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