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