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