Horace Poems

O Venus, the queen of Cnidos and Paphos,
spurn your beloved Cyprus, and summoned
by copious incense, come to the lovely shrine
of my Glycera.
...

You run away from me as a fawn does, Chloë,
searching the trackless hills for its frightened mother,
not without aimless terror
of the pathless winds, and the woods.
...

While Paris, the traitorous shepherd, her guest,
bore Helen over the waves, in a ship from Troy,
Nereus, the sea-god, checked the swift breeze
with an unwelcome calm, to tell
...

Now’s the time for drinking deep, and now’s the time
to beat the earth with unfettered feet, the time
to set out the gods’ sacred couches,
my friends, and prepare a Salian feast.
...

Swift Faunus, the god, will quite often exchange
Arcady for my sweet Mount Lucretilis,
and while he stays he protects my goats
from the midday heat and the driving rain.
...

O tender virgins sing, in praise of Diana,
and, you boys, sing in praise, of long-haired Apollo,
and of Latona, deeply
loved by all-conquering Jove.
...

Come and drink with me, rough Sabine in cheap cups,
yet wine that I sealed myself, and laid up
in a Grecian jar, when you dear Maecenas,
flower of knighthood,
...

Cultivate no plant, my Varus, before the rows of sacred vines,
set in Tibur’s gentle soil, and by the walls Catilus founded:
because the god decreed all things are hard for those who never drink,
and he gave us no better way to lessen our anxieties.
...

When you, Lydia, start to praise
Telephus’ rosy neck, Telephus’ waxen arms,
alas, my burning passion starts
to mount deep inside me, with troubling anger.
...

Lydia, by all the gods,
say why you’re set on ruining poor Sybaris, with passion:
why he suddenly can’t stand
the sunny Campus, he, once tolerant of the dust and sun:
...