Ode 2.10

The Golden Mean

by Horace

Life is like a sea-voyage, says Horace, and he uses the conceit to deploy a range of philosophical aphorisms in which neither Epicureans, Stoics or Peripatetics would find much to disagree with. The appearance of Apollo at the end as an example of the changeability of things is neat: he is the patron of music and the arts, but as an archer he is also the bringer of illness and death. This is the aspect in which he appears at the opening of Homer’s Iliad, inflicting a pestilence on the Greek army when Agamemnon refuses to give back the captive daughter of one of his priests.

The metre is Sapphics.

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Rectius vives, Licini, neque altum
semper urgendo neque, dum procellas
cautus horrescis, nimium premendo
litus iniquum.

auream quisquis mediocritatem
diligit, tutus caret obsoleti
sordibus tecti, caret invidenda
sobrius aula.

saepius ventis agitatur ingens
pinus et celsae graviore casu
decidunt turres feriuntque summos
fulgura montis.

sperat infestis, metuit secundis
alteram sortem bene praeparatum
pectus. informis hiemes reducit
Iuppiter, idem

summovet. non, si male nunc, et olim
sic erit: quondam cithara tacentem
suscitat Musam neque semper arcum
tendit Apollo.

rebus angustis animosus atque
fortis appare: sapienter idem
contrahes vento nimium secundo
turgida vela.

You will live a more upright life, Licinius, if you neither always keep to deep waters, nor, when uneasy and shuddering at the thought of squalls, stick too close to the dangerous coast. A man who chooses the golden mean will live in safety, free from the squalor of a dingy shack; and in moderation, free from the envy that a grand mansion draws. It’s the tallest pine that is most often shaken by the winds, the higher the towers, the more ruinous their fall, and it’s the highest peaks that the lightning strikes. The well-prepared heart will hope for better fortunes when things are bad, and be alert for worse ones when things are good. Jupiter brings round the ugly winter, but takes it away again, and if times are evil now, one day they may not be: sometimes Apollo awakes the silent muse with his lyre, and is not always bending his bow. In straitened circumstances, show that you are strong and undaunted: by the same token, you will be wise to shorten your sails if they are swollen by too favourable a wind.

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More Poems by Horace

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