A young Roman, says Horace, should learn to live and fight hard. Hear and follow Horace’s poem here; see the illustrated blog post here.
Another variation on Horace’s favourite theme of carpe diem – seize the day, though the verb has more subtle meanings – harvest it like a crop, for example, or pluck it like a flower. Wine in the shade is better than fretting about what is happening on Rome’s frontiers, which are a very long way away. The Greek drinker in the illustration is on an Attic red-figure wine cup, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. They have a fine collection and excellent online access to it, so pay them a visit.
Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.
Xanthias the Phocian is in love with a slave. What does Horace think? What he says is reassuring and supportive on the surface, but, as TE Page the Victorian commentator pithily remarks, the intention is clearly satirical throughout. As part of his (apparently) supportive reasoning, Horace quotes examples from among Greek heroes who fought the Trojan War – one of them Achilles, who was captivated by the captive Briseis but had her confiscated by Agamemnon to replace a priest’s daughter whom he had to return to her father to appease Apollo, as related at the beginning of Homer’s Iliad. This was the cause of Achilles’s withdrawal from the fighting and the starting-point of the events that ensue in Homer’s great epic.
Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.
The illustration form a Roman fresco shows the parting of Achilles and Briseis. (Photo ArchaiOptix, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Horace seems sad to see Galatea leave Rome for a sea-journey from Brundisium, but wishes her well after a thorough review of the omens as she departs. But why does he go on to tell her the story of Europa? Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.