ODE XXVI Love's Triumphs are Ended TILL recently I lived fit for Love's battles and served Now this wall that guards the not without renown. left side of sea-born Venus shall have my weapons and the lyre that has done with wars. Here, O here, offer up the shining tapers and the levers and the axes that threaten opposing doors! O goddess queen that holdest wealthy Cyprus and Memphis, free from Thracian snows, touch with thine uplifted lash, if only once, the haughty Chloë! XXVII IMPIOS parrae recinentis omen rumpat et serpens iter institutum, antequam stantes repetat paludes imbrium divina avis imminentum, oscinem corvum prece suscitabo solis ab ortu. sis licet felix, ubicumque mavis, et memor nostri, Galatea, vivas; teque nec laevus vetet ire picus nec vaga cornix. sed vides, quanto trepidet tumultu pronus Orion. ego quid sit ater Hadriae novi sinus et quid albus peccet Iapyx. 10 20 ODE XXVII MAY the wicked be guided by the omen of a screaming lapwing and a pregnant dog or a red she-wolf racing down from the Lanuvian fields, or a fox that has just brought forth! May a serpent break the journey they have begun, when, darting like an arrow athwart the road, it has terrified the ponies! But for whom I, as a prophetic augur, cherish fear, for him will I rouse the singing raven from the east with my entreaties, before the bird that forebodes threatening showers re-seeks the standing pools. Mayst thou be happy, Galatea, wherever thou preferrest to abide, and mayst thou live with memories of me; nor may any woodpecker on the left or any roving crow forbid thy going! But thou seest with how great tumult sinking Orion rages. Full well I know what Hadria's black gulf can be and what the sins of clear Iapyx. May the wives and children of our foes be the ones to feel the blind onset of rising Auster and the roaring of the darkling sea, and the shores quivering with the shock! So did Europa, too, entrust her snowy form to the treacherous bull and turn pale before the deep alive with monsters, and at the peril of mid-sea-she who before had been so bold. Erstwhile among the meadows, absorbed in flowers, and weaving a garland due the Nymphs, now she beheld naught in the glimmering night except the stars and waves. Soon as she touched Crete, mighty with its hundred cities, "O father," she exclaimed, "O name of daughter, that I forsook, and filial duty, by frenzy overmastered! Whence have I come and whither? A single death is too light for maidens' faults. Am I awake and do I lament a hideous deed, or am I free from sin and does some empty phantom mock me, which brings a dream as through the Ivory Gate it flees? Was it better to travel o'er the long waves, or to pluck fresh flowers? If anyone would now but |