Ode 1.32

Poscimur

by Horace

This is one of Horace’s manifesto poems: he is going to use Greek conventions to make a new kind of poetry that will be a permanent enhancement of Roman culture. The lyre is not real: it stands for Greek tradition and Horace’s poetic skill (he is not shy about making big claims for his work). He elevates the mood by using the form of an invocation. The “citizen of Lesbos” is Alcaeus, a Greek poet born towards the end of the 7th century BCE and presumed inventor of the metre – Alcaics – which Horace tends to use when he has an especially serious point to make. The metre of this Ode is Sapphic.

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Poscimur. Si quid vacui sub umbra
lusimus tecum, quod et hunc in annum
vivat et plures, age, dic Latinum,
barbite, carmen,

Lesbio primum modulate civi,
qui ferox bello tamen inter arma,
sive iactatam religarat udo
litore navim,

Liberum et Musas Veneremque et illi
semper haerentem puerum canebat
et Lycum nigris oculis nigroque
crine decorum.

o decus Phoebi et dapibus supremi
grata testudo Iovis, o laborum
dulce lenimen, mihi cunque salve
rite vocanti.

That is our call. If in the past we have played something light with you in in the shade, come, now play something that can live for this year and many more, a Latin song, my lyre!

Lyre, first played by that citizen of Lesbos,
who, though fierce in war, when under arms
or when at the water’s edge he moored his sea-tossed
ship on the shore,

Would sing of Bacchus, the Muses, Venus
and the little boy who always clings to her,
and Lycus, so handsome with his dark eyes and dark
hair.

O Apollo’s grace, pleasure of the feasts of supreme
Jupiter, lyre, O you sweet relief from my labours
greet me whenever
I duly call on you.

`

More Poems by Horace

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