Odes and Carmen Saeculare — Book III - XII - Miserarum Est

MISERARUM EST.

How unhappy are the maidens who with Cupid may not play, Who may never touch the wine-cup, but must tremble all the day At an uncle, and the scourging of his tongue!

Neobule, there's a robber takes your needle and your thread, Lets the lessons of Minerva run no longer in your head;

It is Hebrus, the athletic and the young!

O, to see him when anointed he is plunging in the flood!

What a seat he has on horseback!

was Bellerophon's as good?

As a boxer, as a runner, past compare!

When the deer are flying blindly all the open country o'er, He can aim and he can hit them; he can steal upon the boar, As it couches in the thicket unaware.

XIII.