Darting in a fast light galley among tall ships
that
bristle with turrets, dear friend,
you’ll take on all the dangers waiting for Caesar
and make
them your own, Maecenas.
But what of us for whom the days float with you here
and sink
bottomward when you’re gone?
Shall we, as you urge us, pursue the old pleasures
that mean
so much less without you
or shall we share your fortunes with our minds made up
to bear the
hardship, not complain?
We’re coming, too, though you lead us over the
or through
the savage
and we’d follow you to the last gulf echoing
far in the
west and never flinch.
As to how your troubles will be lightened by those of
someone
neither warlike nor strong:
I only know I would be more afraid alone
than if I
looked up and saw you,
just like a mothering bird fears more than ever
the
climbing serpent’s gliding eye
when she leaves the nest, though her young are as helpless
with her
nervous fluttering near.
To please you, then, I gladly arm myself to fight
in this war
or any other—
and not in the hope of acquiring more yoked bulls
to strain
mightily at my plows,
or mountain meadows in which to pasture my flocks
when the
dog star burns our sky white,
or a villa that gleams at the top of a hill
near high
spellbound walls.
No reward could possibly match the gift of your
kindness;
I’m not looking for gold
to bury on my land like the miser Chremes
or to spend
like a second son.
— Horace
translated, from the Latin, by Ron Horning