ODE XI.
TO PHYLLIS.
Phyllis, I have a cask full of Abanian wine, upward of nine years old; I have parsley in my garden, for the weaving of chaplets, I have a store of ivy, with which, when you have bound your hair, you look so gay: the house shines cheerfully with plate: the altar, bound with chaste vervain, longs to be sprinkled [with the blood] of a sacrificed lamb: all hands are busy: girls mingled with boys fly about from place to place: the flames quiver, rolling on their summit the sooty smoke.[1] But yet, that you may know to what joys you are invited, the Ides are to be celebrated by you, the day which divides April,[2] the month of sea-born Venus; [a day,] with reason to be solemnized by me, and almost more sacred to me than that of my own birth; since from this day my dear Mæcenas reckons his flowing years. A rich and buxom girl hath possessed herself of Telephus, a youth above your rank; and she holds him fast by an agreeable fetter. Consumed Phaëton strikes terror into ambitious hopes, and the winged Pegasus, not stomaching the earth-born rider Bellerophon, affords a terrible example, that you ought always to pursue things that are suitable to you, and that you should avoid a disproportioned match, by thinking it a crime to entertain a hope beyond what is allowable. Come then, thou last of my loves (for hereafter I shall burn for no other woman), learn with me such measures, as thou mayest recite with thy lovely voice: our gloomy cares shall be mitigated with an ode.
- ↑ The Greeks and Romans appear to have been acquainted with the use of chimneys. The more common dwellings had merely an opening in the rood, which allowed the smoke to escape; the better class of edifices were warmed by means of pipes enclosed in the walls, and which communicated with a large stove, or several smaller ones, constructed in the earth under the building. Anthon interprets vortice, "from the house-top;" but the explanation of Orellius is preferable, "fumum celerrime torquentes ac glomerantes, ita ut ejus verticem efficiant." M'Caul.
- ↑ Mensem Veneris. April was called the month of Venus, because her grand festival began on the first day of that month. San.
