POEMS
HORACE
i.
I I /
To Bullatius
So, Bullatius, what did you think of Chios?
What did you think of famous Lesbos? Or Smyrna?
Or Croesus's royal Sardis, or Colophon?
Or elegant Samos? Tell me, no matter whether
They're more or less than what you had expected,
Is anyone of these places anything other
Than disappointing compared to the Campus Martius
Or to the Tiber? Or is it your heart's desire
To see at least one of the Atallids' cities, or, tired
Of seasides and highways, is Lebedus what you're after?
You know what it's really like there-not even Fidena,
ot even Gabii's, more desolate and deserted.
"Nevertheless
I
long to be there alone,
Forgetting the wor ld , and glad to be forgotten,
Gazing from afar at Neptune's vio lence."
But a man who has traveled from Capua to Rome
And arrives at an inn all muddy and wet and chilled,
Wouldn't want to live on forever at the inn,
No matter how cozy he's made by its stove and hot baths.
If
you arrived on the other side of the sea,
Safe and sound after a stormy crossing,
You wouldn't therefore decide to sell the ship
On which you were going to get back home aga in .
To a sens ibl e free man, being away in Rhodes
Or beautiful Mitylene is like wearing
A heavy overcoat in the summertime,
Or wearing a loin cloth in the wintertime
Editor's ate: Excerpted from
The Epistles of Hora ce
by David Ferry. To
be published in August
200I
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Copyright
©
200
I
by David Ferry. All rights reserved.
