Pompey, what fortune gives you back
To the friends and the gods who love you—
Once more you stand in your native land,
With your native sky above you!
Ah, side by side, in years agone,
We've faced tempestuous weather,
And often quaffed
The genial draft
From an amphora together!
When honor at Phillippi fell
A pray to brutal passion,
I regret to say that my feet ran away
In swift Iambic fashion;
You were no poet-soldier born,
You staid, nor did you wince then—
Mercury came
To my help, which same
Has frequently saved me since then.
But now you're back, let's celebrate
In the good old way and classic—
Come, let us lard our skins with nard
And bedew our souls with Massic!
With fillets of green parsley leaves
Our foreheads shall be done up,
And with song shall we
Protract our spree
Until the morrow's sun-up.