Bkiii:Xxix Fortune

Maecenas, son of Etruscan kings, a jar of mellow wine, that nobody’s touched, awaits you, at my house, and with rose-petals, and balsam, for your hair, squeezed from the press. Escape from what delays you: don’t always be thinking of moist Tibur, and of Aefula’s sloping fields, and of the towering heights of Telegonus, who killed his father. Forget the fastidiousness of riches, and those efforts to climb to the lofty clouds, stop being so amazed by the smoke, and the wealth, and the noise, of thriving Rome. A change usually pleases the rich: a meal that’s simple beneath a poor man’s humble roof, without the tapestries and purple, smooths the furrows on a wrinkled forehead. Already Cepheus, Andromeda’s bright father, shows his hidden fires, and now Procyon rages, and Leo’s furious stars, as the sun returns with his parching days: Now the shepherd, with his listless flock, searches for the shade, and the stream and the thickets of shaggy Silvanus, the silent banks lack even the breath of a wandering breeze. You’re worrying about state politics, and, anxious about the City, you’re fretting what the Seres, and Bactra, Cyrus once ruled, and troublesome Don, are plotting. The wise god buries the future’s outcome deep in shadowy night, and smiles at those mortals who are agitated far beyond what’s sensible. Remember, with calmness, reconcile yourself to what is: the rest is carried along like a river, gliding now, peacefully, in mid-stream, and down to the Tuscan Sea, now rolling around polished stones, uprooted trees, the flocks, and homes together, with the echoes from the mountains, and the neighbouring woods, while the wild deluge stirs the peaceful tributaries. He’s happy, he’s his own master, who can say each day: ‘I’ve lived: tomorrow, the Father may fill the heavens with darkening cloud, or fill the sky with radiant sunshine: yet he can’t render whatever is past as null and void, he can never seek to alter, or return and undo, whatever the fleeting moment tosses behind it. Fortune takes delight in her cruel business, determined to play her extravagant games, and she alters her fickle esteem, now kind to me, and, now, to some other. I praise her while she’s here: but if she flutters her swift wings, I resign the gifts she gave, wrap myself in virtue, and woo honest Poverty, even though she’s no dowry. When the masts are groaning in African gales, it’s not for me to ask in wretched prayer, that my Cyprian and Tyrian wares should be saved entire not add new wealth to the greedy sea: and then the light breezes, Pollux, and Castor his brother, carry me safely through the stormy Aegean, all with the aid of my double-oared skiff.