TO THALIARCHUS.
Horace
You see how Soracte stands white with deep snow, nor can the laboring
woods any longer support the weight, and the rivers stagnate with the
sharpness of the frost. Dissolve the cold, liberally piling up billets
on the hearth; and bring out, O Thaliarchus, the more generous wine,
four years old, from the Sabine jar. Leave the rest to the gods, who
having once laid the winds warring with the fervid ocean, neither the
cypresses nor the aged ashes are moved. Avoid inquiring what may happen
tomorrow; and whatever day fortune shall bestow on you, score it up for
gain; nor disdain, being a young fellow, pleasant loves, nor dances, as
long as ill-natured hoariness keeps off from your blooming age. Now let
both the Campus Martius and the public walks, and soft whispers at the
approach of evening be repeated at the appointed hour: now, too, the
delightful laugh, the betrayer of the lurking damsel from some secret
corner, and the token ravished from her arms or fingers, pretendingly
tenacious of it.
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