Odes 3.13

O Fons Bandusiae

by Horace

One of many odes in the form of a prayer. A prayer to a spring is not just a metaphor, as natural features could have true religious significance for Greeks and Romans. 10 October was a Roman festival, the Fontinalia, when flowers and wine were offered to springs and wells. The poem praises, not just the spring, but also Horace’s poetry, because that is what is going to make the spring’s fame last.

The sacrifice of the kid is off-putting for us, and a reminder that Roman attitudes to death were very different from ours. The spring might well be a real one, but as usual we can’t be absolutely certain.

I once found this ode on my duvet cover in a seaside bed-and-breakfast in Devon, proving Horace right when he said that his odes were a monument more enduring than bronze.

Metre: fourth Asclepiad

To listen, press play:

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

O fons Bandusiae, splendidior vitro,
dulci digne mero non sine floribus,
cras donaberis haedo,
cui frons turgida cornibus

primis et venerem et proelia destinat
frustra: nam gelidos inficiet tibi
rubro sanguine rivos
lascivi suboles gregis.

te flagrantis atrox hora Caniculae
nescit tangere, tu frigus amabile
fessis vomere tauris
praebes et pecori vago.

fies nobilium tu quoque fontium
me dicente cavis impositam ilicem
saxis, unde loquaces
lymphae desiliunt tuae.

Spring of Bandusia, brighter than crystal, deserving my sweet wine, and no less my flowers, tomorrow You shall have the present of a kid, for which its brow, swelling with horns

just budding, promises battle and the pleasures of love.But vainly; this offspring of a playful flock will tint Your cool edges with his red blood.

The fierce hour of the blazing summer heat
has no way to touch You;
You offer to pour out delightful coolness for tired oxen and the wandering flock.

You too shall join the company of the noble springs as I tell of the tree set above
the hollow rocks, from where Your waters, chattering, leap down.

`

More Poems by Horace

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