Strophe:
Should I, my roused feet gleaming, dance all night
in sacred exaltation? Should I shake
my neck in dewy air, exultant like
a fawn that dashes through the green delight
of meadows? She has shaken dread pursuit,
slipped from the hunters and their woven nets.
Their leader spurs the mastiffs on with shouts,
but she, in headlong haste, with storm-swift speed,
races beside the river, through the plain,
relishing her escape from men,
exulting in the thickets of the leaf-dark wood.
Refrain:
What, then, is wisdom? What finer prize
do gods bestow on humankind
than to hold a mighty hand
over the heads of enemies?
People always should acclaim
whatever gives a noble name.
Antistrophe:
The gods are slow to mete out discipline
but certain when they strike. They come down hard
on those who live in foolish disregard
and those mad souls who outrage the divine.
While hunting down unholy men,
how cleverly they hide the slow way time
moves ever onward. One must never scheme
anything that would overthrow their laws.
It costs so little to believe that all
that is divine is powerful,
that every sacred inborn edict never dies.
Refrain:
What, then, is wisdom? What finer prize
do gods bestow on humankind
than to hold a mighty hand
over the heads of enemies?
People always should acclaim
whatever gives a noble name.
Epode:
Happy the man who cruises to a dock
after a stretch of nasty weather.
Happy the man who overcomes hard luck.
One person will surpass another
in this or that, in wealth or influence.
A thousand souls, a thousand different plans.
Some end up prosperous;
others only fail. I say
that man is a success
whose life is happy day by day.
