As even gods themselves might taste!”
Francis.
The loss of his friend Virgil cast a shadow over Horace’s latter years. His own death was sudden. A short month before, Mæcenas had breathed his last; and thus the promise of the poet not to survive his patron was almost literally fulfilled. In an ode to Mæcenas, Horace had sung,
“Should you, alas! be snatched away,
Wherefore, ah! wherefore should I stay,
My value lost, no longer whole,
And but possessing half my soul?
One day (believe the sacred oath)
Shall lead the funeral pomp of both;
With thee to Pluto’s dark abode,