In Other Words/On an Upright Life

by Franklin P. Adams

Layout 2

 

 

On an Upright Life

AD ARISTIUM FUSCUM
Horace: Book I, Ode 22.

[Those whom the original verbiage may confuse are advised to read only the italics: those who detest our efforts may read only Q. H. Flaccus’s words, set of course in Roman; and the rest may combine them.]

 

(Integer vitae) A man who’s on the level,
 (Non eget . . . arcu) He needn’t have a fear;
(Nec venenatis) Not arrows of the devil
 (Fusce, pharetra) Can harm a conscience clear—

(Sive per Syrtes) Whether he’s in Peoria,
 (Sive facturus) New York or Newtonville,
(Caucasum vel) East Orange or Emporia,
 (Lambit Hydaspes) Or Pocahontas, Ill.

(Namque me . . . lupus) For once, when I was singing,
 (Dum meam . . . Lalagen) A wolf came up to me;
(Terminum curis) He heard my lyric ringing,
 (Fugit inermem) And fled immejitlee.

(Quale portentum.) Believe me, he was some wolf,
 (Daunias latis) Not wood from Noah’s Ark,
(Nec Jubae tellus) No little Daunian bum wolf
 (Arida nutrix) Like those in Central Park.

(Pone me, pigris) O put me on the prairie,
 (Arbor aestiva) Or let me hire a hall,
Quod latus mundi) Set me upon Mt. Airy,
 (Jupiter urget) Or anywhere at all.

(Pone sub curru) Still I, on the equator,
 (Solis . . . negata) At ninety in the shade,
(Dulce ridentem) Shall love—a poor translator—
 (Dulce loquentem) My sweetly smiling maid.