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