Odes 1.24

Mourning for a good man

by Horace

This ode, in a sombre asclepiadic metre, is a notably effective piece on a stock theme: loss, acceptance and consolation. Scholars speculate about just who Quintilius was, but that he was respected by Horace and a friend of Virgil seems good enough reason in itself for him to be remembered. At the end of the poem, Mercury is shown as the guide of the souls of the dead to the underworld. His most famous appearance in this aspect is in the last book of the Odyssey, when he performs this function for Penelope’s suitors after Odysseus has killed them.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus
tam cari capitis? praecipe lugubris
cantus, Melpomene, cui liquidam pater
vocem cum cithara dedit.

ergo Quintilium perpetuus sopor
urget? cui Pudor et Iustitiae soror
incorrupta Fides nudaque Veritas
quando ullum inveniet parem?

multis ille bonis flebilis occidit,
nulli flebilior quam tibi, Vergili.
tu, frustra pius, heu non ita creditum
poscis Quintilium deos.

quid si Threicio blandius Orpheo
auditam moderere arboribus fidem,
num vanae redeat sanguis imagini,
quam virga semel horrida

non lenis precibus fata recludere
nigro conpulerit Mercurius gregi?
durum: sed levius fit patientia
quidquid corrigere est nefas.

What shame or restraint should there be in our sense of loss for so dear a life? Teach us sad songs, Melpomene, to whom father Jupiter gave your clear voice to go with your lyre. So eternal sleep lies heavy on Quintilius? When will decency, and justice’s sister, perfect fidelity, and naked truth, ever find his like? He died bringing sorrow to many good men, and to none more than to you, Vergil. In vain in your piety, alas, do you ask the Gods for your Quintilius, whom you did not entrust to them on these terms. Even if you were to serenade the trees more persuasively even than Thracian Orpheus, surely the lifeblood may not return to an empty shade which Mercury, not gentle enough to reopen its fate in response to our prayers, has once herded with his dreaded crook into the dark flock? It is hard: but through endurance ills that it is forbidden to correct become easier to bear.

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More Poems by Horace

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