Translated by Edward Marsh, 1941:

You shun me, Chloe, like a fawn
That on the wild untrodden screes
Seeks her shy mother, startled if a breeze
Rustles among the trees;
For if the first faint shivering dawn
Of earliest spring
Sets the young leaves a-whispering,
Or the green lizards shake
A bramble in the brake,
She stands with knocking heart and trembling kees.

Yet no fierce tiger I, dear child,
No lion from the Libyan wild
In hot pursuit to seize
And crunch you — quit at last your mother’s side!
‘Tis time you were a bride.

Translated by J. S. Blake-Reed, 1944:

Even as the frightened fawn that flees
With fluttering heart and trembling knees,
O’er pathless hills and in the trees
The breeze doth hear, —

Seeking her anxious dam, doth quake
When winds of spring the branches shake
Or darting lizards stir the brake
And checks in fear; —

So, Chloe, you my footsteps fly;
But leave your mother; be not shy;
No ravening beast of prey am I
To eat you, dear.

“…the man of the Renaissance who made him most truly a friend, perhaps the most Horatian of all the literary figures that we know, was Montaigne. He quotes him, perhaps, no more than he quotes other great Classical writers, but it was from Horace that he received the stimulus to write about himself, and blessed like him with a country estate and a love of good literature, he achieved the same calm, sane, detached outlook on life, and the self-knowledge that can be derived from the observation of others.” (L. P. Wilkinson, 1945, Horace and His Lyric Poetry)

(“Rudely Imitated” by Abraham Cowley, 1656)

I

Hence, ye Profane; I hate ye all;
Both the Great Vulgar, and the small.
To Virgin Minds, which yet their Native whiteness hold,
Not yet Discolour’d with the Love of Gold
(That Jaundice of the Soul,
Which makes it look so Gilded and so Foul),
To you, ye very Few, these truths I tell;
The Muse inspires my Song, Hark, and observe it well.

II

We look on Men, and wonder at such odds
‘Twixt things that were the same by Birth;
We look on Kings as Giants of the Earth,
These Giants are but Pigmeys to the Gods.
The humblest Bush and proudest Oak
Are but of equal proof against the Thunder-stroke.
Beauty and Strength, and Wit, and Wealth, and Power
Have their short flourishing hour,
And love to see themselves, and smile,
And joy in their Preeminence a while;
Even so in the same Land,
Poor Weeds, rich Corn, gay Flowers together stand;
Alas, Death Mowes down all with an impartial Hand.

III

And all you Men, whom Greatness does so please,
Ye feast, I fear, like Damocles.
If you your eyes could upwards move,
(But you, I fear, think nothing is above)
You would perceive by what a little thread
The Sword still hangs over your head.
No Tide of Wine would drown your cares,
No Mirth or Musick over-noise your fears;
The fear of Death would you so watchful keep,
As not t’ admit the Image of it, sleep.

IV

Sleep is a God too proud to wait in Palaces;
And yet so humble, too, as not to scorn
The meanest Country Cottages;
His Poppey grows among the Corn.
The Halcyon sleep will never build his nest
In any stormy breast.
’Tis not enough that he does find
Clouds and Darkness in their mind;
Darkness but half his work will do,
’Tis not enough; he must find Quiet too.

V

The man who, in all wishes he does make,
Does only Nature’s Counsel take,
That wise and happy man will never fear
The evil Aspects of the Year,
Nor tremble, though two Comets should appear.
He does not look in Almanacks to see,
Whether he Fortunate shall be;
Let Mars and Saturn in th’ Heavens conjoin,
And what they please against the World design,
So Jupiter within him shine.

VI

If of their pleasures and desires no end be found;
God to their Cares and Fears will set no bound.
What would content you? Who can tell?
Ye fear so much to lose what you have got
As if ye lik’d it well.
Ye strive for more, as if ye lik’d it not.
Go, level Hills, and fill up Seas,
Spare nought that may your wanton Fancy please;
But trust Me, when you ‘have done all this,
Much will be Missing still, and much will be Amiss.

(Translated by Edward Marsh, 1941)

Think not these words of mine shall die,
That born by Aufidus’ far-echo’d stream
In unaccustomed modes of art I frame
For chords with meet response to accompany.

Though first Maeonian Homer shine
In fame, not therefore dimmed is Pindar’s fire,
Nor unesteemed the Cean’s mighty line,
Alcaeus’ clarion or Stesichorus’ lyre.

Still as of old Anacreon sings
His playful melodies no years can stale,
Still breathes and burns to-day the amorous tale
That Sappho whispered to the Aeolian strings.

Long before Helen, many a queen
Had broke her vows for an adulterer
Because he dazed her with his curling hair,
His princely train, his mantle’s golden sheen.

Many another Teucer sped
Cydonian arrows, and an older Troy
Was leaguered, and in fiery battle joy
Many an Idomeneus and Diomed

Deserved the Muses’ benisons;
Not Hector only nor Deiphobus
Gave blow for blow in combat perilous
Adventuring for wife or little ones.

Unmatched is Agamemnon’s fame,
Not so his might; but in the dark of years
Unwept and unremembered lie his peers,
Because no heaven-graced poet sang their name,

Virtue that shines not before men
Is little better than ignoble ease.
Ah, Lollius! I would not have my pen
Leave you unpraised, nor blank Oblivion seize

On your high exploits. You possess
A mind that in a true and steady light
Views men and things, and in the varied stress
Of good or doubtful fortune judges right;

A mind which scourges knave and fool,
Which keeps no traffic with the wealth that moulds
All things to its greedy will, a mind whose rule
Is no brief twelve-month consulship, but holds

Whene’er an honest magistrate
Prefers the just to the expedient way,
Scorns the rich caitiff’s bribe, and soon or late,
Routing the hosts of evil, wins the day.

Who is the happy man? not he
Who owns the earth; to him that name be given
Who knows to use aright the gifts of Heaven,
And bravely bear the stings of poverty;

Who dreads dishonour worse than death,
Confronts disaster with unflinching eye,
And when stern Duty calls upon his faith,
For friend or country has no fear to die.

Translated by Edward Marsh, 1941:

The man to his just purpose true
No ravening mob’s foul-passion’d hue and cry,
No tyrant’s frown, brow-beating, eye to eye,
Shall move, what his firm mind holds wrong, to do,

Nor yet Jove’s clenched bolt-hurling hand,
Nor Hadria by tumultuous Auster driven;
He, were the round world from its axle riven,
Calm ‘neath the ruining firmament would stand.

Translated by Hugh MacNaghten, 1926:

The righteous man who holds his purpose fast
None from the rock of his resolve shall cast,
Not mobs aflame for wrong, nor tyrant’s frown
Vindictive, nor the South, with stormy blast,

By restless Adriatic waves obeyed,
Nor hand almighty on the lightning laid,
Though on his head fall ruining the world,
Ruin will overwhelm him unafraid.

Translated by John Conington, 1863:

The man of firm and righteous will,
No rabble, clamorous for the wrong,
No tyrant’s brow, whose frown may kill,
Can shake the strength that makes him strong:
Not winds, that chafe sea they sway,
Nor Jove’s right band, with lightning red:
Should Nature’s pillar’d frame give way,
That wreck should strike one fearless head.

Translated by Lord Byron, 1806:

The man of firm, and noble soul,
No factious clamours can controul,
No threat’ning tyrant’s darkling brow,
Can swerve him from his just intent;
Gales the warring waves which plow,
By Auster on the billows spent,
To curb the Adriatic main,
Would awe his fix’d determined mind in vain.

Translated by Philip Francis, 1743:

The man, in conscious virtue bold,
Who dares his secret purpose hold,
Unshaken hears the crowd’s tumultuous cries,
And the impetuous tyrant’s angry brow defies.

Let the wild winds, that rule the seas;
Tempestuous, all their horrors raise;
Let Jove’s dread arm with thunders rend the spheres,
Beneath the crush of worlds undaunted he appears.