Horace, Epode 17

Now, now I give my hands over to your effective knowledge,

and, kneeling, I beg on the power of Proserpina,

and the unshakeable godheads of Diana,

and having unfixed and called down the

stars from heaven by books of powerful songs,

Canidia, at last hold back your sacred words

and release back your fast turbo.

Telephus moved the grandson of Nereus

against whom the haughty one arranged the Mysons

and against whom he had hurled the sharpened spears.

The Trojan mothers anointed homicidal Hector

doomed to the wild birds and wild dogs,

after which the king having abandon the walls fell

alas to the feet of stubborn Achilles.

The oarsmen of long-suffering Ulysses laid bare

their briefly limbs from the hard hides with Circe willing

then the mind and speech returned and even

familiar horror to their faces.

I gave enough and more punishment to you,

beloved by many sailors and peddlers.

Youth flees and modest color abandons the

bones having been clothed with sallow skin,

your hair is white from your perfume,

no leisure frees me from labor;

night presses on day, and day presses on night,

it is not possible to alleviate my chest stretched with sighing.

I, wretched, am compelled to believe what I once denied,

Sabine songs strike my chest and

Marsian incantations split my head.

What more do oyou want? Oh sea and earth,

I burn as much as Hercules smeared

with the black blood of Nessus didn't burn,

glowing Sicilian flames green in Etna,

You, until the dry ashes are carried off by wrongful wind,

burn hot as a forge from Colchian poison.

Which end or which tax remains with me?

Speak! I will faithfully suffer punishment you ordered,

prepared to atone, whether you will demand one hundred

young bulls, or if you wish to be sung of on a lying lyre:

"You chaste, you honest girl will walk about in

the stars as a constellation of gold."

Castor and the brother of great Castor

having been offended by the exchange of infamous Helen having been conquered by prayer,

returned the withdrawn lights to the prophet:

And you - for you are able - release me from madness,

oh neither fall into disuse from parents

nor int he grave of a pauper does a prudent

old woman scatter dust on the ninth day.

For in you is a hospitable heart and pure hands

and Pactumeius is your belly

and the midwife washes the red cloths in your blood,

and just as you sprang up a strong childbearer,

"Why do you pour prayers into fastened ears?

Wintery Neptune did not pound with deep sea rocks more deaf than bare sailors.

So that unpunished you could mock the Cotyttian rites, more sacred than Cupid,

and a priest of Esquiline fills the town with talk of me, and go unpunished?

What use would it have been enriching all those old

Paelignian hags, to concoct swifter poisons?

But a slower fate awaits you than you pray for:

Wretch, you must suffer a wearisome life for this,

And be available always for fresh torment.

Tantalus, faithless Pelop’s father, yearns for rest,

Forever longing to reach the plenteous feast:

Prometheus yearns, chained fast to the bird of prey:

Sisyphus yearns to roll his rock to the mountain

Summit: but the laws of Jupiter restrain them.

You’ll be eager to leap from the highest tower,

To pierce your breast perhaps with an Alpine blade,

In vain you’ll go winding the noose about your throat,

Melancholy, with a wearisome mind-sickness.

Then saddled-up I’ll ride across your vile shoulders,

And the earth will open wide at my excesses.

Shall I who can bring to life waxen images,

As you know yourself from prying, I who can,

By incantations, snatch the moon out of the sky,

I who can raise again the ashes of the dead,

And mix together subtly the cup of desire,

Shall I weep, shall my art fail to work on you alone?

Horace, Epode 5

'At o deorum quidquid in caelo regit

terras et humanum genus,
quid iste fert tumultus aut quid omnium
voltus in unum me truces?
per liberos te, si vocata partubus
Lucina veris adfuit,
per hoc inane purpurae decus precor,
per inprobaturum haec Iovem,
quid ut noverca me intueris aut uti
petita ferro belua?'
ut haec trementi questus ore constitit
insignibus raptis puer,
inpube corpus, quale posset inpia
mollire Thracum pectora:
Canidia, brevibus illigata viperis
crinis et incomptum caput,
iubet sepulcris caprificos erutas,
iubet cupressos funebris
et uncta turpis ova ranae Sanguine
plumamque nocturnae strigis
herbasque, quas Iolcos atque Hiberia
mittit venenorum ferax,
et ossa ab ore rapta ieiunae canis
flammis aduri Colchicis.
at expedita Sagana, per totam domum
spargens Avernalis aquas,
horret capillis ut marinus asperis
echinus aut Laurens aper.
abacta nulla Veia conscientia
ligonibus duris humum
exhauriebat, ingemens laboribus,
quo posset infossus puer
longo die bis terque mutatae dapis
inemori spectaculo,
cum promineret ore, quantum exstant aqua
suspensa mento corpora;
exsucta uti medulla et aridum iecur
amoris esset poculum,
interminato cum semel fixae cibo
intabuissent pupulae.
non defuisse masculae libidinis
Ariminensem Foliam
et otiosa credidit Neapolis
et omne vicinum oppidum,
quae sidera excantata voce Thessala
lunamque caelo deripit.
hic inresectum saeva dente livido
Canidia rodens pollicem
quid dixit aut quid tacuit? 'o rebus meis
non infideles arbitrae,
Nox et Diana, quae silentium regis,
arcana cum fiunt sacra,
nunc, nunc adeste, nunc in hostilis domos
iram atque numen vertite.
formidulosis cum latent silvis ferae
dulci sopore languidae,
senem, quod omnes rideant, adulterum
latrent Suburanae canes
nardo perunctum, quale non perfectius
meae laborarint manus.
quid accidit? cur dira barbarae minus
venena Medeae valent,
quibus Superbam fugit ulta paelicem,
magni Creontis filiam,
cum palla, tabo munus imbutum, novam
incendio nuptam abstulit?
atqui nec herba nec latens in asperis
radix fefellit me locis.
indormit unctis omnium cubilibus
oblivione paelicum?
a, a, solutus ambulat veneficae
scientioris carmine.
non usitatis, Vare, potionibus,
o multa fleturum caput,
ad me recurres nec vocata mens tua
Marsis redibit vocibus.
maius parabo, maius infundam tibi
fastidienti poculum
priusque caelum Sidet inferius mari
tellure porrecta super
quam non amore sic meo flagres uti
bitumen atris ignibus.'
sub haec puer iam non, ut ante, mollibus
lenire verbis inpias,
sed dubius unde rumperet silentium,
misit Thyesteas preces:
'venena maga non fas nefasque, non valent
convertere humanam vicem.
diris agam vos: dira detestatio
nulla expiatur victima.
quin, ubi perire iussus exspiravero,
nocturnus occurram Furor
petamque voltus umbra curvis unguibus,
quae vis deorum est Manium,
et inquietis adsidens praecordiis
pavore somnos auferam.
vos turba vicatim hinc et hinc saxis petens
contundet obscaenas anus;
post insepulta membra different lupi
et Esquilinae alites
neque hoc parentes, heu mihi superstites,
effugerit spectaculum.'

"But oh, whatever of gods in heaven rules

the lands and the human race,

what does that confusion mean and what do

the fierce faces of everyone mean to me alone?

Through your children, if Lucina having been called

was present for at true births,

through this empty honor of purple I beg you,

through Jove about to disapprove of these things,

why as a stepmother do you consider me or as a best

having been attacked with a sword?"

As the boy stood protesting these things with his mouth trembling

and with his signs having been seized,

youthful body, the kind that could soften soften wicked

hearts of Thracians,

Canidia, with her hair braided with vipers

and untidy head,

orders that the figs be plucked from the tomb,

orders that the cypress trees of funeral rites

and the egg anointed with the blood of a disgusting frog,

and the feather of a nocturnal screech owl

and the herbs which Iolcos and Hiberia

send fruitful of poisons,

and bones seized from the mouth of a hungry dog

to be burned in Colchian flames.

But unencumbered Sagana, Avernus waters sprinkling

through the whole house,

shudders with her hairs just as a sea urchin in

difficulties or a running boar.

Veia driven by no conscience was digging the

earth with her tough hoes,

groaning at the labors so that, buried, the boy

could pine to death,

at the spectacle of a meal changed twice or

three times in along day,

while he projects with his face, as much as a body stands out from the water

suspended from their chin;

so that his cut-out marrow and dried liver

might be a drink of love,

as soon as his pupils wasted away fixed on the

food never finished.

Both idle Neopolis and every neighboring village

believed that

Iolia Ariminen was not absent of

masculine lust,

she who pulled down the stars and moon

out of heaven with her enchanted Thessalian voice.

Here Canidia gnawing on her untrimmed thumb

with her green tooth

what did she say or what did she not say? "Oh, not

unfaithful witnesses of my affairs,

Night and Diana, who reigns over silence,

when the sacred mysteries happen,

now, now be performed, now turn your anger and

hostile power to homes.

When the wild beast tired from sweet sleep lay hidden in

the scary forest,

let the Suburan dogs bark at the old lecher,

at which all may laugh,

completely smeared with ointment, the kind which my hands

could not have labored over more perfectly.

What happened? Why are barbarous Medea's awful poisons

less strong,

with which having gotten her revenge on the proud mistress,

the daughter of great Creon, she flees,

when the robe, a gift soaked with poison, carried the new

bride in flames?

And no herb nor root hiding in rough places

escaped me.

He sleeps in smeared beds in the oblivion

of all mistresses.

Ah! Ah! He walks alone by the song of an

expert witch!

Not using potions, Varus, oh head

about to weep much,

will you return to me, nor will your devotion

be revived by Marsian voices.

I will prepare something greater, something greater I will

pour for you, disdaining,

and sooner the sky sink under the sea with

the earth stretched above,

than you will not burn with love for me just like

pitch in black fires."

At these things the boy now, not as before, with

soft words soothing the impious women,

but doubtful whence to break the silence

sends prayers worthy of Thyestes:

"Magic potions do not have the strength to overturn right and wrong,

or to overturn the human revenge.

I will drive you with curses; no sacrifice will

atone for the awful offering.

What's more, when doomed to death I expire, I’ll come

To you as a Fury by night,

A shadow whose crooked claws will tear your faces

With the Manes’ divine power,

And settling myself in your unquiet hearts,

I’ll drive sleep out with terror.

The crowd will crush you, obscene old hags, pelting you

With stones from every side:

And then the wolves and birds of the Esquiline,

Will scatter your unburied limbs,

And my parents, who will alas survive me, shall

Not miss a moment of that sight.