Odes 3.18

A prayer to Faunus

by Horace

Faunus, a God of woodlands and the countryside and the addressee of this lovely little ode in the form of a prayer, is a deity with whom Horace clearly felt special affinity: in Ode 2.28, he puts down his famous escape from being crushed by a falling tree to Faunus’s intervention. The dancing ditcher is a beautiful touch and the sketch of a village on holiday for Faunus’s feast-day is charming, though something has gone wrong with the date, as, in spite of some falling leaves, the sunny fields and newborn stock belong more to spring than December.

Metre: Sapphics.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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Faune, Nympharum fugientum amator,
per meos finis et aprica rura
lenis incedas abeasque parvis
aequus alumnis,

si tener pleno cadit haedus anno
larga nec desunt Veneris sodali
vina craterae, vetus ara multo
fumat odore.

ludit herboso pecus omne campo
cum tibi nonae redeunt Decembres,
festus in pratis vacat otioso
cum bove pagus,

inter audacis lupus errat agnos,
spargit agrestis tibi silva frondes,
gaudet invisam pepulisse fossor
ter pede terram.

Faunus, lover of the fleeing nymphs, may you pass gentle through my bounds and my sunny fields, and when you leave, may you go with kindness to the young of my flocks, if a tender kid is sacrificed to you as your year completes its course and there is wine in plenty for the mixing-bowl, Venus’s companion: the old altar smokes with much incense. The whole herd frolics in the grassy field as the fifth of December comes round for you again: the people of the village are taking their leisure in the meadows with the oxen idle: the wolf wanders among the daring lambs; the country woodland sheds leaves in your honour; the [dancing] ditcher loves stamping three times on his enemy the earth.

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More Poems by Horace

  1. Wealth should be used, not hoarded
  2. Housman and Horace
  3. Diffugere nives
  4. Fortuna
  5. A prayer to Venus
  6. Licymnia
  7. A change of mind
  8. Here’s to Murena!
  9. Horace, the wolf and the upright life
  10. A garland from the Muses
  11. Curse you, tree!
  12. Some advice for Dellius
  13. Give me comfort, not riches
  14. Neobule
  15. The pleasures and dangers of wine
  16. Soracte
  17. Horace’s prayer to a wine-jar
  18. Awe for the Gods
  19. Jupiter’s authority, and Caesar’s
  20. A divine inspiration
  21. Lalage is too young
  22. Late stirrings
  23. Love a slave-girl? Oh, Xanthias!
  24. The consolations of wine
  25. Postumus, the years slip by
  26. Horace’s Chloe
  27. Augustus, master of the world
  28. The country is best
  29. Horace’s limitations
  30. Horace rests from his labours
  31. Don’t worry, be happy
  32. Horace’s first Ode
  33. Romulus becomes a God
  34. Courage and decadence: the Regulus ode
  35. The Golden Mean
  36. Valgius and Mystes
  37. O Fons Bandusiae
  38. Last love
  39. Lydia’s tragedy
  40. Roman values for the new age
  41. A Farewell to arms
  42. Unrequited love
  43. Lovely mother, lovelier daughter
  44. Pollio’s histories of civil war
  45. Horace welcomes his army comrade
  46. Horace’s Cleopatra ode
  47. Stormy seas
  48. Caesar’s safe return
  49. Horace’s reverence to Bacchus
  50. Gyges’s constancy
  51. The final ode
  52. Nereus prophesies the Trojan War
  53. Luxury versus the simple life
  54. Mourning for a good man
  55. What Roman youth should be
  56. An invitation to Maecenas
  57. An oath to Maecenas
  58. Love lost and found
  59. Tibur or Tarentum: a poet’s dilemma?
  60. Jealousy
  61. The fleeting years slip by
  62. Gathering rosebuds: carpe diem
  63. Horace the swan
  64. Horace’s wine
  65. A Prayer to the poetry-God
  66. An invocation to the lyre
  67. Poscimur
  68. Don’t trust Barine
  69. Numida’s back
  70. A plea for burial
  71. The tug-of-war for Nearchus
  72. Iccius goes soldiering
  73. Locked out
  74. Be your age, Chloris!
  75. Celebrating Neptune’s feast day
  76. Relief from care
  77. Pyrrha
  78. Diana and Apollo: a hymn
  79. The lust for money versus the simple life
  80. New temples, new morals
  81. Romulus in Heaven
  82. Glycera
  83. A prayer to Mercury
  84. Carpe diem, Sestius
  85. Horace returns to lyric poetry
  86. Pindar and Augustus
  87. A day off for rain
  88. Horace the peacemaker
  89. Rome: disaster and salvation
  90. Horace’s monument
    91. View Latin Poems
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