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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  To Leuconoë

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

To Leuconoë

By Horace (65–8 B.C.)

Translation of Caskie Harrison

O SEEK not thou—’tis not to know—what end to me, what end to thee

The gods have given, nor Babylonish numbers test, Leuconoë.

How better far it is to bear whatever lot for us be cast!

Or whether Jove more winters still, or whether gives he this the last,

Which now on pumice-crags opposing ever breaks th’ Etruscan sea;

Be wise; strain out thy wines, and trim thine all too long expectancy

To life’s brief span. Now while we speak, invidious time hath slipt away.

O thou, as little as may be the morrow trusting, snatch to-day!