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