Capitol remain in splendor, and may brave Rome be able to give laws to
the conquered Medes. Tremendous let her extend her name abroad to the
extremest boundaries of the earth, where the middle ocean separates
Europe from Africa, where the swollen Nile waters the plains; more brave
in despising gold as yet undiscovered, and so best situated while hidden
in the earth, than in forcing it out for the uses of mankind, with a
hand ready to make depredations on everything that is sacred. Whatever
end of the world has made resistance, that let her reach with her arms,
joyfully alert to visit, even that part where fiery heats rage madding;
that where clouds and rains storm with unmoderated fury. But I pronounce
this fate to the warlike Romans, upon this condition; that neither
through an excess of piety, nor of confidence in their power, they
become inclined to rebuild the houses of their ancestors' Troy. The
fortune of Troy, reviving under unlucky auspices, shall be repeated with
lamentable destruction, I, the wife and sister of Jupiter, leading on
the victorious bands. Thrice, if a brazen wall should arise by means of
its founder Phoebus, thrice should it fall, demolished by my Grecians;
thrice should the captive wife bewail her husband and her children."
These themes ill suit the merry lyre. Whither, muse, are you
going?--Cease, impertinent, to relate the language of the gods, and to
debase great things by your trifling measures.

* * * * *

ODE IV.

TO CALLIOPE.

Descend from heaven, queen Calliope, and come sing with your pipe a
lengthened strain; or, if you had now rather, with your clear voice, or
on the harp or lute of Phoebus. Do ye hear? or does a pleasing frenzy
delude me? I seem to hear [her], and to wander [with her] along the
hallowed groves, through which pleasant rivulets and gales make their
way. Me, when a child, and fatigued with play, in sleep the woodland
doves, famous in story, covered with green leaves in the Apulian Vultur,
just without the limits of my native Apulia; so that it was matter of
wonder to all that inhabit the nest of lofty Acherontia, the Bantine
Forests, and the rich soil of low Ferentum, how I could sleep with my
body safe from deadly vipers and ravenous bears; how I could be covered
with sacred laurel and myrtle heaped together, though a child, not
animated without the [inspiration of the] gods. Yours, O ye muses, I am
yours, whether I am elevated