Spring Hor…ace

Those reading this on Facebook will want to click the title to read the post entire.
First, a glimpse into the future. This photo of my little girl stopped me in my tracks. I do not talk about my beliefs much, but surely I am blessed to have such a wonderful family.

Spring has sprung, and I sit inside a coffee shop drinking café americanos and reading Horace’s Roman odes. They are, of all his works, the most stupendously boring. Military prowess, manly virtue and “that old lie: dulce et decorum est/ pro patria mori.” Give me instead the Soracte ode (1.9) or any dealing with friendship and wine. One of my favorites, and one that works well for the season is ode 4.7:

Diffugere niues, redeunt iam gramina campis
arboribus comae;
mutat terra uices et decrescentia ripas
flumina praetereunt;
Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet
ducere nuda chorus.
Inmortalia ne speres, monet annus et almum
quae rapit hora diem.
Frigora mitescunt Zephyris, uer proterit aestas,
interitura simul
pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit, et mox
bruma recurrit iners.
Damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunae:
non ubi decidimus
quo pater Aeneas, quo diues Tullus et Ancus,
puluis et umbra sumus.
Quis scit an adiciant hodiernae crastina summae
tempora di superi?
Cuncta manus auidas fugient heredis, amico
quae dederis animo.
Cum semel occideris et de te splendida Minos
fecerit arbitria,
non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te
restituet pietas;
infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum
liberat Hippolytum,
nec Lethaea ualet Theseus abrumpere caro
uincula Pirithoo.

My translation would begin:

“The snows have fled, grass returns to the fields,
leaves to the trees;
Seasons change the land and dissipating streams
Flow past stream banks;”

And so on. Housman does it much better than I ever could:

“The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws
And grasses in the mead renew their birth,
The river to the river-bed withdraws,
And altered is the fashion of the earth.

The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fear
And unapparelled in the woodland play.
The swift hour and the brief prime of the year
Say to the soul, Thou wast not born for aye.

Thaw follows frost; hard on the heel of spring
Treads summer sure to die, for hard on hers
Comes autumn with his apples scattering;
Then back to wintertide, when nothing stirs.

But oh, whate’er the sky-led seasons mar,
Moon upon moon rebuilds it with her beams;
Come we where Tullus and where Ancus are
And good Aeneas, we are dust and dreams.

Torquatus, if the gods in heaven shall add
The morrow to the day, what tongue has told?
Feast then thy heart, for what thy heart has had
The fingers of no heir will ever hold.

When thou descendest once the shades among,
The stern assize and equal judgment o’er,
Not thy long lineage nor thy golden tongue,
No, nor thy righteousness, shall friend thee more.

Night holds Hippolytus the pure of stain,
Diana steads him nothing, he must stay;
And Theseus leaves Pirithous in the chain
The love of comrades cannot take away.”

Now, back to study for me, back to the Roman odes and war and politics and all of the seedy business that seems to be so important to my field.

A.D. Nuttall was absolutely correct in titling his book about academics “Dead from the waist down.” God save me from such monstrosities!