Odes 1.9

Soracte

by Horace

An older man advises a young one to live for the moment and enjoy youth while it lasts. Over the first two stanzas, there are many contrasts and transitions: outside to in; cold to warmth; frozen to flowing; vast and uncontrollable nature to human scale, comfort and intimacy. The second half is a tribute to youth and love. Young Thaliarchus (real or imagined, his name is Greek) must enjoy them while he can. Mount Soracte is twenty-odd miles north of Rome. The poem is on the conventional theme of “carpe diem” (not only “seize” the day, but also “pluck” it like a flower).

Metre: Alcaic

See the blog post with a snow scene by Hiroshige 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.

Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum
Soracte, nec iam sustineant onus
silvae laborantes geluque
flumina constiterint acuto.

dissolve frigus ligna super foco
large reponens, atque benignius
deprome quadrimum Sabina,
o Thaliarche, merum diota.

permitte divis cetera, qui simul
stravere ventos aequore fervido
deproeliantes, nec cupressi
nec veteres agitantur orni.

quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere et,
quem Fors dierum cunque dabit, lucro
appone, nec dulces amores
sperne puer neque tu choreas,

donec virenti canities abest
morosa. Nunc et campus et areae
lenesque sub noctem susurri
composita repetentur hora,

nunc et latentis proditor intimo
gratus puellae risus ab angulo
pignusque dereptum lacertis
aut digito male pertinaci.

You see, how Soracte stands white with the deep snow, and how the labouring woods can no longer bear their burden, and the rivers have seized up with the sharp frost. Melt away the cold, piling more logs right across the hearth, pour the four-year wine more generously, Thaliarchus, from the two-eared Sabine jar. Leave the rest to the gods, who all at once have calmed the winds battling on the boiling sea, and the cypresses and the ancient elms are tossed no longer. What may be tomorrow, take care not to ask – whatever kind of day Fortune brings, put it down as profit, and don’t turn down sweet loves and dances while you are young, while there are no grim grey hairs on you in your green prime. Now the training ground and the town squares, and gentle murmurs in the night at assignation time are what you should be after, and the welcome laughter of the hiding girl betraying her presence from her snug corner, and the token snatched from her shoulders or her – supposedly – resisting finger.

`

More Poems by Horace

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