The Society for Ancient Languages
Week Two
HORACE'S ODES |
BOOK III, ODE 2 |
| Angustam amice pauperiem pati robustus acri militia puer condiscat et Parthos feroces vexet eques metuendus hasta |
Let the sturdy boy learn through hard military service to suffer pinching poverty as a friend and let him harass the ferocious Parthians, a horseman to be feared for his spear, and let him spend his life under the open sky and in dangerous circumstances. Let the wife of the warring tyrant, looking at him from enemy walls, and (with her) let her grown-up daughter sigh --ah!-- lest her royal betrothed, inexperienced in battle, should provoke that lion dangerous to touch whom bloodthirsty rage drives through the middle of the carnage. |
| vitamque sub divo et trepidis agat in rebus. Illum ex moenibus hosticis matrona bellantis tyranni prospiciens et adulta virgo |
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| suspiret, eheu, ne rudis agminum sponsus lacessat regius asperum tactu leonem, quem cruenta per medias rapit ira caedis. |
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| Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: mors et fugacem persequitur virum, nec parcit imbellis iuventae poplitibus timidove tergo. |
Desirable and glorious is a death for one's country: death follows even after the man who runs away and does not spare the knees and timid back of a spiritless youth. |
| Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae intaminatis fulget honoribus, nec sumit aut ponit securis arbitrio popularis aurae; |
Virtue, knowing no disgrace in defeat at the polls, shines with untarnishable honors and does not take up or put down the axes (of office) at the whim of popular favor; virtue that opens up heaven to those undeserving to die explores a route along a path (usually) denied, and disdains the vulgar mobs and the damp earth with escaping wing. |
| Virtus, recludens immeritis mori caelum, negata temptat iter via, coetusque vulgaris et udam spernit humum fugiente penna. |
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| Est et fideli tuta silentio merces: vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum vulgarit arcanae, sub isdem sit trabibus fragilemque mecum |
There is also a sure reward for reliable silence: I shall not allow the man who has published the rite of secret Ceres to be under the same roof-beams or to cast loose a frail boat in my company; often the Sky-Father, when ignored, has coupled an innocent with a guilty man; seldom has Vengeance abandoned a wicked man through lameness of foot though he has got a start on her. |
| solvat phaselon; saepe Diespiter neglectus incesto addidit integrum; raro antecedentem scelestum deseruit pede Poena claudo. |