Odes 1.24

Mourning for a good man

by Horace

This ode, in a sombre asclepiadic metre, is a notably effective piece on a stock theme: loss, acceptance and consolation. Scholars speculate about just who Quintilius was, but that he was respected by Horace and a friend of Virgil seems good enough reason in itself for him to be remembered. At the end of the poem, Mercury is shown as the guide of the souls of the dead to the underworld. His most famous appearance in this aspect is in the last book of the Odyssey, when he performs this function for Penelope’s suitors after Odysseus has killed them.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus
tam cari capitis? praecipe lugubris
cantus, Melpomene, cui liquidam pater
vocem cum cithara dedit.

ergo Quintilium perpetuus sopor
urget? cui Pudor et Iustitiae soror
incorrupta Fides nudaque Veritas
quando ullum inveniet parem?

multis ille bonis flebilis occidit,
nulli flebilior quam tibi, Vergili.
tu, frustra pius, heu non ita creditum
poscis Quintilium deos.

quid si Threicio blandius Orpheo
auditam moderere arboribus fidem,
num vanae redeat sanguis imagini,
quam virga semel horrida

non lenis precibus fata recludere
nigro conpulerit Mercurius gregi?
durum: sed levius fit patientia
quidquid corrigere est nefas.

What shame or restraint should there be in our sense of loss for so dear a life? Teach us sad songs, Melpomene, to whom father Jupiter gave your clear voice to go with your lyre. So eternal sleep lies heavy on Quintilius? When will decency, and justice’s sister, perfect fidelity, and naked truth, ever find his like? He died bringing sorrow to many good men, and to none more than to you, Vergil. In vain in your piety, alas, do you ask the Gods for your Quintilius, whom you did not entrust to them on these terms. Even if you were to serenade the trees more persuasively even than Thracian Orpheus, surely the lifeblood may not return to an empty shade which Mercury, not gentle enough to reopen its fate in response to our prayers, has once herded with his dreaded crook into the dark flock? It is hard: but through endurance ills that it is forbidden to correct become easier to bear.

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More Poems by Horace

  1. Some advice for Dellius
  2. O Fons Bandusiae
  3. Awe for the Gods
  4. Pindar and Augustus
  5. Carpe diem, Sestius
  6. A garland from the Muses
  7. A prayer to Venus
  8. Horace’s Cleopatra ode
  9. The final ode
  10. Horace’s prayer to a wine-jar
  11. Gathering rosebuds: carpe diem
  12. Lovely mother, lovelier daughter
  13. A change of mind
  14. Tibur or Tarentum: a poet’s dilemma?
  15. Horace’s monument
  16. Don’t trust Barine
  17. Jealousy
  18. Horace’s wine
  19. What Roman youth should be
  20. Lydia’s tragedy
  21. Horace’s Chloe
  22. Horace’s limitations
  23. Luxury versus the simple life
  24. Horace the peacemaker
  25. Horace returns to lyric poetry
  26. Celebrating Neptune’s feast day
  27. Nereus prophesies the Trojan War
  28. Augustus, master of the world
  29. Last love
  30. Give me comfort, not riches
  31. Horace, the wolf and the upright life
  32. Horace rests from his labours
  33. Horace welcomes his army comrade
  34. The tug-of-war for Nearchus
  35. Poscimur
  36. Here’s to Murena!
  37. Rome: disaster and salvation
  38. Stormy seas
  39. Glycera
  40. Horace’s first Ode
  41. Housman and Horace
  42. Horace’s reverence to Bacchus
  43. Soracte
  44. The country is best
  45. The consolations of wine
  46. An invitation to Maecenas
  47. The fleeting years slip by
  48. Pyrrha
  49. Diffugere nives
  50. Courage and decadence: the Regulus ode
  51. Iccius goes soldiering
    52. View Latin Poems
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