Odes 4.4 (Gladstone): Qualem Ministrum

Jove for the prince of birds decreed,
And carrier of his thunder too,
The bird whom golden Ganymede
Too well for trusty agent knew.

Him youth and native spirit stirred,
Unripe for toil, to quit his nest;
And vernal winds provoked the bird
His strength in cloudless heaven to test.

He grew apace; his rushing might,
Swept headlong on the helpless flock,
Then, keen with hunger and for fight,
On stalwart dragons drove the shock.

And, as in gladsome meads astray
Some kid the lion's whelp may spy,
Its tawny dam had weaned to-day,
So soon by new-set fang to die,

Vindelic hordes have Drusus seen,
And Rhaetian, on their Alpine tracks,
Whose use from earliest eld hath been
To fight with Amazonian axe.

How came it? This, and much beside,
We know not. Victors long and far,
Their bands now fled in headlong tide
From youthful skill and Roman war.

They learned how well, with omens kind,
Our youth their sense and spirit gained;
How Caesar, with a father's mind,
These Neroes in their boyhood trained.

The bold are children of the bold,
The ox, the horse by mettle prove
Their kin: the savage eagle's mould
Engenders not the helpless dove.

But care will aid the native gift,
And culture firmer tissue gain;
When conduct ceases to uplift,
Then higher birth hath deeper stain.

To these let Asdrubal in flight
Let the broad stream Metaurus, let
The day that hath restored the light
To Latium's land, tell Rome her debt.

First day of joy, since Afric swept
In fury down th' Italian plain,
As flame from torch to torch hath leapt,
Or Eurus lashed the solid main.

Then grew our youth in practised strength,
No more by Punic outrage wrecked;
And Roman fanes beheld at length
The statues of their gods erect.

Then spake the faithless Hannibal:
'Ye deer, of ravening wolves the prey,
Pursue not. What can best befal
Is but to sculk and flee away.

'This race, on Tuscan billows tossed,
Right through to the Ausonian shore
Its gods, from Ilion fired and lost,
Its infants and its greybeards bore.

'Then, as on Algidus the oak
Pruned by the biting axe anew,
From wounds, from deaths, from every stroke
Resource and freshening vigour drew.

'No fiercer portent Thebes despoiled
Or Colchis: not the Hydra, when
Alcides, rankling to be foiled,
Saw the lopped limbs grow quick again.

'Drown it in floods, more fair 't will rise;
Do battle, it will overthrow
With echoing fame thy victories,
And plunge expectant dames in woe.

'No more from me of vaunting tales;
'Tis past; all hope hath perished, all;
The fortune of my nation fails,
It died with dying Asdrubal.'

These Claudian hands shall nothing lack.
Jove's care shall all ill chances bar,
Wise counsel shall discern the track,
And speed them through the straits of war.