Odes 4.5

Augustus returns

by Horace

Augustus has been away from Rome on campaign in Gaul: now he is expected back and Horace’s adulation, in his official laureate mode, is unrestrained. Some commentators understandably find the praise a bit much, but the picture in the closing stanzas of a countryside happy and at peace has a good deal of charm. The romans trained their vines on trees rather than artificial frames as now, hence Horace’s image of a “marriage” between the two. The significance of the “second course” of the countryman’s meal is that this was the point at which libations were poured before the drinking began.

Metre: Asclepiad, three standard twelve-syllable lines followed by an eight-syllable glyconic.

See the illustrated blog post here.

Reading coming soon.

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Divis orte bonis, optume Romulae
custos gentis, abes iam nimium diu;
maturum reditum pollicitus patrum
sancto concilio redi.

lucem redde tuae, dux bone, patriae:
instar veris enim voltus ubi tuus
adfulsit populo, gratior it dies
et soles melius nitent.

ut mater iuvenem, quem Notus invido
flatu Carpathii trans maris aequora
cunctantem spatio longius annuo
dulci distinet a domo,

votis ominibusque et precibus vocat
curvo nec faciem litore dimovet:
sic desideriis icta fidelibus
quaerit patria Caesarem.

tutus bos etenim rura perambulat,
nutrit rura Ceres almaque Faustitas,
pacatum volitant per mare navitae;
culpari metuit fides,

nullis polluitur casta domus stupris,
mos et lex maculosum edomuit nefas,
laudantur simili prole puerperae,
culpam poena premit comes.

quis Parthum paveat, quis gelidum Scythen,
quis Germania quos horrida parturit
fetus incolumi Caesare? quis ferae
bellum curet Hiberiae?

condit quisque diem collibus in suis
et vitem viduas ducit ad arbores;
hinc ad vina redit laetus et alteris
te mensis adhibet deum;

te multa prece, te prosequitur mero
defuso pateris et Laribus tuum
miscet numen, uti Graecia Castoris
et magni memor Herculis.

“longas o utinam, dux bone, ferias
praestes Hesperiae!” dicimus integro
sicci mane die, dicimus uvidi,
cum sol Oceano subest.

Sprung from the good Gods, finest guardian of the race of Romulus, now you have been away from us too long and promised a timely return: come back to the sacred council of the Senate fathers. Good leader, give your homeland back its light, for when your countenance, the image of the spring, has shone upon the people the day passes more sweetly and suns shine the better. Like a mother with a son whom the south wind with its spiteful breath keeps delayed far from his sweet home over the waters of the Carpathian sea for longer than a year, who calls for him with vows, auguries and prayers and does not turn her face away from the curve of the shore, just so, smitten with loyal longings, does your homeland look for her Caesar. For the ox wanders in safety over the fields, Ceres, Queen of the corn, and kindly Auspicious powers nourish them, mariners skim over the pacified seas, loyalty recoils from incurring blame, the chastity of the home is unsullied by any deeds of shame, principle and law have overcome polluting wickedness, the likeness of newborns to their begetters is cause for celebration, guilt is repressed by its companion, retribution. Who could fear the Parthian, who the frosty Scythian, who the spawn to which shaggy Germany gives birth, if Caesar is safe? Who could worry about war with savage Spain? Each man invests his day in his own slopes and trains his vines upon the unwed trees, from there he returns, happy, to drink his wine, and calls on your presence as a god when his meal reaches its second course; he turns to you with much prayer and wine poured from libation cups, and invokes your power along with his household Gods, as Greece does when it remembers Castor and Hercules. O long, good leader, may the celebrations be that you bring to Italy, so say we when sober and the whole day lies before us, so we say when at our wine while the sun lies under the Ocean.

`

More Poems by Horace

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

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