Maecenas, risen from royal ancestors,
oh, my guardian and my sweet glory,
there are those who it pleases to produce Olympic dust in a
chariot having avoided the turning post
with fiery wheels, and the noble palm
carries them, like masters of the world, to the gods.
It pleases this man, if a crowd of fickle citizens
elect to lift (him) up with triple offices;
it pleases that one, if he stores up in his own granary
whatever is culled from the Libyan threshing floor.
You must never remove he who rejoices to cleave
his father’s fields with a hoe thanks to Attalus’ covenant,
in order that he might cleave the Myrtoan sea with a Cyprian beam
as a trembling sailor.
A merchant fearing the African wind
wrestling the Icarian sea praises leisure and
the fields of his own town; soon he repairs the battered
ships, not taught to suffer poverty.
There is he who spurns taking away neither the the cup of old Massic wine
nor the parts of a whole day
now stretching out his limbs under a green tree,
now by the gentle head of a sacred stream.
Encampments please many, and the varied
sounds of the curved trumpet, and war,
detested by mothers. The hunter remains below the frigid sky
forgetful of his tender wife,
whether a deer is seen by his faithful little dogs,
or a Marsian boar ruptures the smooth nets.
The ivy, the reward of the learned brow,
mixes me with the gods above, the cool grove
and the light choruses of the Nymphs with the Satyrs
separate me from the people, if Euterpe
does not hold back the flutes and Polyhymnia
doesn’t flee from extending the lyre of Lesbos.
But if you will insert me among the lyric poets,
I will strike the high stars with my head.
Alex J Marks 