Bki:Xxxiv Fortune’s Changes Poem by Horace

Once I wandered, an expert in crazy wisdom,
a scant and infrequent adorer of gods,
now I’m forced to set sail and return,
to go back to the paths I abandoned.

For Jupiter, Father of all of the gods,
who generally splits the clouds with his lightning,
flashing away, drove thundering horses,
and his swift chariot, through the clear sky,

till the dull earth, and the wandering rivers,
and Styx, and dread Taenarus’ hateful headland,
and Atlas’s mountain-summits shook.
The god has the power to replace the highest

with the lowest, bring down the famous, and raise
the obscure to the heights. And greedy Fortune
with her shrill whirring, carries away
the crown and delights in setting it, there.