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.

`

More Poems by Horace

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