun, in a land deprived of habitations; [there] will I love my sweetly-smiling, sweetly-speaking Lalage.
ODE XXIII.
TO CHLOE.
You shun me, Chloe, like a fawn that is seeking its timorous mother in the pathless mountains, not without a vain dread of the breezes and the thickets: for she trembles both in her heart and knees, whether the arrival of the spring has terrified by its rustling leaves, or the green lizards have stirred the bush. But I do not follow you, like a savage tigress, or a Gætulian lion, to tear you to pieces. Therefore, quit your mother, now that you are mature for a husband.
ODE XXIV.
TO VIRGIL.
What shame or bound can there be to our affectionate regret for so dear a person? O Melpomene,[1] on whom your father has bestowed a clear voice and the harp, teach me the mournful strains. Does then perpetual sleep oppress Quinctilius?[2] To whom when will modesty, and uncorrupt faith the sister of Justice, and undisguised truth, find any equal? He died lamented by many good men, but more lamented by none than by you, my Virgil. You, though pious, alas! in vain demand Quinctilius back from the gods, who did not lend him
- ↑ Melpomene, one of the muses, who first composed tragedies; and therefore Horace properly addresses himself to her for assistance in writing a funeral elegy on Quinctilius Varus. See Ode xviii. Watson.
- ↑ Quinctilius. This is not Quinctilius Varus, who commanded the army in Germany under Augustus as his general, who, after his army was routed, killed himself For that was twenty-seven years after Virgil's death, and eighteen after Horace died. But Quinctilius Varus, the poet and critic of Cremona, an intimate friend of Virgil's, who died about the tenth consulship of Augustus. Watson.
2
