Odes 1.21

Diana and Apollo: a hymn

Hymns in the form that Horace adopts here go back to earlier ages in Greece, an opening command to a chorus being a conventional feature. Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus, consecrated a new temple to Apollo in Rome in 28 BCE, and it is likely that this is what prompted the poem: cult statues of the three gods first mentioned were erected in the new temple, and it became associated with commemoration of the future Augustus’s victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium in 31 BCE.

Woods were the haunt of Diana as the goddess of the hunt: Algidus is thought to have been a mountain in Italy, while Erymanthus and Gragus were in Greece and Asia Minor respectively. Tempe was a Greek valley associated with Apollo in myth. The bow and the lyre are conventional attributes of Apollo: “his brother’s” because the lyre was a gift from Mercury, its mythical inventor. The metre is third Asclepiad.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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Dianam tenerae dicite virgines,
intonsum pueri dicite Cynthium
Latonamque supremo
dilectam penitus Iovi.

vos laetam fluviis et nemorum coma
quaecumque aut gelido prominet Algido
nigris aut Erymanthi
silvis aut viridis Gragi;

vos Tempe totidem tollite laudibus
natalemque, mares, Delon Apollinis
insignemque pharetra
fraternaque umerum lyra.

hic bellum lacrimosum, hic miseram famem
pestemque a populo et principe Caesare in
Persas atque Britannos
vestra motus aget prece.

Sing, young maidens, of Diana; boys, sing of long-haired Apollo; all, sing of their Mother, Latona, so deeply loved by almighty Jupiter. Girls, sing of Diana who delights in the wooded canopy, whether the foliage that leans out from the snowy peak of Algidus, or the dark woods of Erymanthus, or the green woods of Gragus. Boys, exalt with your praises Tempe, and Delos, Apollo’s birthplace, and his shoulder adorned by the quiver and his brother’s lyre. Moved by your prayer, he it is who will drive tear-drenched war, he who will drive grievous famine and plague, away from the Roman people and Caesar, our foremost citizen, and onto the Persians and Britons.

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