Odes 4.2

Pindar and Augustus

The second poem in Horace’s fourth book of Odes, composed at Augustus’s request to celebrate his imperial project and published maybe ten years after the first three books, is definitely a game of two halves. In the first half, Horace pays his impressive tribute to one of his great Greek predecessors, Pindar; in the second he deals in fulsome terms, typical of these later Odes and rather over-the-top for modern democratic taste, with the greatness of Augustus, and a triumph that Horace looks forward to him celebrating for victory over a formidable German tribe, the Sygambri. (In fact, the Sygambri came to terms with Rome and there was no triumph.) The addressee of the poem, Iullus Antonius, a son of Mark Antony, was clearly a poet in epic style, and Horace flatteringly, and no doubt a little disingenuously, contrasts Antonius’s lofty achievements with his own, more modest ones.

In myth, Icarus flew too close to the sun on wings made by his father, Daedalus, and fell into what was afterwards known as the Icarian sea. Mount Matinus, from where Horace the bee originates before migrating north to Tibur, is near Horace’s birthplace in Apulia.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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Pindarum quisquis studet aemulari,
Iulle, ceratis ope Daedalea
nititur pennis vitreo daturus
nomina ponto.

monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres
quem super notas aluere ripas,
fervet inmensusque ruit profundo
Pindarus ore,

laurea donandus Apollinari,
seu per audacis nova dithyrambos
verba devolvit numerisque fertur
lege solutis,

seu deos regesque canit, deorum
sanguinem, per quos cecidere iusta
morte Centauri, cecidit tremendae
flamma Chimaerae,

sive quos Elea domum reducit
palma caelestis pugilemve equomve
dicit et centum potiore signis
munere donat,

flebili sponsae iuvenemve raptum
plorat et viris animumque moresque
aureos educit in astra nigroque
invidet Orco.

multa Dircaeum levat aura cycnum,
tendit, Antoni, quotiens in altos
nubium tractus: ego apis Matinae
more modoque

grata carpentis thyma per laborem
plurimum circa nemus uvidique
Tiburis ripas operosa parvos
carmina fingo.

concines maiore poeta plectro
Caesarem, quandoque trahet ferocis
per sacrum clivum merita decorus
fronde Sygambros;

quo nihil maius meliusve terris
fata donavere bonique divi
nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum
tempora priscum.

concines laetosque dies et urbis
publicum ludum super inpetrato
fortis Augusti reditu forumque
litibus orbum.

tum meae, si quid loquar audiendum,
vocis accedet bona pars et “o sol
pulcher, o laudande!” canam recepto
Caesare felix.

teque, dum procedis, “Io Triumphe”
non semel dicemus, “Io Triumphe”
civitas omnis dabimusque divis
tura benignis.

te decem tauri totidemque vaccae,
me tener solvet vitulus, relicta
matre qui largis iuvenescit herbis
in mea vota,

fronte curvatos imitatus ignis
tertium lunae referentis ortum,
qua notam duxit, niveus videri,
cetera fulvus.

Someone who tries to compete with Pindar, Iullus, is relying on such waxed wings as Daedalus made, and bound to give his name to some placid sea.

From the depths of his voice, Pindar, immense, rages like a plunging river which rainstorms have fed beyond its normal banks, fit to be graced with the laurel of Apollo

whether he is rolling forth his novel utterance in daring dithyrambs, swept along by a metre freed from convention, or singing of kings of divine blood,

at whose hands centaurs and the flame of the dread Chimaera died as they deserved,

or telling of men whom victory at the Olympic games brought home raised to the heavens, and their boxing and horsemanship, investing them with honour greater than a hundred statues,

or whether he is telling the sad tale of a young man snatched from his poor wife, and bearing his golden strength, spirit and character up to the stars, grudging them to the dark realm of the dead.

It takes a great wind to lift Pindar’s swan, Antonius, every time it mounts to the heights of the clouds: I can only make my songs painstakingly,

after the style and the ways of a little bee from Mount Matinus, harvesting thyme with tremendous labour around the woodland and the watery banks of Tibur.

You are a poet who will sing of Caesar to a greater lyre, when he drags the savage Sygambri up the sacred slope,

distinguished by the triumphal wreath he has earned, than whom the good Gods

never have and never will bestow anything greater or better on the earth, even should time revert to the age of gold.

You will sing of joyous days, the city’s public games for the successful return of mighty Augustus, and a forum where the courts are closed.

Then, if I can sing anything worth hearing, the best part of my voice will join in and, rejoicing in Caesar’s return, I shall sing “praise to this wonderful day!”

To you in the procession, Iullus, we, the entire city, will shout and shout, “Io Triumphe”, and offer incense to the friendly gods.

Ten bulls and ten cows will pay your vows;

one tender calf, weaned and growing up among the grass, will pay mine, its brow imitating the light of the new moon’s third rising, where, tawny otherwise, it has a white mark showing.

More Poems by Horace

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