Horace: The Odes

Book IV

Translated by A. S. Kline © Copyright 2003 All Rights Reserved

This work may be freely reproduced, stored and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose. Conditions and Exceptions apply.

Translator’s Note

Horace fully exploited the metrical possibilities offered to him by Greek lyric verse. I have followed the original Latin metre in all cases, giving a reasonably close English version of Horace’s strict forms. Rhythm not rhyme is the essence. Please try reading slowly to identify the rhythm of the first verse of each poem, before reading the whole poem through. Counting syllables, and noting the natural rhythm of individual phrases, may help. Those wishing to understand the precise scansion of Latin lyric verse should consult a specialist text. The Collins Latin Dictionary, for example, includes a good summary. The metres used by Horace in each of the Odes, giving the standard number of syllables per line only, are listed at the end of this text (see the Index below).

Contents

BkIV:I Venus, be Merciful

Venus now you’ve returned again

to battles long neglected. Please, oh please, spare me.

I’m not prey to the power of kind

Cinara , as once I was. After fifty years,

cruel mother of sweet Cupids,

leave one now who’s hardened to your soft commands:

take yourself there, where seductive

prayers, from the young men, invite you to return.

It would be better still for you,

lifted by wings of gleaming swans, to adventure

to Paulus Maximus’s house,

if you want a worthy heart to set on fire.

Since he’s noble and he’s handsome,

and he’s not un-eloquent, for anxious clients:

he’s a lad of a hundred skills,

and he’ll carry your army’s standard far and wide:

and he’ll laugh when he’s successful

despite his rival’s expensive gifts, and he’ll raise,

just for you, by the Alban Lake,

a statue in marble, under a wooden roof.

You’ll smell rich incense, and you’ll take

delight in the notes of the lyre, when they’re mingled

with the Berecyntian flute’s,

and the sound of the reed pipes won’t be absent, there:

while sweet, virgin girls celebrate

your power, there, twice every day, see the young boys

beat the ground with their snow-white feet,

in a triple measure, like Salian dancers.

Women and boys can’t please me now,

nor those innocent hopes of mutual feeling,

nor wine-drinking competitions,

nor foreheads circled by freshly-gathered flowers.

But why, ah Ligurinus, why

should tears gather here on my cheeks, from time to time?

Why does my tongue, once eloquent,

fall indecorously silent while I’m speaking?

In dreams, at night, hard-hearted one,

I hold you prisoner, or follow you in flight,

over the grassy Fields of Mars,

or wing with you above the inconstant waters.

BkIV:II Augustus’s Return

Iulus , whoever tries to rival Pindar,

flies on waxen wings, with Daedalean art,

and is doomed, like Icarus,  to give a name

to glassy waters.

Like a river, rushing down from the mountains,

that the rain has filled above its usual banks,

so Pindar’s deep voice seethes, immeasurably,

and goes on flowing,

Pindar , deserving Apollo’s laurel crown,

whether he coins new phrases in audacious

dithyrambs, and is carried along in verse

that’s free of rules,

or whether he sings gods, and kings, the children

of gods, at whose hands the Centaurs, rightly, died,

and by whom the fearful Chimaera’s fires

were all extinguished,

or speaks of those godlike ones an Elean

palm, for boxing or riding, leads home again,

granting a tribute much more powerful than

a hundred statues,

or weeps for the young man snatched from his tearful

bride, praises his powers, to the stars, his spirit,

his golden virtue, begrudging all of them

to gloomy Orcus.

Son of Antony, a powerful breeze raises

the Dircean swan, whenever it’s carried

to cloudy heights. While I create my verses,

in the manner

of a humble Matinian bee, that goes

gathering pollen from all the pleasant thyme,

and labours among the many groves, on the banks

of flowing Tiber.

You, a poet of much greater power, will sing

Caesar, honoured with well-earned wreaths, as he climbs

the sacred slopes, drawing along in his wake

the savage Germans:

he, whom no greater and no better ruler

has Fate, and the true gods, given to the world,

nor ever will, though the centuries roll back

to that first age of gold.

You’ll sing of those happy days, and the City’s

public games, when our brave Augustus returns,

in answer to our prayers: you’ll sing the Forum

free of all quarrels.

Then, if what I utter’s worth hearing, the best

strains of my voice, thrilled by Caesar’s return,

will rise, and I will sing: ‘O lovely sun, O

worthy to be praised!’

While you lead us along: ‘Hail, God of Triumph!’

not once but many times: ‘Hail, God of Triumph!’

all the city will shout, and offer incense

to the kindly gods.

Ten bulls will acquit you, and as many cows:

me, a tender calf that has left its mother,

one that’s been fattened on wide pastures, one that

can fulfil my vow,

echoing, with its brow, those returning fires

of the crescent moon, at the third night’s rising,

appearing snow-white where it carries a mark,

and the rest tawny.

BkIV:III To The Muse

Melpomene , Muse, one whom you

have looked on with favourable eyes at his birth

Ismian toil will never grant

fame as a boxer: while no straining horses

will draw him along, triumphant

in a Greek chariot, nor will his acts of war

show him to the high Capitol,

wreathed with the Delian laurel crown, who’s crushed

the bloated menaces of kings:

but the waters that run beneath fertile Tibur,

and the thick leafage of the groves,

will make him of note in Aeolian song.

It’s thought that I’m worthy by Rome’s

children, the first of cities, to rank there among

the choir of delightful poets,

and already envy’s teeth savage me less.

O Pierian girl, you who

command the golden tortoise shell’s sweet melodies,

O you, who could, if you wished,

lend a swan’s singing, too, to the silent fishes,

all of this is a gift of yours:

that I’m pointed out by the passer-by as one

who’s a poet of the Roman lyre:

that I’m inspired, and please as I please: is yours.

BkIV:IV Drusus and the Claudians

Like the winged agent of the bright lightning-bolt,

to whom Jove granted power over wandering

birds, once the divine king had found him

faithful in snatching blond Ganymede:

youth and his native vigour first launching him

fresh to his labours, out from the nest: spring winds,

despite his fears, when the storms were past,

teaching him, then, unaccustomed effort:

now with a fierce, hostile assault sweeping down

on the sheepfold, and love of spoils, and the fight,

hurling him at writhing snakes: or like

a lion-cub newly weaned from rich milk

and its tawny mother, seeing a roe deer

intent on its browsing, that’s fated to die

in his inexperienced jaws, such

was Drusus, as the Vindelici found

waging war beneath the Rhaetian Alps:

(where the custom’s derived from that, as long as

is known, has forced them to arm themselves,

clutch, in their right hands, Amazonian

battle-axes, I’ve not tried to ascertain,

it’s not right to know everything) but those hordes,

triumphant everywhere, for so long,

were conquered by the young man’s strategies:

they came to realise what mind, and character

nurtured, with care, in a fortunate household,

by Augustus’ fatherly feelings

towards his stepsons, the Neros, could do.

By the brave and good, are the brave created:

their sire’s virtues exist in horses and men,

while the ferocious golden eagles

don’t produce shy doves, but education

improves inborn qualities, and its proper

cultivation strengthens the mind: whenever

moral behaviour falls short, its faults

dishonour whatever was good at birth.

The Metaurus river’s a witness, O Rome

to what you owe to the Neros, so too is

defeated Hasdrubal, and that day

as sweet, when the shadows fled Latium,

the first day to smile in its kindly glory,

since dread Hannibal rode through Italy’s

cities, a fire among the pine-trees,

or an East wind on Sicilian seas.

And after that, through favourable efforts,

the Roman youth grew in stature, and the shrines

destroyed by Carthaginians’

impious uproar, had their gods restored.

At last that treacherous Hannibal proclaimed:

‘Of our own will, like deer who become the prey

of ravening wolves, we’re chasing those

whom it’s a triumph to flee and evade.

Their race, still strong despite the burning of Troy,

brought their children, sacred icons, and aged

fathers, tossed about on Tuscan seas,

to the towns of Italy, as some oak,

rich in its dark leaves, high on Mount Algidus,

trimmed back by the double-bladed axe, draws strength

and life, despite loss and destruction,

from the very steel itself. The Hydra,

as its body was lopped, grew no mightier,

in grief at being conquered by Hercules,

nor was any greater monster reared

by Colchis or Echionian Thebes.

Drowned in the deep, it emerges lovelier:

contend, it defeats the freshest opponent,

with great glory, and wages wars

that the housewives will tell of in story.

I’ll send no more proud messages to Carthage:

every hope of mine is ended, and ended

the fortunes of all my family,

since my brother Hasdrubal’s destruction.

There’s nothing that Claudian power can’t achieve,

protected by Jove, protected by the god’s

authority, power for which shrewd minds

clear the way through the harsh dangers of war.’

 

BkIV:V To Augustus

Son of the blessed gods, and greatest defender

of Romulus’ people, you’ve been away too long:

make that swift return you promised, to the sacred

councils of the City Fathers,

Blessed leader, bring light to your country again:

when your face shines on the people, like the shining

springtime, then the day itself is more welcoming,

and the sun beams down more brightly.

As a mother, with vows and omens and prayers,

calls to the son whom a southerly wind’s envious

gales have kept far from his home, for more than a year,

lingering there, beyond the waves

of the Carpathian Sea: she who never turns

her face away from the curving line of the shore:

so, smitten with the deep longing of loyalty,

the country yearns for its Caesar.

Then the ox will wander the pastures in safety,

Ceres, and kindly Increase, will nourish the crops,

our sailors will sail across the waters in peace,

trust will shrink from the mark of shame,

the chaste house will be unstained by debauchery,

law and morality conquer the taint of sin,

mothers win praise for new-born so like their fathers,

and punishment attend on guilt.

Who’ll fear the Parthians, or the cold Scythians,

and who’ll fear the offspring savage Germany breeds,

if Caesar’s unharmed? Who’ll worry about battles

in the wilds of Iberia?

Every man passes the day among his own hills,

as he fastens his vines to the waiting branches:

from there he gladly returns to his wine, calls on

you, as god, at the second course:

He worships you with many a prayer, with wine

poured out, joins your name to those of his household gods,

as the Greeks were accustomed to remembering

Castor and mighty Hercules.

‘O blessed leader, bring Italy endless peace!’

That’s what we say, mouths parched, at the start of the day,

that’s what we say, lips wetted with wine, when the sun

sinks to rest under the Ocean.

BkIV:VI To Apollo

God, whom Niobe’s children encountered, O

you, avenger of boastful words on Tityos

the robber, and Phthian Achilles, all

but proud Troy’s victor,

and a greater fighter than others, but not than

you, though he was the son of sea-born Thetis,

and made the Dardanian towers tremble,

with his fearful spear.

Like a pine-tree slashed by the bite of the axe,

or a cypress struck by an Easterly wind,

he fell, outstretched, to the earth, bowed down his neck

in the Trojan dust.

He’d not have cheated the Teucrians, with their

vain celebrations, nor Priam’s joyfully

dancing court, by hiding deep in the Horse, false

tribute to Minerva:

but he’d have burnt, ah, wickedly, wickedly,

their un-weaned offspring, with Achaean fires,

in open cruelty to his prisoners,

babes hid in the womb,

if Jupiter hadn’t agreed to your pleas,

and those of lovely Venus, that Aeneas

should come to rule the walls of a city built

with better omens.

Phoebus, musician and teacher of tuneful

Thalia , who bathe your hair in Xanthus’ stream,

defend the Daunian Muse’s honour, O

beardless Agyieus.

Phoebus gave me inspiration, Phoebus gave

me skill in singing, and the name of poet.

You noble young girls, and you boys who are born

of famous fathers,

both, protected by the Delian goddess,

who brings down, with the bow, swift deer and lynxes,

follow the Sapphic measure, note the rhythm

of my finger’s beat,

and ritually sing the son of Latona,

ritually sing the fire of the waxing Moon,

the quickener of crops, and swift advancer

of the headlong months.

Married, you’ll say: ‘I sang the song the gods love,

when time brought back the days of the festival,

and I was one who was trained in the measures

of Horace the bard.

BkIV:VII Diffugere Nives

The snow has vanished, already the grass returns to the fields,

and the leaves to the branches:

earth alters its state, and the steadily lessening rivers

slide quietly past their banks:

The Grace, and the Nymphs, with both of her sisters, is daring enough,

leading her dancers, naked.

The year, and the hour that snatches the kindly day away, warn you:

don’t hope for undying things.

Winter gives way to the westerly winds, spring’s trampled to ruin

by summer, and in its turn

fruitful autumn pours out its harvest, barely a moment before

lifeless winter is back again.

Yet swift moons are always repairing celestial losses:

while, when we have descended

to virtuous Aeneas, to rich Tullus and Ancus, our kings,

we’re only dust and shadow.

Who knows whether the gods above will add tomorrow’s hours

to the total of today?

All those you devote to a friendly spirit will escape from

the grasping hands of your heirs.

When once you’re dead, my Torquatus, and Minos pronounces

his splendid judgement on you,

no family, no eloquence, no righteousness even,

can restore you again:

Diana can never free Hippolytus, chaste as he is,

from the shadow of darkness,

nor has Theseus, for his dear Pirithous, the power to

shatter those Lethean chains.

 

BkIV:VIII Poetry

I’d give bowls, generously, and pleasing bronzes,

to all of my comrades, my dear Censorinus,

I’d give tripods, the prizes that mighty Greeks gave,

and you wouldn’t be seeing the least of my gifts,

if I were, appropriately, rich in the works

Scopas produced, or Parrhasius created,

the latter in marble, the former in painting,

now expert in showing heroes, and now, a god.

But I’ve no such powers, and your spirit and state

don’t ask for any such kinds of amusement.

You delight in poetry, poetry we can

deliver, and establish the worth of the gift.

It’s not marble, carved out with public inscriptions,

and by which, after death, life and spirit return

to great generals, it’s not Hannibal’s rapid

retreat, once repulsed, with his threats turned against him,

nor is it the burning of impious Carthage,

that more gloriously declares all the praises

of him who winning a name from his African

conquest, came home, than the Calabrian Muses:

and you wouldn’t receive the reward for your deeds

if the books were silent. What would the child of Mars

and of Ilia be today, if mute envy

stood in the way of Romulus’s just merits?

The virtue, and favour, and speech of powerful

poets snatches Aeacus from Stygian streams,

immortalising him, in the Isles of the Blessed.

It’s the Muse who prevents the hero worth praising

from dying. The Muse gladdens heaven. So, tireless

Heracles shares the table of Jove he hoped for,

so the bright stars of the Twins, Tyndareus’ sons,

snatch storm-tossed ships out of the depths of the waters,

and Bacchus, his brow wreathed, in the green sprays of vine,

brings all of our prayers to a fortunate outcome.

 

BkIV:IX Lollius

Don’t think that the words I speak to accompany

the lyre ( I, born near thunderous Aufidus,

plying those skills not generally known

before) are destined to utterly die:

Though Maeonian Homer holds the first place,

Pindar’s Muse is not hidden, Simonides’

of Ceos, nor threatening Alcaeus’,

nor that of the stately Stesichorus:

time hasn’t erased what Anacreon once

played: and the love of the Lesbian girl still

breathes, all the passion that Sappho

committed to that Aeolian lyre.

Laconian Helen wasn’t the only one

inflamed by marvelling at an adulterer’s

elegant hair, or gold-spangled clothes,

his regal manners, and his companions,

Teucer wasn’t the first to fire an arrow

from a Cydonian bow, more than once great

Troy was troubled: Idomeneus

the mighty, and Sthenelus weren’t alone

in fighting wars sung by the Muses: Hector

the fierce and brave Deiophobus weren’t the first

to suffer the weight of heavy blows

for the sake of their chaste wives, and children.

Many brave men lived before Agamemnon:

but all are imprisoned in unending night,

all of them are unwept and unknown,

because of the lack of a sacred bard.

Courage that’s concealed in the tomb, is little

different to cowardice. Lollius I won’t

be silent about you in my verse,

(you’re celebrated) nor allow envious

oblivion to prey with impunity

on your many exploits. You’ve a mind that’s versed

in affairs, that’s just, in dubious

times, or in the most favourable ones,

punishing avaricious deceit, restrained

with money that draws everything to itself,

not a Consul of a single year,

but a judge often, one honest and true,

preferring honour to expediency,

with a noble look rejecting the criminal’s

bribe, a conqueror carrying arms

through the hostile ranks of the enemy.

It’s not right to call a man blessed because he

owns much: he more truly deserves a name for

being happy, who knows how to make

a wiser use of the gifts from the gods,

and how to endure the harshest poverty,

who’s a greater fear of dishonour than death:

he’s not afraid to die for the friends

that he loves, or to die for his country.

BkIV:X Age

O you who are cruel still, and a master of Venus’s gifts,

when a white, unexpected plumage surmounts all your arrogance,

and the tresses that wave on your shoulders have all been shorn away,

and the colour that now outshines the flower of the crimson rose

is transformed, my Ligurinus, and has changed into roughened skin:

whenever you look at your altered face in the mirror, you’ll say:

‘Why didn’t I have, when I was a youth, the mind I have today,

or why can’t those untouched cheeks return to visit this soul of mine?’

BkIV:XI Maecenas’ Birthday

I’ve a jar of Alban wine over nine years

old: and there’s parsley for weaving your garlands,

in the garden, Phyllis, and see, there’s a huge

amount of ivy,

with which you shine whenever it ties your hair:

the house gleams with silver: the altar is wreathed

with pure vervain, and waits to be stained with blood,

a sacrificed lamb:

All hands are scurrying: here and there, a crowd

of boys and girls are running, and see the flames

are flickering, sending the sooty smoke rolling

high up in the air.

And so that you know to what happiness you’re

invited, it’s the Ides that are the reason,

they’re the days that divide the month of April,

of sea-born Venus,

it’s truly a solemn day for me, and more

sacred to me almost than my own birthday,

because from that morning Maecenas reckons

the flow of his years.

A rich, an impudent, young girl has captured

Telephus, one you desire, and who’s above

your station, and holds him prisoner, fettered

with beautiful chains.

Scorched Phaethon’s a warning to hope’s ambition,

and winged Pegasus offered a harsh example

in refusing his back to Bellerephon,

his earthly rider:

always pursue what’s appropriate for you,

consider it wrong to hope for what isn’t

allowed, for someone who isn’t your equal.

Come now, my last love,

(since I’ll burn for no other woman after

you) learn verses you’ll repeat in your lovely

voice: the darkest of cares will be lessened

by means of your song.

BkIV:XII Spring

Now Spring’s companions, the Thracian northerlies,

that quieten the ocean, are swelling the canvas:

now fields are unfrozen, and rivers stop roaring

with their volumes of winter snow.

The sad swallow, tearfully mourning Itys, builds

her nest, she’s the House of Cecrops’ eternal shame,

avenging the barbarous lust of Tereus

with too savage a cruelty.

The shepherds, with indolent sheep, in the soft grass,

sing their songs to the sound of the pipes, and delight

great god, Pan, who is pleased with the flocks, and is pleased

by the dark hills of Arcady.

And, Virgil, the season has brought its thirst to us:

but if you’re eager to sip at a grape that was pressed

at Cales, you follower of noble youth, then

earn your wine with a gift of nard.

One small onyx box of nard elicits a jar

that’s lying there now in Sulpicius’ cellar,

sufficient for granting fresh hope, and effective

at washing away bitter care.

If you’re in a rush for pleasures like this, come quick

with your purchase: since I refuse to consider

dipping a gift-less you, in my wine, as if I’m

rich, my house filled with everything.

But abolish delay, and desire for profit,

and, remembering death’s sombre flames, while you can,

mix a little brief foolishness with your wisdom:

it’s sweet sometimes to play the fool.

BkIV:XIII You too, Lyce

Lyce, the gods have heard my prayers, the gods have

heard me, Lyce: you’re growing old, but still desire

the power of beauty, and still

you play, and drink quite shamelessly,

and, drunk, you urge dull Cupid on with tremulous

singing. He’s keeping watch on the beautiful cheeks

of Chia the young and fresh,

who’s expert at playing the harp.

For he flies disdainfully past the withered oak,

and he runs away from you, since you’re disfigured

by those now yellowing teeth,

those wrinkles, and that greying hair.

Now gowns of Coan purple, and those expensive

jewels, won’t bring back time, that the passage of days

has shut away, and buried,

a matter of public record.

Where’s Venus fled, alas, and beauty? And where now

are your graceful gestures? What is left of that girl,

that girl who once breathed of love,

who stole me away from myself,

happy when Cinara had vanished, and famous

for your looks and your charming ways? The Fates granted

Cinara the briefest years,

preserving Lyce, endlessly,

to suffer as long a life as an ancient crow,

so that the burning youths with many a ripple

of laughter, are here to gaze

at a fire that’s fallen to ashes.

BkIV:XIV Drusus and Tiberius

What care the Citizens and the Senators

shall take in immortalising your virtues,

granting you full honours, Augustus,

with titles and memorial plaques, O,

greatest of princes, wherever the sun shines

over the countries where people can live, you,

whose power in war the Vindelici

free of our Roman laws, till now, have learnt.

For, with your army, brave Drusus, demolished

the Genauni, that implacable race, in more

direct retaliation, the swift

Breuni, and their defences, established

on the formidable Alpine heights: and soon

Tiberius, the elder Nero, entered

that fierce fight, with his favourable

omens, defeating the wild Rhaetians:

it was wonderful to see with what destruction,

in contesting the war, he exhausted those minds

intent on the deaths of our freemen,

as the south wind, almost, when it troubles

the ungovernable waves, while the Pleiades’

constellation pierces the clouds, he was eager

to attack the hostile ranks, and drive

his neighing horse through the midst of their fire.

As, bull-like, the Aufidus rolls on, flowing

by the domains of Apulian Daunus,

when it rages and threatens fearful

destruction to their cultivated fields,

so Tiberius overwhelmed the armoured

ranks of barbarians, his fierce impetus

covering the earth, mowing down front

and rear, and conquering them without loss,

yours the troops, the strategy and the friendly

gods. For on that date when Alexandria

opened all its harbour, and empty

palaces to you, in supplication,

good Fortune, fifteen years later, delivered

a favourable outcome to the campaign,

and awarded fame, and the glory

hoped-for, to your imperial action.

The Spaniards, never conquered before, the Medes,

the Indians, marvel at you, the roving

Scythians, O eager protector

of Italy and Imperial Rome.

The Nile, that conceals its origin, hears you,

the Danube hears, and the swift-flowing Tigris,

the Ocean, filled with monsters, roaring

around the distant island of Britain,

and the regions of Gaul, unafraid of death,

and the stubborn Iberian land, hear you:

Sygambri, delighting in slaughter,

stand, with grounded weapons, worshipping you.

BkIV:XV To Augustus

Phoebus condemned my verse, when I tried to sing

of war and conquered cities, lest I unfurled

my tiny sail on Tyrrhenian

seas. Caesar, this age has restored rich crops

to the fields, and brought back the standards, at last,

to Jupiter, those that we’ve now recovered

from insolent Parthian pillars,

and closed the gates of Janus’ temple,

freed at last from all war, and tightened the rein

on lawlessness, straying beyond just limits,

and has driven out crime, and summoned

the ancient arts again, by which the name

of Rome and Italian power grew great,

and the fame and majesty of our empire,

were spread from the sun’s lair in the west,

to the regions where it rises at dawn.

With Caesar protecting the state, no civil

disturbance will banish the peace, no violence,

no anger that forges swords, and makes

mutual enemies of wretched towns.

The tribes who drink from the depths of the Danube,

will not break the Julian law, the Getae,

nor Seres, nor faithless Persians,

nor those who are born by the Don’s wide stream.

On working days, and the same on holy days,

among laughter-loving Bacchus’ gifts to us,

with our wives and our children we’ll pray,

at first, to the gods, in the rites laid down,

then, in the manner of our fathers, bravely,

in verse, that’s accompanied by Lydian flutes,

we’ll sing past leaders, we’ll sing of Troy,

Anchises, and the people of Venus.

Index of First Lines

Metres Used in Book IV.

The number of syllables most commonly employed in each standard line of the verse is given. This may vary slightly for effect (two beats substituted for three etc.) in a given line.

Alcaic Strophe : 11 (5+6) twice, 9, 10

used in Odes: 4,9,14,15

Sapphic and Adonic : 11(5+6) three times, 5

Odes: 2,6,11

First Asclepiadean : 12 (6+6) all lines

Ode: 8

Second Asclepiadean: 8, 12 (6+6), alternating

Odes: 1,3

Third Asclepiadean : 12 (6+6) three times, 8

Odes 5,12

Fourth Asclepiadean : 12 (6+6) twice, 7, 8

Ode:13

Fifth Asclepiadean : 16 (6+4+6) all lines

Ode: 10

Alcmanic Strophe : 17 (7+10) or less, 11 or less, alternating

Odes: None in Book IV

First Archilochian : 17 (7+10) or less, 7 alternating

Ode: 7

Fourth Archilochian Strophe : 18 (7+11) or less, 11 (5+6) alternating

Odes: None in Book IV

Second Sapphic Strophe : 7, 15 (5+10) alternating

Odes: None in Book IV

Trochaic Strophe : 7,11 alternating

Odes: None in Book IV

Ionic a Minore : 16 twice, 8

Ode: None in Book IV