Horace’s instinctive response to thunder from a clear sky prompts him to reconsider where he stands between Epicurean philosophy and the Gods of Olympus.
A take on the theme of “carpe diem” by the elegiac poet Tibullus, writing in the second half of the first century BCE. Hear Tibullus’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.
Catullus tries his hand at marriage guidance counselling. The therapy he suggests – throwing the husband off a bridge – seems a little extreme. Hear Catullus’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.
In a less well-known Lesbia poem, Catullus addresses a translation of a famous Greek poem to her, before breaking off to take himself to task for idleness.