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.

Metre: (third) Asclepiad, three standard twelve-syllable lines followed by an eight-syllable glyconic.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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To scroll the original and English translation of the poem at the same time - tap inside one box to select it and then scroll.

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