Nor ever genial through the joyless year. Each labour, Perses! let the seasons guide: But o’er thy navigation chief preside: [122]Decline a slender bark: intrust thy freight To the strong vessel of a larger rate: The larger cargo doubles every gain, Let but the winds their adverse blasts restrain. If thy rash thoughts on merchandise be placed, Lest debts ensnare or joyless hunger waste, Learn now the courses of the roaring sea, Though ships and voyages are strange to me. Ne’er [123]o’er the sea’s broad way my course I bore Save once from Aulis to th’ Eubœan shore: From Aulis, where the Greeks in days of yore, The winds awaiting, kept the harbouring shore: From sacred Greece a mighty army there Lay bound for Troy, wide famed for women fair. I pass’d to Chalcis, where around the grave Of king Amphidamus, in combat brave, His valiant sons had solemn games decreed, And heralds loud proclaim’d full many a meed: There, let me boast, that victor in the lay I bore a tripod ear’d, my prize, away: This to the maids of Helicon I vow’d [124]Where first their tuneful inspiration flow’d. Thus far in ships does my experience rise; Yet bold I speak the wisdom of the skies; Th’ inspiring Muses to my lips have given The lore of song, and strains that breathe of heaven. [125]When from the summer-tropic fifty days Have roll’d, when summer’s time of toil decays: Then is the season fair to spread the sail: Nor then thy ship shall founder in the gale And seas o’erwhelm the crew: unless the Power, Who shakes the shores with waves, have will’d their mortal hour: Or he th’ immortals’ king require their breath, Whose hands the issues hold of life and death For good and evil men: but now the seas Are dangerless, and clear the calmy breeze. Then trust the winds, and let thy vessel sweep With all her freight the level of the deep. But rapidly retrace thy homeward way Nor till the season of new wine delay: Late autumn’s torrent showers: bleak winter’s sweep: The south-blast ruffling strong the tossing deep: When air comes rushing in autumnal rain, And curls with many a ridge the troubled main. [126]Men, too, may sail in spring: when first the crow Imprinting with light steps the sands below, As many thinly-scatter’d leaves are seen To clothe the fig-tree’s top with tender green. This vernal voyage practicable seems, And pervious are the boundless ocean-streams: I praise it not: for thou with anxious mind Must hasty snatch th’ occasion of the wind. The drear event may baffle all thy care; Yet thus, even thus, will human folly dare. Of wretched mortals lo! the soul is gain: But death is dreadful midst the whelming main. These counsels lay to heart; and, warn’d by me, Trust not thy whole precarious wealth to sea,