The Works of Horace eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 281 pages of information about The Works of Horace.

The Works of Horace eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 281 pages of information about The Works of Horace.

Hor.  What! if our former love returns, and unites by a brazen yoke us once parted?  What if Chloe with her golden locks be shaken off, and the door again open to slighted Lydia.

LYD.  Though he is fairer than a star, thou of more levity than a cork, and more passionate than the blustering Adriatic; with thee I should love to live, with thee I would cheerfully die.

* * * * *

ODE X.

To Lyce.

O Lyce, had you drunk from the remote Tanais, in a state of marriage with tome barbarian, yet you might be sorry to expose me, prostrate before your obdurate doors, to the north winds that have made those places their abode.  Do you hear with what a noise your gate, with what [a noise] the grove, planted about your elegant buildings, rebellows to the winds?  And how Jupiter glazes the settled snow with his bright influence?  Lay aside disdain, offensive to Venus, lest your rope should run backward, while the wheel is revolving.  Your Tyrrhenian father did not beget you to be as inaccessible as Penelope to your wooers.  O though neither presents, nor prayers, nor the violet-tinctured paleness of your lovers, nor your husband smitten with a musical courtezan, bend you to pity; yet [at length] spare your suppliants, you that are not softer than the sturdy oak, nor of a gentler disposition than the African serpents.  This side [of mine] will not always be able to endure your threshold, and the rain.

* * * * *

ODE XI.

To Mercury.

O Mercury, for under thy instruction the ingenious Amphion moved rocks by his voice, you being his tutor; and though my harp, skilled in sounding, with seven strings, formerly neither vocal nor pleasing, but now agreeable both to the tables of the wealthy and the temples [of the gods]; dictate measures to which Lyde may incline her obstinate ears, who, like a filly of three years old, plays and frisks about in the spacious fields, inexperienced in nuptial loves, and hitherto unripe for a brisk husband.  You are able to draw after your tigers and attendant woods, and to retard rapid rivers.  To your blandishments the enormous porter of the [infernal] palace yielded, though a hundred serpents fortify his head, and a pestilential steam and an infectious poison issue from his triple-tongued mouth.  Moreover, Ixion and Tityus smiled with a reluctant aspect:  while you soothe the daughters of Danaus with your delightful harmony, their vessel for some time remained dry.  Let Lyde hear of the crime, and the well-known punishment of the virgins, and the cask emptied by the water streaming through the bottom, and what lasting fates await their misdeeds even beyond the grave.  Impious! (for what greater impiety could they have committed?) Impious! who could destroy their bridegrooms with

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The Works of Horace from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.