Horace
Odes
and
Satires
Roman lyric poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus exerted a major influence on English poetry.
(December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC)
Horace, the son of a freed slave, who owned a small farm, later moved to Rome to work as a coactor, a middleman between buyers and sellers at auctions, receiving 1% of the purchase price for his services. The father ably spent considerable money on education of his son, accompanied him first to Rome for his primary education, and then sent him to Athens to study Greek and philosophy.
After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Horace joined the army, serving under the generalship of Brutus. He fought as a staff officer (tribunus militum) in the battle of Philippi. Alluding to famous literary models, he later claimed to throw away his shield and to flee for his salvation. When people declared an amnesty for those who fought against the victorious Octavian Augustus, Horace returned to Italy, only to find his estate confiscated and his father likely then dead. Horace claims that circumstances reduced him to poverty.
Nevertheless, he meaningfully gained a profitable lifetime appointment as a scriba quaestorius, an official of the Treasury; this appointment allowed him to practice his poetic art.
Horace was a member of a literary circle that included Virgil and Lucius Varius Rufus, who introduced him to Maecenas, friend and confidant of Augustus. Maecenas became his patron and close friend and presented Horace with an estate near Tibur in the Sabine Hills (contemporary Tivoli). A few months after the death of Maecenas, Horace died in Rome. Upon his death bed, Horace with no heirs relinquished his farm to Augustus, his friend and the emperor, for imperial needs, and it stands today as a spot of pilgrimage for his admirers.
“You must often make erasures if you mean to write what is worthy of being read a second time; and don't labor for the admiration of the crowd, but be content with a few choice readers”
“Subdue your passion or it will subdue you.”
“A shoe that is too large is apt to trip one, and when too small, to pinch the feet. So it is with those whose fortune does not suit them.”
“Leave off asking what tomorrow will bring, andwhatever days fortune will give, count themas profit.”
“I shall not wholly die and a great part of me will escape the grave”
“Surely a Man may speak Truth with a smiling countenance.”
“What you have not published, you can destroy. The word once sent forth can never be recalled.”
“Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.”
“Nil mortalibus ardui est”
“Dulce est desipere in loco”
“he who is greedy is always in want”
“Mingle a little folly with your wisdom; a little nonsense now and then is pleasant.”
“Anger is a brief madness.”
“If you wish me to weep, you yourselfMust first feel grief.”
“Struggling to be brief I become obscure.”
“He who feared that he would not succeed sat still.”
“You may drive out Nature with a pitchfork, yet she still will hurry back.”
“Think to yourself that every day is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise.”
“He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin!”
“He will through life be master of himself and a happy man who from day to day can have said, "I have lived: tomorrow the Father may fill the sky with black clouds or with cloudless sunshine.”
“The man who is tenacious of purpose in a rightful cause is not shaken from his firm resolve by the frenzy of his fellow citizens clamoring for what is wrong, or by the tyrant's threatening countenance.”
“As we speak, cruel time is fleeing. Seize the day, believing as little as possible in the morrow.”
“In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war.”
“Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.”
“Capture your reader, let him not depart, from dull beginnings that refuse to start”
“Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even.Horace”
“What we read with pleasure we read again with pleasure.”
“Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts”
“A picture is a poem without words.”
“He who combines the useful and the pleasing wins out by both instructing and delighting the reader. That is the sort of book that will make money for the publisher, cross the seas, and extend the fame of the author.”
“The aim of the poet is to inform or delight, or to combine together, in what he says, both pleasure and applicability to life. In instructing, be brief in what you say in order that your readers may grasp it quickly and retain it faithfully. Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full. Fiction invented in order to please should remain close to reality.”
“It is not enough for poems to be beautiful; they must be affecting, and must lead the heart of the hearer as they will.”
“Quae caret ora cruore nostro?”
“Pulvis et umbra sumus. (We are but dust and shadow.)”
“Finxerunt animi, raro et perpauca loquentis. (To action little, less to words inclinded.)”
“Either stick to tradition or see that your inventions be consistent.”
“Nie pytaj próżno, bo nikt się nie dowie.Jaki nam koniec gotują bogowie,I babilońskich nie pytaj wróżbiarzy.Lepiej tak przyjąć wszystko, jak się zdarzy.A czy z rozkazu Jowisza ta zima,Co teraz wichrem wełny morskie wzdyma,Będzie ostatnia, czy też nam przysporzyLat jeszcze kilka tajny wyrok boży,Nie troszcz się o to i ... klaruj swe wina.Mknie rok za rokiem, jak jedna godzina.Wiec łap dzień każdy, a nie wierz ni trochęW złudnej przyszłości obietnice płoche.~Horacyprzeł.: Henryk Sienkiewicz”
“Ode 4.7Diffugere niues, redeunt iam gramina campis arboribus comae;mutat terra uices et decrescentia ripas flumina praetereunt;Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet ducere nuda chorus.Inmortalia ne speres, monet annus et almum quae rapit hora diem.Frigora mitescunt Zephyris, uer proterit aestas, interitura simul pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit, et mox bruma recurrit iners.Damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunae: non ubi decidimusquo pater Aeneas, quo diues Tullus et Ancus, puluis et umbra sumus.Quis scit an adiciant hodiernae crastina summae tempora di superi?Cuncta manus auidas fugient heredis, amico quae dederis animo. Cum semel occideris et de te splendida Minos fecerit arbitria,non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te restituet pietas;infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum liberat Hippolytum,nec Lethaea ualet Theseus abrumpere caro uincula Pirithoo.”
“Let him live under the open sky, and dangerously.”
“Pactum serva" - "Keep the faith”
“It is not the rich man you should properly call happy, but him who knows how to use with wisdom the blessings of the gods, to endure hard poverty, and who fears dishonor worse than death, and is not afraid to die for cherished friends or fatherland.”
“Tu ne quaesieris--scire nefas--quem mihi, quem tibi finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios temptaris numeros. Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati. . . . Spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur fugerit invida aetas. Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.”
“You may thresh a hundred thousand bushels of grain, / But more than mine your belly will not contain.”
“Quis scit an adiciant hodiernae crastina summae tempora di superi?Cuncta manus auidas fugient heredis, amico quae dederis animo.”
“Cedes coemptis saltibus et domouillaque flauus quam Tiberis lauit,cedes et exstructis in altumdiuitiis potietur heres.”
“Clogged with yesterday's excess, the body drags the mind down with it.”
“Fortune makes a fool of those she favors too much.”
“Virtue, dear friend, needs no defense,The surest guard is innocence: None knew, till guilt created fear, What darts or poisoned arrows were”
“Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.”
“Now is the time to drink!”