away. Hoary hair
mollifies minds that are fond of strife and petulant wrangling. I would
not have endured this treatment, warm with youth in the consulship of
Plancus.

* * * * *

ODE XV.

TO CHLORIS.

You wife of the indigent Ibycus, at length put an end to your
wickedness, and your infamous practices. Cease to sport among the
damsels, and to diffuse a cloud among bright constellations, now on the
verge of a timely death. If any thing will become Pholoe, it does not
you Chloris, likewise. Your daughter with more propriety attacks the
young men's apartments, like a Bacchanalian roused up by the rattling
timbrel. The love of Nothus makes her frisk about like a wanton
she-goat. The wool shorn near the famous Luceria becomes you now
antiquated: not musical instruments, or the damask flower of the rose,
or hogsheads drunk down to the lees.

* * * * *

ODE XVI.

TO MAECENAS.

A brazen tower, and doors of oak, and the melancholy watch of wakeful
dogs, had sufficiently defended the imprisoned Danae from midnight
gallants, had not Jupiter and Venus laughed at Acrisius, the anxious
keeper of the immured maiden: [for they well knew] that the way would be
safe and open, after the god had transformed himself into a bribe. Gold
delights to penetrate through the midst of guards, and to break through
stone-walls, more potent than the thunderbolt. The family of the Grecian
augur perished, immersed in destruction on account of lucre. The man of
Macedon cleft the gates of the cities and subverted rival monarchs by
bribery. Bribes enthrall fierce captains of ships. Care, and a thirst
for greater things, is the consequence of increasing wealth. Therefore,
Maecenas, thou glory of the [Roman] knights, I have justly dreaded to
raise the far-conspicuous head. As much more as any man shall deny
himself, so much more shall he receive from the gods. Naked as I am, I
seek the camps of those who covet nothing; and as a deserter, rejoice to
quit the side of the wealthy: a more illustrious possessor of a
contemptible fortune, than if I could be said to treasure up in my
granaries all that the industrious Apulian cultivates, poor amid
abundance of wealth. A rivulet of clear water, and a wood of a few
acres, and a certain prospect of my good crop, are blessings unknown to
him who glitters in the proconsulship of fertile Africa: I am more
happily circumstanced. Though