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