What could I do better on Neptune's feast day? Be quick, Lyde, bring us that hidden Caecuban and make war on wisdom. There in store is a maturing amphora bottled under Bibulus: you feel that midday's past, and yet, as if the sun stood still, you don't go and get it! We shall each sing to the curved lyre: I first, of Neptune and the green-haired Nereids; you next, of Latona and the darts of swift Cynthia who guards Cnidos and the sunny Cyclades and Paphos and whose chariot is drawn by swans. Then, as Night deserves, she shall hear our last lament.
Horace, Odes 3.28
Festo quid potius die
Neptuni faciam? Prome reconditum,
Lyde, strenua Caecubum
munitaeque adhibe vim sapientiae.
Inclinare meridiem
sentis ac, veluti stet volucris dies,
parcis deripere horreo
cessantem Bibuli consulis amphoram?
Nos cantabimus invicem
Neptunum et viridis Nereidum comas,
tu curua recines lyra
Latonam et celeris spicula Cynthiae;
summo carmine, quae Cnidon
fulgentisque tenet Cycladas et Paphum
iunctis visit oloribus;
dicetur merita Nox quoque nenia.