u not observe while you are stalking along the
sacred way with a robe twice three ells long, how the most open
indignation of those that pass and repass turns their looks on thee?
This fellow, [say they,] cut with the triumvir's whips, even till the
beadle was sick of his office, plows a thousand acres of Falernian land,
and wears out the Appian road with his nags; and, in despite of Otho,
sits in the first rows [of the circus] as a knight of distinction. To
what purpose is it, that so many brazen-beaked ships of immense bulk
should be led out against pirates and a band of slaves, while this
fellow, this is a military tribune?

* * * * *

ODE V.

THE WITCHES MANGLING A BOY.

But oh, by all the gods in heaven, who rule the earth and human race,
what means this tumult? And what the hideous looks of all these [hags,
fixed] upon me alone? I conjure thee by thy children (if invoked Lucina
was ever present at any real birth of thine), I [conjure] thee by this
empty honor of my purple, by Jupiter, who must disapprove these
proceedings, why dost thou look at me as a step-mother, or as a wild
beast stricken with a dart? While the boy made these complaints with a
faltering voice, he stood with his bandages of distinction taken from
him, a tender frame, such as might soften the impious breasts of the
cruel Thracians; Canidia, having interwoven her hair and uncombed head
with little vipers, orders wild fig-trees torn up from graves, orders
funeral cypresses and eggs besmeared with the gore of a loathsome toad,
and feathers of the nocturnal screech-owl, and those herbs, which
lolchos, and Spain, fruitful in poisons, transmits, and bones snatched
from the mouth of a hungry bitch, to be burned in Colchian flames. But
Sagana, tucked up for expedition, sprinkling the waters of Avernus all
over the house, bristles up with her rough hair like a sea-urchin, or a
boar in the chase. Veia, deterred by no remorse of conscience, groaning
with the toil, dug up the ground with the sharp spade; where the boy,
fixed in, might long be tormented to death at the sight of food varied
two or three times in a day: while he stood out with his face, just as
much at bodies suspended by the chin [in swimming] project from the
water, that his parched marrow and dried liver might be a charm for
love; when once the pupils of his eyes had wasted away, fixed on the
forbidden food. Both the idle Naples, and every neighborin