Odes 3.9

Love lost and found

by Horace

This verse form, in which two people speak alternately with each competing to cap the other, was used by Sappho and other Greek predecessors of Horace, and had already been adopted by Virgil in his pastoral poems, the Eclogues. The names are Greek: Thurii is a town in the south of Italy, and was also originally a Greek foundation. Ilia, to whom Lydia compares herself, was the mother who bore Romulus and Remus to the war God, Mars.

Horace admits elsewhere to having a quick temper, and commentators have wondered whether the reference to one in this piece was intended to associate him with the unnamed male speaker, but that is speculative: if there is such a reference, it could be jocular, autobiographical, both or neither.

Metre: (fourth) Asclepiad.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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“Donec gratus eram tibi
nec quisquam potior bracchia candidae
cervici iuvenis dabat,
Persarum vigui rege beatior.”

“donec non alia magis
arsisti neque erat Lydia post Chloen,
multi Lydia nominis,
Romana vigui clarior Ilia.”

“me nunc Thressa Chloe regit,
dulcis docta modos et citharae sciens,
pro qua non metuam mori,
si parcent animae fata superstiti”

“me torret face mutua
Thurini Calais filius Ornyti,
pro quo bis patiar mori,
si parcent puero fata superstiti.”

“quid si prisca redit Venus
diductosque iugo cogit aeneo?
si flava excutitur Chloe
reiectaeque patet ianua Lydiae?”

“quamquam sidere pulchrior
ille est, tu levior cortice et inprobo
iracundior Hadria:
tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam lubens.”

“While I was dear to you, and there was no-one that you preferred to put his arms around your white neck, I flourished more happily than the King of the Persians.”

“While you did not burn for another more than for me, nor did Lydia come after Chloe, I, Lydia of great renown, flourished more brilliantly than Roman Ilia herself.”

“Now it is Thracian Chloe who rules me, skilled in sweet music and expert with the lyre, for whom I shall not fear to die, so long as the fates grant that my love survives.”

“It is Calais son of Ornytus of Thurii who burns me now with a torch of reciprocal flame, for whom I shall suffer death twice over, so long as the fates grant that my boy survives.

“What if our former love returns, and Venus drives us together, separated as we are, under her brazen yoke? What if Chloe and her fair hair are chased away, and my door stands open to my discarded Lydia?”

“Although he is lovelier than a star, and you are lighter than cork and quicker to anger than the fierce Adriatic, it is with you that I would love to live, with you that I would willingly die.”

`

More Poems by Horace

  1. Glycera
  2. Iccius goes soldiering
  3. Horace’s first Ode
  4. Tibur or Tarentum: a poet’s dilemma?
  5. A day off for rain
  6. Neobule
  7. A prayer to Mercury
  8. Lydia’s tragedy
  9. Here’s to Murena!
  10. Lovely mother, lovelier daughter
  11. The pleasures and dangers of wine
  12. Horace’s prayer to a wine-jar
  13. Horace’s wine
  14. Licymnia
  15. An invocation to the lyre
  16. Locked out
  17. What Roman youth should be
  18. Be your age, Chloris!
  19. Give me comfort, not riches
  20. Last love
  21. Courage and decadence: the Regulus ode
  22. Diana and Apollo: a hymn
  23. Nereus prophesies the Trojan War
  24. Jealousy
  25. Augustus, master of the world
  26. Gathering rosebuds: carpe diem
  27. Stormy seas
  28. Horace’s Chloe
  29. Romulus becomes a God
  30. Romulus in Heaven
  31. Horace rests from his labours
  32. The consolations of wine
  33. The Golden Mean
  34. Lalage is too young
  35. Wealth should be used, not hoarded
  36. The fleeting years slip by
  37. Pindar and Augustus
  38. Some advice for Dellius
  39. Don’t trust Barine
  40. Horace’s limitations
  41. Soracte
  42. Curse you, tree!
  43. Diffugere nives
  44. Horace the peacemaker
  45. Valgius and Mystes
  46. An oath to Maecenas
  47. The country is best
  48. Horace’s monument
  49. A plea for burial
  50. Horace’s reverence to Bacchus
  51. Love a slave-girl? Oh, Xanthias!
  52. O Fons Bandusiae
  53. Pollio’s histories of civil war
  54. The lust for money versus the simple life
  55. The tug-of-war for Nearchus
  56. Horace’s Cleopatra ode
  57. Rome: disaster and salvation
  58. Carpe diem, Sestius
  59. A Farewell to arms
  60. Poscimur
  61. Luxury versus the simple life
  62. Celebrating Neptune’s feast day
  63. Late stirrings
  64. A change of mind
  65. Roman values for the new age
  66. Numida’s back
  67. A prayer to Venus
  68. Don’t worry, be happy
  69. Awe for the Gods
  70. Horace welcomes his army comrade
  71. Horace the swan
  72. A prayer to Faunus
  73. Fortuna
  74. Pyrrha
  75. A divine inspiration
  76. Jupiter’s authority, and Caesar’s
  77. Mourning for a good man
  78. Horace, the wolf and the upright life
  79. Postumus, the years slip by
  80. Horace returns to lyric poetry
  81. Gyges’s constancy
  82. Relief from care
  83. A garland from the Muses
  84. A Prayer to the poetry-God
  85. The final ode
  86. Caesar’s safe return
  87. A country sacrifice
  88. Unrequited love
  89. New temples, new morals
  90. Housman and Horace
  91. An invitation to Maecenas
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