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

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