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ODE XXIII.

To Chloe.

You shun me, Chloe, like a fawn that is seeking its timorous mother in the pathless mountains, not without a vain dread of the breezes and the thickets:  for she trembles both in her heart and knees, whether the arrival of the spring has terrified by its rustling leaves, or the green lizards have stirred the bush.  But I do not follow you, like a savage tigress, or a Gaetulian lion, to tear you to pieces.  Therefore, quit your mother, now that you are mature for a husband.

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ODE XXIV.

To Virgil.

What shame or bound can there be to our affectionate regret for so dear a person?  O Melpomene, on whom your father has bestowed a clear voice and the harp, teach me the mournful strains.  Does then perpetual sleep oppress Quinctilius?  To whom when will modesty, and uncorrupt faith the sister of Justice, and undisguised truth, find any equal?  He died lamented by many good men, but more lamented by none than by you, my Virgil.  You, though pious, alas! in vain demand Quinctilius back from the gods, who did not lend him to us on such terms.  What, though you could strike the lyre, listened to by the trees, with more sweetness than the Thracian Orpheus; yet the blood can never return to the empty shade, which Mercury, inexorable to reverse the fates, has with his dreadful Caduceus once driven to the gloomy throng.  This is hard:  but what it is out of our power to amend, becomes more supportable by patience.

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ODE XXV.

To Lydia.

The wanton youths less violently shake thy fastened windows with their redoubled knocks, nor do they rob you of your rest; and your door, which formerly moved its yielding hinges freely, now sticks lovingly to its threshold.  Less and less often do you now hear:  “My Lydia, dost thou sleep the live-long night, while I your lover am dying?” Now you are an old woman, it will be your turn to bewail the insolence of rakes, when you are neglected in a lonely alley, while the Thracian wind rages at the Interlunium:  when that hot desire and lust, which is wont to render furious the dams of horses, shall rage about your ulcerous liver:  not without complaint, that sprightly youth rejoice rather in the verdant ivy and growing myrtle, and dedicate sapless leaves to Eurus, the companion of winter.

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ODE XXVI.

To Aelius Lamia.

A friend to the Muses, I will deliver up grief and fears to the wanton winds, to waft into the Cretan Sea; singularly careless, what king of a frozen region is dreaded under the pole, or what terrifies Tiridates.  O sweet muse, who art delighted with pure fountains, weave together the sunny flowers, weave a chaplet for my Lamia.  Without thee, my praises profit nothing.  To render him immortal by new strains, to render him immortal by the Lesbian lyre, becomes both thee and thy sisters.