Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus

The poetry of Horace (born 65 BCE) is richly varied, its focus moving between public and private concerns, urban and rural settings, Stoic and Epicurean thought. Here is a new Loeb Classical Library edition of the great Roman poet's Odes and Epodes, a fluid translation facing the Latin text. Horace took pride in being the first Roman to write a body of lyric poetry. For models he turned to Greek lyric, especially to the poetry of Alcaeus, Sappho, and Pindar; but his poems are set in a Roman context. His four books of odes cover a wide range of moods and topics. Some are public poems, upholding the traditional values of courage, loyalty, and piety; and there are hymns to the gods. But most of the odes are on private themes: chiding or advising friends; speaking about love and amorous situations, often amusingly. Horace's seventeen epodes, which he called iambi, were also an innovation for Roman literature. Like the odes they were inspired by a Greek model: the seventh-century iambic poetry of Archilochus. Love and political concerns are frequent themes; here the tone is generally that of satirical lampoons. "In his language he is triumphantly adventurous," Quintilian said of Horace; this new translation reflects his different voices.

Odes and Epodes

Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65?8 BCE) was born at Venusia, son of a freedman clerk who had him well educated at Rome and Athens. Horace supported the ill-fated killers of Caesar, lost his property, became a secretary in the Treasury, and began to write poetry. Maecenas, lover of literature, to whom Virgil and Varius introduced Horace in 39, became his friend and made him largely independent by giving him a farm. After 30 Horace knew and aided with his pen the emperor Augustus, who after Virgil's death in 19 engaged him to celebrate imperial affairs in poetry. Horace refused to become Augustus's private secretary and died a few months after Maecenas. Both lyric (in various metres) and other work (in hexameters) was spread over the period 40?10 or 9 BCE. It is Roman in spirit, Greek in technique. In the two books of Satires Horace is a moderate social critic and commentator; the two books of Epistles are more intimate and polished, the second book being literary criticism as is also the Ars Poetica. The Epodes in various (mostly iambic) metres are akin to the 'discourses' (as Horace called his satires and epistles) but also look towards the famous Odes, in four books, in the old Greek lyric metres used with much skill. Some are national odes about public affairs; some are pleasant poems of love and wine; some are moral letters; all have a rare perfection. The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Odes and Epodes is in volume number 33.

De arte poetica

David Ferry

My aim is to take familiar things and make Poetry of them, and do it in such a way That it looks as if it was as easy as could be For anybody to do it . . . the power of making A perfectly wonderful thing out of nothing much. --from "The Art of Poetry" When David Ferry's translation of The Odes of Horace appeared in 1997, Bernard Knox, writing in The New York Review of Books, called it "a Horace for our times." Now Ferry has translated Horace's two books of Epistles, in which Horace perfected the conversational verse medium that gives his voice such dazzling immediacy, speaking in these letters with such directness, wit, and urgency to young writers, to friends, to his patron Maecenas, to Emperor Augustus himself. It is the voice of a free man, talking about how to get along in a Roman world full of temptations, opportunities, and contingencies, and how to do so with one's integrity intact. Horace's world, so unlike our own and yet so like it, comes to life in these poems. And there are also the poems -- the famous "Art of Poetry" and others -- about the tasks and responsibilities of the writer: truth to the demands of one's medium, fearless clear-sighted self-knowledge, and unillusioned, uncynical realism, joyfully recognizing the world for what it is.

Bilingual Edition

The Epistles of Horace

The Roman philosopher and dramatic critic Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-3 B.C.), known in English as Horace, was also the most famous lyric poet of his age. Writing in the troubled decade ending with the establishment of Augustus's regime, his Satires provide trenchant social commentary on men's perennial enslavement to money, power, fame, and sex. Not as frequently translated as his Odes, in recent decades the Satires have been rendered into prose or bland verse. Horace continues to influence modern lyric poetry, and our greatest poets continue to translate and marvel at Horace's command of formal style, his economy of expression, his variety, and his mature humanism. Horace's comic genius has also had a profound influence on the Western literary tradition through such authors as Swift, Pope and Boileau, but interest in the Satires has dwindled due to the difficulty of capturing Horace's wit and formality with the techniques of contemporary free verse. A. M. Juster's striking new translation relies on the tools and spirit of the English light verse tradition while taking care to render the original text as accurately as possible.

The Satires of Horace

The Odes of Horace

The complete Odes and Epodes

ODES OF HORACE

Satirer och epoder

Timeless meditations on the subjects of wine, parties, birthdays, love, and friendship, Horace’s Odes, in the words of classicist Donald Carne-Ross, make the “commonplace notable, even luminous.” This edition reproduces the highly lauded translation by James Michie. “For almost forty years,” poet and literary critic John Hollander notes, “James Michie’s brilliant translations of Horace have remained fresh as well as strong, and responsive to the varying lights and darks of the originals. It is a pleasure to have them newly available.”

With the Latin Text

Odes

Poems explore the way of life of ancient Rome and portray the author's philosophy of life

The Complete Odes and Epodes

Ars Poetica

Horace, recognized as the greatest of Roman lyric poets of the Augustan Age is perhaps best remembered for his Odes, which constitute the height of his literary achievement. However, the Satires and Epistles, which span his life as a poet, are not to be neglected. Horace began his literary career as a writer of satires, which fitted his personality as an acute observer of men. Restriction to the traditional form of satire established by Lucilius did not stifle Horace's originality. He adapted the heroic measure, very harsh and rude in Lucilius, to fit this theme, thus creating a new art form, the sermo. The Epistles provided a quiet ending to Horace's poetic career. Their grace, polish, and wit reveal a man who has mellowed. The editor has provided introductions to the Satires and Epistles, tracing the history of both art forms. The emphasis is on the thought and artistry of Horace rather than the structure of the language. The carefully edited text and well-chosen notes tastefully preserve the full flavor of Horace's pungent social criticism in the Satires and his gentler but more serious reflection in the Epistles.

Satires and Epistles

Stephen Harrison

What the Roman poet Horace can teach us about how to live a life of contentment What are the secrets to a contented life? One of Rome’s greatest and most influential poets, Horace (65–8 BCE) has been cherished by readers for more than two thousand years not only for his wit, style, and reflections on Roman society, but also for his wisdom about how to live a good life—above all else, a life of contentment in a world of materialistic excess and personal pressures. In How to Be Content, Stephen Harrison, a leading authority on the poet, provides fresh, contemporary translations of poems from across Horace’s works that continue to offer important lessons about the good life, friendship, love, and death. Living during the reign of Rome’s first emperor, Horace drew on Greek and Roman philosophy, especially Stoicism and Epicureanism, to write poems that reflect on how to live a thoughtful and moderate life amid mindless overconsumption, how to achieve and maintain true love and friendship, and how to face disaster and death with patience and courage. From memorable counsel on the pointlessness of worrying about the future to valuable advice about living in the moment, these poems, by the man who famously advised us to carpe diem, or “harvest the day,” continue to provide brilliant meditations on perennial human problems. Featuring translations of, and commentary on, complete poems from Horace’s Odes, Satires, Epistles, and Epodes, accompanied by the original Latin, How to Be Content is both an ideal introduction to Horace and a compelling book of timeless wisdom.

Horace

About

Books

Join the club