(Answer to Chloe Jealous).
O CRUEL, still and vain of beauty's charms,
When wintry age thy insolence disarms,[10]
When fall those locks that on thy shoulders play,
And youth's gay roses on thy cheeks decay,
When that smooth face shall manhood's roughness wear,
And in your glass another form appear,
Ah, why, you'll say, do I now vainly burn,
Or with my wishes not my youth return?
Francis.
I print Dryden's version in its entirety. 'I have endeavoured to make it my masterpiece in English,' he says. It is perhaps the only translation of the Odes which retains what Dryden calls their 'noble and bold purity' and at the same time keeps the friendly and familiar strokes of style which lighten Horace's graver moods.
DESCENDED of an ancient line,
That long the Tuscan sceptre swayed,
Make haste to meet the generous wine
Whose piercing is for thee delayed.
The rosie wreath is ready made
And artful hands prepare
The fragrant Syrian oil that shall perfume thy hair
When the wine sparkles from afar
And the well-natured friend cries 'Come away',
Make haste and leave thy business and thy care,
No mortal interest can be worth thy stay.
Leave for awhile thy costly country seat,
And—to be great indeed—forget
The nauseous pleasures of the great:
Make haste and come,
Come, and forsake thy cloying store,
Thy turret that surveys from high
The smoke and wealth and noise of Rome,
And all the busie pageantry
That wise men scorn and fools adore:
Come, give thy soul a loose, and taste the pleasures of the poor.