On this the boy by gentle tones
No more essay'd to move the crones,
But wildly forth with frenzied tongue
These curses Thyestean flung.

"Your sorceries, and spells, and charms
To man may compass deadly harms,
But heaven's great law of Wrong and Right
Will never bend before their might.
My curse shall haunt you, and my hate
No victim's blood shall expiate.
But when at your behests I die,
Like Fury of the Night will I

From Hades come, a phantom sprite, —
Such is the Manes' awful might,
With crooked nails your cheeks I'll tear,
And, squatting on your bosoms, scare
With hideous fears your sleep away!
Then shall the mob, some future day,
Pelt you from street to street with stones,
Till falling dead, ye filthy crones,
The dogs and wolves, and carrion fowl,
That make on Esquiline their prowl,
In banquet horrible and grim

Shall tear your bodies limb from limb.
Nor shall my parents fail to see
That sight, alas, surviving me!"

EPODE VI.

TO CASSIUS SEVERUS.

VILE cur, why will you late and soon
At honest people fly?
You, you, the veriest poltroon
Whene'er a wolf comes by!

Come on, and if your stomach be
So ravenous for fight,
I'm ready! Try your teeth on me,
You'll find that I can bite.

For like Molossian mastiff stout,

Or dun Laconian hound,

That keeps sure ward, and sharp look-out
For all the sheepfolds round,

Through drifted snows with ears thrown back

I'm ready, night or day,

To follow fearless on the track

Of every beast of prey.

But you, when you have made the wood

With bark and bellowing shake,

If

any thief shall fling you food,

The filthy bribe will take.

Beware, beware! Forevermore

I hold such knaves in scorn,

And bear, their wretched sides to gore, A sharp and ready horn;

Like him, whose joys Lycambes dash'd,
Defrauding of his bride,

Or him, who with his satire lash'd
Old Bupalus till he died.

What! If a churl shall snap at me,

And pester and annoy,

Shall I sit down contentedly,

And blubber like a boy?

EPODE VII.

TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE.

Aн, whither would ye, dyed in guilt, thus headlong rush? Or why

Grasp your right hands the battle-brands so recently laid by?

Say, can it be, upon the sea, or yet upon the shore, That we have pour'd too sparingly our dearest Latian gore?

Not that yon envious Carthage her haughty towers should see

To flames devouring yielded up by the sons of Italy; Or that the Briton, who has ne'er confess'd our prowess, may

Descend all gyved and manacled along the Sacred Way,

But that our Rome, in answer to Parthia's pray'r and moan,

Should by our hands, her children's hands, be crush'd and overthrown?

Alas! Alas! More fell is ours than wolves' or lions'

rage,

For they at least upon their kind no war unholy wage!

What power impels you? Fury blind, or demon that would wreak

Revenge for your blood-guiltiness and crimes? Make answer! Speak!

They're dumb, and with an ashy hue their cheeks and lips are dyed,

And stricken through with conscious guilt their souls are stupefied!

'Tis even so; relentless fates the sons of Rome

pursue,

And his dread crime, in brother's blood who did his hands imbrue;

For still for vengeance from the ground calls guiltless Remus' gore,

By his descendants' blood to be atoned for evermore!