And when she rose, the shameful dust befouling

Her tresses, from the cold ground where she lay,

She mourned herself, mourned Household Gods deserted,

Called often on her husband snatched away,

Groaning as if she’d seen me and my daughter’s

Corpses upon a pyre prepared that day.

She longed for death to end the pain of evil,

But, in her care for me, death could not be.

Long may she live, and since Fate thus has borne me

Afar, may her life ever succour me.

THE TOWN AND THE COUNTRY MOUSE

Satires, II.6

Horace

Translated by Philip Francis, 1746

The poet Horace (65–8 BC) divided his time between Rome, where life was always busy, and his idyllic country home beyond the city. His poem begins as a thanksgiving for his modest ‘Sabine’ farm and the generosity of his patron Maecenas. It then becomes a vivid retelling of the famous Aesopic fable of the town and the country mouse. The eighteenth-century writer, critic and lexicographer Samuel Johnson was full of admiration for his contemporary Philip Francis as a translator of Horace. ‘The lyrical part of Horace’, he wrote, ‘can never be perfectly translated; so much of the excellence is in the numbers and the expression. Francis has done it the best; I’ll take his, five out of six, against them all’.

I often wish’d I had a farm,

A decent dwelling snug and warm,

A garden, and a spring as pure

As crystal running by my door,

Besides a little ancient grove,

Where at my leisure I might rove.

The gracious gods, to crown my bliss,

Have granted this, and more than this;

I have enough in my possessing;

’Tis well: I ask no greater blessing,

O Hermes! than remote from strife

To have and hold them for my life.

If I was never known to raise

My fortune by dishonest ways,

Nor, like the spendthrifts of the times,

Shall ever sink it by my crimes:

If thus I neither pray nor ponder—

Oh! might I have that angle yonder,

Which disproportions now my field,

What satisfaction it would yield!

O that some lucky chance but threw

A pot of silver in my view,

As lately to the man, who bought

The very land in which he wrought!

If I am pleas’d with my condition,

O hear, and grant this last petition:

Indulgent, let my cattle batten,

Let all things, but my fancy, fatten,

And thou continue still to guard,

As thou art wont, thy suppliant bard.

Whenever therefore I retreat

From Rome into my Sabine seat,

By mountains fenc’d on either side,

And in my castle fortified,

What can I write with greater pleasure,

Than satires in familiar measure?

Nor mad ambition there destroys,

Nor sickly wind my health annoys;

Nor noxious autumn gives me pain,

The ruthless undertaker’s gain.

Whatever title please thine ear,

Father of morning, Janus, hear,

Since mortal men, by heaven’s decree,

Commence their toils, imploring thee,