ODE XX.

TO MAECENAS.


I, a two-formed poet, will be conveyed through the liquid air with no
vulgar or humble wing; nor will I loiter upon earth any longer; and
superior to envy, I will quit cities. Not I, even I, the blood of low
parents, my dear Maecenas, shall die; nor shall I be restrained by the
Stygian wave. At this instant a rough skin settles upon my ankles, and
all upwards I am transformed into a white bird, and the downy plumage
arises over my fingers and shoulders. Now, a melodious bird, more
expeditious than the Daepalean Icarus, I will visit the shores of the
murmuring Bosphorus, and the Gzetulean Syrtes, and the Hyperborean
plains. Me the Colchian and the Dacian, who hides his fear of the
Marsian cohort, land the remotest Gelonians, shall know: me the learned
Spaniard shall study, and he that drinks of the Rhone. Let there be no
dirges, nor unmanly lamentations, nor bewailings at my imaginary
funeral; suppress your crying, and forbear the superfluous honors of a
sepulcher.

* * * * *




THE THIRD BOOK OF THE ODES OF HORACE.