Virgil

(a) Him fasces of the people or purple of kings sway not, not maddening discord among treacherous brethren, nor the Dacians swarming down from the leagued Danube, not the Roman State, or realms destined to decay. OR (b) He is not moved by honours that the people confer, or the purple of empire, or civil feuds, that make brothers swerve from brothers’ duty; or the Dacian coming down from the Hister, his sworn ally; no, nor by the great Roman State and the death-throes of subject kingdoms.

But, over-laboured with so long a course,

'Tis time to set at ease the smoking horse.

Thus every creature, and of every kind,

The secret joys of sweet coition find.

Not only man's imperial race, but they

That wing the liquid air, or swim the sea,

Or haunt the desert, rush into the flame:

For love is lord of all, and is in all the same.

I must essay a path whereby I, too, may rise from earth and fly victorious on the lips of men.

A great fire, unless you feed it, spends its rage in vain.

If we may compare small things with great.

In their drunken jollity.

Whence men, a hard laborious kind, were born.

Vice thrives and lives by concealment.

But meanwhile it is flying, irretrievable time is flying.

Toil conquered the world, unrelenting toil, and want that pinches when life is hard.

So strong is habit in tender years.