Requital of thy truth to one so dear,

So false as she, the maid thou dost adore.

Why longer keep thy heart upon the rack?
Give to thy thoughts a higher, nobler aim!
The gods smile on thy path; then look not back
In tears upon a love that was thy shame.

'Tis hard at once to fling a love away,

That has been cherish'd with the faith of years. 'Tis hard-but 't is thy duty. Come, what may, Crush every record of its joys, its fears!

O ye great gods, if you can pity feel,

If e'er to dying wretch your aid was given, See me in agony before you kneel,

To beg this curse may from me far be driven,

That creeps in drowsy horror through each vein, Leaves me no thought from bitter anguish free. I do not ask, she may be kind again,

No, nor be chaste, for that may never be!

I ask for peace of mind a spirit clear
From the dark taint that now upon it rests.
Give then, O give, ye gods, this boon so dear
To one who ever hath revered thy 'hests!

With this ends what remains to us of the poems relating to Lesbia, a fasciculus, which presents in vivid colours that conflict of emotions which must ever spring from love wasted upon profligate inconstancy.

13*

NOTES TO BOOK FIRST OF ODES.

ODE I. p. 37.

Macenas, sprung from monarchs old. C. Cilnius Mæcenas belonged to the family of the Cinii, descendants of Cilnius of Arretium, one of the Lucumones, or princes of Etruria. It is to this circumstance that Horace alludes here, and in the Ode 39, B. III. line 1. Mæcenas never accepted any of the high offices of state, preferring to remain a mere knight; a rank of which, to judge by the emphasis with which Horace dwells upon it in more than one poem, he appears to have been proud. In the words of Mr. Newman, he was "the chief commoner of Rome," but "whatever his nominal relation to the state, was more powerful than Senators and Magistrates." (The Odes of Horace, Translated by F. W. Newman. London, 1853, p. 3.)

Golden Attalus. Attalus III., last king of Pergamus, bequeathed his possessions to the Roman people. B. C. 133.

Africus. The W. S. W. wind.

Massic old.

The Massic wine, the produce of Mons Massicus, in Campania, like the Falernian, which came from another side of the mountain, was highly esteemed.

ODE II. p. 39.

Rising in ire, to avenge his Ilia's plaint. Ilia, the mother by Mars of Romulus and Remus, was drowned in the Anio, a tributary of the Tiber, to the god of which latter river Horace here assumes her to have been wedded. Her "plaint" is for the death of her descendant, Julius Cæsar.

The Marsian's flashing eye, and fateful port. The Marsi, the most warlike people of Italy, are named here as representative of the Roman soldiery in general.

ODE IV. p. 43.

Our own poet Carew had this Ode and the 7. Ode of the Fourth Book (ante, p. 219) in his mind, when he wrote the following lines on the spring.

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes; and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream:
But the warm sun thaws the benumbèd earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee.
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring,
In triumph to the world, the youthful Spring;
The vallies, hills, and woods in rich array
Welcome the coming of the long'd for May.
Now all things smile; only my Love doth lour;
Nor hath our scalding noonday sun the power
To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold
Her heart congeal'd, and make her pity cold.
The ox that lately did for shelter fly
Into the stall, doth now securely lie
In open fields; and love no more is made
By the fireside; but in the cooler shade

Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep
Under a sycamore, and all things keep
Time with the season only she doth tarry,
June in her eyes, in her heart January.

Malherbe, in his beautiful poem of condolence to his friend M. du Perrier on the loss of a daughter, adopts in one stanza the thought and almost the words of Horace. But indeed the whole poem is so thoroughly Horatian in spirit and expression, that it might almost seem to have flowed from the pen of the Venusian bard. To those who are not already familiar with the poem, the following stanzas of it will be welcome.

Je sais de quels appas son enfance était pleine,
Et n'ai pas entrepris,

Injurieux ami, de soulager ta peine

Avecque son mepris.

Mais elle était du monde, où les plus belles choses
Ont le pire destin;

Et, rose, elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses,
L'espace d'un matin.

La mort a des rigueurs à nulle autre pareilles;
On a beau la prier;

La cruelle qu'elle est se bouche les oreilles,
Et nous laisse crier.

Le pauvre en sa cabane, où le chaume le couvre,
Est sujet à ses lois;

Et la garde qui veille aux barrières du Louvre
N'en defend point nos rois.

De murmurer contre elle et perdre patience
Il est mal à propos;

Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science,
Qui nous met en repos.

In exquisite finish of expression nothing finer than these lines can be desired, and there runs through them a vein of feeling more delicately tender than is to be found anywhere in Horace. This was probably due to the purer faith of the modern, which insensibly coloured the almost Pagan tone of the poem. Malherbe made Horace his breviary,with what effect, these lines prove.

ODE IX. p. 51.

Allan Ramsay's paraphrase of this Ode has all the freshness and vigour of Horace, with added touches of his own, not unworthy of the original.

Look up to Pentland's tow'ring taps,
Buried beneath great wreaths of snaw,
O'er ilka cleugh, ilk scaur and slap,
As high as ony Roman wa'.

Driving their ba's frae whins or tee,
There's no ae gowfer to be seen,
Nor douser fouk wysing ajee

The byas bowls on Tamson's green.

Then fling on coals, and rype the ribs,
And beek the house baith butt and ben,
That mutchkin stoup, it hauds but dribs,
Then let's get in the tappit hen.

Good claret best keeps out the cauld,
And drives away the winter soon,
It makes a man baith gash and bauld,
And heaves his saul beyond the moon.

Leave to the gods your ilka care,

If that they think us worth their while, They can a rowth o' blessings spare, Which will our fashious fears beguile.