The Society for Ancient Languages
Week Five
HORACE'S ODES |
BOOK III, ODE 5 |
| Caelo tonantem credidimus Iovem regnare: praesens divus habebitur Augustus adiectis Britannis imperio gravibusque Persis. |
We have always believed that Jupiter the Thunderer reigns in heaven: Augustus will be held a god present to help us on earth when the Britons and the dangerous Persians have been included in the empire. |
| Milesne Crassi coniuge barbara turpis maritus vixit et hostium -- pro curia inversique mores! -- consenuit socerorum in armis, |
Has the soldier of Crassus lived on, a husband disgraced by a barbarian wife, and -- alas, the change in government and character! -- has he grown old in the service of his fathers-in-law, a Marsian or Apulian under a Persian king, forgetful of the shields and the name and the toga and eternal Vesta, while Jupiter stands safe and the city of Rome? |
| sub rege Medo Marsus et Apulus, anciliorum et nominis et togae oblitus aeternaeque Vestae, incolumi Iove et urbe Roma? |
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| Hoc caverat mens provide Reguli dissentientis condicionibus foedis et exemplo trahenti perniciem veniens in aevum, |
This the prophetic mind of Regulus had foreseen when he advised against the disgraceful terms and a precedent that, were the young men in captivity not left to die without pity, promised destruction for future ages: "I have seen the standards of our legions nailed up in Cathaginian temples and weapons taken from our soldiers without bloodshed", he said; "I have seen the arms of freeborn Roman citizens tied behind their backs and city-gates open and fields that our army had devastated being cultivated again. Ransomed with money, I suppose the soldier will return all the keener for battle! You simply compound disgrace with financial loss. Stained with dye, wool fives no sign of its lost color; and real courage, once it has been lost, refuses to be replaced in the degenerate. Only if the deer fights are it has been released from dense nets will he be brace who has given himself to a perfidious enemy and only then will he crush the Carthaginians in a further war who has felt the thongs tightened on his pinioned wrists and, fearing death, has yet done nothing about it. Such a man, not realizing how to win his life, has just confused peace with war. O honor lost! O great Carthage, greater still by the shameful fall of Italy!" |
| si non periret immiserabilis captiva pubes: "Signa ego Punicis adfixa delubris et arma militibus sine caede" dixit |
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| "derepta vidi; vidi ego civium retorta tergo bracchia libero portasque non clausas et arva Marte coli populata nostro. |
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| Auro repensus scilicet acrior miles redibit. Flagitio additis damnum: neque amissos colores lana refert medicata fuco, |
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| nec vera virtus, cum semel excidit, curat reponi deterioribus. Si pugnat extricata densis cerva plagis, erit ille fortis |
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| qui perfidis se credidit hostibus, et Marte Poenos proteret altero, qui lora restrictis lacertis sensit iners timuitque mortem. |
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| Hic, unde vitam sumeret inscius, pacem duello miscuit. O pudor! O magna Carthago, probrosis altior Italiae ruinis!" |
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| Fertur pudicae coniugis osculum parvosque natos ut capitis minor ab se removisse et virilem torvus humi posuisse vultum, |
They say that he refused the kiss of his chaste wife and his little sons as one who had forfeited his citizenship, and that he set his brave gaze stubbornly on the ground, until he could steady the wavering senators with such advice as was never given before or since, and could then hurry away from among his weeping friends, a distinguished exile. And yet he knew what the barbarous torturer had waiting for him: but he moved aside the relatives who stood in his path and the people who would delay his return, just as if a client's lengthy case were finished and the verdict given and he were setting off for the country round Venafrum or for Lacedaemonian Tarentum. |
| donec labantis consilio patres firmaret auctor numquam alias dato, interque maerentis amicos egregius properaret exsul. |
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| Atqui sciebat quae sibi barbarus tortor pararet; non aliter tamen dimovit obstantis propinquos et populum reditus morantem |
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| quam si clientum longa negotia diiudicata lite relinqueret, tendens Venafranos in agros aut Lacedaemonium Tarentum. |