of Democritus, while his active soul is abroad [traveling] without his body?  When you, amid such great impurity and infection of profit, have no taste for any thing trivial, but still mind [only] sublime things:  what causes restrain the sea, what rules the year, whether the stars spontaneously or by direction wander about and are erratic, what throws obscurity on the moon, and what brings out her orb, what is the intention and power of the jarring harmony of things, whether Empedocles or the clever Stertinius be in the wrong.

However, whether you murder fishes, or onions and garlic, receive Pompeius Grosphus; and, if he asks any favor, grant it him frankly:  Grosphus will desire nothing but what is right and just.  The proceeds of friendship are cheap, when good men want any thing.

But that you may not be ignorant in what situation the Roman affairs are; the Cantabrians have fallen by the valor of Agrippa, the Armenians by that of Claudius Nero:  Phraates has, suppliant on his knees, admitted the laws and power of Caesar.  Golden plenty has poured out the fruits of Italy from a full horn.

* * * * *

EPISTLE XIII.

TO VINNIUS ASINA.

Horace cautions him to present his poems to Augustus at a proper opportunity, and with due decorum.

As on your setting out I frequently and fully gave you instructions, Vinnius, that you would present these volumes to Augustus sealed up if he shall be in health, if in spirits, finally, if he shall ask for them:  do not offend out of zeal to me, and industriously bring an odium upon my books [by being] an agent of violent officiousness.  If haply the heavy load of my paper should gall you, cast it from you, rather than throw down your pack in a rough manner where you are directed to carry it, and turn your paternal name of Asina into a jest, and make yourself a common story.  Make use of your vigor over the hills, the rivers, and the fens.  As soon as you have achieved your enterprise, and arrived there, you must keep your burden in this position; lest you happen to carry my bundle of books under your arm, as a clown does a lamb, or as drunken Pyrrhia [in the play does] the balls of pilfered wool, or as a tribe-guest his slippers with his fuddling-cap.  You must not tell publicly, how you sweated with carrying those verses, which may detain the eyes and ears of Caesar.  Solicited with much entreaty, do your best.  Finally, get you gone, farewell:  take care you do not stumble, and break my orders.

* * * * *

EPISTLE XIV.

TO HIS STEWARD.

He upbraids his levity for contemning a country life, which had been his choice, and being eager to return to Rome.

Steward of my woodlands and little farm that restores me to myself, which you despise, [though formerly] inhabited by five families, and wont to send five good senators to Varia:  let us try, whether I with more fortitude pluck the thorns out of my mind, or you out of my ground:  and whether Horace or his estate be in a better condition.