Another of Horace’s Carpe Diem poems (translation is my own):
May you stop wondering, Quinctius Hirpinus, what the warlike
Cantabrian or the Scythian, separated from us by the Adriatic Sea,
are plotting, and may you not be anxious about what purpose life
has for us, life that demands few things. Fickle youth and beauty
slip behind us, while boring old-age drives away playful love
and easy sleep. Spring flowers do not hold their beauty forever,
nor does the red moon perpetually glow with the same appearance.
Why would you exhaust your soul making plans for the future, a
soul that is not up to such a task? Why should we not, instead,
have some good wine, while we still can, reclining under a lofty
plane or pine tree—in fact, let us do this without a care in the
world, and adorn our gray hair with flowers and Assyrian scents.
Bacchus drives away our all-consuming worries. What servant is readily
available to dilute the cups of fiery Falernian wine with water
from the flowing stream? Who will lure Lyde, that wild sex fiend,
from her house? Come on now, and use your ivory lyre to persuade her
to hurry up—she has her hair arranged in that sexy, Laconian Greek way.
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