Odes 1.30

A prayer to Venus

by Horace

Historically, this little poem has puzzled some commentators, especially the strait-laced ones. Why is Glycera’s a suitable place to summon Venus to? And why is Mercury there at the end? As the god of speech and persuasion, perhaps? It’s probably simpler than that: Romans often used “Venus” just to mean “sex”, and Mercury was the patron god of commerce. If Glycera’s house has sex for sale, other details – like why Cupid is so eager and why the nymphs and graces should come with their girdles undone – fall into place. This Victorian translation by John Conington catches the mood nicely:

Come, Cnidian, Paphian Venus, come,
Thy well-beloved Cyprus spurn,
Haste, where for thee in Glycera’s home
Sweet odours burn.

Bring too thy Cupid, glowing warm,
Graces and Nymphs, unzoned and free,
And Youth, that lacking thee lacks charm,
And Mercury.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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O Venus regina Cnidi Paphique,
sperne dilectam Cypron et vocantis
ture te multo Glycerae decoram
transfer in aedem.

fervidus tecum puer et solutis
Gratiae zonis properentque Nymphae
et parum comis sine te Iuventas
Mercuriusque.

O Venus, Queen of Cnidos and Paphos, spurn your beloved Cyprus and come to the house of Glycera, who is summoning you with clouds of incense. Let Cupid, burningly eager, hurry there with you, and the Graces and nymphs with their girdles loosed, and Youth – not pleasant enough if you are not there – and Mercury.

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More Poems by Horace

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