Odes 3.24 (Martin): Intactis Opulentior

Though thou, of -wealth possess'd
Beyond rich Ind's, or Araby's the blest,
Should'st with thy palace keeps
Fill all the Tuscan and Apulian deeps,
If Fate, that spoiler dread,
Her adamantine bolts drive to the head.
Thou shalt not from despairs
Thy spirit free, nor loose thy head from death's dark snares.

The Scythians of the plains
More happy are, housed in their wandering wains,
More blest the Getan stout,
Who not from acres mark'd and meted out
Reaps his free fruits and grain:
A year, no more, he rests in his domain,
Then, pausing from his toil,
He quits it, and in turn another tills the soil.

The guileless stepdame there
The orphan tends with all a mother's care;
No dowried dame her spouse
O'erbears, or trusts the sleek seducer's vows;
Her dower a blameless life,
True to her lord, she shrinks an unstain'd wife
Even from another's breath;
To fall is there a crime, and there the guerdon death!

O, for the man, would stay
Our gory hands, our civil broils allay!
If on his statues he
Sire of the common-weal proclaim'd would be,
Let him not fear to rein
Our wild licentiousness, content to gain
From after-times renown,
For ah! while Virtue lives, we hunt her down,
And only learn to prize
Her worth, when she has pass'd forever from our eyes!

What boots it to lament,
If crime be not cut down by punishment?
What can vain laws avail,
If life in every moral virtue fail?
If nor the clime, that glows
Environ'd round by fervid heats, nor snows
And biting Northern wind,
Which all the earth in icy cerements bind,
The merchant back can keep,
And skilful shipmen flout the horrors of the deep?

Yes! Rather than be poor,
What will not mortals do, what not endure?
Such dread disgrace to shun,
From virtue's toilsome path away we run.
Quick, let us 'mid the roar
Of crowds applauding to the echo pour
Into the Capitol,
Or down into the nearest ocean roll
Our jewels, gems, and gold.
Dire nutriment of ills and miseries untold!

If with sincere intent
We would of our iniquities repent,
Uprooted then must be
The very germs of base cupidity,
And our enervate souls
Be braced by manlier arts for nobler goals!
The boy of noble race
Can now not sit his steed, and dreads the chase,
But wields with mastery nice
The Grecian hoop, or even the law-forbidden dice!

What marvel, if the while
His father, versed in every perjured wile,
For vilest private ends
Defrauds his guests, his partners, and his friends,
Ills pride, his only care.
To scramble wealth for an unworthy heir!
They grow, his ill-got gains.
But something still he lacks, and something ne'er attains!