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Translation:Odes (Horace)/Book I/9

From Wikisource
Odes
by Horace, translated from Latin by Wikisource
Ode 1.9

Alcaic.

464705Odes — Ode 1.9WikisourceHorace
Literal English Translation Original Latin Line

You see how [Mount] Soracte remains white
with deep snow, and the struggling trees can
no longer sustain the burden, and the rivers
will have been frozen with sharp frost.

Dispel the cold by liberally piling logs on
the fireplace, and draw out more generously,
o Thaliarchus, four-year-old unmixed wine
from the two-handled Sabine jar.

Entrust everything else to the gods; as soon as
they have stilled the winds battling on the heaving
sea, neither the cypress trees nor
the ancient ash trees are shaken.

Leave off asking what tomorrow will bring, and
whatever days fortune will give, count them
as profit, and while you're young don't scorn
sweet love affairs and dances,

so long as crabbed old age is far from
your vigor. Now let the playing field and the
public squares and soft whisperings at nightfall
(the appointed hour) be your pursuits;

now too the sweet laughter of a girl hiding
in a secret corner, which gives her away,
and a pledge snatched from her wrists
or her feebly resisting finger.

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum
Soracte nec iam sustineant onus
     silvae laborantes geluque
     flumina constiterint acuto?

Dissolve frigus ligna super foco
large reponens atque benignius
     deprome quadrimum Sabina,
     o Thaliarche, merum diota.

Permitte divis cetera, qui simul
stravere ventos aequore fervido
     deproeliantis, nec cupressi
     nec veteres agitantur orni.

Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere, et
quem fors dierum cumque dabit, lucro
     adpone nec dulcis amores
     sperne, puer, neque tu choreas,

donec uirenti canities abest
morosa. Nunc et Campus et areae
     lenesque sub noctem susurri
     composita repetantur hora,

nunc et latentis proditor intumo
gratus puellae risus ab angulo
     pignusque dereptum lacertis
     aut digito male pertinaci.

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