This ode takes the form of an invocation to Venus, the Goddess of love – and sex. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.
Here is a selection of poetry about the Gods – in a variety of moods. First, Jupiter, King of the Gods, in the mood for love as Europa’s bull. After Continue Reading
10 October is Fontinalia, the Roman festival of springs and fountains. See Horace’s celebration poem, O Fons Bandusiae, here. Photo by Halcyoon.
Virgil is bound for Athens. His friend, Horace, wishes him a voyage watched over by the Gods, and a safe return. In a bravura performance on a conventional theme, he goes on to marvel at the presumption of those who step over the divinely-ordained boundaries of the natural world by hazarding an ocean voyage.
Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.
At fifty or so, Horace says he is free from love – but in his dreams, he still pursues the elusive Ligurinus.
Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, or simply Horace (65–8 B.C.), is often remembered and thought of as an intellectual and lover of both philosophy and poetry alike. While this remains true, it came to be that he eventually emerged through his works as an Epicurean. His works feature frequent elements from the Stoic, Peripatetic, and Platonic schools of thought; Epicureanism however is brought up more than twice as often in all of his works than the second most alluded to, Stoicism.
Today, Horace is most notably remembered for being the first of all Latin poets to express the famous aphorism carpe diem in the eleventh poem of the first book of his Odes (c. 23 BC). In its literal meaning, the phrase means to “pluck the day [as it is ripe],” or, in other words, to enjoy the moment. Continue reading “Horace and the Latin aphorism Carpe Diem”