The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace

I bid the unhallow'd crowd avaunt! Keep holy silence; strains unknown Till now, the Muses' hierophant, I sing to youths and maids alone. Kings o'er their flocks the sceptre wiel...

Maecenas, born of monarch ancestors, The shield at once and glory of my life! There are who joy them in the Olympic strife And love the dust they gather in the course; The goal...

Yet again thou wak'st the flame That long had slumber'd! Spare me, Venus, spare! Trust me, I am not the same As in the reign of Cinara, kind and fair. Cease thy softening spells...

The broils that from Metellus date, The secret springs, the dark intrigues, The freaks of Fortune, and the great Confederate in disastrous leagues, And arms with uncleansed slau...

I have followed Horace's sense, not his words. I believe, with Ritter, that the alternative is between the pipe as accompanying the vox acuta, and the cithara or lyre as accompa...

I believe I have expressed Horace's meaning, though he has chosen to express himself as if the two things compared were dead worthlessness and uncelebrated worth. By fixing the...

I have deranged the symmetry of the two opening similes, making the eagle the subject of the sentence in the first, the kid in the second, an awkwardness which the Latin is able...

The later editors are right in not taking Marte nostro with coli as well as with populata. As has been remarked to me, the pride of the Roman is far more forcibly expressed by t...

With Ritter I have connected semper udum (an interpretation first suggested by Tate, who turned ne into ut); but I do not press it as the best explanation of the Latin. The gene...

The thought seems to be that the rapid course of time, hurrying men to the grave, proves the wisdom of contentment and the folly of avarice. My version formerly did not express...

If I have slurred over the Latin, my excuse must be that the precise meaning of the Latin is difficult to catch. Is Teucer called auspex, as taking the auspices, like an augur,...

Horace supposes himself to hear not the leaders themselves, but Pollio's recitation of their exploits. There is nothing weak in this, as Orelli thinks. Horace has not seen Polli...

I have translated this difficult passage nearly as it stands, not professing to decide whether tops of buildings or human heads are meant. Either is strange till explained; neit...

There is something harsh in the expression of the fourth stanza of this Ode in the Latin. Tentare cannot stand without an object, and to connect it, as the commentators do, with...

Since this Ode was printed off, I find that my last stanza bears a suspicious likeness to the version by "C. S. C." I cannot say whether it is a case of mere coincidence, or of...

Buttmann complains of the editors for specifying the interlocutors as Horace and Lydia, which he thinks as incongruous as if in an English amoebean ode Collins were to appear si...

The meaning is not that worth is not disgraced by defeat in contests for worldly honours, but that the honours which belong to worth are such as the worthy never fail to attain,...

The commentators seem generally to connect Necessitas with Leti; I have preferred to separate them. Necessitas occurs elsewhere in Horace (Book I, Ode 35, v. 17; Book III, Ode 1...

I had written "And gifts bestow at every fane;" but Ritter is doubtless right in explaining dabimus tura of the burning of incense in the streets during the procession. About th...

Quiritem is generally understood of a citizen with rights undiminished. I have interpreted it of a civilian opposed to a soldier, as in the well-known story in Suetonius (Caes....

I have taken feminis with divides, but it is quite possible that Orelli may be right in constructing it with grata. The case is really one of those noticed in the Preface, where...

I have translated this Ode as it stands, without attempting to decide whether it is dialogue or monologue. Perhaps the opinion which supposes it to be spoken by Horace in his ow...

Horace evidently means that the scenery of Tibur contributes to the formation of lyric genius. It is Wordsworth's doctrine in the germ; though, if the author had been asked what...

I have translated according to the common reading "Qua pinus ... et obliquo," without stopping to inquire whether it is sufficiently supported by MSS. Those who with Orelli pref...

I have ventured to model my version of this Ode, to some extent, on Milton's, "the high-water mark," as it has been termed, "which Horatian translation has attained." I have not...

I have at last followed Ritter in taking trecenos as loosely put for 365, a steer for each day in the year. The hyperbole, as he says, would otherwise be too extravagant. And ri...

I like Ritter's interpretation of sectis, cut sharp, better than the common one, which supposes the paring of the nails to denote that the attack is not really formidable. Secti...

Lamia was doubtless vain of his pedigree; Horace accordingly banters him good-humouredly by spending two stanzas out of four in giving him his proper ancestral designation. To s...

There is no warrant in the original for representing this person as a guest of the company; but the Ode is equally applicable to a tavern party, where all share alike, and an en...