Translation:Odes (Horace)/Book I/24
What shame or limit should there be
to longing for such a dear person?
Teach a song of mourning, Melpomene,
to whom Jupiter gave a clear voice with a lyre.
Then does endless sleep press upon Quintilius?
When will modesty and the sister of justice, pure faith, and naked truth,
ever find any equal to him?
That man died, mourned by many good people,
mourned by no one more than you, Vergil.
You, devoted in vain, alas, demand Quintilius from the gods,
although he was not entrusted (to us) this way.
What if you could play the lyre heard by the trees
more charmingly than Thracian Orpheus?
Surely the blood would not return to the empty,
once Mercury, with his dreadful staff; he has rounded it in his gloomy herd,
(Mercury)not gentle (enough) to undo fates with prayers.
This is hard, but whatever it is,
an offense to correct becomes lighter with patience.