Ode 2.10

The Golden Mean

by Horace

Life is like a sea-voyage, says Horace, and he uses the conceit to deploy a range of philosophical aphorisms in which neither Epicureans, Stoics or Peripatetics would find much to disagree with. The appearance of Apollo at the end as an example of the changeability of things is neat: he is the patron of music and the arts, but as an archer he is also the bringer of illness and death. This is the aspect in which he appears at the opening of Homer’s Iliad, inflicting a pestilence on the Greek army when Agamemnon refuses to give back the captive daughter of one of his priests.

The metre is Sapphics.

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Rectius vives, Licini, neque altum
semper urgendo neque, dum procellas
cautus horrescis, nimium premendo
litus iniquum.

auream quisquis mediocritatem
diligit, tutus caret obsoleti
sordibus tecti, caret invidenda
sobrius aula.

saepius ventis agitatur ingens
pinus et celsae graviore casu
decidunt turres feriuntque summos
fulgura montis.

sperat infestis, metuit secundis
alteram sortem bene praeparatum
pectus. informis hiemes reducit
Iuppiter, idem

summovet. non, si male nunc, et olim
sic erit: quondam cithara tacentem
suscitat Musam neque semper arcum
tendit Apollo.

rebus angustis animosus atque
fortis appare: sapienter idem
contrahes vento nimium secundo
turgida vela.

You will live a more upright life, Licinius, if you neither always keep to deep waters, nor, when uneasy and shuddering at the thought of squalls, stick too close to the dangerous coast. A man who chooses the golden mean will live in safety, free from the squalor of a dingy shack; and in moderation, free from the envy that a grand mansion draws. It’s the tallest pine that is most often shaken by the winds, the higher the towers, the more ruinous their fall, and it’s the highest peaks that the lightning strikes. The well-prepared heart will hope for better fortunes when things are bad, and be alert for worse ones when things are good. Jupiter brings round the ugly winter, but takes it away again, and if times are evil now, one day they may not be: sometimes Apollo awakes the silent muse with his lyre, and is not always bending his bow. In straitened circumstances, show that you are strong and undaunted: by the same token, you will be wise to shorten your sails if they are swollen by too favourable a wind.

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More Poems by Horace

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