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Wealth and virtue

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Echoing Stoic philosophy, Horace commends indifference to riches and makes the point that they are of value only when put to use. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

Civic eminence and civil war

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Horace compliments a fellow-author who is also a prominent public figure with an outstanding political and military career, in the process giving a vivid evocation of the tragedy of civil war. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

Hell hath a Fury

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Juno, Queen of the Gods, angry at yet another liaison between Jupiter and a mortal, gives a deadly mission to the dread Fury Tisiphone. Hear Ovid’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

Boethius and the Orpheus myth

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Five centuries after it featured in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Virgil’s Georgics, the staying-power of the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice is demonstrated by its appearance in Boethius’s “Consolation of Philosophy”. Hear Boethius’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

Venus and Mars go astray

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In Thebes, royal sisters are refusing to join ceremonies celebrating Bacchus. They will come to regret this, but for now they pass the time by weaving, spinning and telling stories instead, including the one about Venus’s love-affair with Mars. Hear Ovid’s original Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

Baudelaire’s Icarus

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With an echo of Ovid, Charles Baudelaire, the great French writer, sees himself as a poetic Icarus, who has flown too close to the sun and been scorched by the experience. Hear “Les Plaintes d’un Icare” in French and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

Ulysses and Du Bellay

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To a sixteenth-century French poet in search of an example, it is second nature to look for one in the classical world. Hear Du Bellay’s “Heureux qui comme Ulysse” in the original French and follow in English here.

See the blog post with Odysseus and the sirens here.