Horace, Odes 1.34
Note: “a mad philosophy”: Epicureanism, which attributed physical phenomena to the movement of atoms rather than divine intervention.
Once I worshiped the gods in a fashion
Miserly and rare,
While I went astray, so learned
In a mad philosophy;
Now I am compelled to sail
Backward, and take up
Afresh a course before abandoned.
For the Sky-Father,
Usually wont to rend the clouds
With his flashing lightning,
Drove his thundering horses and
His flying chariot
Through a clear sky. And with that driving,
The heavy earth, the rivers
That meander, the Styx, the dreadful
Seat of hated Taenarum,
And Atlas, the world’s western limit-
All of them were shaken.
The god has power to exchange
Lowest things with highest;
He dims the glow of the famous man
And brings the hidden to light.
Greedy Fortune, with a shriek
That pierces, snatches off
The crown from one man’s head and joys
To set it on another’s.
Parcus deorum cultor et infrequens,
insanientis dum sapientiae
consultus erro, nunc retrorsum
vela dare atque iterare cursus
cogor relictos: namque Diespiter
igni corusco nubila dividens
plerumque, per purum tonantis
egit equos volucremque currum,
quo bruta tellus et vaga flumina,
quo Styx et invisi horrida Taenari
sedes Atlanteusque finis
concutitur. Valet ima summis
mutare et insignem attenuat deus,
obscura promens; hinc apicem rapax
Fortuna cum stridore acuto
sustulit, hic posuisse gaudet.
