Odes 1.11

Gathering rosebuds: carpe diem

This is where Horace first coins or recalls the phrase “carpe diem” for the idea, already expressed in odes 1.4 and 1.8, that time and life pass quickly, so it’s best to make the most of them. It’s usually translated as “seize the day”, but it’s a lot more than that: “carpe” could also mean “harvest” the day, or “tease it out” like wool, or “press on” with it like a journey, or “pluck” it like a flower, and contemporaries would have had that richness of meaning in their minds.

The metre (fifth Asclepiad) is unusual: the general effect is that the poem keeps getting checked and then moving on regardless, which seems apt.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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Tu ne quaesieris (scire nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. Ut melius quicquid erit pati!
Seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum, sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

Don’t ask – it’s wrong to know – what end the Gods have given you or me, Leuconoe, and don’t resort to exotic numerology. How much better bear it, whatever it will be! Whether Jove has granted many winters, or this is our last, as even now the Tyrrhenian sea is wearing away at the rocks it faces; be wise, pour the wine, prune back long hope to brief duration. As we speak, the jealous time is gone: carpe diem, rely the least you can on the day to come.

More Poems by Horace