The vessel that carries the loathsome Maevius, makes her departure under an unlucky omen.  Be mindful, O south wind, that you buffet it about with horrible billows.  May the gloomy east, turning up the sea, disperse its cables and broken oars.  Let the north arise as mighty as when be rives the quivering oaks on the lofty mountains; nor let a friendly star appear through the murky night, in which the baleful Orion sets:  nor let him be conveyed in a calmer sea, than was the Grecian band of conquerors, when Pallas turned her rage from burned Troy to the ship of impious Ajax.  Oh what a sweat is coming upon your sailors, and what a sallow paleness upon you, and that effeminate wailing, and those prayers to unregarding Jupiter; when the Ionian bay, roaring with the tempestuous south-west, shall break your keel.  But if, extended along the winding shore, you shall delight the cormorants as a dainty prey, a lascivious he-goat and an ewe-lamb shall be sacrificed to the Tempests.

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ODE XI.

To Pectius.

It by no means, O Pectius, delights me as heretofore to write Lyric verses, being smitten with cruel love:  with love, who takes pleasure to inflame me beyond others, either youths or maidens.  This is the third December that has shaken the [leafy] honors from the woods, since I ceased to be mad for Inachia.  Ah me! (for I am ashamed of so great a misfortune) what a subject of talk was I throughout the city!  I repent too of the entertainments, at which both a languishing and silence and sighs, heaved from the bottom of my breast, discovered the lover.  As soon as the indelicate god [Bacchus] by the glowing wine had removed, as I grew warm, the secrets of [my heart] from their repository, I made my complaints, lamenting to you, “Has the fairest genius of a poor man no weight against wealthy lucre?  Wherefore, if a generous indignation boil in my breast, insomuch as to disperse to the winds these disagreeable applications, that give no ease to the desperate wound; the shame [of being overcome] ending, shall cease to contest with rivals of such a sort.”  When I, with great gravity, had applauded these resolutions in your presence, being ordered to go home, I was carried with a wandering foot to posts, alas! to me not friendly, and alas! obdurate gates, against which I bruised my loins and side.  Now my affections for the delicate Lyciscus engross all my time; from them neither the unreserved admonitions, nor the serious reprehensions of other friends can recall me [to my former taste for poetry]; but, perhaps, either a new flame for some fair damsel, or for some graceful youth who binds his long hair in a knot, [may do so].

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ODE XII.

To A woman whose charms were over.