TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS.
Horace
The man of upright life and pure from wickedness, O Fuscus, has no need
of the Moorish javelins, or bow, or quiver loaded with poisoned darts.
Whether he is about to make his journey through the sultry Syrtes, or
the inhospitable Caucasus, or those places which Hydaspes, celebrated in
story, washes. For lately, as I was singing my Lalage, and wandered
beyond my usual bounds, devoid of care, a wolf in the Sabine wood fled
from me, though I was unarmed: such a monster as neither the warlike
Apulia nourishes in its extensive woods, nor the land of Juba, the
dry-nurse of lions, produces. Place me in those barren plains, where no
tree is refreshed by the genial air; at that part of the world, which
clouds and an inclement atmosphere infest. Place me under the chariot of
the too neighboring sun, in a land deprived of habitations; [there] will
I love my sweetly-smiling, sweetly-speaking Lalage.
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