Not always, dear Licinius, is it wise
On the main Sea to ply the daring Oar;
Nor is it safe, from dread of angry Skies,
Closely to press on the insidious Shore.
To no excess discerning Spirits lean,
They feel the blessings of the golden mean;
They will not grovel in the squalid cell,
Nor seek in princely domes, with envied pomp, to dwell.
The pine, that lifts so high her stately boughs,
Writhes in the storms, and bends beneath their might,
Innoxious while the loudest tempest blows
O'er trees, that boast a less-aspiring height.
As the wild fury of the whirlwind pours,
With direst ruin fall the loftiest towers;
And 't is the mountain's _summit_ that, oblique,
From the dense, lurid clouds, the baleful lightnings strike.
A mind well disciplin'd, when Sorrow lours,
Not sullenly excludes Hope's smiling rays;
Nor, when soft Pleasure boasts of lasting powers,
With boundless trust the Promiser surveys.
It is the same dread Jove, who thro' the sky
Hurls the loud storms, that darken as they fly;
And whose benignant hand withdraws the gloom,
And spreads rekindling light, in all its living bloom.
To-day the Soul perceives a weight of woe;--
A brighter Morrow shall gay thoughts inspire.
Does [2]Phœbus always bend the vengeful bow?
Wakes he not often the harmonious lyre?
Be thou, when Danger scowls in every wave,
Watchful, collected, spirited, and brave;
But in the sunny sky, the flattering gales,
Contract, with steady hand, thy too expanded sails.
1: Licinius Murena was a Patrician of high rank, one of the Brothers
of Proculeius, whose fraternal generosity is celebrated in the Ode to
Sallust, the ninth of these Paraphrases. The property of Licinius had
been confiscated for having borne arms against the second
Triumvirate. Upon this confiscation Proculeius divided two thirds of
that large fortune, with which the Emperor had rewarded his valor and
fidelity in the royal cause, between Licinius, and his adopted
Brother, Terentius, whose fortunes had suffered equal wreck on
account of the Party he had taken. Horace wrote this Ode soon after
the affectionate bounty of Proculeius had restored his Friend to
affluence. It breathes a warning spirit towards that turbulent, and
ambitious temper, which Horace perceived in this young Nobleman. The
Poet, however, has used great address and delicacy, making the
reflections not particular but general; and he guards against
exciting the soreness People feel from reprehension for their
prevailing fault, by censuring with equal freedom the opposite
extreme. That kind caution insinuated in this Ode, proved eventually
vain, as did also the generosity of the Emperor, who soon after
permitted Licinius to be chosen Augur;--probably at the intercession
of his Favorite Mæcenas, who had married Terentia, a Daughter of that
House, and whom Horace calls Licinia in the Ode which is next
paraphrased. Upon the election of Licinius to this post of honor,
trust, and dignity, we perceive the spirits of Horace greatly
elevated; probably as much from the pleasure he knew Mæcenas would
take in the promotion of his Brother-in-law, as from the attachment
himself bore to Licinius. A peculiar air of hilarity shines out in
the Ode addressed to Telephus, written the evening on which this
Licinius, then newly chosen Augur, gave his first supper to his
Friends. The Reader will find it somewhat lavishly paraphrased in the
course of this Selection. By the _above_ Ode the Poet seems to have
feared the seditious disposition of Licinius:--but when he afterwards
strung his lyre to notes of triumph for the honors of his Friend, he
little imagined _that_ Friend would finally suffer death for
ungratefully conspiring against the Monarch, who had so liberally
overlooked his former enmity.
2: Epidemic Diseases were, by the Pagans, believed to be the effect
of having offended Apollo. The arrows he shoots among the Greeks in
the first Book of the Iliad, produce the Pestilence, which follows
the rape of his Priest's Daughter, Chryseis. When we consider the
dependence of the human constitution upon the temperate, or
intemperate influence of the Sun, the avenging bow of Phœbus appears
an obvious allegory;--and since it is in the hours of health that the
fine Arts are sought and cultivated, the Sun, under the name of
Phœbus, Apollo, &c. is with equal propriety of fable, supposed their
Patron, as well as the Avenger of crimes by the infliction of
diseases.
[1]TO MÆCENAS.