10. Their life was like the life (ellip.) of a beast, spent without any regularity (nullos agitata per usus); They were a savage people (et rude vulgus,) and destitute as yet of knowledge. (Pentam.) They had (norant) for houses leaves, for food (frugibus) herbs; Water, drunk out of their two hands, was their nectar. No ox panted under the curved (adunco) plough-share; No land was under the cultivation (imperio) of the husbandman (colentis). 11. The shepherd guides (agit) his flocks; he now takes in his arms (suscipit) the tender lambs, And gives them, while cherished in his bosom, the sweetest (selectas) herbs; He now seeks for the sheep that are lost, and brings back the wandering. 12. The third morning had from the heavens removed the cold shades of night (ellip.), When they sorrowfully (marentes) collected together (ruebant) on the hearths the high raised (altus) ashes and The bones intermingled with each other, and placed over them a warm mound of earth. 13. Begone, ye sleepless cares; begone, complaints, And the host of envy with her " jealous leer malign" (transverso tortilis hirquo); Nor thou, O cruel calumny, bring hither thy envenomed scoffs (anguiferos rictus). 14. Thus (talis) the Parthian lord leads from the Tigris His barbarian troops, and proudly adorns his head With regal chaplets, gems, and rich attire. 15. Androcles, who had fled as an exile from the anger of his master, Wandered over the parched sands of Libya. (Pentam.) At length, when wearied and exhausted by his journey (labore viarum), A secret cave presented itself (patuit) to him at the side of a rock. 16. He enters the cave (hanc); and scarcely had he committed his wearied limbs to sleep, When suddenly a huge lion roars in the cavern. It lifted up its wounded foot (pedem attollens læsum), and, uttering a mournful cry, It implored (precatur), as well as it was able to implore, the assistance of Androcles. (ellip). 17. The fugitive slave (erro), struck with the novelty of the circumstance, and hesitating with fear, 1 Scarcely at length moves his trembling hands to the assistance of the lion (ellip.); But, after having examined the thorn, (for a thorn stuck in the wound,) He carefully and tenderly draws it out of the lion's foot. 18. Now again he roams through the sylvan shades, and the groves; and, like an attentive host, Brings to the cave for Androcles constant food. The man, as the lion's guest, sits down to the feasts prepared for him (ellip.), And hesitates not to partake of the undressed (crudus) provisions. 19. But who could bear to live thus solitarily in a cheerless desert (tædia desertæ vitæ)? Scarcely could the rage of a revengeful master be more terrible. The slave at length resolves to expose his devoted head to certain dangers, And again to seek his paternal abode (patrios lares). 20. Here he is given up by his master (ellip.), and, doomed to afford a cruel entertainment to the people, He stands in the theatre as a wretched criminal (accipit et miserum tristis arena reum). By chance the same lion that he had assisted in the desert (ellip.), fierce, and raging with hunger, rushes from the dens, And looks with an astonished countenance on his physician. 21. He looks at him, and, as an old friend (vetus hospes) recognising his former guest (veterem amicum), He lies down at his well known feet caressing him (blandulus). This prodigy (ellip.) was the work of nature alone: she alone, who gave to the lion all his rage, She alone induced him to repress it. 22. The dove, that has been wounded by thy talons, O hawk, Is alarmed at the least rustling of a wing. (Pentam.) The lamb, that has been at any time rescued from the jaws of a rapacious wolf, [secedere). Never dares again to wander from the fold (a stabulis 23. Happy is the man, who has spent his days in his paternal (propriis) fields (Pentam.), Whom the same roof shelters (videt) when an old man, that sheltered him when a boy ;* Who leaning on his staff on the same sand, on which he once crept as a child (ellip.), Relates the long history (sæcula) of his single habitation (casa). 24. Fortune has not led him through the innumerable vicissitudes of life (vario tumultu): He has neither as a traveller (periph.) tasted of foreign (ignotas) waters; Nor as a merchant has he feared the seas, nor as a soldier the trumpet's sound (classica); Neither has he undergone the contentions of jarring courts of law (fori). 25. The lofty oak he (qui) remembers when it hung as an acorn (ellip.) on a little branch, And he sees the grove of the same age with himself, with himself grow old. [sces him But yet unbroken is his strength, and the third generation A grandsire still robust with vigorous limbs (firmis lacertis). 26. May I never so misapply (nolim prostituisse) the powers of my mind, As to become the flatterer of kings and the promoter of vice (Pentam.): [grave (morti subtraho), Nor may I spend the short space, that I can steal from the In fawning and cringing (caudam submittam) like a fearful dog. 27. See lofty Lebanon his head (gaudentia culmina) advance ! See nodding forests on the mountain dance! 28. So the sweet lark, high poised in air, Shuts close his pinions to his breast (Pentam.), And drops at once into her nest. 29. Nations behold, remote from reason's beams (ellip.), Where Indian Ganges rolls his sandy streams, Of life impatient, rush into the fire, And willing victims to their gods expire, Persuaded (percussa cupidine cæca) the freed soul to 30. Subdued at length, he owns time's heavier tread, LYRIC AND DRAMATIC MEASURES. FEET.-METRES.. The dactyle and the spondee were the feet in the most general use among the Latin poets, and the measures, in which these feet were most commonly arranged, were the hexameter and pentameter; but in their lyric and dramatic compositions, several other kinds of feet* were often introduced, as well as a great variety of measures. The metres employed in Latin poetry are the dactylic, the anapestic, the iambic, the trochaic, the choriambic, and the ionic measures. A verse which has a redundant syllable or foot is termed a hypermeter or hypercatalectic line; a verse wanting a syllable at the beginning is called acephalous; a line that wants one syllable at the end to complete the measure, catalectic; * For an account of the feet employed, see Adam's Latin Grammar and Carey's Latin Prosody. a verse wanting two at the end, brachycatalectic; and a line containing its exact number of feet and syllables is denomi nated acatalectic. DACTYLIC MEASURES. 1. The principal dactylic measure is the hexameter. 2. The hexameter meiurus is a defective hexameter, and has an iambus in the sixth foot instead of a spondee; as, Dirige o dōris è quōs ad | cērtă cu biliă | cănēs. Liv. Andron. 3. The priapean is also a species of hexameter; but it has, gencrally, a trochee in the first foot, and, sometimes, an amphimacer in the third; as, O colonia quæ cupis | pōntě | lūdĕrě | lōngō. Catull A regular hexameter verse is termed priapean, and is, consequently, 'considered inelegant, when it is so constructed as to admit of being divided into two portions of three feet each; as, Tērtiă pārs pātrī dătă | pārs dătă | tērtĭă | pātrī. Catull. 4. The regular pentameter is also a dactylic measure. 5. The Æolic pentameter consists of four dactyles, preceded by a spondee, a trochee, or an iambus; as, Edidit tŭbă | terribilēm soni|tūm procŭl. Terentian. 6. The Phalacian or Phaleucian verse consists of the penthemimer of a hexameter, followed by a dactyle and a spondee; as, Visēbāt gěli da | sidĕră | brūmæ. Boeth. A trochee is sometimes found in the first foot of this measure, Boethius has admitted an iambus in the first and second feet. and 7. The tetrameter a priore, or the Alcmanian dactylic te trameter, consists of the first three feet of a hexameter, followed by a dactyle; as, Desuper in tēr rām nox | funditur. Boeth. 8. The tetrameter a posteriore, or spondaic tetrameter, consists of the last four feet of a heroic verse; as, Sic tristes af fatus ă micōs. Horat. |