ODE XVIII. TO QUINTILIUS VARUS.
Wine moderately taken, makes the heart glad, but drank to excess, creates madness.
Varus, you shou'd no tree prefer
Before the sacred vine,
If you to plant the kindly soil
Of Catilus design.
For to the droughty all things hard
Has Heav'n and nature made;
Nor can we rankling care escape
Without the bottle's aid.
Who make a racket in their cups,
Of want or war's distress,
Nor rather Bachus, sire of joy,
And graceful Venus bless?
But lest we shou'd transgress and take
More liquor than we ought,
The Centaurean battles warn
O'er such carousing fought.
Great Bacchus is a warning too
As most severely just
Against Sithonians right and wrong
Confounding in their lust.
To thee my candid
Bassareus
I will not do despite;
Nor bring from underneath the leaf
What best had shunn'd the light.
Restrain your Berecynthian horn,
And hush your savage drums,
After whose clam'rous din, self-love
In partial blindness comes;
Vain glory next, with empty head
Aloft, is wont to pass;
And tattling treachery succeeds
Seen through as clear as glass.