Odes of Horace - Ode 1.28

ODE 28

T O A RCHYIAS

Measurer of earth and ocean and the multitudinous sand,
Scant the grains of tributary dust,
Lack whereof, Archytas, holds thee captive on Apulia's strand.
Vainly in his wisdom did he trust,
Who could journey disembodied o'er the firmament, and stand
At the gates of heaven; for die he must
Perished thus the sire of Pelops, messmate of the gods above:
Thus Tithonus, caught into the air:
Minos too, the man admitted to the hidden things of Jove.
Panthous' son himself is prisoner there —
In those shades — twice doomed to Orcus: tho' the letters on the shield
Proved how he had lived in Ilion's day,
Nor had aught, save skin and sinew, unto grim death deigned to yield
No mean scholar he, e'en thou would'st say,
In the lore of truth and nature. But the fate of all is sealed:
All must tread, unlighted, death's highway
— Into grisly War's arena some are by the Furies flung:
'Neath the hungry sea-wave some lie dead:
Fused in undistinguished slaughter die the old man and the young:
Spares not Hell's fierce queen a single head
Me too westward-bound Orion's constant mate, the South-west-wind,
Whelmed but lately in the Illyrian wave:
And, oh mariner, deny not — to a dead man's bones unkind,
And a head that must not own a grave —
One scant heap of homeless sea-sand. So whene'er the Eastern gale
Chides the South seas, may his fury lay
Green Etruria's woods in ruin, sparing thee: so many a bale
Drop to thee, whence only drop it may,
From great Jove, and Neptune watching o'er Tarentum's holy soil
— Wilt commit, unrecking, an offence
Which shall harm thy innocent offspring? On thine own head may recoil
Righteous vengeance, and a recompense
That shall bow thy pride. Abandoned, unavenged, I will not be:
For such crime no offerings shall atone.
Though mayhap thy time is precious, small the boon I ask of thee:
Throw three handfuls o'er me, and begone.
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Horace
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