Odes 3.27 (Gladstone): Impios Parrae

With littered fox, and lapwing's call,
Lanuvian wolf, and pregnant bitch
For omens, let the impious fall
Into the ditch.

When flashing forth the arrowy snake
To fright their fiery nags is seen,
They quit the way they thought to take.
I, augur keen,

Ere yet, fore-running rain, the crow
Turn homeward to its marsh, I'll pray
The prophet raven to bestow
A smiling day.

I bid thee, wheresoe'er thou art,
Be happy, not forgetting me:
Nor pie, to left, nor crow's quick start,
A terror be.

But see Orion sink and set;
How threatens Hadria's darkling bay
I know, and how the western wet
Ill tricks can play.

We leave to wives and sons of foes
The dark sea's murmur, and the roar,
The stir when rising Auster blows,
And smites the shore.

So, when Europa trusting gave
The treacherous bull her snowy side,
Sea monsters, and the boundless wave
Tamed all her pride.

At dawn she culled the flowers afield,
To weave the Nymphs a coronal,
But night the stars and seas revealed,
And those were all.

'O Father' — when the flood she crossed,
And hundred-citied Crete espied—
'O daughter's name and duty lost,'
She maddening cried;

'Whence? Whither? ah, the wakened sense
Of sin! One death for virgin's guilt
Were small. Or has mine innocence
But fancies built?

'Some vision from the ivory door,
Begetting dream. Oh it were well
To pluck fresh flowers, nor travel o'er
That weary swell?

'Ah, how I would the shameful steer
Were set within my wrath! to drive
The steel, to crush the horns once dear,
How would I strive!

'Unshamed our household gods I fled,
Unshamed live on. Ye powers above
That hear me, would my steps were led
Where lions rove!

'These comely cheeks ere leanness kill,
Ere youth's sweet sap shall drain away,
So let me sink, in beauty still
The tiger's prey.

"'Why loth to die? Behold this ash;
Polluted child, thou need'st but take"
(Thus cries my sire) " that pendent sash
Thy neck to break.

' " If beetling crag for death thou ask,
Leap with the winged storm, to die;
Else, child of kings, the base-born task
Stoop thou to ply,

' " As harlot, for some barbarous queen."!
Stood Venus by, and slily smiled,
And there, with bow unbent, was seen
To stand, her child.

Sated at length, 'Have done,' she said,
'With petulant wrath! Thou shalt fulfil
On that once hated, noble head
All, all thy will.

'A consort of high Jove thou art.
Sigh not; great fortune greatly wear;
Of the wide world a mighty part
Thy name shall bear.'