extirpated crimes, and recalled the ancient arts; by which the Latin name and strength of Italy have increased, and the fame and majesty of the empire is extended from the sun’s western bed to the east.  While Caesar is guardian of affairs, neither civil rage nor violence shall disturb tranquillity; nor hatred which forges swords, and sets at variance unhappy states.  Not those, who drink of the deep Danube, shall now break the Julian edicts:  not the Getae, not the Seres, nor the perfidious Persians, nor those born upon the river Tanais.  And let us, both on common and festal days, amid the gifts of joyous Bacchus, together with our wives and families, having first duly invoked the gods, celebrate, after the manner of our ancestors, with songs accompanied with Lydian pipes, our late valiant commanders:  and Troy, and Anchises, and the offspring of benign Venus.

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THE BOOK OF THE EPODES OF HORACE.

ODE I.

To Maecenas.

Thou wilt go, my friend Maecenas, with Liburian galleys among the towering forts of ships, ready at thine own [hazard] to undergo any of Caesar’s dangers.  What shall I do?  To whom life may be agreeable, if you survive; but, if otherwise, burdensome.  Whether shall I, at your command, pursue my ease, which can not be pleasing unless in your company?  Or shall I endure this toil with such a courage, as becomes effeminate men to bear?  I will bear it? and with an intrepid soul follow you, either through the summits of the Alps, and the inhospitable Caucus, or to the furthest western bay.  You may ask how I, unwarlike and infirm, can assist your labors by mine?  While I am your companion, I shall be in less anxiety, which takes possession of the absent in a greater measure.  As the bird, that has unfledged young, is in a greater dread of serpents’ approaches, when they are left;—­not that, if she should be present when they came, she could render more help.  Not only this, but every other war, shall be cheerfully embraced by me for the hope of your favor; [and this,] not that my plows should labor, yoked to a greater number of mine own oxen; or that my cattle before the scorching dog-star should change the Calabrian for the Lucanian pastures:  neither that my white country-box should equal the Circaean walls of lofty Tusculum.  Your generosity has enriched me enough, and more than enough:  I shall never wish to amass, what either, like the miser Chremes, I may bury in the earth, or luxuriously squander, like a prodigal.

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ODE II.

The praises of A country life.