Читать книгу Echoes from the Sabine Farm - Гораций, Квинт Гораций Флакк - Страница 9

You ask me, friend,

Why I don't send

The long since due-and-paid-for numbers;

Why, songless, I

As drunken lie

Abandoned to Lethean slumbers.

Long time ago

(As well you know)

I started in upon that carmen;

My work was vain,—

But why complain?

When gods forbid, how helpless are men!

Some ages back,

The sage Anack

Courted a frisky Samian body,

Singing her praise

In metered phrase

As flowing as his bowls of toddy.

Till I was hoarse

Might I discourse

Upon the cruelties of Venus;

'T were waste of time

As well of rhyme,

For you've been there yourself, Mæcenas!

Perfect your bliss

If some fair miss

Love you yourself and not your minæ;

I, fortune's sport,

All vainly court

The beauteous, polyandrous Phryne!