Lydia, I conjure thee by all the powers above, to tell me why you are so intent to ruin Sybaris by inspiring him with love?  Why hates he the sunny plain, though inured to bear the dust and heat?  Why does he neither, in military accouterments, appear mounted among his equals; nor manage the Gallic steed with bitted reins?  Why fears he to touch the yellow Tiber?  Why shuns he the oil of the ring more cautiously than viper’s blood?  Why neither does he, who has often acquired reputation by the quoit, often by the javelin having cleared the mark, any longer appear with arms all black-and-blue by martial exercises?  Why is he concealed, as they say the son of the sea-goddess Thetis was, just before the mournful funerals of Troy; lest a manly habit should hurry him to slaughter, and the Lycian troops?

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ODE IX.

To Thaliarchus.

You see how Soracte stands white with deep snow, nor can the laboring woods any longer support the weight, and the rivers stagnate with the sharpness of the frost.  Dissolve the cold, liberally piling up billets on the hearth; and bring out, O Thaliarchus, the more generous wine, four years old, from the Sabine jar.  Leave the rest to the gods, who having once laid the winds warring with the fervid ocean, neither the cypresses nor the aged ashes are moved.  Avoid inquiring what may happen tomorrow; and whatever day fortune shall bestow on you, score it up for gain; nor disdain, being a young fellow, pleasant loves, nor dances, as long as ill-natured hoariness keeps off from your blooming age.  Now let both the Campus Martius and the public walks, and soft whispers at the approach of evening be repeated at the appointed hour:  now, too, the delightful laugh, the betrayer of the lurking damsel from some secret corner, and the token ravished from her arms or fingers, pretendingly tenacious of it.

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ODE X.

To Mercury.

Mercury, eloquent grandson of Atlas, thou who artful didst from the savage manners of the early race of men by oratory, and the institution of the graceful Palaestra:  I will celebrate thee, messenger of Jupiter and the other gods, and parent of the curved lyre; ingenious to conceal whatever thou hast a mind to, in jocose theft.  While Apollo, with angry voice, threatened you, then but a boy, unless you would restore the oxen, previously driven away by your fraud, he laughed, [when he found himself] deprived of his quiver [also].  Moreover, the wealthy Priam too, on his departure from Ilium, under your guidance deceived the proud sons of Atreus, and the Thessalian watch-lights, and the camp inveterate agaist Troy.  You settle the souls of good men in blissful regions, and drive together the airy crowd with your golden rod, acceptable both to the supernal and infernal gods.