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Translated by R. M. Hovenden
NOW let us drink; with nimble feet | |
| Now let us strike the holy ground; | |
| With couches deck the temple round | |
| For Saliaric banquets meet. | |
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| Which of us, friends, had disinterred | 5 |
| His costly wines, what time the Queen, | |
| Puffed up with pride and female spleen, | |
| Encircled by a loathsome herd | |
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| Unsexed, but foul with barren lust, | |
| Marshalled her powers to overwhelm | 10 |
| Our Capitol and ancient realm, | |
| And lay Rome’s glories in the dust? | |
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| But Egypt knows her dream a cheat | |
| Begot of Mareotic fumes, | |
| When the devouring fire consumes, | 15 |
| Ship after ship, her Actium fleet. | |
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| When Cæsar, following in her wake, | |
| Like hawk or hunter giving chase | |
| To timorous dove or hare of Thrace, | |
| Urges his crew to overtake | 20 |
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| And load the monster-queen with chains, | |
| She homeward steers, resolved to die, | |
| Preferring death to slavery | |
| Or exile from her old domains. | |
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| Now, in her royal house serene, | 25 |
| Upon her breast she dares to clasp | |
| The venom of the deadly asp, | |
| Unshrinking, to the last a Queen. | |
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| She scorns, the haughty one, to go | |
| In keel Liburnian over sea, | 30 |
| No golden-fettered captive she | |
| To grace the triumph of her foe. | |
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