I present you my humble english translation of one of the two epistles in verse Algarotti wrote to Frederick II. They were originally written in italian, which is my first language. This one probably dates back to around 1747, when Algarotti returned to the Prussian court as Frederick's chamberlain. Some verses were difficult to rend in english, but I tried my best. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do (I'm very normal about the Algarotti/Horace & Frederick/Augustus parallelism, I swear). I could do a more thorough analysis if anyone's interested.
To His Majesty Frederick king of Prussia
Thy lyre and thy hand lend me at once,
fine manners inspire me, oh divine Apollo:
not the imperious gaze of a darkish eye,
nor a lovely dishevelled hair,
but tis thee, present Deity, that I sing.
Thou from the paternal sky descended upon us
under the guise of the gentle youth,
Prussia’s ruler, the world’s delight.
Tis thee I recognize with holy pleasure,
more than the waving hair and the golden crown,
the dignity, the appearance, the new poems.
With thy witty lyre thou deigned
to sing what is man’s benefit and delight.
Hope is born in the bosom of the fiercest evil,
as the fragrant, curative herbs
grow at the top of the wildest mountains.
Because of thee on the strict order
dripped the tender ascrean ambrosia.
Fine arts are like pretty Egle,
whose long-desired flower Tirsi cannot pick,
if not faithful, if not steady.
Surely hard was your first season,
as a flower torn at its bloom, by the cruel cold, the winter
as a flower between the rarities, on a solitary shore,
unknown to the commons, hidden among the mortals,
thou didn’t nearly dare to touch the lyre
which achingly hanged from thy shoulder,
afraid of discovering thyself a god.
But among the Celestials you were welcomed,
the Kings’ oracle, the God of poems;
of the golden chariot Jupiter gave thee the reins,
so that thou could dispel the gloomy
night, only sun to appear, and brighten up the world.
To thy fruitful ray from its dried stem
fine arts’ flower already rises up again,
as by the Tiber’s bank the halcyon days
of Augustus and Leo filled the earth
and the centuries with an eternal scent.
Philosophy soothed her brow and opened her chest
to an unusual pleasure and a renewed hope,
and on Mars’ heinous face still crawled a glimpse of laughter.
may the desire of thy birth sky catch thee, oh Deity: be rather
the restitutor orbis as it pleases thee,
merry aster in this gloomy night,
salutary plant in the bosom of our cliffs.
If thou allow us to call thee Augustus,
of Horace grant me the name and the chant.
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