Horace's Sabine Farm

Of course we have only the outline of a house. The walls and the roof have gone long ago, except for the lower courses which indicate the size and the style of the place; the fragmentary works of art and small utensils found during the dig are in a museum near by. Yet the floor-plan is clear, and some of the mosaic floors are still in place. As Horace himself says, it is a modest enough house. But anyone who has had the pleasure of visiting it will never again call it a farm. It was a charming country house, inhabited by a man who had good taste and loved comfort and seclusion.

Gilbert Highet, Poets in a Landscape (New York: The New York Review of Books, 2010; 1957), pp. 144-45.

The Praises of a Country-life

Ben Jonson
'The Praises of a Country-life'
[A translation of Horace, Odes, V.2]

Happy is he, that from all Business clear,
   As the old Race of Mankind were,
With his own Oxen tills his Sires left Lands,
   And is not in the Usurers Bands:
Nor Soldier-like started with rough Alarms,
   Nor dreads the Seas inraged harms:
But flees the Bar and Courts, with the proud bords,
   And waiting Chambers of great Lords.
The Poplar tall, he then doth marrying twine
   With the grown issue of the Vine;
And with his Hook lops off the fruitless Race,
   And sets more happy in the Place:
Or in the bending Vale beholds a-far
   The lowing Herds there grazing are:
Or the prest Honey in pure Pots doth keep
   Of Earth, and shears the tender Sheep:
Or when that Autumn, through the Fields lifts round
   His Head, with mellow Apples crown'd,
How plucking Pears, his own hand grafted had,
   And Purple-matching Grapes, he's glad!
With which, Priapus, he may thank thy Hands,
   And, Sylvane, thine that keptst his Lands!
Then now beneath some ancient Oak he may
   Now in the rooted Grass him lay,
Whilst from the higher Banks do slide the Floods?
   The soft Birds quarrel in the Woods,
The Fountains murmur as the Streams do creep,
   And all invite to easie sleep.
Then when the thundring Jove, his Snow and Showers
   Are gathering by the Wintry hours;
Or hence, or thence, he drives with many a Hound
   Wild Boars into his Toils pitch'd round:
Or strains on his small Fork his subtil Nets
   For th' eating Thrush, or Pit-falls sets:
And snares the fearful Hare, and new-come Crane,
   And 'counts them sweet Rewards so ta'en.
Who (amongst these delights) would not forget
   Loves cares so Evil, and so great?
But if, to boot with these, a chaste Wife meet
   For Houshold aid, and Children sweet;
Such as the Sabines, or a Sun-burnt-blowse,
   Some lusty quick Apulians Spouse,
To deck the hallow'd Harth with old Wood fir'd
   Against the Husband comes home tir'd;
That penning the glad flock in Hurdles by
   Their swelling Udders doth draw dry:
And from the sweet Tub Wine of this year takes,
   And unbought Viands ready makes:
Not Lucrine Oysters I could then more prize,
   Nor Turbot, nor bright Golden Eyes:
If with bright Floods, the Winter troubled much,
   Into our Seas send any such:
Th' Ionian God-wit, nor the Ginny-hen
   Could not go down my Belly then
More sweet than Olives, that new gather'd be
   From fattest Branches of the Tree:
Or the Herb Sorrel, that loves Meadows still,
   Or Mallows loosing Bodies ill:
Or at the Feast of Bounds, the Lamb then slain,
   Or Kid forc't from the Wolf again.
Among these Cates how glad the sight doth come
   Of the fed Flocks approaching home!
To view the weary Oxen draw, with bare
   And fainting Necks, the turned Share!
The wealthy Houshold swarm of Bondmen met,
   And 'bout the steeming Chimney set!
These thoughts when Usurer Alphius, now about
   To turn more Farmer, had spoke out
'Gainst th' Ides, his Moneys he gets in with pain,
   At th' Calends puts all out again.

Endless Spring on Yuelu Mountain

玉洞仙壇長冷落，真墟岩竇色常新。
可憐城里悠悠者，不識瀟湘四季春。

The Xian altar in the jade cave has long been left desolate,
The Zhenxu rock cave is always a fresh sight.
I pity those who spend their time in the city,
They do not know the endless spring of Hunan.

Notes:
This poem is from the "Nanyue Zongsheng Collection" (南嶽總勝集) by Chen Tianfu of the Song Dynasty.

Xian: can refer to any immortal in Taoism/Chinese folklore.

Zhenxu: a grotto on Yuelu Mountain: 洞真墟福地.

The anonymous poet complains about the neglect of the sacred places on Yuelu Mountain and pities those who spend too much time in the city.

全唐詩續拾卷五十六 [Complete Tang Dynasty Poems], Volume 56, poem 174. Chinese Texts Project. My translation.