Hello again, dear readers! I do hope you enjoyed my chronicles of my trip to Tunisia. I had a lot of fun being able to write about it to you all, and I hope that I have the opportunity to do more travelogues in the future. However, now that it is the Summer, I am going to do something somewhat different. From now until I go back to Chicago, I am going to be translating a poem from Horace's Odes every day! Of course, this is of particular interest to me, since I am studying Latin and all, but I hope that you all too will enjoy it a bit as well. Since this isn't a stuffy Latin class, I won't be necessarily translating it directly, (as Latin's idioms tend to not translate very well into English), but rather trying to get the idea as close to the original as possible. I'll provide the Latin text from which I translated (Which is all provided by this website), so you can read the original if you like. I will also be adding in a short commentary at the end, pointing out interesting things, putting into context some of the pedantic allusions Horace makes (of which there are many) and giving a reaction to the poem overall. Since it's late I won't give too much of a commentary as this one, other than it is a nice introduction to the series, as well as demonstrating how Horace the man, however great of a poet he may have been, is a bit of a tosser.
Sincere Regards,
Michael Coffey
Ode 1.1
The Latin:
Maecenas atauis edite regibus,
o et praesidium et dulce decus meum,
sunt quos curriculo puluerem Olympicum
collegisse iuuat metaque feruidis
euitata rotis palmaque nobilis
terrarum dominos euehit ad deos;
hunc, si mobilium turba Quiritium
certat tergeminis tollere honoribus;
illum, si proprio condidit horreo
quicquid de Libycis uerritur areis.
Gaudentem patrios findere sarculo
agros Attalicis condicionibus
numquam demoueas, ut trabe Cypria
Myrtoum pauidus nauta secet mare.
Luctantem Icariis fluctibus Africum
mercator metuens otium et oppidi
laudat rura sui; mox reficit rates
quassas, indocilis pauperiem pati.
Est qui nec ueteris pocula Massici
nec partem solido demere de die
spernit, nunc uiridi membra sub arbuto
stratus, nunc ad aquae lene caput sacrae.
Multos castra iuuant et lituo tubae
permixtus sonitus bellaque matribus
detestata. Manet sub Ioue frigido
uenator tenerae coniugis inmemor,
seu uisa est catulis cerua fidelibus,
seu rupit teretis Marsus aper plagas.
Me doctarum hederae praemia frontium
dis miscent superis, me gelidum nemus
Nympharumque leues cum Satyris chori
secernunt populo, si neque tibias
Euterpe cohibet nec Polyhymnia
Lesboum refugit tendere barbiton.
Quod si me lyricis uatibus inseres,
sublimi feriam sidera uertice.
The Translation:
Maecenas, born from ancient kings
My guardian, and my sweet glory,
There are those whom it pleases to gather
Olympic dust from the chariots and turning posts,
Having shunned the blazing wheels and the noble palm
And they exalt earthly lords to gods;
This one is happy, if a crowd of fickle citizens
Vies to raise him up with threefold honors,
That one, if he buries in his grainery
Whatever he swept from a Libyan threshing floor.
You could never convince him, he who rejoices to hoe
His father's fields, even with the wealth of Attalos,
To be a craven sailor and cut the Myrtoan sea with a Cypran raft.
The merchant, struggling on the Icarian waves, fearing the southwest wind
He praises leisure and the countryside of his home
Soon he repairs his battered boats, unequipped to suffer poverty.
There is he who does not spurn the cup of good vintage,
Nor to take off the better part of the day,
Now under the boughs of an arbutus tree,
Now at the gentle source of sacred waters.
The castle pleases many, the bugles and trumpets
Mixed with the song of war, cursed by mothers.
The hunter remains under frigid Jove, heedless of his young wife
Whether the deer is seen by the faithful whelp
Or the Marsian boar destroys his smooth net.
Ivy, the prize of studious foreheads,
mixes me with the opulent gods above,
A frosty wood and a swift chorus of Nymphs and Satyrs
Separates me from the people,
If Euterpe doesn't hold back the flute,
Nor Polyhymnia put off playing the Lesbian lyre.
But if you will sow me among the the Lyric poets,
I will strike the stars with my sublime crown.
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