Odes 1.27

Horace the peacemaker

by Horace

This dramatic monologue is a purely literary exercise: with the exception of the Falernian wine, the names and atmosphere are more Greek than Roman. The metre is Alcaics.

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.

Natis in usum laetitiae scyphis
pugnare Thracum est: tollite barbarum
morem verecundumque Bacchum
sanguineis prohibete rixis.

vino et lucernis Medus acinaces
immane quantum discrepat: inpium
lenite clamorem sodales
et cubito remanete presso.

voltis severi me quoque sumere
partem Falerni? dicat Opuntiae
frater Megillae, quo beatus
volnere, qua pereat sagitta.

cessat voluntas? non alia bibam
mercede. quae te cumque domat Venus,
non erubescendis adurit
ignibus ingenuoque semper

amore peccas. quidquid habes, age,
depone tutis auribus. a miser,
quanta laborabas Charybdi,
digne puer meliore flamma.

quae saga, quis te solvere Thessalis
magus venenis, quis poterit deus?
vix inligatum te triformi
Pegasus expediet Chimaera.

To fight with cups that were made for gaiety is for the Thracians – stop these barbarous goings-on and keep bashful Bacchus away from bloodthirsty brawls! A Persian shortsword is colossally out of place with wine and lanterns: leave off your disrespectful racket, my friends, and keep your elbows on the couch. You want me, too, to drink some of this powerful Falernian, do you? Then let our friend here, Megilla from Opuntia’s brother, tell whose love-wound, whose arrow, he is dying happy from! I will not drink at any other price. Whatever love has mastered you, it doesn’t burn with shameful fires, you always stray with people of the proper sort. Here, whisper in my ear, it’s safe with me … oh, you poor boy, what a tremendous whirlpool you have been floundering in, a real Charybdis! You deserved a better object for your passion! Who, what witch or enchanter with Thessalian drugs, what god even, will free you? Pegasus himself will scarcely disentangle you from that three-formed Chimaera!

`

More Poems by Horace

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