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ODE XXVII.

To his companions.

To quarrel over your cups, which were made for joy, is downright Thracian.  Away with the barbarous custom, and protect modest Bacchus from bloody frays.  How immensely disagreeable to wine and candles is the sabre of the Medes!  O my companions, repress your wicked vociferations, and rest quietly on bended elbow.  Would you have me also take my share of stout Falernian?  Let the brother of Opuntian Megilla then declare, with what wound he is blessed, with what dart he is dying.—­What, do you refuse?  I will not drink upon any other condition.  Whatever kind of passion rules you, it scorches you with the flames you need not be ashamed of, and you always indulge in an honorable, an ingenuous love.  Come, whatever is your case, trust it to faithful ears.  Ah, unhappy! in what a Charybdis art thou struggling, O youth, worthy of a better flame!  What witch, what magician, with his Thessalian incantations, what deity can free you?  Pegasus himself will scarcely deliver you, so entangled, from this three-fold chimera.

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ODE XXVIII.

Archytas.

The [want of the] scanty present of a little sand near the Mantinian shore, confines thee, O Archytas, the surveyor of sea and earth, and of the innumerable sand:  neither is it of any advantage to you, to have explored the celestial regions, and to have traversed the round world in your imagination, since thou wast to die.  Thus also did the father of Pelops, the guest of the gods, die; and Tithonus likewise was translated to the skies, and Minos, though admitted to the secrets of Jupiter; and the Tartarean regions are possessed of the son of Panthous, once more sent down to the receptacle of the dead; notwithstanding, having retaken his shield from the temple, he gave evidence of the Trojan times, and that he had resigned to gloomy death nothing but his sinews and skin; in your opinion, no inconsiderable judge of truth and nature.  But the game night awaits all, and the road of death must once be travelled.  The Furies give up some to the sport of horrible Mars:  the greedy ocean is destructive to sailors:  the mingled funerals of young and old are crowded together:  not a single person does the cruel Proserpine pass by.  The south wind, the tempestuous attendant on the setting Orion, has sunk me also in the Illyrian waves.  But do not thou, O sailor, malignantly grudge to give a portion of loose sand to my bones and unburied head.  So, whatever the east wind shall threaten to the Italian sea, let the Venusinian woods suffer, while you are in safety; and manifold profit, from whatever port it may, come to you by favoring Jove, and Neptune, the defender of consecrated Tarentum.  But if you, by chance, make light of committing a crime, which will be hurtful to your innocent posterity, may just laws and haughty retribution await you.  I will not be deserted with fruitless prayers; and no expiations shall atone for you.  Though you are in haste, you need not tarry long:  after having thrice sprinkled the dust over me, you may proceed.