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.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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