| Ode (Poemata Latina 1668)] QUid relinquendos, Moriture, nummos, Sarcinas Vitæ Fugiture, quæris? Si relinquendos; Dominum relinquunt Sæpè priores. Quid struis pulchros Thalamos in altum Membra sub terrâ positurus imâ? Conserens Hortos, sed in omne tempus Ipse serendus? Num tuas Te res agitare credis? Esse Te Frugalem? aliis laboras 10 Servus inflix, aliena curas Ardelio ingens. Longa momento meditantur uno, Dum Senes rebus venientis ævi Lineæ Puncto brevis in supremo Acriùs instant. Jure Formicæ cumulant acervos Providæ, et Brumæ memores futuræ, Sed malè æstivas eadem deceret Cura Cicadas. 20 Gloriæ mendax nitor atque honorum Posset excusare suos Amantes Si diem vitæ valuisset, ut Sol, Pingere totum. At brevem post se sonitum relinquens Fulguris ritu, simul ac videtur Transit, illustri loca multa inaurans Non sine Damno. O rudis pulchræ propè contuenti Scena Fortunæ! Mala fastuosa 30 Ore larvato! Lacrymæque Pictæ Iridis instar! Magna contemnens, miseránsque Magnos, Invidens nulli, minimè Invidendus, Vive Coulëi; lege tuta parvâ Littora Cymbâ. Hospitem Clorum imitare Alaudam, Sis licèt Nubes super ire cantu Doctus, in Terris humilem memento Ponere Nidum. 40 |
Ode. [trans. DK] Dying, why keen for ready cash to leave behind, with all life's loads? Leave it you must, as it has often left former masters. Why build great rooms to grace your bed one day to lie in lowly earth, planting a garden, but yourself soon planted forever? Think you you handle these affairs for frugal you? For someone else 10 you slave, poor drudge, and mind another's cares, a great meddler. Moments to live, but long-range schemes, as old men at the very end of their short span are hottest on the coming term's business. Ants pile up great reserves with cause, sage-mindful of the coming cold, but fretting so would ill befit the summer's cicadas. 20 Glory and honor's treacherous glow might give its lovers some excuse if it could light up life's whole day, the way that the sun does, but like a lightning-bolt with its short-lived report, no sooner seen than vanished, it gilds many places brightly and balefully. How crude fair Fortune's scene when once studied up close! Pretentious ills 30 tricked up with masks; tears painted with the hues of the rainbow! Disprize great things; pity the great; be little envied, envying none; Cowley, so live; safe, hug the shore in your little vessel. Take after heaven's guest, the lark; trained well enough to scale the clouds in song, see you make home a humble nest in earth's bosom. 40 |
[Ode; Works 1668)] |1| Why dost thou heap up Wealth, which thou must quit, Or, what is worse, be left by it? Why dost thou load thyself, when thou'rt to fly, Oh Man ordained to die? |2| Why dost thou build up stately Rooms on high, Thou who art under Ground to lie? Thou Sow'st and Plantest, but no Fruit must see; For Death, alas! is sowing Thee. |3| Suppose, thou Fortune could to tameness bring, And clip or pinion her wing; Suppose thou couldst on Fate so far prevail As not to cut off thy Entail. |4| Yet Death at all that subtilty will laugh, Death will that foolish Gardner mock Who does a slight and annual Plant engraff, Upon a lasting stock. |5| Thou dost thyself Wise and Industrious deem; A mighty Husband thou wouldst seem; Fond Man! like a bought slave, thou all the while Dost but for others Sweat and Toil. |6| Officious Fool! that needs must medling be In business that concerns not thee! For when to Future years thou'extendst thy cares Thou deal'st in other men's affairs. |7| Even aged men, as if they truly were Children again, for Age prepare, Provisions for long travail they design, In the last point of their short Line. |8| Wisely the Ant against poor Winter hoords The stock which Summers wealth affords, In Grasshoppers that must at Autumn die, How vain were such an Industry? |9| Of Power and Honour the deceitful Light Might half excuse our cheated sight, If it of Life the whole small time would stay, And be our Sun-shine all the day, |10| Like Lightning that, begot but in a Cloud (Though shining bright, and speaking loud) Whilst it begins, concludes its violent Race, And where it Guilds, it wounds the place. |11| Oh Scene of Fortune, which dost fair appear, Only to men that stand not near! Proud Poverty, that Tinsel brav'ry wears, And like a Rainbow, painted Tears! |12| Be prudent, and the shore in prospect keep, In a weak Boat trust not the deep. Placed beneath Envy, above envying rise; Pity Great Men, Great Things despise. |13| The wise example of the Heavenly Lark, Thy Fellow-Poet, Cowley mark, Above the Clouds let thy proud Musique sound, Thy humble Nest build on the Ground. |
| Both the Latin and English are based on texts owned by the editor and comprising these errors, which are duly corrected above: Latin 23: uti for ut; 34: minimo for minimè. Ampersands have been silently expanded in both texts, and long "s" and italicized punctuation have been normalized throughout. Cowley's Latin is in 10 Sapphic stanzas and 40 lines and his English in 13 stanzas and 52 lines, with English stanzas 3 and 4 corresponding to nothing in the Latin and English stanzas 5 and 6 constituting a longer equivalent of Latin stanza 3. The Latin poem was first published posthumously in the Carminum Miscellaneorum Liber concluding the Poemata Latina of 1668; the English poem, part of Cowley's English Works, first appeared that same year in the essay, "The Shortness of Life and the Uncertainty of Riches." |
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