Horace 1.35

A HYMN TO FORTUNE

Oh goddess, you who rule Antium pleasing, ready either to lift
a mortal body, from the lowest step or to turn
proud triumphs to destruction:

An agitated poor man goes to you, the tiller of the country
entreats you with a prayer,
whoever provokes the Carpathian sea
with a Bithynian ship, embraces you as the mistress of the sea;

you rude Dacian, he fears you, the Scythians fear you
and cities and people and warlike Latium
and mothers of barbarian kings and
crimson tyrants fear you.

They fear that you demolish the standing column of the state with
your harmful foot, and they fear that the packed crowds of people urge forth
to arms, the ones doing nothing, and they fear that
the crowd of people break the empire.

Cruel necessity always precedes you,
carrying large nails and carrying wedges with a hand
hard as bronze, and a severe
hook is not absent as well as liquid lead.

Hope and faith cultivate with you with a rare white veiled cloth,
and does not deny you as a companion, you being hostile leave behind
the powerful homes with garments having been changed.

But the faithless crowd steps back and the lying courtesan steps back
friends flee in different directions
with the kegs having been drained with the drapes,
friends who are deceitful to bear the yoke equally.

Keep safe Caesar about to go into the farthest
Britain territories, keep safe the fresh crowd of youth,
to be feared in the directions of the dawn
and in the red sea.

Alas, we are ashamed of the scars and of the crime and of brothers.
What do we run away from we being the hardy generation? What of an outrage
had we left untried? From where
has the youth restrain their hand

out of a fear of the gods? Which alters
has it spared? O, if only would reforge
on a new anvil the sword having been made blunt against
the Scythians and the Arabians.