Odes 3,6

New temples, new morals

by Horace

The last of six highly significant poems about the state of the Roman world with which Horace begins his third and (he thought) final book of Odes deals with the rebuilding of the city’s temples, disasters that neglect of the Gods has brought, and the contrast between the austere life of the generations who produced Rome’s greatness and the immorality that now threatens it. Who is the “Roman” that the poem is addressed to? If the citizens in general, then there is an inconsistency because Horace starts by saying that they are not responsible for Rome’s degeneracy but ends by saying that they are. Many commentators resolve this by taking the “Roman” to be (the future?) Augustus, who carried out a large programme of temple building and renovation and tried to pass moral legislation partly aimed at behaviour of the kind that Horace criticises in the second half of the piece. His first attempt failed in 28 BCE, and it is very possible that Horace wrote this poem in the aftermath. If the “Roman” is indeed Augustus, it makes the poem very political, but it should not be assumed from that that Horace does not believe what he says.

Metre: 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.

Delicta maiorum inmeritus lues,
Romane, donec templa refeceris
aedisque labentis deorum et
foeda nigro simulacra fumo.

dis te minorem quod geris, imperas:
hinc omne principium, huc refer exitum:
di multa neglecti dederunt
Hesperiae mala luctuosae.

iam bis Monaeses et Pacori manus
inauspicatos contudit impetus
nostros et adiecisse praedam
torquibus exiguis renidet.

paene occupatam seditionibus
delevit urbem Dacus et Aethiops,
hic classe formidatus, ille
missilibus melior sagittis.

fecunda culpae saecula nuptias
primum inquinavere et genus et domos:
hoc fonte derivata clades
in patriam populumque fluxit.

motus doceri gaudet Ionicos
matura virgo et fingitur artibus
iam nunc et incestos amores
de tenero meditatur ungui.

mox iuniores quaerit adulteros
inter mariti vina neque eligit
cui donet inpermissa raptim
gaudia luminibus remotis,

sed iussa coram non sine conscio
surgit marito, seu vocat institor
seu navis Hispanae magister,
dedecorum pretiosus emptor.

non his iuventus orta parentibus
infecit aequor sanguine Punico
Pyrrhumque et ingentem cecidit
Antiochum Hannibalemque dirum,

sed rusticorum mascula militum
proles, Sabellis docta ligonibus
versare glaebas et severae
matris ad arbitrium recisos

portare fustis, sol ubi montium
mutaret umbras et iuga demeret
bubus fatigatis amicum
tempus agens abeunte curru.

damnosa quid non inminuit dies?
aetas parentum, peior avis, tulit
nos nequiores, mox daturos
progeniem vitiosiorem.

You will atone for the omissions of your forebears, although you are not at fault for them, Roman, until you have remade the temples, the crumbling shrines and the images of the Gods fouled with smoke. It is because you bear yourself as less than the Gods that you govern: from this this, take all your beginnings; to this, relate all your ends. [It is because they have been] neglected [that] the Gods have given many evils to sorrowing Italy. Twice so far Monaeses and Pacorus’s band have crushed our ill-fated attacks, and are grinning at having added spoils of ours to the slender torcs they wear. The Egyptian, formidable for his fleet, and the Dacian for his greater skill at firing arrows, almost destroyed a Rome distracted by internal discord. Centuries pregnant with guilt first polluted marriage, family and the home: disaster derived from this source has flowed over the fatherland and its people. The grown girl delights to be taught Ionic dances, is already being moulded by these habits, and from the depths of her being focuses her attention on love affairs. Soon she is looking for younger partners in adultery even at her husband’s drinking parties, nor does she choose a man to give forbidden pleasures to in haste when the lights have been removed, but when bidden, gets up openly, and even with her husband’s acquiescence, whether the man asking is a salesman, or the captain of a Spanish ship, a free-spending buyer of her disgrace. Those fighting men were not born from parents such as these who dyed the ocean with Carthaginian blood and hewed down Pyrrhus, Antiochus the Great and grim Hannibal, but the manly offspring of rustic soldiers, accustomed to tilling the ground with Samnite mattocks and cutting and carrying sticks for the scrutiny of their strict mother, when the sun was altering the shadows of the mountains  and loosing the yoke from the tired oxen, bringing the friendly eventide as his chariot went its way. What has pernicious time not diminished? Our parents’ generation, worse than that of their own, bore us, more worthless still, and soon to bring forth offspring that is even more corrupt.

`

More Poems by Horace

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

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.