It is above all against such a background that Horace's invocation to Fortune should be read: Goddess, at lovely Antium is thy shrine: Ready art thou to raise with grace divine Our mortal frame from lowliest dust of earth, Or turn triumph to funeral for thy mirth; or that other expression of the inscrutable uncertainty of the human lot: Fortune, whose joy is e'er our woe and shame, With hard persistence plays her mocking game; Bestowing favors all Inconstantly, Kindly to others now, and now to me.
"Horace and His Influence"
Grant Showerman
The smoakie sighes, the bitter teares That I in vaine haue wasted The broken sleepes, the woe and feares That long time haue lasted Will be my death, all by thy guilt And not by my deseruing Since so Inconstantly thou wilt Not loue but still be sweruing.
"The Arte of English Poesie"
George Puttenham