Ode XX

To Maecenas

I, a two-formed poet, will be conveyed through the liquid air with no vulgar or humble wing; nor will I loiter upon earth any longer; and superior to envy, I will quit cities. Not I, even I, the blood of low parents, my dear Maecenas, shall die; nor shall I be restrained by the Stygian wave. At this instant a rough skin settles upon my ankles, and all upwards I am transformed into a white bird, and the downy plumage arises over my fingers and shoulders. Now, a melodious bird, more expeditious than the Daepalean Icarus, I will visit the shores of the murmuring Bosphorus, and the Gzetulean Syrtes, and the Hyperborean plains. Me the Colchian and the Dacian, who hides his fear of the Marsian cohort, land the remotest Gelonians, shall know: me the learned Spaniard shall study, and he that drinks of the Rhone. Let there be no dirges, nor unmanly lamentations, nor bewailings at my imaginary funeral; suppress your crying, and forbear the superfluous honors of a sepulcher.