Pantheon Poets, Author at Pantheon Poets | Latin Poetry Recited and Translated

Horace and the shortness of human life

Posted on April 21, 2021February 21, 2024

Today’s new post is one of Horace’s most famous Odes on the theme of “carpe diem”. Hear the Latin and follow in English here.

See the illustrated blog post here.

Horace and the transitoriness of life

Posted on April 21, 2021February 21, 2024

Todays new poem is one of Horace’s poems on the shortness of life: as a contrast, he refers to several mythological characters who suffer everlasting punishment in Tartarus, including forty-nine of the fifty daughters of King Danaus, who killed their husbands on the wedding night. The illustration by Waterhouse shows them eternally fetching water to pour into a vessel that can never be filled.

Hear the poem in Latin and follow in English here.

Horace and the upright life

Posted on February 8, 2021February 21, 2024

Horace puts his safe survival of an encounter with a wolf down to the purity of his love for Lalage. Hear the poem here and see the blog post with a wonderful wolf photographed by Gary Kramer here.

Horace by Housman

Posted on January 17, 2023

A E Housman, of Shropshire Lad fame, wrote one of the very best English versions of a Horatian ode.

See and hear Horace’s poem alongside Housman’s translation here.

See the illustrated blog post here.

Horace calms rising tempers

Posted on August 17, 2025

Horace shows an older, cooler head using his wit and experience to keep the peace at an imaginary drinking-party that threatens to get out of hand.

Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

Horace drinks to the defeat of Cleopatra

Posted on July 9, 2020February 21, 2024

Why is “now the time for drinking to be done and the ground to be struck with free foot?” Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus, has defeated Cleopatra and Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium! Hear Horace’s poem on the subject in Latin and follow it in English translation here.

Horace ends his second book

Posted on June 8, 2026

Because of my poetry, says Horace, I shall not die, so do not load my empty tomb with superfluous honours. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

Horace excuses himself

Posted on October 23, 2023

In today’s post, Horace maintains that his poetic skills are too lightweight for epic and warlike themes – but his poem hints at a different story.

Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.

See the illustrated blog post here.

Horace invokes the Muses

Posted on August 29, 2025

Horace wants to honour his friend Lamia with a floral garland. What better form could it take than a poem, woven from the divine gifts of the muses and his own poetic skill?

Hear Horace’s original Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.