Odes1.10

A prayer to Mercury

In a charming little hymn, Horace celebrates Mercury, the messenger of the Gods, and some of his many other attributes: he was the patron of speech, the lyre, thievery, mischief and deception, as well as the guide of the souls of the dead down to the underworld. His attribute as the god of commerce, probably the first that a Roman would have thought of, is not mentioned, a clue that Horace is very much in Greek mode here. An ancient commentator (Porphyrio) tells us that this ode was based on a poem in praise of Hermes by Alcaeus, one of Horace’s Greek models, the first stanza of which has survived and, like this ode, is in Sapphic metre.

In Homer’s Iliad, a disguised Mercury was King Priam’s guide when he left Troy on a dangerous mission to the camp of the Greek besiegers to persuade Achilles to allow him to ransom the body of his great son, Hector.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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Mercuri facunde nepos Atlantis,
qui feros cultus hominum recentum
voce formasti catus et decorae
more palaestrae,

te canam, magni Iovis et deorum
nuntium curvaeque lyrae parentem,
callidum, quidquid placuit, iocoso
condere furto.

te, boves olim nisi reddidisses
per dolum amotas, puerum minaci
voce dum terret, viduus pharetra
risit Apollo.

quin et Atridas duce te superbos
Ilio dives Priamus relicto
Thessalosque ignis et iniqua Troiae
castra fefellit.

tu pias laetis animas reponis
sedibus virgaque levem coerces
aurea turbam, superis deorum
gratus et imis.

O Mercury, eloquent grandchild of Atlas, who reformed the savage ways of newly-made mankind with the power of speech and the custom of beauty-giving exercise, of you I shall sing, you messenger of great Jupiter and the Gods, and father of the curving lyre, skilled at hiding anything you please away by playful robbery. At you, when in your infancy your brother Apollo, while telling you threateningly what would happen unless you returned the cattle that you had cleverly spirited away, had to laugh to find that you had also stolen his quiver! With you to guide him, wealthy Priam, too, was able to leave his city and pass by the sons of Atreus, the fires of the Greeks and the enemy camp of Troy’s besiegers unobserved. And it is you who bring the souls of the righteous to their places in the seats of the blessed, folding your ghostly flock with your golden wand, loved by Gods both high above and deep below.

More Poems by Horace

View Latin Poems