--
A_sk her when Gyges' ship comes back_.

S_o with the rest. Who will may trace_
B_ehind the new each elder face_
D_efined as clearly_;
S_cience proceeds, and man stands still_;
O_ur "world" today's as good or ill_,--
A_s cultured_ (_nearly_),
A_s yours was, Horace! You alone_,
U_nmatched, unmet, we have not known_.

But it is not only to comparatively independent creation that we must
look. The dynamic power of Horace is to be found at work even in the
translation of the poet. The fact that he has had more translators than
any other poet, ancient or modern, is itself an evidence of
inspirational quality, but a greater proof lies in the variety and
character of his translators and the quality of their achievement. A
list of those who have felt in this way the stirrings of the Horatian
spirit would include the names not only of many great men of letters,
but of many great men of affairs, whose successes are to be counted
among examples of genuine inspiration. Translation at its best is not
mere craftsmanship, but creation,--in Roscommon's lines,

'T_is true, composing is the Nobler Part_,
B_ut good Translation is no easy Art_.

Theodore Martin's rendering of I. 21, _To a Jar of Wine_, already quoted
in part, is an example. Another brilliant success is Sir Stephen E. De
Vere's I. 31, _Prayer to Apollo_, quoted in connection with the poet's
religious attitude. No less felicitous are Conington's spirited twelve
lines, reproducing III. 26, _Vixi puellis_:

VIXI PUELLIS NUPER IDONEUS

F_or ladies' love I late was fit_,
A_nd good success my warfare blest_;
B_ut now my arms, my lyre I quit_,
A_nd hang them up to rust or rest_.
H_ere, where arising from the sea_
S_tands Venus, lay the load at last_,
L_inks, crowbars, and artillery_,
T_hreatening all doors that dared be fast_.
O_ Goddess! Cyprus owns thy sway_,
A_nd Memphis, far from Thracian snow_:
R_aise high thy lash, and deal me, pray_,
T_hat haughty Chloe just one blow!_

To translate in this manner is beyond all doubt to deserve the name of
poet.

We may go still farther and claim for Horace that he has been a dynamic
power in the art of translation, not only as it concerned his own poems,
but in its concern of translation as a universal art. No other poet
presents such difficulties; no other poet has left behind him so long a
train of disappointed aspirants. "Horace remains forever the t