CANIDIA'S ANSWER.
Horace
Why do you pour forth your entreaties to ears that are closely shut
[against them]? The wintery ocean, with its briny tempests, does not
lash rocks more deaf to the cries of the naked mariners. What, shall
you, without being made an example of, deride the Cotyttian mysteries,
sacred to unrestrained love, which were divulged [by you]? And shall
you, [assuming the office] of Pontiff [with regard to my] Esquilian
incantations, fill the city with my name unpunished? What did it avail
me to have enriched the Palignian sorceress [with my charms], and to
have prepared poison of greater expedition, if a slower fate awaits you
than is agreeable to my wishes? An irksome life shall be protracted by
you, wretch as you are, for this purpose, that you may perpetually be
able to endure new tortures. Tantalus, the perfidious sire of Pelops,
ever craving after the plenteous banquet [which is always before him],
wishes for respite; Prometheus, chained to the vulture, wishes [for
rest]; Sisyphus wishes to place the stone on the summit of the mountain:
but the laws of Jupiter forbid. Thus you shall desire at one time to
leap down from a high tower, at another to lay open your breast with the
Noric sword; and, grieving with your tedious indisposition, shall tie
nooses about your neck in vain. I at that time will ride on your odious
shoulders; and the whole earth shall acknowledge my unexampled power.
What shall I who can give motion to waxen images (as you yourself,
inquisitive as you are, were convinced of) and snatch the moon from
heaven by my incantations; I, who can raise the dead after they are
burned, and duly prepare the potion of love, shall I bewail the event of
my art having no efficacy upon you?
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