Odes 4.1 (Martin): Intermissa, Venus

Venus, dost thou renew a fray
Long intermitted? Spare me, spare, I pray!
I am not such as in the reign
Of the good Cinara I was. Refrain,
Sweet Love's sour mother, him to school,
Whom lustres ten have hardened to thy rule,
And soft behests; and hie thee where
Youth calls to thee with many a fondling prayer!
More fitly — if thou seek to fire
A bosom apt for love and young desire —
Come, borne by bright-wing'd swans, and thus
Revel in the house of Paulus Maximus;
Since, noble, and of graces choice,
For troubled clients voluble of voice,
And lord of countless arts, afar
Will he advance the banners of thy war,
And when he shall with smiles behold
His native charms eclipse his rival's gold,
He will thyself in marble rear,
Beneath a cedarn roof near Alba's mere.
There shall thy dainty nostril take
In many a gum, and for thy soft ear's sake
Shall verse be set to harp and lute,
And Phrygian hautboy, not without the flute.
There twice a day, in sacred lays,
Shall youths and tender maidens sing thy praise;
And thrice in Salian manner beat
The ground in cadence with their ivory feet.
Me neither damsel now, nor boy
Delights, nor credulous hope of mutual joy;
Nor glads me now the deep carouse,
Nor with dew-dropping flowers to bind my brows,
But why, oh why, my Ligurine,
Flow my thin tears down these poor cheeks of mine?
Or why, my well-graced words among,
With an uncomely silence fails my tongue?
I dream, thou cruel one, by night,
I hold thee fast; anon, fled with the light,
Whether in Field of Mars thou be,
Or Tiber's rolling streams, I follow thee.