Odes 1.5

Pyrrha

by Horace

A difficult ex has a new, young lover. The metre, the scenario and the lady’s name are Greek: whether Horace had a real “Pyrrha”, we can’t know. The language is incredibly condensed – surely no-one ever used word order quite as flexibly as this in real life– and it uses strongly sexual imagery. Pyrrha is intoxicating but the poet uses stormy seas as a metaphor for the dangers of loving her. He has been shipwrecked, but made it to shore and, as thanks for his escape, hung up his wet clothes in the temple as an offering to “the powerful God of the sea” (Neptune, or Cupid?)

One of Horace’s most magical poems.

See the illustrated blog post here.

Metre: fourth Asclepiad

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Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa
perfusus liquidis urget odoribus
grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?
cui flavam religas comam,

simplex munditiis? heu quoties fidem
mutatosque deos flebit et aspera
nigris aequora ventis
emirabitur insolens,

qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea;
qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem
sperat, nescius aurae
fallacis. miseri quibus

intentata nites! me tabula sacer
votiva paries indicat uvida
suspendisse potenti
vestimenta maris deo.

What sweet boy among the many roses,
soaked in fragrance, is thrusting close against you
under your sweet grotto, Pyrrha?
Who do you tie back your golden hair for,

simple in your elegances? Ah, how many times
he will weep for faith and altered fortunes
and on seas rough with black winds
will gaze in unfamiliar amazement,

who, trusting boy, is now enjoying your golden self;
always available, always loving,
he hopes, not knowing that the breeze
is deceptive. Woe betide those at whom

your splendour is levelled! As for me, the sacred
wall shows with a votive plaque that I
have hung up my wet clothes to the mighty God
of the sea.

`

More Poems by Horace

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