TO A FRIEND.
Horace
A horrible tempest has condensed the sky, and showers and snows bring
down the atmosphere: now the sea, now the woods bellow with the Thracian
North wind. Let us, my friends, take occasion from the day; and while
our knees are vigorous, and it becomes us, let old age with his
contracted forehead become smooth. Do you produce the wine, that was
pressed in the consulship of my Torquatus. Forbear to talk of any other
matters. The deity, perhaps, will reduce these [present evils], to your
former [happy] state by a propitious change. Now it is fitting both to
be bedewed with Persian perfume, and to relieve our breasts of dire
vexations by the lyre, sacred to Mercury. Like as the noble Centaur,
[Chiron,] sung to his mighty pupil: "Invincible mortal, son of the
goddess Thetis, the land of Assaracus awaits you, which the cold
currents of little Scamander and swift-gliding Simois divide: whence the
fatal sisters have broken off your return, by a thread that cannot be
altered: nor shall your azure mother convey you back to your home. There
[then] by wine and music, sweet consolations, drive away every symptom
of hideous melancholy."
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