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 teeth—What 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."