| ODES - II.3 | WHEN LIFE IS HARD ... |
| Horace (Q. Horatius Flaccus) | trans. J. Howard Deazeley |
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Aequam memento rebus in arduis seruare mentem, non secus in bonis ab insolentia temperatam laetitia, moriture Delli, seu maestus omni tempore uixeris, seu te in remoto gramine per dies festos reclinatum bearis interiore nota Falerni. Quo pinus ingens albaque populus umbram hospitalem consociare amant ramis? Quid obliquo laborat lympha fugax trepidare riuo? Huc uina et unguenta et nimium breuis flores amoenae ferre iube rosae, dum res et aetas et sororum fila trium patiuntur atra. Cedes coemptis saltibus et domo uillaque flauus quam Tiberis lauit, cedes et exstructis in altum diuitiis potietur heres. Diuesne prisco natus ab Inacho nil interest an pauper et infima de gente sub diuo moreris, uictima nil miserantis Orci. Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium uersata urna serius ocius sors exitura et nos in aeternum exsilium impositura cumbae. |
When life is hard, your soul possess In calm serene; when times are fair, Refrain from triumph's haughty air, For, Dellius, death will come no less If length of days be wholly spanned With grief, or if as glad hours laugh You lie in quiet meads and quaff Falernum's wine of choicest brand; Where lofty pines and poplars white Their boughs in friendly shade entwine Together, and with winding line The brooklet babbles in its flight. Here call for wine and nard and bloom Of roses fading all too fast, While youth remains and fortunes last And Fate still spares the thread of doom. The lawns you buy you must forsake, That home by tawny Tiber's wave; The growing stores for which you slave In heirship will another take. What boots your wealth or long descent From Inachus? As well to lie A lowly beggar 'neath the sky For any ruth in Death's intent. One bourn constrains us all; for all The lots are shaken in the urn, Whence, soon or late, will fall our turn Of exile's barge without recall. |
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