Another poem on the theme of the shortness of life. Here, the emphasis is strictly on the inevitability of death – it happens even to heroes – and not on the fun to be had first. I find the tone similar to that of the old Church of England Prayer Book service for the burial of the dead, with references to the resurrection removed. The metre – a longer, epic line alternating with a shorter, answering one – increases the piece’s resemblance to a funeral march. Torquatus, to whom Horace addresses the poem, was a lawyer, hence the reference to eloquence.
This ode is a good example of how much the skilled use of mythological references in poetry was admired as a sign of learning and taste. Aeneas is a Trojan hero from the Homeric poems and Virgil’s Aeneid, the legendary ancestor of Julius Caesar and Augustus and precursor of the founders of Rome. Tullus and Ancus were ancient kings of Rome. Minos was one of the judges of the dead. Hippolytus was the son of Theseus, the legendary hero. He was devoted to Diana, the virgin goddess of the hunt: his death was plotted by his stepmother Phaedra when he rejected her advances. Theseus and Pirithous were a legendary pair symbolising unbreakable friendship.
Metre: Hexameters followed by an Archilochius minor
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