Finis

Done at last, Done at last,
The semester went by so fast,
I can't believe another year has past,
But it feels good to be done at last.

Until the fall,
When latin rules all,
For a 400 level will be quite a haul,
But, Apuleius will be sure to make it a ball!

For now, summer is here,
Although the sun is hiding in fear,
The cold makes me want to shed a tear,
For it should be warm, or so I hear.

Cleopatra

Researching on the internet and came across a bust of Cleopatra. It made me think of her looking out with a serene expression from Horace's ode!

http://www.ancientsculpturegallery.com/002.html

Horace is Everywhere!

In my English class, we are reading the Reflections of Edmund Burke. As I was reading I came across a latin sentence. "Non satis est pulchra esse, poemata, dulcia sunto. I scrolled down to the footnote and what do you know? It has a note about Horace and the Ars Poetica. "It is not enough for poems to be beautiful, they must also be pleasing." I think this sentiment can be applied to most of the works we have translated this semester. Not only does Horace focus on different meters, or making puns by using the Greek word for something, but the material he talks about and how he describes things is very funny and pleasing.

Satire 2.8

Oh, if I ate like a Roman,
I would attend so many a dinner party,
Oh, if I ate like a Roman,
I would enjoy so many meals, extra hearty.

Oh, if I ate like a Roman,
Everyday I would have my choice of fish,
Oh, if I ate like a Roman,
Every meal would be a wish!

Oh, if I ate like a Roman,
Vegetables would engulf my plate,
Oh, if I ate like a Roman,
I could not describe the greatness of the things I ate!

Cultural Context

I usually find it very hard to figure out what is going on in these poems and what Horace could possibly be talking about. The article Professor Malamud posted on UB Learns is awesome at aiding with this. If you haven't read it already read it! I know in class we talked about how it was similar to Virgil, but this article goes into so much depth and shows things that I would have never known Horace was saying. The themes make a lot of sense and I feel like I understand the Satire much better and appreciate it more because of it!

Make-up Odes 3.30 and 4.7

3.30

I have completed a monument lasting longer than

bronze and higher than the royal site (or neglect? the note said to leave it ambiguous) of the pyramids,

because neither devouring rain, nor the wild north wind is able to demolish (it), nor the innumerable series of years and the flight of time (is able to demolish it).

I will not die completely and many parts of me will avoid Labitina: continuously I arise fresh to praise (?),

while a priest climbs the Capitoline Hill with a silent virgin.

I shall be spoken (of), where violent Aufidus roars and

where poor Danus of water (word order?) ruled the rural people,

out of power of humility, the first to lead the song of Aeolius to Italy in this way. 

Take on meritorious actions sought out by pride and surround the laurel of Delphi on my hair, Melpomene. (wasn't sure how the last two lines worked)

4.7

Snow scatters, the grass already retakes the fields (grass again?)

and the leaves (greenery?) of the trees, the land changes turn,

and the shrinking river omits the shore.

Naked kindness, with Nymphs and twin sisters wish(ing?) to lead a chorus. 

You do not hope for immortality, the year reminds and the kind hour which snatches

away the day. The clod becomes wild with the west wind, spring is able to die through summer, at the same time fruitful autumn pours out fruit (what? is he trying to say that this is when things are ready to harvest just in a really Latin-y way?)

and soon the shortest day will lazily return.

Nevertheless the swift celestial moon recovers the losses (Is this talking about death?):

to where do we die, where (wasn't sure when to use where and when to use for what purpose, and how to word it properly) the father Aeneas, who the rich Tellus and Aneus, are dust and ghosts. (Had trouble with that part)

Who knows, whether the gods above will add time of tomorrow to today's sum? 

The friends which give you their souls, they all flee the hands of the greedy heir.

When at the same time you will die,

and Minos of the gods (what to do with the de?) has passed his illustrious

judgement on you, neither your birth, nor your eloquence, nor your devotion

will resort you, Torquatus: and for Diana does not free the honorable

Hippolytus from infernal darkness, Theseus is not strong enough to break the chain of dear

Pirithous. 

Ode 3.13

Translation: Oh worthy spring of Bandusia, more splendid than glass,
more splendid than sweet unmixed wine, not without flowers,
tomorrow, you will be presented with a young goat, whose forehead is swollen with horns just beginning to grow, and is destined for love and battle, in vain:
for the offspring of the playful herd
will stain your cold streams
with red blood.
The dreadful hour of the blazing Dog Star
does not know to touch you, you give friendly (pleasant?) cold
to the bulls tired from the plow
and the wandering herd.
You will become the most famous fountain
with me singing of the oak placed
over hollow stones, from which your talkative
waters jump down the stream (waves? water?)

Are you supposed to distribute the slendidior in the first line, like I put in the translation, or just leave it for the glass? I thought it made more sense in english to distribute it, but I wasn't sure.


What is a casual ablative absolute? The note talks about it when referring to line 14, the me dicente. Do you translate a casual ablative absolute differently than a regular one?


I like the emphasis and repetition of "you" in this ode. The emphasis adds to the personification of the spring and makes the poem more personal with respect to the relationship between it and Horace. I also like the contrast among the comparisons Horace uses: how the young goat is destined for love and for battle and then the contrast between the streams running with blood and the talkative, more serene waters by the oaky rock.

Memento Mori

Today, I was reading a poem for my 18th Century English class and I couldn't help but think of Horace. Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard is about the lamentation of the death of a friend and then goes into a more generalized mourning of death. While researching analysis on the poem, I came across a passage that said Gray was heavily influenced by the phrase "memento mori," remember you must die. I feel as if Horace could have been the godfather of this saying. I know the Classics were a heavy influence in the 18th Century, but its definitely interesting to see Latin and Classical influences in different works.

Horace on the wrong side of battle

I thought it was very interesting in class today when we were talking about how Augustus pardoned Horace for fighting on the wrong side. I was trying to research more about it tonight and I found a passage that said Horace's family's property in Venusia was confiscated. I couldn't find any more sources that went on into more detail about it, but I was wondering if that information was correct. Also, was it just part of Horace's style that he didn't mention Augustus directly in the poem, or did it have to do with the politics of the time? I was guessing it was more of Horace's style because he often alludes to something but leaves it up to the reader to figure out just what that something is, but I wasn't sure.

Ode 1.37

I found this ode to be one of the most interesting we have translated so far. After learning about it's place in history, I found things in the poem I did not think about before. The way the poem starts out with the repetition of "nunc" presents a certain kind of urgency for celebration, but as the poem continues, the pace slows. Horace has time for similes and talks of Cleopatra's "serene expression" on her face. To me, this is Horace allotting a long period of time to reflect back on Cleopatra, amidst the frenzied celebration that is about to take place. I also think, how we discussed in class, that Horace really admired her, even if she appeared crazed at time. I like the complexity of the emotion in this ode.

By chance I was going through the sacred road, that is my custom,
I know not of such things of trifles, contemplating totally in this.
A man ran to me, known by such a great name and seized my hand:
"How do you go, sweetest thing?" "Pleasingly, just as is now," I said, 
"and I desire all, which you wish." When he was following: "You wish nothing?" 
I take over, but that one says "You should know me, I am taught (learned?)." 
I said this: "You will be more to me." Miserable, seeking to leave, I go, just as fast, to stop in between, I do not know to say what in the ear of the boy when sweat remained at the bottom of my ankles. "Oh you, Bolanus, lucky temper." I was saying softly, when he was chatting of what things, he was praising the city by neighborhoods. That I was responding nothing to that one: "You desire to leave miserable," he said; "Already I see that for a long time. Hence, I will pursue who now is where you go." By you go nowhere: "I will keep on continuously. It is not necessary to go around you: I wish to see certainly not known to you; across the long Tiber close to the gardens of Caesar he resides." "I have nothing, what I am doing and I am not lazy: I follow you continuously." I send away ears, just as a donkey is confused, when he goes under the heavy task of a hill. That one said "If I know me well, you will not make Viscus Varius not more of a friend: for who is able to write more or faster of verses than me? Who to move limbs softly? Because Hermogenes would be jealous of how I sing." This was a place of interrupting: "Is your mother known, what of you is healthy? Not anyone left of me; I buried all." Lucky! Now I remain. Finish! And for a sad fate stays over me, A Sabine who in a divine way shaking her urn said when I was a boy: this boy neither terrible poison or hostile sword will kill, neither side pain or late gout: a great chatterbox will consume him sometime. If he is smart, he will avoid speech (speaking people?), at the same time as the middle of his life." We had come to Vesta, now the fourth part of the day had passed, and he had to respond to a priest, because if he did not make he would owe to lose the case.

***The Yellow is where I had trouble/questions/unsure how to construct those parts.

Catullus 66

When the poem talks about the me in line 7 is it referring to the lock of hair? Also, I believe line 13 is a golden line? "dulcia nocturnae portans vestigia rixae."

Cybele and her lions

Awesome statue of Cybele and her lions!!

From Vroma.

On feasts and slabs

Love the dinner party feast illustration!  There are many mosaic floors that show the food dropped on the floor after the dinner party-- you have to wonder what the slaves who were cleaning up and polishing the floor mosaics after the party thought of that particular visual joke.

I like your hendecasyllabic couplet as well-- right on subject, and hendecasyllabic as well.  I might have chosen a different monosyllable than "slabs," however, as that word always reminds me of mortuary slabs.  Too many episodes of CSI, perhaps. 

Ancient Roman Dinner Party

Like we were talking about in class...

http://www.historynotes.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/roman-feasts2.jpg

Catullus 11

Is there a specific reason that the structure of 11 is different and more segmented than the others?

Waiting for my bed (Hendecasyllabic couplet)

Oh, if only I could compose a poem,
Then, I could lay on slabs of super soft foam.

I love the Pervigilium Veneris as well.  In fact, I have several times made special cards, with verses from it done in calligraphy, to go along with wedding presents for relatives and special friends.  We might want to bring it in for comparison with some of Catullus's wedding poems later in the semester.  The author was certainly influenced by them. 

The Vigil of Venus: Last Verse (English)

Be it harsh as the swannery's clamour that shatters the hush of the lake,
Be it dulcet as where Philomela holds darkling the poplar awake, 85
So melting her soul into music, you'd vow 'twas her passion, her own,
She plaineth--her sister forgot, with the Daulian crime long-agone.
Hark! Hush! Draw around to the circle ... Ah, loitering Summer! Say when
For me shall be broken the charm, that I chirp with the swallow again?
I am old; I am dumb; I have waited to sing till Apollo withdrew-- 90
So Amyclae a moment was mute, and for ever a wilderness grew.
Now learn ye to love who loved never--now ye who have loved, love anew,
To-morrow!--to-morrow!

http://www.online-literature.com/quiller-couch/vigil-of-venus/1/

My favorite: The Vigil of Venus: Last Verse (Latin)

Jam loquaces ore rauco stagna cycni perstrepunt;
Adsonat Terei puella subter umbram populi,     85
Ut putes motus amoris ore dici musico,
Et neges queri sororem de marito barbaro.
Ilia cantat, nos tacemus. Quando ver venit meum?
Quando fiam uti chelidon, ut tacere desinam?
Perdidi Musam tacendo, nec me Apollo respicit;     90
Sic Amyclas, cum tacerent, perdidit silentium.
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras
amet.


Pervigilum by Mr Cecil Clementi, published by Mr B.H. Blackwell of Oxford, 1911.