Pastor Cum

Translation from Horace     When he, that shepherd false, neath Phrygian sails,     Carried his hostess Helen oer the seas,     In fitful slumber Nereus hushd the gales,     That he might sing their future destinies.     A curse to your ancestral home you take     With her, whom Greece, with many a soldier bold     Shall seek again, in concert sworn to break     Your nuptial ties and Priams kingdom old.     Alas! what sweat from man and horse must flow,     What devastation to the Trojan realm     You carry, even now doth Pallas show     Her wrath, preparing buckler, car, and helm.     In vain, secure in Aphrodites care,     You comb your locks, and on the girlish lyre     Select the strains most pleasant to the fair;     In vain, on couch reclining, you desire     To shun the darts that threaten, and the thrust     Of Cretan lance, the battles wild turmoil,     And Ajax swift to follow, in the dust     Condemned, though late, your wanton curls to soil.     Ah! see you not where (fatal to your race)     Laertes son comes with the Pylean sage;     Fearless alike, with Teucer joins the chase     Stenelaus, skilld the fistic strife to wage,     Nor less expert the fiery steeds to quell;     And Meriones, you must know. Behold     A warrior, than his sire more fierce and fell,     To find you rages, Diomed the bold,     Whom like the stag that, far across the vale,     The wolf being seen, no herbage can allure,     So fly you, panting sorely, dastard pale!     Not thus you boasted to your paramour.     Achilles anger for a space defers     The day of wrath to Troy and Trojan dame;     Inevitable glide the allotted years,     And Dardan roofs must waste in Argive flame.