Horace, Odes II.20

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Dual poet, with no common feather
to hold me through clear skies,
I shall not remain grounded past my time,
and I will leave behind
greater envy of the city. Not I,
poor born, not I—whom you
call, my dear Maecenas—shall neither meet
nor be contained by Hell’s
waters. Still now, rough skin settles my legs,
feathers growing out through
my fingers and shoulders, and I am changed
to a white bird above.
Soon I, better renowned than Deadelus
and Icarus—a swan—
shall visit Bithynia’s groaning shores,
stretching to all the lands.
Of me, they shall know: Medea’s people
who hide Marsian troops,
Dacans, Gelonians, from skilled Spaniard
to the drunkard of Rhone.
Let funeral songs and grief with its shame
and complaints be absent
from this empty funeral; keep quiet,
don’t mourn me at my tomb.
Non usitata nec tenui ferar
penna biformis per liquidum aethera
vates neque in terris morabor
longius invidiaque maior
urbis relinquam. Non ego pauperum
sanguis parentum, non ego quem vocas,
dilecte Maecenas, obibo
nec Stygia cohibebor unda.
Iam iam residunt cruribus asperae
pelles et album mutor in alitem
superne nascunturque leves
per digitos umerosque plumae.
Iam Daedaleo notior Icaro
uisam gementis litora Bosphori
Syrtisque Gaetulas canorus
ales Hyperboreosque campos.
Me Colchus et qui dissimulat metum
Marsae cohortis Dacus et ultimi
noscent Geloni, me peritus
discet Hiber Rhodanique potor.
Absint inani funere neniae
luctusque turpes et querimoniae;
conpesce clamorem ac sepulcri
mitte supervacuos honores.