Horace Epode V
"But oh, whatever godly power in heaven rules
The earth and all humanity,
What does this uproar mean, and why are all
These fierce expressions turned on me?
By your own children, if Lucina, summoned,
Was there when a real child was born,
By this vain purple ornament, I beg you,
By Jove, who'll see all this with scorn,
Why do you stare at me like some stepmother,
Like some wild beast an arrow's struck?"While, having said all this with quivering lips,
The boy stood stripped, his childish parts
So delicate they might have softened even
The most impious Thracians' hearts,
Canidia, unruly hair entwined
With tiny vipers, made decrees,
Ordered wild fig-trees rooted up from graves,
Ordered funereal cypress trees,
And eggs smeared with the blood of venomous toads,
And the dun midnight screech-owl's feathers,
And herbs which Iolcos and Iberia
Produce in poison's perfect weathers,
And bones snatched from a starving bitch-hound's maw,
All to be burnt in Colchian fire.
Meanwhile, her robes hiked up, Sagana, sprinkling
Avernus' waters through the entire
House, bristled, her rough hair like a sea-urchin's
Or like a furiously rushing boar's.
Veia with hard mattocks, then, was digging
In the earth, untouched by remorse,
Groaning with effort over that hole where
The boy, once he was buried, might
See some food-dish changed two or three times during
The long day, and starve at the sight,
His face protruding, as a swimmer's body
Hangs by its chin above the ocean,
So that his marrow and his liver, cut out
And dried, might make a lover's potion
After his eyeballs, fixed on the forbidden
Food, had with hunger melted away.
And Folia, Rimini's horny hag,
Was there as well, who, people say,
Both in the idle gossiping of Naples
And in every other neighboring town,
With her Thessalian spells tears the enchanted
Stars and the moon in heaven down.Canidia, gnawing then her untrimmed thumbnail
With her slate-colored teethWhat did
She say? What didn't she?"O not unfaithful
Witnesses, from whom my works aren't hid,
Night and Diana, you, who rule the silence
When we perform a secret rite,
Now come, now aid me, now against the houses
Of my foes turn your wrath and might.
While wild beasts hide within the frightful woods,
Languid with sweet sleep, may the howl
Of Suburan dogs announce everybody's fool,
The old adulterer on the prowl,
Dripping with ointments that exceed the best
These hands have ever made by far.What's happened? What's wrong? Why are my dread philters
Less potent than Medea's are,
Which helped her escape when Jason's haughty slut
Received that gift of vengeful ire,
That bridal gown which, donned by great Creon's daughter,
Suddenly wrapped her flesh in fire?
Though neither weed nor root, concealed in desert
Places, has yet eluded me,
He sleeps upon those perfumed sheets where all
His sluts have slept obliviously.
Aha! He struts around set free by some
More skillful sorceress, no doubt.
No, Varus, no more common little spells
Oh, you'll have lots to cry about!
You will run back to me, and not because
some Marsian spell makes you return.
I'll make a stronger one, I'll mix a stronger
Cup for you and all your scorn,
And heaven will sink down below the sea,
And earth be spread out there above,
Before you'll stop burning for me, like pitch
In a gloomy fire, burning with love!"The boy, no longer trying, as before,
To coax the ungodly hags to spare
Him, doubtful how to break his lengthy silence,
Then spat out this Thyestean prayer:
"Your magic spells can't change what's right or wrong,
Can't change the course of human fate.
My curses will haunt you, and no sacrifice
Will cause the horror to abate.
When, doomed by you, I shall have died, I'll come
To you, a Fury in the night,
A shade clawing your faces with jagged nails
As is the power and the right
Of all the Dead, brooding on your troubled breasts
And snatching sleep from you with terrors.
The mob will chase you through the streets, stones pelting
You hags from all sides, you doomed wayfarers,
And afterwards, the wolves and Esquiline birds
Will tear your unburied limbs asunder;
Nor shall my parents, who must now survive me,
Alas, escape this awful wonder."
translated by Ryan Wilson
Epode V
"At o deorum quicquid in caelo regit
terras et humanum genus,
quid iste fert tumultus et quid omnium
vultus in unum me truces?
Per liberos te, si vocata partubus
Lucina veris adfuit,
per hoc inane purpurae decus precor,
per improbaturum haec Iovem,
quid ut noverca me intueris aut uti
petita ferro belua?"Ut haec trementi questus ore constitit
insignibus raptis puer,
impube corpus, quale posset impia
mollire Thracum pectora,
Canidia, brevibus implicata viperis
crinis et incomptum caput,
iubet sepulcris caprificos erutas,
iubet cupressos funebris
et uncta turpis ova ranae sanguine
plumamque nocturnae strigis
herbasque quas Iolcos atque Hiberia
mittit venenorum ferax,
et ossa ab ore rapta ieiunae canis
flammis aduri Colchicis.
At expedita Sagana, per totam domum
spargens Avernalis aquas,
horret capillis ut marinus asperis
echinus aut currens aper.Abacta nulla Veia conscientia
ligonibus duris humum
exhauriebat, ingemens laboribus,
quo posset infossus puer
longo die bis terque mutatae dapis
inemori spectaculo,
cum promineret ore, quantum exstant aqua
suspense mento corpora;
exsecta uti medulla et aridum iecur
amoris esset poculum,
interminato cum semel fixae cibo
intabuissent pupulae.
Non defuisse masculae libidinis
Ariminensem Foliam
et otiosa credidit Neapolis
et omne vicinum oppidum,
quae sidera excantata voce Thessala
lunamque caelo deripit.
Hic irresectum saeva dente livido
Canidia rodens pollicem
quid dixit aut quid tacuit? "O rebus meis
non infideles arbitrae,
Nox et Diana, quae silentium regis,
arcana cum fiunt sacra,
nunc, nunc adeste, nunc in hostilis domos
iram atque numen vertite.
Formidulosis cum latent silvis ferae
dulci sopore languidae,
senem, quod omnes rideant, adulterum
latrent Suburbanae canes,
nardo perunctum, quale non perfectius
meae laborarint manus.
Quid accidit? Cur dira barbarae minus
venena Medeae valent,
quibus superbam fugit ulta paelicem,
magni Creontis filiam,
cum palla, tabo munus imbutum, novam
incendio nuptam abstulit?
Atqui nec herba nec latens in asperis
radix fefellit me locis.
Indormit unctis omnium cubilibus
oblivione paelicum.
A! a! solutus ambulat veneficae
scientioris carmine!
Non usitatis, Vare, potionibus,
O multa fleturum caput
ad me recurres, nec vocata mens tua
Marsis redibit vocibus.
Maius parabo, maius infundam tibi
fastidienti poculum,
priusque caelum sidet inferius mari,
tellure porrecta super,
quam non amore sic meo flagres uti
bitumen atris ignibus."
Sub haec puer iam non, ut ante, mollibus
lenire verbis impias,
sed dubius unde rumperet silentium
misit Thyesteas preces:
"Venena maga non fas nefasque, non valent
convertere humanam vicem.
Diris agam vos; dira detestatio
nulla expiatur victima.
Quin, ubi perire iussus exspiravero,
nocturnus occurram Furor
petamque vultus umbra curvis unguibus,
quae vis deorum est Manium,
et inquietis adsidens praecordiis
pavore somnos auferam.
Vos turba vicatim hinc et hinc saxis petens
contundet obscenas anus;
post insepulta membra different lupi
et Esquilinae alites,
neque hoc parentes, heu mihi superstites
effugerit spectaculum."