and Cleopatra,--as one after another

"S_trutted and fretted his hour upon the stage_,
A_nd then was heard no more_."

It is in relief against a background such as this that Horace's works
should be read,--the _Satires_, published in 35 and 30, which the poet
himself calls _Sermones_, "Conversations," "Talks," or _Causeries_; the
collection of lyrics called _Epodes_, in 29; three books of _Odes_ in
23; a book of _Epistles_, or further _Causeries_, in 20; the _Secular
Hymn_ in 17; a second book of _Epistles_ in 14; a fourth book of _Odes_
in 13; and a final _Epistle_, _On the Art of Poetry_, at a later and
uncertain date.

It is above all against such a background that Horace's invocation to
Fortune should be read:

G_oddess, at lovely Antium is thy shrine_:
R_eady art thou to raise with grace divine_
O_ur mortal frame from lowliest dust of earth_,
O_r turn triumph to funeral for thy mirth_;

or that other expression of the inscrutable uncertainty of the human
lot:

F_ortune, whose joy is e'er our woe and shame_,
W_ith hard persistence plays her mocking game_;
B_estowing favors all inconstantly_,
K_indly to others now, and now to me_.
W_ith me, I praise her; if her wings she lift_