Ode II.3
Horace (65 - 8 B.C.)
David Ferry, Trans. (1924-)

When things are bad, be steady in your mind;
Dellius, do not be
Too unrestrainedly joyful in good fortune.
You are going to die.

It does not matter at all whether you spend
Your days and nights in sorrow,
Or on the other hand, in holiday pleasure,
Drinking Falernian wine

Of an excellent vintage year, on the river bank.
Why is it, do you suppose,
That the dark branches of those tall pines and those
Poplars' silvery leafy

Branches love to join, coming together,
Creating a welcoming shade?
Have you not noticed how in the quiet river
The current shows signs of hurry,

Urging itself to go forward, going somewhere,
Making its purposeful way?
By all means tell your servants to bring you wine,
Perfumes, and the utterly lovely

Too briefly blossoming flowers of the villa garden;
Yes, of course, while youth,
And circumstance, and the black threads of the Sisters
Suffer this to be so.

You are going to have to yield those upland pastures,
The ones you bought just lately;
You are going to yield the town house, and the villa,
The country place whose margin

The Tiber washes as it moves along.
Heirs will possess all that
Which you have gathered. It does not matter at all
If you are rich, with kings

Forefathers of your pride; no matter; or poor,
Fatherless under the sky.
You will be sacrificed to Orcus without pity.
All of us together

Are being gathered; the lot of each of us
Is in the shaken urn
With all the other lots, and like the others
Sooner or later our lot

Will fall out from the urn; and so we are chosen to take
Our place in that dark boat,
In that dark boat, that bears us all away
From here to where no one comes back from ever.