The Dedication: To Maecenas

 Money 

by Horace

Crispus, silver concealed in the greedy earth

has no colour, and you are an enemy

to all such metal unless, indeed, it gleams

from sensible use.

Proculeius will be famous in distant

ages for his generous feelings towards

his brothers: enduring fame will carry him

on its tireless wings.

You may rule a wider kingdom by taming

a greedy spirit, than by joining Spain

to far-off Libya, while Carthaginians

on both sides, serve one.

A fatal dropsy grows worse with indulgence,

the patient can’t rid himself of thirst unless

his veins are free of illness, and his pale flesh

of watery languor.

Though Phraates is back on the Armenian

throne, Virtue, differing from the rabble, excludes

him from the blessed, and instructs the people

not to misuse words,

instead conferring power, and security

of rule, and lasting laurels, on him alone

who can pass by enormous piles of treasure

without looking back. 

 The Conflict 

Pyrrhus, you can’t see how dangerous it is

to touch the Gaetulian lioness’ cub?

Soon you’ll be running from all that hard fighting,

a spiritless thief,

while she goes searching for lovely Nearchus,

through obstructive crowds of young men: ah, surely

the fight will be great, whether the prize is yours,

or, more likely, hers.

Meanwhile, as you produce your swift arrows, as

she is sharpening her fearsome teeth, the battle’s

fine judge is said to have trampled the palm leaf,

beneath his bare foot,

and he’s cooling his shoulders, draped in perfumed

hair, in the gentle breeze, just like Nireus,

or like Ganymede, who was snatched away from

Ida rich in streams. 

Leuconoë, don’t ask, we never know, what fate the gods grant us,

whether your fate or mine, don’t waste your time on Babylonian,

futile, calculations. How much better to suffer what happens,

whether Jupiter gives us more winters or this is the last one,

one debilitating the Tyrrhenian Sea on opposing cliffs.

Be wise, and mix the wine, since time is short: limit that far-reaching hope.

The envious moment is flying now, now, while we’re speaking:

Seize the day, place in the hours that come as little faith as you can. 

The Dedication: To Maecenas

Maecenas, descendant of royal ancestors,

O my protector, and my sweet glory,

some are delighted by showers of dust,

Olympic dust, over their chariots, they

are raised to the gods, as Earth’s masters, by posts

clipping the red-hot wheels, by noble palms:

this man, if the fickle crowd of Citizens

compete to lift him to triple honours:

that one, if he’s stored away in his granary

whatever he gleaned from the Libyan threshing.

The peasant who loves to break clods in his native

fields, won’t be tempted, by living like Attalus,

to sail the seas, in fear, in a Cyprian boat.

The merchant afraid of the African winds as

they fight the Icarian waves, loves the peace

and the soil near his town, but quickly rebuilds

his shattered ships, unsuited to poverty.

There’s one who won’t scorn cups of old Massic,

nor to lose the best part of a whole day lying

under the greenwood tree, or softly

close to the head of sacred waters.

Many love camp, and the sound of trumpets

mixed with the horns, and the warfare hated

by mothers. The hunter, sweet wife forgotten,

stays out under frozen skies, if his faithful

hounds catch sight of a deer, or a Marsian

wild boar rampages, through his close meshes.

But the ivy, the glory of learned brows,

joins me to the gods on high: cool groves,

and the gathering of light nymphs and satyrs,

draw me from the throng, if Euterpe the Muse

won’t deny me her flute, and Polyhymnia

won’t refuse to exert herself on her Lesbian lyre.

And if you enter me among all the lyric poets,

my head too will be raised to touch the stars.