The
Odes (Latin
Carmina) are a collection in four books of Latin
lyric poemsLyric poetry usually refers nowadays to a short poem that expresses personal feelings. It need not be set to music. Aristotle, in Poetics 1447a, merely mentions lyric poetry along with drama, epic poetry, dancing, painting and other forms of mimesis...
by
HoraceThis article is about the Roman poet Horace. For other uses, see Horace .Quintus Horatius Flaccus, , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:Born in the small town of Venusia in the border region between Apulia and Lucania...
. Books 1 to 3 were published in
23 BCYear 23 BC was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.-Rome:*Augustus becomes Roman Consul for the eleventh time...
. According to the journal
Quadrant, they were "unparalleled by any collection of lyric poetry produced before or after in Latin literature". A fourth book, consisting of 15 poems, was published in
13 BCYear 13 BC was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.-Rome:* The via Claudia Julia Augusta is built through Italy....
.
The Odes were developed as a conscious imitation of the short lyric poetry of Greek originals.
The
Odes (Latin
Carmina) are a collection in four books of Latin
lyric poemsLyric poetry usually refers nowadays to a short poem that expresses personal feelings. It need not be set to music. Aristotle, in Poetics 1447a, merely mentions lyric poetry along with drama, epic poetry, dancing, painting and other forms of mimesis...
by
HoraceThis article is about the Roman poet Horace. For other uses, see Horace .Quintus Horatius Flaccus, , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:Born in the small town of Venusia in the border region between Apulia and Lucania...
. Books 1 to 3 were published in
23 BCYear 23 BC was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.-Rome:*Augustus becomes Roman Consul for the eleventh time...
. According to the journal
Quadrant, they were "unparalleled by any collection of lyric poetry produced before or after in Latin literature". A fourth book, consisting of 15 poems, was published in
13 BCYear 13 BC was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.-Rome:* The via Claudia Julia Augusta is built through Italy....
.
The Odes were developed as a conscious imitation of the short lyric poetry of Greek originals.
PindarPindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, Pindar is the one whose work is best preserved...
,
SapphoSappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the canonical list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
and
AlcaeusAlcaeus may refer to several ancient Greek figures, notably:*Alcaeus , the son of Perseus and the father of Amphitryon*Alcaeus of Mytilene, a lyric poet of the archaic period...
are some of Horace's models; his genius lay in applying these older forms to the social life of Rome in the age of Augustus.
The Roman writer
PetroniusGaius Petronius Arbiter was a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero. He is speculated to be the author of the Satyricon, a satirical novel believed to have been written during the Neronian age.-Life:...
, writing less than a century after Horace's death, remarked on the
curiosa felicitas (studied spontaneity) of the Odes (
Satyricon 118). The English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson declared that the Odes provided "jewels five-words long, that on the stretched forefinger of all Time / Sparkle for ever" (
The Princess, part II, l.355).
The earliest positively-dated poem in the collection is I.37 (an ode on the defeat of Cleopatra at the
battle of ActiumThe Battle of Actium was the decisive confrontation of the Final War of the Roman Republic. It was fought between the forces of Octavian and the combined forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. The battle took place on 2 September 31 BC, on the Ionian Sea near the Roman colony of Actium in Greece...
, clearly written in 30 B.C.), though it is possible some of the lighter sketches from the Greek (e.g. I.10, a hymn to the god Mercury) are contemporary with Horace's earlier Epodes and Satires. The collected odes were first published in three books in 23 B.C.
Book 1
Book 1 consists of 38 poems. Notable poems in this collection include:
I.3
Sic te diva potens Cypri, a propempticon (travel poem) addressed to contemporary poet
VirgilPublius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works—the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the Aeneid—although several minor poems are also attributed to him.The son of a farmer, Virgil came to be...
.
I.4,
Solvitur acris hiems a hymn to springtime in which Horace urges his friend Sestius
vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam (Life's brief total forbids us cling to long-off hope)
I.5,
Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa, on the coquettish Pyrrha, famously translated by
John MiltonJohn Milton was an English poet, author, polemicist and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England. He is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost and for his treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica....
.
I.11,
Tu ne quaesieris, a short rebuke to a woman worrying about the future; it closes with the famous line
carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero (seize the day, trusting tomorrow as little as possible).
I.22,
Integer vitae, an amusing ode that starts as a solemn praise of honest living and ends in a mock-heroic love song.
I.33,
Albi, ne doleas, a consolation to the contemporary poet
TibullusAlbius Tibullus was a Latin poet and writer of elegies.Little is known about his life. His first and second books of poetry are extant; many other texts attributed to Tibullus are of questionable origins. There are only a few references to him in later writers and a short Life of doubtful authority...
over a lost love.
Book 2
Book 2 consists of 20 poems. Notable poems in this collection include:
II.14,
Eheu fugaces, an ode to Postumus on the futility of hoarding up treasure that begins
Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, labuntur anni! (alas, the fleeting years glide away, Postumus, Postumus)
Book 3
Book 3 consists of 30 poems.
The ancient editor
PorphyrionPomponius Porphyrion was a Latin grammarian and commentator on Horace, possibly a native of Africa, who flourished during the 2nd or 3rd century....
read the first six odes of this book as a single sequence, one unified by a common moral purpose and addressed to all patriotic citizens of Rome. These six "Roman odes", as they have since been called (by HT Plüss in 1882), share a common meter and take as a common theme the glorification of Roman virtues and the attendant glory of Rome under
AugustusGaius Julius Caesar Augustus was the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in AD 14.
[These are the contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian after 45 BC...]
. Ode III.2 contains the famous line "
Dulce et decorum est pro patria moriDulce et decorum est pro patria mori is a line from the Roman lyrical poet Horace's Odes . The line can be roughly translated into English as: "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.", "It is noble and glorious to die for your fatherland." or "It is beautiful and honorable to die for...
," (It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country). Ode III.5
Caelo tonantem credidimus Jovem makes explicit identification of Augustus as a new Jove destined to restore in modern Rome the valor of past Roman heroes like
Marcus Atilius RegulusMarcus Atilius Regulus , a general and consul in the ninth year of the First Punic War . Regulus defeated the Salentini and captured Brundisium during his first term as consul in 267 BC....
, whose story occupies the second half of the poem.
Besides the first six Roman Odes, notable poems in this collection include:
III.13,
O fons BandusiaeO fons Bandusiae splendidior vitrodulci digne mero non sine floribus,frustra: nam gelidos inficiet tibinescit tangere, tu frigus amabileme dicente cavis impositam ilicemThe Spring of Bandusia is a natural water source in rural Italy to which the Roman poet Horace addressed a well-known ode...
, a celebrated description of the Bandusian fountain.
III.29,
Tyrrhena regum progenies, an invitation for the patron Maecenas to visit the poet's Sabine farm.
III.30,
Exegi monumentum, a closing poem in which Horace brags
Exegi monumentum aere perennius (I have raised a monument more permanent than bronze).
Book 4
Horace published a fourth book of Odes in
13 BCYear 13 BC was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.-Rome:* The via Claudia Julia Augusta is built through Italy....
consisting of 15 poems that were commissioned by Augustus himself. Horace acknowledged the gap in time with the first words of the opening poem of the collection:
Intermissa, Venus, diu / rursus bella moves (Venus, you return to battles long interrupted). Notable poems in this collection include:
IV.7
Diffugere nives, an ode on the same springtime theme as I.4. Contrasts between these two odes show a change in Horace's attitude with age.
IV.9
Ne forte credas, an ode to Lollius about the power of poetry that contains the famous line, "Vixere fortes Agamemnona," "Brave men lived before
AgamemnonIn Greek mythology, Agamemnon / is the son of King Atreus of Mycenae and Queen Aerope; the brother of Menelaus and the husband of Clytemnestra; different mythological versions make him the king either of Mycenae or of Argos...
.
IV.10
O crudelis adhuc, an ode to young Ligurinus on the inevitability of old age that hints at a pederastic relationship.
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