Showers do not perpetually pour down upon the rough fields, nor do varying hurricanes forever harass the Caspian Sea; nor, my friend Valgius, does the motionless ice remain fixed throughout all the months, in the regions of Armenia; nor do the Garganian oaks [always] labor under the northerly winds, nor are the ash-trees widowed of their leaves.  But thou art continually pursuing Mystes, who is taken from thee, with mournful measures:  nor do the effects of thy love for him cease at the rising of Vesper, or when he flies the rapid approach of the sun.  But the aged man who lived three generations, did not lament the amiable Antilochus all the years of his life:  nor did his parents or his Trojan sisters perpetually bewail the blooming Troilus.  At length then desist from thy tender complaints; and rather let us sing the fresh trophies of Augustus Caesar, and the Frozen Niphates, and the river Medus, added to the vanquished nations, rolls more humble tides, and the Gelonians riding within a prescribed boundary in a narrow tract of land.

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ODE X.

To Licinius Murena.

O Licinius, you will lead a more correct course of life, by neither always pursuing the main ocean, nor, while you cautiously are in dread of storms, by pressing too much upon the hazardous shore.  Whosoever loves the golden mean, is secure from the sordidness of an antiquated cell, and is too prudent to have a palace that might expose him to envy, if the lofty pine is more frequently agitated with winds, and high towers fall down with a heavier ruin, and lightnings strike the summits of the mountains.  A well-provided breast hopes in adversity, and fears in prosperity.  ’Tis the same Jupiter, that brings the hideous winters back, and that takes them away.  If it is ill with us now, it will not be so hereafter.  Apollo sometimes rouses the silent lyric muse, neither does he always bend his bow.  In narrow circumstances appear in high spirits, and undaunted.  In the same manner you will prudently contract your sails, which are apt to be too much swollen in a prosperous gale.

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ODE XI.

To Quintius Hirpinus.

O Quintius Hirpinus, forbear to be inquisitive what the Cantabrian, and the Scythian, divided from us by the interposed Adriatic, is meditating; neither be fearfully solicitous for the necessaries of a life, which requires but a few things.  Youth and beauty fly swift away, while sapless old age expels the wanton loves and gentle sleep.  The same glory does not always remain to the vernal flowers, nor does the ruddy moon shine with one continued aspect; why, therefore, do you fatigue you mind, unequal to eternal projects?  Why do we not rather (while it is in our power) thus carelessly reclining under a lofty plane-tree, or this