The poet here passes, by one of those sudden transitions for which he is remarkable, into the topic of the fickleness of fortune, which seems to have no immediate connection with what has gone before,--but only seems, for this very fickleness is but a fresh reason for making ourselves, by self-possession and a just estimate of what is essential to happiness, independent of the accidents of time or chance. "Fortune, who with malicious glee Her merciless vocation plies, Benignly smiling now on me, Now on another, bids him rise, And in mere wantonness of whim Her favours shifts from me to him. "I laud her whilst by me she holds, But if she spread her pinions swift, I wrap me in my virtue's folds, And, yielding back her every gift, Take refuge in the life so free Of bare but honest poverty. "You will not find me, when the mast Groans 'neath the stress of southern gales, To wretched prayers rush off, nor cast Vows to the great gods, lest my bales From Tyre or Cyprus sink, to be Fresh booty for the hungry sea. "When others then in wild despair To save their cumbrous wealth essay, I to the vessel's skiff repair, And, whilst the Twin Stars light my way, Safely the breeze my little craft Shall o'er the Aegean billows waft." Maecenas was of a melancholy temperament, and liable to great depression of spirits. Not only was his health at no time robust, but he was constitutionally prone to fever, which more than once proved nearly fatal to him. On his first appearance in the theatre after one of these dangerous attacks, he was received with vehement cheers, and Horace alludes twice to this incident in his Odes, as if he knew that it had given especial pleasure to his friend. To mark the event the poet laid up in his cellar a jar of Sabine wine, and some years afterwards he invites Maecenas to come and partake of it in this charming lyric (Odes, I. 20):-- "Our common Sabine wine shall be The only drink I'll give to thee, In modest goblets, too; 'Twas stored in crock of Grecian delf, Dear knight Maecenas, by myself, That very day when through The theatre thy plaudits rang, And sportive echo caught the clang, And answered from the banks Of thine own dear paternal stream, Whilst Vatican renewed the theme Of homage and of thanks! Old Caecuban, the very best, And juice in vats Calenian pressed, You drink at home, I know: My cups no choice Falernian fills, Nor unto them do Formiae's hills Impart a tempered glow."