Odes 1.20

Horace’s wine

by Horace

A famous, short and highly melodious poem in Sapphic metre combining praise of Horace’s Sabine farm and its (comparatively) simple life with a compliment and an invitation to his patron, Maecenas. Ancient commentary suggests that Maecenas’s ovation came when he reappeared in public after serious illness, but that is academic. The place-names at the end, some of which are more familiar than others, are presumably all associated with fine wine.

Editors are more or less agreed on amending Maecenas’s adjective in the fifth line to “clare” (illustrious), but the original reading in the manuscripts, “care” (dear), seems fine to me.

See the illustrated blog post here.

To listen, press play:

To scroll the original and English translation of the poem at the same time - tap inside one box to select it and then scroll.

Vile potabis modicis Sabinum
cantharis, Graeca quod ego ipse testa
conditum levi, datus in theatro
cum tibi plausus,

care Maecenas eques, ut paterni
fluminis ripae simul et iocosa
redderet laudes tibi Vaticani
montis imago.

Caecubum et prelo domitam Caleno
tu bibes uvam: mea nec Falernae
temperant vites neque Formiani
pocula colles.

You will drink ordinary Sabine from plain beakers, wine which I grew myself and laid down in a Greek jar on the occasion when you were given an ovation in the theatre, Maecenas my dear knight, so that the banks of the river of your fathers and the cheerful echo of the Vatican hill both gave you back your praises. Caecuban, and grapes mastered by the wine-presses of Cales, will be for you to drink: as for my cups, neither Falernian vines nor the Formian hills temper them.

`

More Poems by Horace

  1. Horace’s Cleopatra ode
  2. O Fons Bandusiae
  3. Fortuna
  4. The consolations of wine
  5. Horace the peacemaker
  6. A garland from the Muses
  7. Luxury versus the simple life
  8. Numida’s back
  9. Diana and Apollo: a hymn
  10. Poscimur
  11. Gathering rosebuds: carpe diem
  12. Don’t worry, be happy
  13. Horace returns to lyric poetry
  14. Horace’s reverence to Bacchus
  15. Nereus prophesies the Trojan War
  16. Augustus, master of the world
  17. Horace’s Chloe
  18. Pyrrha
  19. Courage and decadence: the Regulus ode
  20. An invitation to Maecenas
  21. Wealth should be used, not hoarded
  22. Horace’s monument
  23. Licymnia
  24. Housman and Horace
  25. The pleasures and dangers of wine
  26. Curse you, tree!
  27. The final ode
  28. The Golden Mean
  29. Iccius goes soldiering
  30. Glycera
  31. Horace’s first Ode
  32. Jealousy
  33. A change of mind
  34. Horace rests from his labours
  35. Lydia’s tragedy
  36. A prayer to Mercury
  37. Mourning for a good man
  38. What Roman youth should be
  39. Horace’s limitations
  40. Tibur or Tarentum: a poet’s dilemma?
  41. Carpe diem, Sestius
  42. Horace’s prayer to a wine-jar
  43. Don’t trust Barine
  44. Lovely mother, lovelier daughter
  45. Pollio’s histories of civil war
  46. Horace, the wolf and the upright life
  47. Postumus, the years slip by
  48. Horace welcomes his army comrade
  49. A prayer to Venus
  50. A Prayer to the poetry-God
  51. Soracte
  52. Last love
  53. Rome: disaster and salvation
  54. A Farewell to arms
  55. Give me comfort, not riches
  56. Stormy seas
  57. Valgius and Mystes
  58. Love a slave-girl? Oh, Xanthias!
  59. Unrequited love
  60. Awe for the Gods
  61. Celebrating Neptune’s feast day
  62. Diffugere nives
  63. Some advice for Dellius
  64. A plea for burial
  65. The country is best
  66. Lalage is too young
  67. The tug-of-war for Nearchus
  68. Pindar and Augustus
  69. Here’s to Murena!
  70. The fleeting years slip by
    71. View Latin Poems