O Maecenas, thou progeny of Tuscan kings, there has been a long while
for you in my house some mellow wine in an unbroached hogshead, with
rose-flowers and expressed essence for your hair. Disengage yourself
from anything that may retard you, nor contemplate the ever marshy
Tibur, and the sloping fields of Aesula, and the hills of Telegonus the
parricide. Leave abundance, which is the source of daintiness, and yon
pile of buildings approaching near the lofty clouds: cease to admire the
smoke, and opulence, and noise of flourishing Rome. A change is
frequently agreeable to the rich, and a cleanly meal in the little
cottage of the poor has smoothed an anxious brow without carpets or
purple. Now the bright father of Andromeda displays his hidden fire; now
Procyon rages, and the constellation of the ravening Lion, as the sun
brings round the thirsty season. Now the weary shepherd with his languid
flock seeks the shade, and the river, and the thickets of rough
Sylvanus; and the silent bank is free from the wandering winds. You
regard what constitution may suit the state, and are in an anxious dread
for Rome, what preparations the Seres and the Bactrians subject to
Cyrus, and the factious Tanais are making. A wise deity shrouds in
obscure darkness the events of the time to come, and smiles if a mortal
is solicitous beyond the law of nature. Be mindful to manage duly that
which is present. What remains goes on in the manner of the river, at
one time calmly gliding in the middle of its channel to the Tuscan Sea,
at another, rolling along corroded stones, and stumps of trees, forced
away, and cattle, and houses, not without the noise of mountains and
neighboring woods, when the merciless deluge enrages the peaceful
waters. That man is master of himself and shall live happy, who has it
in his power to say, "I have lived to-day: to-morrow let the Sire invest
the heaven, either with a black cloud, or with clear sunshine;
nevertheless, he shall not render ineffectual what is past, nor undo or
annihilate what the fleeting hour has once carried off. Fortune, happy
in the execution of her cruel office, and persisting to play her
insolent game, changes uncertain honors, indulgent now to me, by and by
to another. I praise her, while she abides by me. If she moves her fleet
wings, I resign what she has bestowed, and wrap myself up in my virtue,
and court honest poverty without a portion. It is no business of mine,
if the mast groan with the African storms, to have recourse to piteous
prayers, and to make a bargain with my vows, that my Cyprian and Syrian
merchandize may not add to the wealth of the insatiable sea. Then the
gale and the twin Pollux will carry me safe in the protection of a skiff
with two oars, through the tumultuous Aegean Sea."
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