Horace Odes 2.17
I consider this poem a love poem.
Cur me querelis exanimas tuis? nec dis amicum est nec mihi te prius obire, Maecenas, mearum grande decus columenque rerum. a, te meae si partem animae rapit maturior vis, quid moror altera, nec carus aeque nec superstes integer? ille dies utramque ducet ruinam. non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum ibimus, ibimus, utcumque praecedes, supremum carpere iter comites parati. me nec Chimaerae spiritus igneae nec si resurgat centimanus Gyas divellet umquam: sic potenti Iustitiae placitumque Parcis. seu Libra seu me Scorpios adspicit formidolosus pars violentior natalis horae seu tyrannus Hesperiae Capricornus undae: utrumque nostrum incredibili modo consentit astrum; te Iovis inpio tutela Saturno refulgens eripuit volucrisque Fati tardavit alas, cum populus frequens laetum theatris ter crepuit sonum; me truncus inlapsus cerebro, sustulerat, nisi Faunus ictum dextra levasset, Mercurialium custos virorum. reddere victimas aedemque votivam memento; nos humilem feriemus agnam.
Why do you kill me with your complaints?
Your death before mine? That’s neither
pleasing to the gods nor I, Maecenas,
my honored one, my great support
Ah, if death comes too soon
to seize you, part of my soul,
why would I, the other half, linger
neither beloved equally, no longer whole.
That day would ruin us both.
I didn’t swear an oath proven false:
whenever you go, I will go too, I will go too,
to take the final journey, prepared as comrades.
Neither the breath of fiery Chimera
will ever tear us apart nor, if he should
come against us, the hundred-handed Gyas:
thus it is judgement Justice and the Fates.
Whether Libra or fearsome Scorpio,
behold me as the more violent star
of my birth hour, or whether it’s Capricorn,
lord of the Hesperian wave:
Both of our stars agree incredibly.
As glistening Jove protected you
from accursed shady Saturn.
He saved you, hindering the wings
of flying Fate. Then, three times, for you,
the crowd rattled joyous in the theater;
A trunk, falling onto my skull,
was going to kill me, if Faunus,
protector of Murcurial men,
did not ward the blow with his right hand.
Remember your offerings: a sacrifice
and a votive shrine. I will kill a humble lamb.