Wolf in the Woods

Horace, Ode 1.22

by Michael Gilleland
Synopsis |  Text |  Crib |  Notes |  Survival |  Home

Synopsis (by C.H. Moore): "The upright man is safe, no matter where he roams. I know that this is true, friend Fuscus, for once in Sabine wood as I sang of Lalage, a monster wolf fled from me, though I was unarmed. Put me in chill northern gloom or beneath the torrid sun, still will I ever sing of my Lalage."

  Text Crib
  Integer uitae scelerisque purus
non eget Mauris iaculis neque arcu
nec uenenatis grauida sagittis,
  Fusce, pharetra, 		The man who is upright in life and free of sin
has no need of Moorish spears or a bow
or a quiver heavy with poisoned
arrows, Fuscus,
5
 
 
  		siue per Syrtis iter aestuosas
siue facturus per inhospitalem
Caucasum uel quae loca fabulosus
  lambit Hydaspes. 		whether he's about to embark on a journey
through the hot Syrtes or the barren
Caucasus or the places which the Hydaspes
(famous in story) washes.
 
10
 
  		Namque me silua lupus in Sabina,
dum meam canto Lalagen et ultra
terminum curis uagor expeditis,
  fugit inermem, 		For in the Sabine forest, as I'm singing
of Lalage and wandering beyond my boundary
marker (without a care in the world), a wolf
runs away from me[, although I'm] unarmed,
 
 
15
  		quale portentum neque militaris
Daunias latis alit aesculetis
nec Iubae tellus generat, leonum
  arida nutrix. 		such a monster as warlike Apulia
doesn't produce in its broad oak forests
and Juba's land (dry nurse of lions)
doesn't spawn.
 
 
 
20 		Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis
arbor aestiua recreatur aura,
quod latus mundi nebulae malusque
  Iuppiter urget; 		Put me in barren fields where no tree
is refreshed by a summer breeze,
a corner of the world which clouds and
bad weather oppresses;
 
 
 
  		pone sub curru nimium propinqui
solis, in terra domibus negata;
dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,
  dulce loquentem. 		put me beneath the chariot of the
too-close sun, in a land bereft of houses;
I'll [still] love Lalage, who laughs sweetly
and speaks sweetly.

Notes

There is a fine recording of a Latin recitation of this ode by Robert Sonkowsky (in RealMedia format).

1 The upright man doesn't need to fear anything.

But the seriousness of the first two stanzas dissolves into mock seriousness in the third stanza, where Horace makes it clear that by the "upright man" he really means the steadfast lover, who is under divine protection.

2 The Moors were handy with their spears.

3 Poisoned arrows were the chemical weapons of antiquity.

4 Almost all we know about Horace's friend, the schoolmaster Aristius Fuscus, comes from Horace himself.

5 "Syrtes" is plural. There are two gulfs named Syrtis on the north coast of Africa:

They can be seen at the top of this map of Africa. The name applies not only to the gulfs, but also to the deserts behind them on the African mainland. In 47 BC Cato marched 700 miles across the big Syrtis desert, from Berenice (Benghazi) to Leptis, with 10,000 men. The march took a month.

7 The Caucasus mountain range runs for about 750 miles along the northern borders of modern-day Georgia and Azerbaijan, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Some of its peaks exceed 15,000 feet. Here is a map of the Caucasus region.

8 The Hydaspes (modern-day Jhelum) is a river in Punjab, a region of northwest India and Pakistan whose name (in Persian) means "five waters" -- Persian "panj" is five and "ab" is water. The other four rivers are Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas. All five rivers merge into the Panjnad, which flows into the Indus. For a map of the river system, go here and click on "Physical."

In classical times, the Hydaspes was best known as the site of a battle between Alexander the Great and the Indian prince Porus in June, 326 BC.

9 Horace mentions woods on his Sabine farm elsewhere in his poems:

The question of wolf attacks on humans is a bitterly contentious one today, because of support for and opposition to the re-introduction of wolves into their former habitats. There is an extensive, world-wide review of the question by John D.C. Linnell et al., entitled "The fear of wolves: A review of wolf attacks on humans," published by the Norsk Institutt for Naturforskning (Jan. 2002). This report claims (section 5.8) that "There are no documented reports of wolves attacking or killing humans in Italy in the period after world war two," but Eduard Fraenkel, Horace (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 184, note 3, provides some evidence to the contrary:

Not very long ago in a very cold winter wolves were seen near the railway-line Rome-Monte Cassino-Naples. Higher up, in the mountains of the Abruzzi, a soldier was recently killed by a wolf (report of the Rome correspondent of The Times in the issue of 25 Oct. 1950). [I can now add that during the exceptional cold spell of February 1956 a postman was attacked and eaten by wolves near the village of Mandela, in the immediate neighbourhood of Horace's farm.]

10 Lalage is a real name (occurs also in Odes 2.5.16, Propertius 4.7.45), but probably doesn't refer to a real person here. It is derived from the Greek verb lalagein, which means "chatter," "prattle." Its significance becomes clear in the last line of the ode.

14 Horace calls Apulia "Daunias," the land of Daunus, a mythical king of northern Apulia. If you regard Italy as a boot, Apulia (modern-day Puglia) is the heel, as shown in this map of Italy's regions. Here is another map of ancient Apulia by itself. This was Horace's homeland -- he was born in Venusia (modern-day Venosa), a city in Apulia.

The section on coins from Apulia in Barclay V. Head, Historia Numorum: A Manual of Greek Numismatics (1911), mentions a bronze coin from Venusia with a "head of dog or wolf," but there is no picture.

15 There were two Jubas:

Juba II is probably meant here. He was educated in Rome, and wrote a book (in Greek) on Africa. This book is probably the source of the following stories about lions preserved in later authors:

16 A "dry nurse" is an oxymoron, the opposite of a wet-nurse.

17 Some ancient geographers regarded the world as divided into zones, some of which were habitable, others (at the equator and poles) uninhabitable.

So Horace is saying that, whether you put him in one of the frozen zones (penultimate stanza) or in the torrid zone (last stanza), his love for Lalage won't die.

Survival

William Shakespeare

In his tragedy Titus Andronicus (4.2.20-23), English poet and dramatist William Shakespeare (1564-1616) has Demetrius read from a scroll the first two lines of Horace's ode:
Integer vitae scelerisque purus
Non eget Maruri iaculis nec arcu.
to which Chiron responds
O, 'tis a verse in Horace. I know it well.
I read it in the grammar long ago.

Thomas Campion

English poet and composer Thomas Campion (1567-1620) made the following imitation of Horace's ode. 
The man of life upright,   
  Whose guiltless heart is free   
From all dishonest deeds,   
  Or thought of vanity;   
  
The man whose silent days 
  In harmless joys are spent,   
Whom hopes cannot delude,   
  Nor sorrow discontent;   
  
That man needs neither towers   
  Nor armour for defence, 
Nor secret vaults to fly   
  From thunder's violence:   
  
He only can behold   
  With unaffrighted eyes   
The horrors of the deep 
  And terrors of the skies.   
  
Thus, scorning all the cares   
  That fate or fortune brings,   
He makes the heaven his book,   
  His wisdom heavenly things; 
  
Good thoughts his only friends,   
  His wealth a well-spent age,   
The earth his sober inn   
  And quiet pilgrimage.

Thomas Hawkins

The following translation by Thomas Hawkins was published in The Poems of Horace ... Rendred in English Verse by Several Persons (London, 1666), pp. 30-31: 
Who lives upright, and pure of heart
(O Fuscus) neither needs the dart,
Nor bow, nor quiver, fraught with store
Of shafts envenom'd by the Moor:

Whether o're Libya's parched sands,
Or Caucasus that houseless stands,
He takes the journey; or those places
Through which the fam'd Hydaspes traces.

For careless through the Sabin grove
Whilest chaunting Lalage, I rove,
Not well observing limits due,
A wolf from me unarmed flew.

A monster such as all exceeds,
Which in huge woods fierce Daunia feeds:
Or those that Juba's kingdome hath,
The Desart-nurse of lions wrath.

Place me in coldest Champanies, where
No Summer-warmth the trees do cheer:
Let me in that dull Climate rest,
Which clouds and sullen Jove infest:

Yea place me underneath the Carre
Of too near Phoebus: seated farre
From dwellings: Lalage Ile love,
Whose smiles, whose words so sweetly move.

Wentworth Dillon

Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon (1633-1685), made two translations of Horace's ode. Here is the first: 
Virtue, Dear Friend, needs no Defence,  
The surest Guard is Innocence:  
None knew, 'till Guilt created Fear,  
What Darts or poison'd Arrows were.  
Integrity undaunted goes  
Through Libyan Sands or Scythian Snows,  
Or where Hydaspes wealthy tide  
Pays Tribute to the Persian Pride.  
For as (by am'rous Thoughts betray'd)  
Careless in Sabin Woods I stray'd,  
A grisly foaming Wolf unfed,  
Met me unarm'd, yet, trembling, fled.  
No Beast of more portentous Size  
In the Hercinian Forest lies;  
None fiercer, in Numidia bred,  
With Carthage were in Triumph led.  
Set me in the remotest place,  
That Neptune's frozen Arms embrace;  
Where angry Jove did never spare  
One Breath of kind and temp'rate Air.   
Set me where on some pathless Plain  
The swarthy Africans complain,  
To see the Chariot of the Sun  
So near their scorching Country run.  
The burning Zone, the frozen Isles,  
Shall hear me sing of Caelia's Smiles:  
All Cold but in her Breast I will despise,  
And dare all Heat but that in Caelia's Eyes.
And here is the second: 
Virtue, dear friend, needs no defence, 
No arms, but its own innocence; 
Quivers and bows, and poison'd darts, 
Are only us'd by guilty hearts. 
An honest mind safely alone 
May travel through the burning zone; 
Or thro' the deepest Scythian snows, 
Or where the fam'd Hydaspes flows. 

While rul'd by a resistless fire, 
Our great Orinda I admire,
The hungry wolves that see me stray, 
Unarm'd and single, run away. 
Set me in the remotest place 
That ever Neptune did embrace; 
When there her image fills my breast, 
Helicon is not half so blest. 

Leave me upon some Lybian plain, 
So she my fancy entertain, 
And when the thirsty monsters meet, 
They'll all pay homage to my feet.
  
The magic of Orinda's name 
Not only can their fierceness tame, 
But if that mighty word I once rehearse, 
They seem submissively to roar in verse.

John Wesley

Founder of the Methodist Church John Wesley (1703-1791) sent this translation of Horace's ode in a letter to his brother Samuel dated March 21, 1726. 
Integrity needs no defense;
The man who trusts to Innocence,
Nor wants the darts Numidians throw,
Nor arrows of the Parthian bow.
Secure o'er Libya's sandy seas
Or hoary Caucasus he strays;
O'er regions scarcely known to Fame, 
Washed by Hydaspes' fabled stream.
While void of cares, of naught afraid, 
Late in the Sabine woods I strayed; 
On Sylvia's lips, while pleased I sung, 
How Love and soft Persuasion hung!
A ravenous wolf, intent on food,
Rushed from the covert of the wood;
Yet dared not violate the grove
Secured by Innocence and Love:
Nor Mauritania's sultry plain
So large a savage does contain;
Nor e'er so huge a monster treads
Warlike Apulia's beechen shades.
Place me where no revolving sun
Does e'er his radiant circle run,
Where clouds and damps alone appear
And poison the unwholesome year:
Place me in that effulgent day
Beneath the sun's directer ray;
No change from its fixed place shall move
The basis of my lasting love.

Henry Fielding

English novelist Henry Fielding (1707-1754) quotes the final two stanzas of Horace's Ode 1.22 in Tom Jones, book 12, chapter 10.

Samuel Johnson

English lexicographer, poet, and essayist Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) translated Ode 1.22 as follows. 
The man, my friend, whose conscious heart
  With virtue's sacred ardour glows,
Nor taints with death th' envenomed dart,
  Nor needs the guard of Moorish bows.

O'er icy Caucasus he treads,
  Or torrid Afric's faithless sands
Or where the famed Hydaspes spreads
  His liquid wealth through barbarous lands.

For while in Sabine forests charmed
  By Lalage, too far I strayed,
Me -- singing careless and unarmed --
  A furious wolf approached -- and fled.

No beast more dreadful ever stained
  Apulia's spacious wilds with gore,
No beast more fierce Numidia's land
  (The lion's thirsty parent) bore.

Place me where no soft summer gale
  Among the quivering branches sighs,
Where clouds condensed for ever veil
  With horrid gloom the frowning skies.

Place me beneath the burning zone,
  A clime denied to human race,
My flame for Lalage I'll own;
  Her voice, her smiles, my song shall grace.
Johnson also quoted, allusively, a couple of words from verse 5 of the same ode in a letter to James Boswell dated London, June 20, 1771:
If we perform our duty, we shall be safe and steady, "Sive per," &c., whether we climb the Highlands, or are tost among the Hebrides; and I hope the time will come when we may try our powers both with cliffs and water.

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), sixth President of the United States, composed a translation of Horace's ode addressed "To Sally". 
The man in righeousness arrayed,
  A pure and blameless liver,
Needs not the keen Toledo blade,
  Nor venom-freighted quiver.
What though he wind his toilsome way
  O'er regions wild and weary --
Through Zara's burning desert stray,
  Or Asia's jungles dreary:

What though he plough the billowy deep
  By lunar light, or solar,
Meet the resistless Simoom's sweep,
  Or iceberg circumpolar!
In bog or quagmire deep and dank
  His foot shall never settle;
He mounts the summit of Mont Blanc,
  Or Popocatapetl.

On Chimborazo's breathless height
  He treads o'er burning lava;
Or snuffs the Bohan Upas blight,
  The deathful plant of Java.
Through every peril he shall pass,
  By virtue's shield protected;
And still by Truth's unerring glass
  His path shall be directed.

Else wherefore was it, Thursday last,
  While strolling down the valley,
Defenseless, musing as I passed
  A canzonet to Sally,
A wolf, with mouth-protruding snout,
  Forth from the thicket bounded --
I clapped my hands and raised a shout --
  He heard -- and fled -- confounded.

Tangier nor tunis never bred
  An animal more crabbéd;
Nor Fez, dry-nurse of lions, fed
  A monster half so rabid;
Nor Ararat so fierce a beast
  Has seen since days of Noah;
Nor stronger, eager for a feast,
  The fell constrictor boa.

Oh! place me where the solar beam
  Has scorch'd all verdure vernal;
Or on the polar verge extreme,
  Block'd up with ice eternal --
Still shall my voice's tender lays
  Of love remain unbroken;
And still my charming Sally praise,
  Sweet smiling and sweet spoken.

William Ewart Gladstone

British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898) made the following translation of Horace's ode: 
If whole in life, and free from sin,
Man needs no Moorish bow, nor dart,
Nor quiver, carrying death within
               By poison's art.

Though frowning Caucasus he treads,
And boiling Syrtes hath defied,
Been, Fuscus, where Hydaspes spreads
               His mythic tide.

In Sabine woods, and fancy-free,
A wolf observed my wandering tread;
Unarmed, I sang of Lalage;
               He saw and fled.

Such portent in the oaken grove,
Hath martial Daunia never known;
Nor Juba's land, where lions rove
               The thirsty zone.

Place me, where desert wastes forbid
One tree to breathe the summer wind,
Where fogs the land and sea have hid,
               With Jove unkind.

Or, where the sun so near would be,
That none to build or dwell may dare;
Thy voice, thy smile, my Lalage,
               I'll love them there.

Theodore Martin

Theodore Martin (1816-1909) translated Goethe and Heine as well as Horace. He was knighted after completing his 5-volume biography of Prince Albert. Here is his version of Ode 1.22: 
Fuscus, the man of upright life and pure,
Needeth nor javelin nor bow of Moor,
Nor arroes tipped with venom deadly-sure,
    Loading his quiver;

Whether o'er Afric's burning sands he rides,
Or frosty Caucasus' bleak mountain-sides,
Or wanders lonely, where Hydaspes glides,
    That storied river.

For as I strayed along the Sabine wood,
Singing my Lalage in careless mood,
Lo, all at once a wolf before me stood,
    Then turned and fled.

Creature so huge did warlike Daunia ne'er
Engender in her forests' wildest lair,
Nor Juba's land, parched nurse of lions, e'er
    Such monster bred.

Place me where no life-laden summer breeze
Freshens the meads, or murmurs 'mongst the trees,
Where clouds oppress, and withering tempests freeze
    From shore to shore.

Place me beneath the sunbeams' fiercest glare,
On arid sands, no dwelling anywhere,
Still Lalge's sweet smile, sweet voice even there
    I will adore.

John Conington

John Conington (1825-1869) was the first Corpus Professor of Latin at Oxford University. Here is his translation of Horace's Ode 1.22. 
No need of Moorish archer's craft
  To guard the pure and stainless liver;
He wants not, Fuscus, poison'd shaft
    To store his quiver,
Whether he traverse Libyan shoals,
  Or Caucasus, forlorn and horrent,
Or lands where far Hydaspes rolls
    His fabled torrent.
A wolf, while roaming trouble-free
  In Sabine wood, as fancy led me,
Unarm'd I sang my Lalage,
    Beheld, and fled me.
Dire monster! in her broad oak woods
  Fierce Daunia fosters none such other,
Nor Juba's land, of lion broods
    The thirsty mother.
Place me where on the ice-bound plain
  No tree is cheer'd by summer breezes,
Where Jove descends in sleety rain
    Or sullen freezes;
Place me where none can live for heat,
  'Neath Phoebus' very chariot plant me,
That smile so sweet, that voice so sweet,
    Shall still enchant me.

Eugene Field

In his Echoes from the Sabine Farm (NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920), American poet and journalist Eugene Field (1850-1895) translated Horace Ode 1.22 as follows. 

Fuscus, whoso to good inclines,
  And is a faultless liver,
Nor Moorish spear nor bow need fear,
  Nor poison-arrowed quiver.

Ay, though through desert wastes he roam,
  Or scale the rugged mountains,
Or rest beside the murmuring tide
  Of weird Hydaspan fountains!

Lo, on a time, I gayly paced
  The Sabine confines shady,
And sung in glee of Lalage,
  My own and dearest lady;

And as I sung, a monster wolf
  Slunk through the thicket from me;
But for that song, as I strolled along,
  He would have overcome me!

Set me amid those poison mists
  Which no fair gale dispelleth,
Or in the plains where silence reigns,
  And no thing human dwelleth,--

Still shall I love my Lalage,
  Still sing her tender graces;
And while I sing, my theme shall bring
  Heaven to those desert places!

William Sinclair Marris

William Sinclair Marris (1873-1945) was a governor of the United Provinces of British India. He was also a translator of Homer, Catullus, and the odes of Horace. Here is his translation of Ode 1.22: 
He who is innocent and pure
  Needs not to go equipped
With spear or quiver of the Moor
  And arrows poison-tipped.

Not though he fare through Syrtes' waves,
  Cold Caucasus' expanse,
Or regions that Hydaspes laves,
  That river of romance.

I roamed beyond my farm at ease,
  I sang of Lalage,
And met unarmed among the trees
  A wolf, who fled from me.

Martial Apulia, forest-land,
  Bred never monster worse;
Nor such was weaned 'mid Juba's sand,
  The lions' thirsty nurse.

Set me on steppes, where summer air
  No leaf has ever kissed,
The zone that lies in dull despair
  Of sombre sky and mist;

Set me where flames so fierce a heat
  That there no dwellers be:
Yet will I love her -- smiling-sweet,
  Sweet-speaking Lalage.

Franklin P. Adams

Tobogganing on Parnassus (1911), by American man of letters Franklin P. Adams (1881-1960), contains two humorous adaptations of Horace's ode. Here is the first: 
Take it from me: A guy who's square,
  His chances always are the best.
I'm in the know, for I've been there,
  And that's no ancient Roman jest.

What time he hits the hay to rest
  There's nothing on his mind but hair,
No javelin upon his chest--
  Take it from me, a guy who's square.

There's nothing that can throw a scare
  Into the contents of his vest;
His name is Eva I-Don't-Care;
  His chances always are the best.

Why, once, when I was way out West,
  Singing to Lalage, a bear
Came up, and I was some distressed--
  I'm in the know, for I've been there.

But back he went into his lair,
  (Cage, corner, den, retreat, nook, nest),
And left me to "The Maiden's Prayer"--
  And that's no ancient Roman jest.

In Newtonville or Cedar Crest,
  In Cincinnati or Eau Claire,
I'll warble till I am a pest,
  "My Lalage"--no matter where--
    Take it from me!
And here is the second: 
Fuscus, my friend, take it from me--
  I know the world and what it's made of--
One on the square has naught to be
    Afraid of.

The Moorish bows and javelins? Nope.
  Such deadly things need not alarm him.
Why, even arrows dipped in dope
    Can't harm him!

He's safe in any clime or land,
  Desert or river, hill or valley;
Safe in all places on the Rand-
    McNally.

Why, one day in my Sabine grot,
  I sang for Lalage to hear me;
A wolf came in and he did not
    Come near me!

Ah, set me on the sunless plain,
 In China, Norway, or Matanzas,
Ay, place me anywhere from Maine
    To Kansas.

Still of my Lalage I'll sing,
 Where'er the Fates may chance to drop me;
And nobody nor anything
    Shall stop me.
Yet a third version of the same ode was published in Adams' By and Large (1914): 
O Fuscus, if your heart be true, 
  If you be but a righteous liver,
No Moorish bow need bother you,
  No arrows from a foeman's quiver.

Duluth, Winona, Kankakee,
  South Framingham and points adjacent --
It matters not where you may be,
  If but your conscience be complacent.

Why, once when I was singing of
  My Lalage -- need I repeat it? --
A wolf that heard my song of love
  Gave me a look and straightway beat it.

Put me where it is cold or hot,
  Where water's ice, or where it's b'iling,
I'll sing -- who likes my stuff or not --
  My Lalage so sweetly smiling.
Another imitation appeared in Adams' Weights and Measures (1917), under the title "On the Indestructability of Reading Matter (To Carolyn Wells)": 
A lad whose life is pure and clean --
  His stuff is cosmic, sempiternal;
Whether in Harper's Magazine
  Or in the so-called Evening Journal.

He needs no 24-point blurb,
  His verses require no Gothic 10-point,
For folks to say, "Belive me, Herb,
  Some ooze comes off of that guy's pen point!"

I wrote some poetry at home --
  I lived, you know, at Sabine Junction --
A wolf came up and glimpsed my pome,
  And slammed the door with vulpine unction.

A big, big, big, big wolf was he;
  (And if you crave corroboration,
Look up Ode 22 and see
  The difficulties of translation.)

Lived I where Kipling pens his rhymes;
  Or where Le Gallienne pens his stanzas;
And worked I for the London Times,
  Or for a sheet in Howell, Kansas --

Oh, ship me to some desert isle
  Or leave me in my Conning Tower,
Still shall I sing my Carrie's smile
  And love its cardiac motive power.
This was obviously a favorite of Adams. He translated it yet again in In Other Words (1920), under the title "On an Upright Life."

[Those whom the original verbiage may confuse are
advised to read only the italics: those who detest our
efforts may read only Q.H. Flaccus's words, set of
course in Roman; and the rest may combine them.]

(Integer vitae) A man who's on the level,
  (Non eget...arcu) He needn't have a fear;
(Nec venenatis) Not arrows of the devil
  (Fusce, pharetra) Can harm a conscience clear --

(Sive per Syrtes) Whether he's in Peoria,
  (Sive facturus) New York or Newtonville,
(Caucasum vel) East Orange or Emporia,
  (Lambit Hydaspes) Or Pocahontas, Ill.

(Namque...me lupus) For once, when I was singing,
  (Dum meam...Lalagen) A wolf came up to me;
(Terminum curis) He heard my lyric ringing,
  (Fugit inermem) And fled immejitlee.

(Quale portentum) Believe me, he was some wolf,
  (Daunias latis) Not wood from Noah's ark,
(Nec Jubae tellus) No little Daunian bum wolf
  (Arida nutrix) Like those in Central Park.

(Pone me pigris) O put me on the prairie,
  (Arbor aestiva) Or let me hire a hall,
(Quod latus mundi) Set me upon Mt. Airy,
  (Jupiter urget) Or anywhere at all.

(Pone sub curru) Still I, on the equator,
  (Solis...negata) At ninety in the shade,
(Dulce ridentem) Shall love -- a poor translator --
  (Dulce loquentem) My sweetly smiling maid.

Here is one final translation by Adams, entitled "The Clear Conscience," which reproduces the meter (Sapphics) of Horace's original. 
He who is upright in his way of living,
Stainless of guilt, needs never the protection
Darts of Morocco, or bows or poisoned arrows,
     Fuscus, can give him;

Whether his path be though the sultry Syrtes,
Or through the sunless Caucasus he travel,
Or through the countries watered by the famous
     River Hydaspes.

Once in the Sabine Woods when I was strolling
Far past my farm, unarmed and free of worry,
Singing of Lalage, the wolf that heard me
     Came up; and left me.

Place me on the sun-divested prairie
Where not a tree lives in the breath of summer;
Or there is nothing ever but the forecast:
     Cloudy with showers.

Yes, you may place me on the old Equator
Where it is far too hot for habitation,
Yet I will love my Lalage forever,
     Smiling so sweetly.

Music

Friedrich Ferdinand Flemming (1778-1813) composed a setting of Horace's ode for male voices. Flemming's tune is perhaps better known these days as a hymn with words by

Jan Novak (1921-1984) set Horace's ode for solo voice with piano accompaniment. You can see the first three bars here.