errors, and the operations of the
war, and the game that fortune played, and the pernicious confederacy of
the chiefs, and arms stained with blood not yet expiated--a work full of
danger and hazard: and you are treading upon fires, hidden under
deceitful ashes: let therefore the muse that presides over severe
tragedy, be for a while absent from the theaters; shortly, when thou
hast completed the narrative of the public affairs, you shall resume
your great work in the tragic style of Athens, O Pollio, thou excellent
succor to sorrowing defendants and a consulting senate; [Pollio,] to
whom the laurel produced immortal honors in the Dalmatian triumph. Even
now you stun our ears with the threatening murmur of horns: now the
clarions sound; now the glitter of arms affrights the flying steeds, and
dazzles the sight of the riders. Now I seem to hear of great commanders
besmeared with, glorious dust, and the whole earth subdued, except the
stubborn soul of Cato. Juno, and every other god propitious to the
Africans, impotently went off, leaving that land unrevenged; but soon
offered the descendants of the conquerors, as sacrifices to the manes of
Jugurtha. What plain, enriched by Latin blood, bears not record, by its
numerous sepulchres, of our impious battles, and of the sound of the
downfall of Italy, heard even by the Medes? What pool, what rivers, are
unconscious of our deplorable war? What sea have not the Daunian
slaughters discolored? What shore is unstained by our blood? Do not,
however, rash muse, neglecting your jocose strains, resume the task of
Caean plaintive song, but rather with me seek measures of a lighter
style beneath some love-sequestered grotto.

* * * * *

ODE II.

TO CRISPUS SALLUSTIUS.

O Crispus Sallustius, thou foe to bullion, unless it derives splendor
from a moderate enjoyment, there is no luster in money concealed in the
niggard earth. Proculeius shall live an extended age, conspicuous for
fatherly affection to brothers; surviving fame shall bear him on an
untiring wing. You may possess a more extensive dominion by controlling
a craving disposition, than if you could unite Libya to the distant
Gades, and the natives of both the Carthages were subject to you alone.
The direful dropsy increases by self-indulgence, nor extinguishes its
thirst, unless the cause of the disorder has departed from the veins,
and the watery languor from the pallid body. Virtue, diffe