ODE IV.

TO XANTHIAS PHOCEUS.

Xanthias Phoceus is evidently a fictitious designation. Xanthias is a Greek name, and given by Aristophanes to slaves; and Phoceus characterises the person named as a Phocian.

Love for thy handmaid, Xanthias, need not shame thee :
Long since the slave Briseïs, with white beauty,
O'ermastering him who ne'er before had yielded,1
Conquered Achilles ;

So, too, the captive form of fair Tecmessa
Conquered her captor Telamonian Ajax ;
And a wronged maiden, in the midst of triumph,
Fired Agamemnon,

What time had fallen the barbarian forces
Before the might of the Thessalian victor,
And Hector's loss made easy to worn Hellas
Troy's mighty ruin.

How dost thou know but what thy fair-haired Phyllis
May make thee son-in-law to splendid parents?
Doubtless she mourns the wrong to race and hearth-gods
Injured, but regal.

Believe not thy beloved of birth plebeian;

A girl so faithful, so averse from lucre,

Could not be born of an ignoble mother
Whom thou wouldst blush for.

That lovely face, those arms, those tapering ankles-
Nay, in my praises never doubt mine honour :
The virtuous man, who rounds the age of forty,
Hold unsuspected.

Insolentem-Achillem.' I agree with Yonge in his suggestion that insolentem' means not wont to be moved.'

Phocian. The date of the ode is clearly A.U.C. 729, or the beginning of 730, when Horace, born A.U.C. 689, was just concluding his eighth lustre.

CARM. IV.

Ne sit ancillæ tibi amor pudori,
Xanthia Phoceu! Prius insolentem1
Serva Briseis niveo colore

Movit Achillem ;

Movit Ajacem Telamone natum
Forma captivæ dominum Tecmessæ ;
Arsit Atrides medio in triumpho
Virgine rapta,

Barbaræ postquam cecidere turmæ
Thessalo victore, et ademptus Hector
Tradidit fessis leviora tolli
Pergama Grais.

Nescias, an te generum beati

Phyllidis flavæ decorent parentes :
Regium certe genus et Penates
Mæret iniquos.

Crede non illam tibi de scelesta
Plebe dilectam ; neque sic fidelem,
Sic lucro aversam, potuisse nasci
Matre pudenda.

Brachia et voltum teretesque suras

Integer laudo; fuge suspicari,

Cujus octavum trepidavit ætas

Claudere lustrum.

ODE V.

TO GABINIUS.

This poem is designated variously in the MSS. as Lalage,' 'To the Lover of Lalage,' &c. According to one early MS. (the Zurich), it is inscribed to Gabinius. But even Estré cannot tell us who Gabinius was, though Orelli conjectures him to have been son or grandson to A. Gabinius, Cicero's enemy. The poem is of very general application, and the leading idea is expressed with great elegance and spirit.

Not yet can she bear, with neck supple, the yoke,
Not yet with another submit to be paired;
Immature for the duties of mate,

And the fiery embrace of the bull,

Thine heifer confines all her heart to green fields;
Now pausing to slake summer heats in the stream,
Now with steerlings yet younger at play

Midst the sallows that drip on the shore.

Till ripe, do not long for the fruit of the grape;
Anon varied Autumn shall deepen its hues,
And empurple the clusters that now
Do but pallidly peep from the leaf:

Anon, 'tis thyself she will seek; fervent Time
Speeds on, adding quick to her youth's crowning flower
Blooming seasons subtracted from thine;
Then shall Lalage glow for a spouse :

And then not so lovely the coy Pholoë,
Nor Chloris resplendent with shoulders of snow,
As a moon in the stillness of night
Shining pure on the calm of a sea;

CARM. V.

Nondum subacta ferre jugum valet
Cervice, nondum munia comparis
Æquare, nec tauri ruentis

In venerem tolerare pondus.

Circa virentes est animus tuæ
Campos juvencæ, nunc fluviis gravem
Solantis æstum, nunc in udo
Ludere cum vitulis salicto

Prægestientis. Tolle cupidinem
Immitis uvæ jam tibi lividos
Distinguet Auctumnus racemos
Purpureo varius colore.

Jam te sequetur: currit enim ferox
Ætas, et illi, quos tibi dempserit,
Apponet annos; jam proterva
Fronte petet Lalage maritum :

Dilecta, quantum non Pholoë fugax, Non Chloris albo sic humero nitens, Ut pura nocturno renidet

Luna mari, Cnidiusve Gyges.

Nor even Cnidian Gyges, whom, placed amid girls,

No guest the most shrewd could distinguish from them, So redundant the flow of his locks,

And his face so ambiguously fair.