Horace
The poetry of Horace selected and introduced by Anthony Hecht
His is a poetry of serenity, balance, perfection of form both prosodic and syntactical. He can be angry, and glad, but usually temperately, and he evinces his capacity for gratitude and contentment with unfailing eloquence. A number of the major English poets, when they have not actually translated him, have written tributes of imitation, such as this one, composed at the age of 12 by Alexander Pope.
Ode on Solitude
Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.
Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,
Sound sleep at night; study and ease,
Together mixed; sweet recreation;
And Innocence, which most does please
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die,
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
(Apart from other considerations, there can’t ever have been many 12-year-olds who could contemplate such isolation, asceticism, and anonymity with calm pleasure.)
Classical Latin poetry was unrhymed, securing its effects by a system of long and short syllables, strategic word order, and devices that an uninflected language such as English can never actually attain. Still, attempts have been made, and one of the most lovely of these is Milton’s version of Horace’s Ode I.5, possibly composed when the English poet was 18, and bearing the superscription: "Quis multa gracilis te puer in rose, rendered almost word for word without rhyme, according to the Latin measure, as near as language will permit." (It should be noted in advance that in ancient Roman times the survivor of a shipwreck customarily acknowledged his debt to the favor of Neptune by placing a dedicatory plaque in the god’s temple, along with the clothing in which he had escaped drowning.)
What slender youth, bedewed with liquid odours,
Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,
Pyrrha? For whom bind’st thou
In wreaths thy golden hair,
Plain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he
On faith and changèd gods complain, and seas
Rough with black winds and storms
Unwonted shall admire,
Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold;
Who always vacant, always amiable,
Hopes thee, of flattering gales
Unmindful. Hapless they
To whom thou untried seem’st fair. Me, in my vowed
Picture, the sacred wall declares t’have hung
My dank and dropping weeds
To the stern god of sea.
The knowing, worldly bitterness, the complex contempt both for Pyrrha and her youthful lover, balanced by the shamed confession of the poet’s own early folly—this wry music comes through to us despite Milton’s archaisms. For all its remoteness, it works more persuasively than the contortions (increased by the addition of rhyme, and the maneuvers required to accommodate it) in a more recent version by C. E. Cox.
Slim, young and essenced, Pyrrha, who
On roses couched is courtying you?
Whom charms in your sweet grot
The bright hair’s single knot,
The choice plain dress? How oft he’ll sigh
"False gods, false faith!" with tears, and eye
Poor novice, seas that change
Storm-lashed to black and strange.
Who now enjoys you, thinks you gold,
Dreams you will love him,—still, still hold
No hand but his, nor knows
Winds change. Alas! for those
Who trust your sheen. On temple wall
My votive tablet proves to all
That Neptune earned his fee—
These dripping clothes—from me.
One more version, perhaps still more accessible, yet not for that reason necessarily the best, this by Joseph Clancy.
What slim and sweetly scented boy
presses you to the roses, Pyrrha,
in your favorite grotto?
For whom is your blond hair styled,
deceptively simple? Ah, how often he’ll sob
over your faithless conversions, staring
stupidly at the black
winds and wild seas. He has you
now, for him you have a golden glow,
ever contented, ever loving
he hopes, unaware of the
tricky breeze. Poor things, for whom
you glitter before you’re tried. The temple
wall with its plaque serves notice: I
have hung my wet clothes up
and bowed to the sea god’s power.
Readers with shrewd ears will detect from these simple examples some of the problems involved in the translation of Horace’s Odes. Here, in the latest translations I know of, is a selection of the odes, by David Ferry.
I.5
What perfumed debonair youth is it, among
The blossoming roses, urging himself upon you
In the summer grotto? For whom have you arranged
Your shining hair so elegantly and simply?
How often will he weep because of betrayal,
And weep because of the fickleness of the gods,
Wondering at the way the darkening wind
Suddenly disturbs the calm waters.
Now he delights in thinking how lovely you are,
Vacant of storm as the fragrant air in the garden—
Not knowing at all how quickly the wind can change.
Hapless are they enamored of that beauty
Which is untested yet. And as for me?
The votive tablet on the temple wall
Is witness that in tribute to the god
I have hung up my sea-soaked garment there.
I.9
See Mount Soracte shining in the snow.
See how the laboring overladen trees
Can scarcely bear their burdens any longer.
See how the streams are frozen in the cold.
Bring in the wood and light the fire and open
The fourth-year vintage wine in the Sabine jars.
O Thaliarchus, as for everything else,
Forget tomorrow. Leave it up to the gods.
Once the gods have decided, the winds at sea
Will quiet down, and the sea will quiet down,
And these cypresses and old ash trees will shake
In the storm no longer. Take everything as it comes.
Put down in your books as profit every new day
That Fortune allows you to have. While you’re still young,
And while morose old age is far away,
There’s love, there are parties, there’s dancing and there’s music,
There are young people out in the city squares together
As evening comes on, there are whispers of lovers, there’s laughter.
I.22
The upright man whose conscience is perfectly clear
Can journey anywhere, unarmed, untroubled,
Whether it be the burning sands of Sidra,
Near where the quicksand waits for you under the sea,
Or the frozen Caucasus, or the fabled place
There are so many monster stories about,
Washed by the sinister River Hydaspes. For instance,
Fuscus, there was the summer day when I
Went out of my Sabine house, in the afternoon,
And wandered in the woods beyond my farm,
Singing my song about my Lalage,
Carefree, alone, and utterly unprotected,
When suddenly there was a wolf, more frightening than
The wolves in the oak tree forests of Apulia
Or the lions for which Numidia is famous—
And the wolf ran away from me! So let me tell you:
Set me down anywhere, say in a place
That’s entirely lifeless, where not a single tree
Responds to any breeze, a place the gods
Have cursed with evil stagnant mists forever,
Or leave me where the sun comes near the earth
Too hot for any man to be able to dwell there,
And I will nevertheless go right on singing
My ardent song in praise of Lalage.
III.13
O clearer than crystal, thou Bandusian fountain,
To whom it is fitting to bring libations of wine
And offerings also of flowers, tomorrow the chosen
First-born of the flock will be brought to you,
His new little horns foretelling warfare and love
In vain, for the warm blood of this child of the flock
Will stain with its color of red your clear cold waters.
The cruel heat of Canicula the Dog Star
Can find no way to penetrate the glade
To where you are. Gladly your shady coolness
Welcomes the oxen that come, weary of plowing,
And welcomes also the wandering pasturing flock.
You shall become famous among the fountains
Because of my song that praises the ilex tree
That leans above the rocks the babbling waters leap from.
III.26
Experienced in your wars,
Not long ago I was
A not inglorious soldier,
But now upon this wall,
Beside the effigy of
Venus, goddess of love,
Born from the glittering sea,
I place these weapons and
This lyre no longer fit
For use in the wars of love.
Here I offer the torch,
The crowbar and the bow,
Siege weapons used
Against those closed-up doors.
O goddess, queen of Cyprus,
Queen of sunny Memphis,
Far from the snows of Thrace,
All I ask of you Is one punishing flick
Of your uplifted lash
To sting arrogant Chloë.
Odes I.5, I.9, I.22, III.3, and III.26 from The Odes of Horace, translated by David Ferry. Copyright © 1997 by David Ferry. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.