s, makes her departure under
an unlucky omen. Be mindful, O south wind, that you buffet it about with
horrible billows. May the gloomy east, turning up the sea, disperse its
cables and broken oars. Let the north arise as mighty as when be rives
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
complaints, lamenting to you, "Has the fairest genius of a poor man no
weight against wealthy lucre? Wherefore, if a generous indignation boil
in my breast, insomuch as to disperse to the winds these disagreeable
applications, that give no ease to the desperate wound; the shame [of
being overcome] ending, shall cease to contest with rivals of such a
sort." When I, with great gravity, had applauded these resolutions in
your presence, being ordered to go home, I was carried with a wandering
foot to posts, alas! to me not friendly, and alas! obdurate gates,
against which I bruised my loins and side. Now my affections for the
delicate Lyciscus engross all my time; from them neither the unreserved
admonitions, nor the serious reprehensions of