Explore "From: Horace to: Phyllis, Subject: Invitation" by Franklin P. Adams on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Book IV, Ode 11 / "_Est mihi nonum superantis annum -- -- _"
Phyllis, I've a jar of wine, / (Alban, B. C. 49), / Parsley wreaths, and, for your tresses, / Ivy that your beauty blesses.
Shines my house with silverware; / Frondage decks the altar stair -- / Sacred vervain, a device / For a lambkin's sacrifice.
Up and down the household stairs / What a festival prepares!
Everybody's superintending -- / See the sooty smoke ascending!
What, you ask me, is the date / Of the day we celebrate? / 13th April, month of Venus -- / Birthday of my boss, Maecenas.
Let me, Phyllis, say a word / Touching Telephus, a bird / Ranking far too high above you; / (And the loafer doesn't love you).
Lessons, Phyllie, may be learned / From Phaeton -- how he was burned!
And recall Bellerophon was / One equestrian who thrown was.
Phyllis, of my loves the last, / My philandering days are past.
Sing you, in your clear contralto, / Songs I write for the rialto.