Living

Odes 1.22 (Gladstone): Integer Vitae

by Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) 65–8 BC

Translated by W. E. Gladstone (1894) · From Odes, Book I

Living

If whole in life, and free from sin,
Man needs no Moorish bow, nor dart,
Nor quiver, carrying death within
By poison's art.

Though frowning Caucasus he treads,
And boiling Syrtes hath defied,
Been, Fuscus, where Hydaspes spreads
His mythic tide.

In Sabine woods, and fancy-free,
A wolf observed my wandering tread;
Unarmed, I sang of Lalage;
He saw, and fled.

Such portent in the oaken grove,
Hath martial Daunia never known;
Nor Juba's land, where lions rove
The thirsty zone.

Place me, where desert wastes forbid
One tree to breathe the summer wind,
Where fogs the land and sea have hid,
With Jove unkind;

Or, where the sun so near would be,
That none to build or dwell may dare;
Thy voice, thy smile, my Lalage,
I'll love them there.

MLA

Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus). “Odes 1.22 (Gladstone): Integer Vitae.” Translated by W. E. Gladstone. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/horace/366/.

Chicago

Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus). “Odes 1.22 (Gladstone): Integer Vitae.” Translated by W. E. Gladstone. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/horace/366/.

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