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.

* * * * *



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