15 Feb Horace’s Odes – Β΄-10
RECTIUS VIVES
You will live better, Licinius, by neither
always pressing the deep nor, while you carefully
dread storms, by excessively pressing
the treacherous shore.
Whoever values a golden mean
is safely free from the squalor
of a worn-out house, is soberly free from
an envious palace.
The vast pine is more often moved
by the wind and the high towers fall
with a more serious fall and the lightening
strikes the highest mountains.
The well-prepared heart hopes for the other fate
in dangerous affairs, and fears the other fate in favorable
affairs. Jupiter brings back ugly
winters; likewise,
he removes them. If it is badly now, once it will
not be so: once Apollo stirs the silent
Muse with his lyre and does not
always stretch his bow.
Appear strong and firm in steep
affairs; likewise, you will wisely
shorten your sails swollen in a
too favorable wind.
The Odes
Horace
