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Horace
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Horace Poems
- Bki:Xi Carpe Diem Leuconoë, don’t ask, we never know, what ...
- Bki:V Treacherous Girl What slender boy, Pyrrha, drowned in ...
- Bki:Iv Spring Fierce winter slackens its grip: it’s spring ...
- Bki:Ix Winter See how Soracte stands glistening with ...
- Bki:I The Dedication: To Maece... Maecenas, descendant of ...
- Bki:Ii To Augustus The Father’s sent enough dread hail and ...
- Bki:Xii Praising Augustus What god, man, or hero do you ...
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. The rhetorician Quintillian regarded his Odes as almost the only Latin lyrics worth reading, justifying his estimate with the words: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."
Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses (Sermones and Epistles) and scurrilous iambic poetry (Epodes). The hexameters are playful and yet serious works, leading the ancient satirist Persius to comment: "as his friend laughs, Horace slyly puts his finger on ... more »
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Bki:Xi Carpe Diem
Leuconoë, don’t ask, we never know, what fate the gods grant us,
whether your fate or mine, don’t waste your time on Babylonian,
futile, calculations. How much better to suffer what happens,
whether Jupiter gives us more winters or this is the last one,
one debilitating the Tyrrhenian Sea on opposing cliffs.
Be wise, and mix the wine, since time is short: limit that far-reaching hope.
The envious moment is flying now, now, while we’re speaking:
Seize the day, place in the hours that come as little faith as you can.
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''ODI profanum vulgus....''
(ODES, XII)
«Odes profanum vulgus et Arceo / Favete linguis»
Horace, Odes, XII (III)