The Society for Ancient Languages
Week Six
HORACE'S ODES |
BOOK III, ODE 6 |
| Delicta maiorum immeritus lues, Romane, donec templa refeceris aedesque labentis deorum et foeda nigro simulacra fumo. |
You will expiate the sins of your ancestors, though you do not deserve to, citizen of Rome, until you have rebuilt the temples and the ruined shrines of the gods and the images fouled with black smoke. You hold sway because you keep yourself subject to the gods: from this should come every beginning, to this refer each end; neglected, the gods have brought many disasters on grieving Italy: twice already, Monaeses and the band of Pacorus have crushed attacks by us that had no divine auspices, and they grin with joy to have added spoils from us to their meagre ornaments; the Dacian and the Ehiopian almost destroyed our city, preoccupied with its seditions--the latter formidable with his fleet, the former more skilled with missile arrows. |
| Dis te minorem quod geris, imperas: hinc omne principium, huc refer exitum; di multa neglecti dederunt Hesperiae mala luctuosae. |
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| Iam bis Monaeses et Pacori manus inauspicatos contudit impetus nostros et adiecisse praedam torquibus exiguis renidet; |
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| paene occupatam seditionibus delevit urbem Dacus et Aethiops, hic classe formidatus, ille missilibus melior sagittis. |
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| Fecunda culpae saecula nuptias primum inquinavere et genus et domos; hoc fonte derivata clades in patriam populumque fluxit: |
Generations prolific in sin first polluted marriage and the family and home; ruin, channelled from this source, flowed out over country and people: the girl, come of age, delights to learn Ionic dances and is trained in the arts of entertainment and even now thinks upon illicit love with all her young heart; soon, at parties with her husband, she seeks younger adulterers and she not (trouble to) choose the man to whom she may give forbidden pleasures--neither hurriedly, nor with the candles removed; for, asked quite openly, she gets up, with her husband's full knowledge, whether the request comes from a travelling salesman or the master of a Spanish ship, an expensive purchaser of her disgrace. |
| motus doceri gaudet Ionicos matura virgo et fingitur artibus iam nunc et incestos amores de tenero meditatur ungui; |
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| mox iuniores quaerit adulteros inter mariti vina, neque eligit cui donet impermissa raptim gaudia luminibus remotis, |
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| sed iussa coram non sine conscio surgit marito, seu vocat institor seu navis Hispanae magister, dedecorum pretiosus emptor. |
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| Non his iuventus orta parentibus infecit aequor sanguine Punico, Pyrrhumque et ingentem cecidit Antiochum Hannibalemque dirum, |
Not from parents like this did the youth arise which stained the sea with the blood of Carthage and slew Pyrrhus and great Antiochus and terrible Hannibal, but a masculine race born of rustic warriors, skilled to turn the turves with Sabine spades and, at the bidding of an upright mother, to bring home cut wood when the sun was altering the shadows of the mountains and was taking the yokes from weary oxen, bringing with his flying chariot the friendly time of night. |
| sed rusticorum mascula militum proles, Sabellis docta ligonibus versare glaebas et severae matris ad arbitrium recisos |
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| portare fustis, sol ubi montium mutaret umbras et iuga demeret bobus fatigatis, amicum tempus agens abeunte curru. |
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| Damnosa quid non immimuit dies? Aetas parentum peior avis tulit nos nequiores, mox daturos progeniem vitiosiorem. |
What has destructive time not diminished? The age of our parents, worse than that of our grandparents, has produced us more wicked still, soon to give birth to a progeny yet more degenerate. |