Ode I, 5: To Pyrrha

By Horace Horace

Translated By John Milton

What slender youth, bedew’d with liquid odors,

Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,

Pyrrha? For whom bind’st thou

In wreaths thy golden hair,

Plain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he

Of faith and changed gods complain, and seas

Rough with black winds, and storms

Unwonted shall admire!

Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold,

Who, always vacant, always amiable

Hopes thee, of flattering gales

Unmindful. Hapless they

To whom thou untried seem’st fair. Me, in my vow’d

Picture, the sacred wall declares to have hung

My dank and dropping weeds

To the stern god of sea.

Biography

Horace wrote poetry ranging from iambi (epodes) and sermones (satires and epistles) to carmina (lyrics). These poems paint a detailed self-portrait—laughing poet of moderation; ironic and gentle moralist; enigmatic observer of the Augustan principate; and self-deprecating lover of the Italian countryside, good wine, his friends, and, most of all, his art. By offering a poetic persona who speaks to so many human concerns, Horace . . .

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