The man who is pure of life, and free of sin,
has no need, dear Fuscus, for Moorish javelins,
nor a bow and a quiver, fully loaded
with poisoned arrows,

whether his path’s through the sweltering Syrtes,
or through the inhospitable Caucasus,
or makes its way through those fabulous regions
Hydaspes waters.

While I was wandering, beyond the boundaries
of my farm, in the Sabine woods, and singing
free from care, lightly-defended, of my Lalage,
a wolf fled from me:

a monster not even warlike Apulia
nourishes deep in its far-flung oak forests,
or that Juba’s parched Numidian land breeds,
nursery of lions.

Set me down on the lifeless plains, where no trees
spring to life in the burning midsummer wind,
that wide stretch of the world that’s burdened by mists
and a gloomy sky:

set me down in a land denied habitation,
where the sun’s chariot rumbles too near the earth:
I’ll still be in love with my sweetly laughing,
sweet talking Lalage.