The Society for Ancient Languages
Week One
HORACE'S ODES |
BOOK III, ODE 1 |
| Odi profanum vulgus et arceo: favete linguis; carmina non prius audita Musarum sacerdos virginibus puerisque canto. |
I despise the uninitiated mob and I warn them off: keep your tongues well- omened; I, priest of the Muses, am singing songs, never heard before, to girls and boys. |
| Regum timendorum in proprios greges, reges in ipsos imperium est Iovis, clari Giganteo triumpho, cuncta supercilio moventis. |
The rule of dread kings is over their own flocks, over kings themselves is the rule of Jupiter, famed for his triumph over the Giants, moving all things by his nod. |
| Est ut viro vir latius ordinet arbusta sulcis, hic generosior descendat in Campum petitor, moribus hic meliorque fama |
It happens that one man lays out his vine-trees more spaciously in their furrows than another, that this man descends to the Campus Martius a candidate of nobler blood, that this man contends with an advantage in character and reputation, that that man has a larger crowd of followers: with impartial law Necessity chooses by lot both high and low, her capacious urn holds every name. |
| contendat, illi turba clientium sit maior: aequa lege Necessitas sortitur insignis et imos, omne capax movet urna nomen. |
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| Destrictus ensis cui super impia cervice pendet, non Siculae dapes dulcem elaborabunt saporem, non avium citharaeque cantus |
For the man over whose impious neck a drawn sword hangs, Sicilian feasts, though elaborate, will not produce a pleasurable taste, the music of birds and the lyre will not bring back sleep: gentle sleep does not despise the humble homes of country folk nor a shady bank nor a valley fanned by west winds. |
| somnum reducent: somnus agrestium lenis virorum non humilis domos fastidit umbrosamque ripam, non Zephyris agitata Tempe. |
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| Desiderantem quod satis est neque tumultuosum sollicitat mare nec saevus Arcturi cadentis impetus aut orientis Haedi, |
If a man desires what is sufficient, neither a stormy sea makes him anxious nor the savage onset of setting Arcturus or of the rising Kid, nor his vineyards being beaten down by hail or his farm cheating as the tree puts the blame now on rains, now on stars scorching up the fields, now on storms out of season. |
| non verberatae grandine vineae fundusque mendax, arbore nunc aquas culpante, nunc torrentia agros sidera, nunc hiemes iniquas. |
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| Contracta pisces aequora sentiunt iactis in altum molibus; huc frequens caementa demittit redemptor cum famulis dominusque terrae |
The fish feel their waters contract as piles are driven down into the deep; at this point many a contractor with his slaves, and the owner who is bored with the land, shoot down building-rubble: but Fear and Forebodings climb as high as the owner, and black worry does not abandon the brass-plated yacht and squats behind the rider. |
| fastidiosus: sed Timor et Minae scandunt eodem quo dominus, neque decedit aerata triremi et post equitem sedet atra Cura. |
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| Quodsi dolentem nec Phrygius lapis nec purpurarum sidere clarior delenit usus nec Falerna vitis Achaemeniumque costum, |
But if neither Phrygian marble nor the wearing of purple brighter than a star nor Falernian wine and Persian balsam soothe a man who is troubled, why ever should I labor to erect a hall raised high on pillars to be envied and in a modern style? Why ever should I exchange my Sabine valley for more troublesome riches? |
| cur invidendis postibus et novo sublime ritu moliar atrium? cur valle permutem Sabina divitas operosiores? |