the houses of the powerful.  But the faithless crowd [of companions], and the perjured harlot draw back.  Friends, too faithless to bear equally the yoke of adversity, when casks are exhausted, very dregs and all, fly off.  Preserve thou Caesar, who is meditating an expedition against the Britons, the furthest people in the world, and also the new levy of youths to be dreaded by the Eastern regions, and the Red Sea.  Alas!  I am ashamed of our scars, and our wickedness, and of brethren.  What have we, a hardened age, avoided?  What have we in our impiety left unviolated!  From what have our youth restrained their hands, out of reverence to the gods?  What altars have they spared?  O mayest thou forge anew our blunted swords on a different anvil against the Massagetae and Arabians.

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ODE XXXVI.

This is a joyful occasion to sacrifice both with incense and music of the lyre, and the votive blood of a heifer to the gods, the guardians of Numida; who, now returning in safety from the extremest part of Spain, imparts many embraces to his beloved companions, but to none more than his dear Lamia, mindful of his childhood spent under one and the same governor, and of the gown, which they changed at the same time.  Let not this joyful day be without a Cretan mark of distinction; let us not spare the jar brought forth [from the cellar]; nor, Salian-like, let there be any cessation of feet; nor let the toping Damalis conquer Bassus in the Thracian Amystis; nor let there be roses wanting to the banquet, nor the ever-green parsley, nor the short-lived lily.  All the company will fix their dissolving eyes on Damalis; but she, more luxuriant than the wanton ivy, will not be separated from her new lover.

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ODE XXXVII.

To his companions.

Now, my companions, is the time to carouse, now to beat the ground with a light foot:  now is the time that was to deck the couch of the gods with Salian dainties.  Before this, it was impious to produce the old Caecuban stored up by your ancestors; while the queen, with a contaminated gang of creatures, noisome through distemper, was preparing giddy destruction for the Capitol and the subversion of the empire, being weak enough to hope for any thing, and intoxicated with her prospering fortune.  But scarcely a single ship preserved from the flames bated her fury; and Caesar brought down her mind, inflamed with Egyptian wine, to real fears, close pursuing her in her flight from Italy with his galleys (as the hawk pursues the tender doves, or the nimble hunter the hare in the plains of snowy Aemon), that he might throw into chains this destructive monster [of a woman]; who, seeking a more generous death, neither had an effeminate dread of the sword, nor repaired with her swift ship to hidden shores.  She was able also to look upon her palace, lying in ruins, with a countenance unmoved, and courageous enough to handle exasperated asps, that she might imbibe in her body the deadly poison, being more resolved by having pre-meditated her death:  for she was a woman of such greatness of soul, as to scorn to be carried off in haughty triumph, like a private person, by rough Liburnians.