Guardian of mountains and woods, Virgin
who here, when called three times by girls
in labor, and save them from death,
three-formed goddess:
yours be the pine tree leaning over my villa
and at each year's end I will gladly give it
the blood of a young boar practicing
his sideways thrust.
--Horace, The Complete Odes and Epodes, A new translation by David West,
1997, p. 99.
Horace Odes, Liber III, xxii
Montium custos
Montium custos nemorumque uirgo,
quae laborantis utero puellas
ter uocata audis adimisque leto,
diua triformis,
inminens uillae tua pinus esto,
quam per exactos ego laetus annos
uerris obliquom meditantis ictum
sanguine donem.
The latin is taken from:
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/horace/carm3.shtml
Horace Odes, Book 3, 23
If when the moon is being born
If when the moon is being born you lift your hands
upturned towards the sky, rustic Phidyle,
if you placate the Lares with incense,
this year's grain, and a greedy pig,
your vine will be fertile and not feel the wind
which brings disease from Africa, nor will your crop know
the blight of mildew nor your lovely suckling beasts
a time of danger when the year bears fruit.
The sacrificial victim feeding
on snowy Algidus among oak and ilex
or fattening in the Alban grasslands,
will stain the axes of priests
with blood from its neck. There is no call for you
to ply your little gods with great killings
of yearlings. Just crown them
with rosemary or brittle sprigs of myrtle.
If your empty hand touches the altar, it is
more persuasive for offering no costly victim,
and appeases angry Penates
with consecrated grain and crackling salt.
--Horace, The Complete Odes and Epodes, A new translation by David West,
1997, p. 99-100.
Horace Odes, Liber III, xxiii
Caelo supinas
Caelo supinas si tuleris manus
nascente luna, rustica Phidyle,
si ture placaris et horna
fruge Lares auidaque porca
nec pestilentem sentiet Africum
fecunda uitis nec sterilem seges
robiginem aut dulces alumni
pomifero graue tempus anno.
Nam quae niuali pascitur Algido
deuota quercus inter et ilices
aut crescit Albanis in herbis
uictima, pontificum securis
ceruice tinguet; te nihil attinet
temptare multa caede bidentium
paruos coronantem marino
rore deos fragilique myrto.
Inmunis aram si tetigit manus,
non sumptuosa blandior hostia
molliuit auersos Penatis
farre pio et saliente mica.
The latin is taken from:
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/horace/carm3.shtml