Horace’s odes are polished and provocative, celebrated not only for his charming Epicurean philosophy (Carpe diem!, or “Seize the day!”) but for political and patriotic themes. Even if you have not read Horace’s odes, you may be familiar with some of his oft-quoted phrases, like dulce et decorum est/ pro patria mori (“It is sweet and decorous to die for one’s country”), in Wilfrid Owen’s poem of the same name.
One of Horace’s most startling achievements was his adaptation of the meters of Greek lyric poetry to fit the different rhythms of the Latin language. The son of an ex-slave- turned-wealthy auctioneer, Horace was educated with other wealthy and often upper-class men in Greek rhetoric and literature. And obviously his odes are more various than those of his peers because of his facility with meter. Horace especially admired the Greek poets Sappho and Alcaeus, and the majority of his odes are written in Sapphic and Alcaic strophe.
But Horace’s odes are different, almost alien, in his shunning of personal details. It’s not that he does not celebrate love, dinner parties, and wine and women, but he seldom contributes a personal anecdote. Unlike Catullus and Ovid, who write hot-headed traditional elegies about unfaithful mistresses, a dirge for a girlfriend’s dead pet, and poems about a mistress’s abortion, Horace presents himself as a middle-aged single man who is content to drink wine under the trees on his Sabine farm. When love is mentioned, it is usually to give advice to the lovesick or to destructive femmes fatales. These are rather artificial in tone, but often comical, and even sweet. Love is never too serious in Horace’s lyric poems.
Horace is famous for his use of apostrophe in the odes. He addresses each poem to a specific person, place. or even a ship or tree. The nature of the addressee shapes and defines the theme and tone. And this focus on the other allows him to distance himself from personal revelations.
Many people don’t get beyond his Carpe diem poems, but he is also a nature lover, a patriot who praises the emperor Augustus, talks about poetry with his patron Maecenas, and even addresses a ship: he prays it will carry his friend the poet Virgil safely across the sea.
And then there’s Ode XV in Book II. It caught my eye because there is no apostrophe. Indeed, it reads a bit like an impassioned op/ed piece written in Alcaic strophe. And I wonder, is this as close to Horace’s personal voice as we get? Horace lives on a Sabine farm, not mentioned in this ode, but here he describes the problems caused by an influx of rich newcomers who buy enormous stretches of land and ruin it by building mansions (more like palaces), uprooting the native plants, and planting plane trees and exotic flowers that don’t belong there and may not thrive on their own..
I have attempted a literal prose translation of this ode. I cannot, of course, copy any of the figures of speech or unique turns of phrase. This is the bare bones. It will give you a hint of what’s happening, but, alas, I am not a poet.
Ode XV, Book II (Horace)
Now the rich estates will leave only a few acres for the plow,
on all sides the ponds will be seen to stretch from the Lucrine lake,
And the Oriental plane tree will supplant the elm.
Then the banks of violets and myrtle and every kind of sweet-smelling flower will sprinkle perfume in the olive grove that was fertile for the former owner.
Then the laurel with thick branches will shut out the hot rays of the sun.
Not thus was it prescribed by Romulus and bearded Cato, either by the auspices or the rule of the ancients.
There was little private property then, and great public wealth.
No portico for private individuals was measured by ten-foot rods to look out over the shady north side.
The laws did not allow them to spurn the native turf, but at public expense they decorated the towns and temples with new marble.
