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.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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