Complete Works of Horace (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics)
Page 48
In words like these my side in the debate:
“If no amount of water quenched your thirst,
You’d tell the doctor, not go on and burst:
Experience shows you, as your riches swell
Your wants increase; have you no friend to tell?
A healing simple for a wound you try;
It does no good; you put the simple by:
You’re told that silly folk whom heaven may bless
With ample means get rid of silliness;
You test it, find ’tis not the case with you:
Then why not change your Mentor for a new?
Did riches make you wiser, set you free
From idle fear, insane cupidity,
You’d blush, and rightly too, if earth contained
Another man more fond of what he gained.
Now put the matter thus: whate’er is bought
And duly paid for, is our own, we’re taught:
Consult a lawyer, and he’ll soon produce
A case where property accrues from use.
The land by which you live is yours; most true,
And Orbius’ bailiff really works for you;
He, while he ploughs the acres that afford
Flour for your table, owns you for his lord;
You pay your price, whate’er the man may ask,
Get grapes and poultry, eggs and wine in cask;
Thus, by degrees, proceeding at this rate,
You purchase first and last the whole estate,
Which, when it last was in the market, bore
A good stiff price, two thousand say, or more.
What matters it if, when you eat your snack,
’Twas paid for yesterday, or ten years back?
There’s yonder landlord, living like a prince
On manors near Aricia, bought long since;
He eats bought cabbage, though he knows it not;
He burns bought sticks at night to boil his pot;
Yet all the plain, he fancies, to the stone
That stands beside the poplars, is his own.
But who can talk of property in lands
Exposed to ceaseless risk of changing hands,
Whose owner purchase, favour, lawless power,
And lastly death, may alter in an hour?
So, with heirs following heirs like waves at sea,
And no such thing as perpetuity,
What good are farmsteads, granaries, pasture-grounds
That stretch long leagues beyond Calabria’s bounds,
If Death, unbribed by riches, mows down all
With his unsparing sickle, great and small?
“Gems, marbles, ivory, Tuscan statuettes,
Pictures, gold plate, Gaetulian coverlets,
There are who have not; one there is, I trow,
Who cares not greatly if he has or no.
This brother loves soft couches, perfumes, wine,
More than the groves of palmy Palestine;
That toils all day, ambitious to reclaim
A rugged wilderness with axe and flame;
And none but he who watches them from birth,
The Genius, guardian of each child of earth,
Born when we’re born and dying when we die,
Now storm, now sunshine, knows the reason why
I will not hoard, but, though my heap be scant,
Will take on each occasion what I want,
Nor fear what my next heir may think, to find
There’s less than he expected left behind;
While, ne’ertheless, I draw a line between
Mirth and excess, the frugal and the mean.
’Tis not extravagance, but plain good sense,
To cease from getting, grudge no fair expense,
And, like a schoolboy out on holiday,
Take pleasure as it comes, and snatch one’s play.
“So ‘twill not sink, what matter if my boat
Be big or little? still I keep afloat,
And voyage on contented, with the wind
Not always contrary, nor always kind,
In strength, wit, worth, rank, prestige, money-bags,
Behind the first, yet not among the lags.
“You’re not a miser: has all other vice
Departed in the train of avarice,
Or do ambitious longings, angry fret,
The terror of the grave, torment you yet?
Can you make sport of portents, gipsy crones,
Hobgoblins, dreams, raw head and bloody bones?
Do you count up your birthdays year by year,
And thank the gods with gladness and blithe cheer,
O’erlook the failings of your friends, and grow
Gentler and better as your sand runs low?
Where is the gain in pulling from the mind
One thorn, if all the rest remain behind?
If live you cannot as befits a man,
Make room, at least, you may for those that can.
You’ve frolicked, eaten, drunk to the content
Of human appetite; ’tis time you went,
Lest, when you’ve tippled freely, youth, that wears
Its motley better, hustle you down stairs.”
CARMEN SAECULARE (PROSE)
Translated by C. Smart
The Carmen Saeculare can be translated as “the Secular Hymn” or “the Song of the Ages”. Composed in 17 BC in Sapphic metre, the hymn was commissioned by the Emperor Augustus and sung by a chorus of twenty-seven maidens and the same number of youths on the occasion of the Ludi Saeculares (Secular Games), which celebrated the end of one saeculum (typically 100 years in length) and the beginning the new saeculum. The mythological and religious hymn is chiefly written in honour of Apollo, the patron god of Augustus, to whom a new temple on the Palatine had recently been consecrated. A marble inscription recording the ceremony and the part played by Horace still survives. The Carmen Saeculare is one of the earliest lyric poems about which we have definite information regarding the circumstances of its performance and is the only one of Horace’s works known for certain to have been performed orally.
Augustus (63 BC–14 AD) was the founder of the Roman Empire and the first Roman Emperor, ruling from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.
THE SECULAR POEM OF HORACE.
TO APOLLO AND DIANA.
Phoebus, and thou Diana, sovereign of the woods, ye illustrious ornaments of the heavens, oh ever worthy of adoration, and ever adored, bestow what we pray for at this sacred season: at which the Sibylline verses have given directions, that select virgins and chaste youths should sing a hymn to the deities, to whom the seven hills [of Rome] are acceptable. O genial sun, who in your splendid car draw forth and obscure the day, and who arise another and the same, may it never be in your power to behold anything more glorious than the city of Rome! O Ilithyia, of lenient power to produce the timely birth, protect the matrons [in labor]; whether you choose the title of Lucina, or Genitalis. O goddess multiply our offspring; and prosper the decrees of the senate in relation to the joining of women in wedlock, and the matrimonial law about to teem with a new race; that the stated revolution of a hundred and ten years may bring back the hymns and the games, three times by bright daylight restored to in crowds, and as often in the welcome night. And you, ye fatal sisters, infallible in having predicted what is established, and what the settled order of things preserves, add propitious fates to those already past. Let the earth, fertile in fruits and flocks, present Ceres with a sheafy crown; may both salubrious rains and Jove’s air cherish the young blood! Apollo, mild and gentle with your sheathed arrows, hear the suppliant youths: O moon, thou horned queen of stars, hear the virgins. If Rome be your work, and the Trojan troops arrived on the Tuscan shore (the part, commanded [by your oracles] to change their homes and city) by a successful navigation: for whom pious Aeneas, surviving his country, secured a free passage through Troy, burning not by his treachery, about to give them more ample po
ssessions than those that were left behind. O ye deities, grant to the tractable youth probity of manners; to old age, ye deities, grant a pleasing retirement; to the Roman people, wealth, and progeny, and every kind of glory. And may the illustrious issue of Anchises and Venus, who worships you with [offerings of] white bulls, reign superior to the warring enemy, merciful to the prostrate. Now the Parthian, by sea and land, dreads our powerful forces and the Roman axes: now the Scythians beg [to know] our commands, and the Indians but lately so arrogant. Now truth, and peace, and honor, and ancient modesty, and neglected virtue dare to return, and happy plenty appears, with her horn full to the brim. Phoebus, the god of augury, and conspicuous for his shining bow, and dear to the nine muses, who by his salutary art soothes the wearied limbs of the body; if he, propitious, surveys the Palatine altars — may he prolong the Roman affairs, and the happy state of Italy to another lustrum, and to an improving age. And may Diana, who possesses Mount Aventine and Algidus, regard the prayers of the Quindecemvirs, and lend a gracious ear to the supplications of the youths. We, the choir taught to sing the praises of Phoebus and Diana, bear home with us a good and certain hope, that Jupiter, and all the other gods, are sensible of these our supplications.
CARMEN SAECULARE (VERSE)
Translated by John Conington
PHOEBE, SILVARUMQUE.
Phoebus and Dian, huntress fair,
To-day and always magnified,
Bright lights of heaven, accord our prayer
This holy tide,
On which the Sibyl’s volume wills
That youths and maidens without stain
To gods, who love the seven dear hills,
Should chant the strain!
Sun, that unchanged, yet ever new,
Lead’st out the day and bring’st it home,
May nought be present to thy view
More great than Rome!
Blest Ilithyia! be thou near
In travail to each Roman dame!
Lucina, Genitalis, hear,
Whate’er thy name!
O make our youth to live and grow!
The fathers’ nuptial counsels speed,
Those laws that shall on Rome bestow
A plenteous seed!
So when a hundred years and ten
Bring round the cycle, game and song
Three days, three nights, shall charm again
The festal throng.
Ye too, ye Fates, whose righteous doom,
Declared but once, is sure as heaven,
Link on new blessings, yet to come,
To blessings given!
Let Earth, with grain and cattle rife,
Crown Ceres’ brow with wreathen corn;
Soft winds, sweet waters, nurse to life
The newly born!
O lay thy shafts, Apollo, by!
Let suppliant youths obtain thine ear!
Thou Moon, fair “regent of the sky,”
Thy maidens hear!
If Rome is yours, if Troy’s remains,
Safe by your conduct, sought and found
Another city, other fanes
On Tuscan ground,
For whom, ‘mid fires and piles of slain,
AEneas made a broad highway,
Destined, pure heart, with greater gain.
Their loss to pay,
Grant to our sons unblemish’d ways;
Grant to our sires an age of peace;
Grant to our nation power and praise,
And large increase!
See, at your shrine, with victims white,
Prays Venus and Anchises’ heir!
O prompt him still the foe to smite,
The fallen to spare!
Now Media dreads our Alban steel,
Our victories land and ocean o’er;
Scythia and Ind in suppliance kneel,
So proud before.
Faith, Honour, ancient Modesty,
And Peace, and Virtue, spite of scorn,
Come back to earth; and Plenty, see,
With teeming horn.
Augur and lord of silver bow,
Apollo, darling of the Nine,
Who heal’st our frame when languors slow
Have made it pine;
Lov’st thou thine own Palatial hill,
Prolong the glorious life of Rome
To other cycles, brightening still
Through time to come!
From Algidus and Aventine
List, goddess, to our grave Fifteen!
To praying youths thine ear incline,
Diana queen!
Thus Jove and all the gods agree!
So trusting, wend we home again,
Phoebus and Dian’s singers we,
And this our strain.
ARS POETICA (PROSE)
Translated by C. Smart
Horace’s seminal poetical essay on the “The Art of Poetry” was first published in 18 BC, forming what would become a long-lasting treatise on poetics, particularly remembered in posterity for three quotations:
Ø “in medias res,” or “into the middle of things,” describing a popular narrative technique that appears frequently in ancient epics and remains popular today in fictional works.
Ø “bonus dormitat Homerus” or “good Homer nods” — an indication that even the most skilled poet can make continuity errors.
Ø “ut pictura poesis,” or “as is painting so is poetry,” by which Horace meant that poetry, in its widest sense meaning “imaginative texts,” merits the same careful interpretation that was in his day reserved for painting.
The work was also hugely influential in its discussion of the principle of decorum, the use of appropriate vocabulary and diction in each style of writing, and for Horace’s criticisms of purple prose. The poet also famously criticises the dramatic use of deus ex machina, the practice of resolving a convoluted plot by having an Olympian god appear and setting things right. Horace explains, “Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus”: “That a god should not intervene, unless a knot show up that be worthy of such an untangler”.
Horace by Anton von Werner
HORACE’S BOOK UPON THE ART OF POETRY.
TO THE PISOS.
If a painter should wish to unite a horse’s neck to a human head, and spread a variety of plumage over limbs [of different animals] taken from every part [of nature], so that what is a beautiful woman in the upper part terminates unsightly in an ugly fish below; could you, my friends, refrain from laughter, were you admitted to such a sight? Believe, ye Pisos, the book will be perfectly like such a picture, the ideas of which, like a sick man’s dreams, are all vain and fictitious: so that neither head nor foot can correspond to any one form. “Poets and painters [you will say] have ever had equal authority for attempting any thing.” We are conscious of this, and this privilege we demand and allow in turn: but not to such a degree, that the tame should associate with the savage; nor that serpents should be coupled with birds, lambs with tigers.
In pompous introductions, and such as promise a great deal, it generally happens that one or two verses of purple patch-work, that may make a great show, are tagged on; as when the grove and the altar of Diana and the meandering of a current hastening through pleasant fields, or the river Rhine, or the rainbow is described. But here there was no room for these [fine things]: perhaps, too, you know how to draw a cypress: but what is that to the purpose, if he, whe is painted for the given price, is [to be represented as] swimming hopeless out of a shipwreck? A large vase at first was designed: why, as the wheel revolves, turns out a little pitcher? In a word, be your subject what it will, let it be merely simple and uniform.
The great majority of us poets, father, and youths worthy such a father, are misled by the appearance of right. I labor to be concise, I become obscure: nerves and spirit fail him, that aims at the easy: one, that pretends to be sublime, proves bombastical: he who is too cautious and fearful of the storm, crawls along the ground: he who wants to var
y his subject in a marvelous manner, paints the dolphin in the woods, the boar in the sea. The avoiding of an error leads to a fault, if it lack skill.
A statuary about the Aemilian school shall of himself, with singular skill, both express the nails, and imitate in brass the flexible hair; unhappy yet in the main, because he knows not how to finish a complete piece. I would no more choose to be such a one as this, had I a mind to compose any thing, than to live with a distorted nose, [though] remarkable for black eyes and jetty hair.
Ye who write, make choice of a subject suitable to your abilities; and revolve in your thoughts a considerable time what your strength declines, and what it is able to support. Neither elegance of style, nor a perspicuous disposition, shall desert the man, by whom the subject matter is chosen judiciously.
This, or I am mistaken, will constitute the merit and beauty of arrangement, that the poet just now say what ought just now to be said, put off most of his thoughts, and waive them for the present.
In the choice of his words, too, the author of the projected poem must be delicate and cautious, he must embrace one and reject another: you will express yourself eminently well, if a dexterous combination should give an air of novelty to a well-known word. If it happen to be necessary to explain some abstruse subjects by new invented terms; it will follow that you must frame words never heard of by the old-fashioned Cethegi: and the license will be granted, if modestly used: and the new and lately-formed words will have authority, if they descend from a Greek source, with a slight deviation. But why should the Romans grant to Plutus and Caecilius a privilege denied to Virgil and Varius? Why should I be envied, if I have it in my power to acquire a few words, when the language of Cato and Ennius has enriched our native tongue, and produced new names of things? It has been, and ever will be, allowable to coin a word marked with the stamp in present request. As leaves in the woods are changed with the fleeting years; the earliest fall off first: in this manner words perish with old age, and those lately invented nourish and thrive, like men in the time of youth. We, and our works, are doomed to death: Whether Neptune, admitted into the continent, defends our fleet from the north winds, a kingly work; or the lake, for a long time unfertile and fit for oars, now maintains its neighboring cities and feels the heavy plow; or the river, taught to run in a more convenient channel, has changed its course which was so destructive to the fruits. Mortal works must perish: much less can the honor and elegance of language be long-lived. Many words shall revive, which now have fallen off; and many which are now in esteem shall fall off, if it be the will of custom, in whose power is the decision and right and standard of language.