Читать книгу Horace - Sir Theodore Martin - Страница 12

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Another age in civil wars will soon be spent and worn,

And by her native strength our Rome be wrecked and overborne,

That Rome, the Marsians could not crush, who border on our lands,

Nor the shock of threatening Porsena with his Etruscan bands,

Nor Capua's strength that rivalled ours, nor Spartacus the stern,

Nor the faithless Allobrogian, who still for change doth yearn.

Ay, what Gennania's blue-eyed youth quelled not with ruthless sword,

Nor Hannibal by our great sires detested and abhorred,

We shall destroy with impious hands imbrued in brother's gore,

And wild beasts of the wood shall range our native land once more.

A foreign foe, alas! shall tread The City's ashes down,

And his horse's ringing hoofs shall smite her places of renown,

And the bones of great Quirinus, now religiously enshrined,

Shall be flung by sacrilegious hands to the sunshine and the wind.

And if ye all from ills so dire ask how yourselves to free,

Or such at least as would not hold your lives unworthily,

No better counsel can I urge, than that which erst inspired

The stout Phocaeans when from their doomed city they retired,

Their fields, their household gods, their shrines surrendering as a

prey

To the wild boar and the ravening wolf; {1} so we, in our dismay,

Where'er our wandering steps may chance to carry us should go,

Or wheresoe'er across the seas the fitful winds may blow.

How think ye then? If better course none offer, why should we

Not seize the happy auspices, and boldly put to sea?

But let us swear this oath;—"Whene'er, if e'er shall come the time,

Rocks upwards from the deep shall float, return shall not be crime;

Nor we be loath to back our sails, the ports of home to seek,

When the waters of the Po shall lave Matinum's rifted peak.

Or skyey Apenninus down into the sea be rolled,

Or wild unnatural desires such monstrous revel hold,

That in the stag's endearments the tigress shall delight,

And the turtle-dove adulterate with the falcon and the kite,

That unsuspicious herds no more shall tawny lions fear,

And the he-goat, smoothly sleek of skin, through the briny deep

career!"

This having sworn, and what beside may our returning stay,

Straight let us all, this City's doomed inhabitants, away,

Or those that rise above the herd, the few of nobler soul;

The craven and the hopeless here on their ill-starred beds may loll.

Ye who can feel and act like men, this woman's wail give o'er,

And fly to regions far away beyond the Etruscan shore!

The circling ocean waits us; then away, where nature smiles,

To those fair lands, those blissful lands, the rich and happy Isles!

Where Ceres year by year crowns all the untilled land with sheaves,

And the vine with purple clusters droops, unpruned of all her

leaves;

Where the olive buds and burgeons, to its promise ne'er untrue,

And the russet fig adorns the tree, that graffshoot never knew;

Where honey from the hollow oaks doth ooze, and crystal rills

Come dancing down with tinkling feet from the sky-dividing hills;

There to the pails the she-goats come, without a master's word,

And home with udders brimming broad returns the friendly herd.

There round the fold no surly bear its midnight prowl doth make,

Nor teems the rank and heaving soil with the adder and the snake;

There no contagion smites the flocks, nor blight of any star

With fury of remorseless heat the sweltering herds doth mar.

Nor this the only bliss that waits us there, where drenching rains

By watery Eurus swept along ne'er devastate the plains,

Nor are the swelling seeds burnt up within the thirsty clods,

So kindly blends the seasons there the King of all the Gods.

That shore the Argonautic bark's stout rowers never gained,

Nor the wily she of Colchis with step unchaste profaned;

The sails of Sidon's galleys ne'er were wafted to that strand,

Nor ever rested on its slopes Ulysses' toilworn band:

For Jupiter, when he with brass the Golden Age alloyed,

That blissful region set apart by the good to be enjoyed;

With brass and then with iron he the ages seared, but ye,

Good men and true, to that bright home arise and follow me!