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