Book III.10 of The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace

X.

Ah Lyce! though your drink were Tanais,
Your husband some rude savage, you would weep
To leave me shivering, on a night like this,
Where storms their watches keep.
Hark! how your door is creaking! how the grove
In your fair court-yard, while the wild winds blow,
Wails in accord! with what transparence Jove
Is glazing the driven snow!
Cease that proud temper: Venus loves it not:
The rope may break, the wheel may backward turn:
Begetting you, no Tuscan sire begot
Penelope the stern.
O, though no gift, no "prevalence of prayer,"
Nor lovers' paleness deep as violet,
Nor husband, smit with a Pierian fair,
Move you, have pity yet!
O harder e'en than toughest heart of oak,
Deafer than uncharm'd snake to suppliant moans!
This side, I warn you, will not always brook
Rain-water and cold stones.

Extremum Tanain.

Extremum Tanain si biberes, Lyce,
saeuo nupta uiro, me tamen asperas
porrectum ante foris obicere incolis
plorares Aquilonibus.

Audis quo strepitu ianua, quo nemus 5
inter pulchra satum tecta remugiat
uentis, et positas ut glaciet niues
puro numine Iuppiter?

Ingratam Veneri pone superbiam,
ne currente retro funis eat rota: 10
non te Penelopen difficilem procis
Tyrrhenus genuit parens.

O quamuis neque te munera nec preces
nec tinctus uiola pallor amantium
nec uir Pieria paelice saucius 15
curuat, supplicibus tuis

parcas, nec rigida mollior aesculo
nec Mauris animum mitior anguibus:
non hoc semper erit liminis aut aquae
caelestis patiens latus. 20

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