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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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.

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More Poems by Horace

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