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Ancient Roman Poetry, Drama and Literature

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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Ancient Roman Poetry, Drama and Literature
    Posted: 19-Feb-2012 at 19:03
Horace

BkI:VII Tibur (the modern Tivoli)

Let others sing in praise of Rhodes, or Mytilene,

or Ephesus, or Corinth on the Isthmus,

or Thebes that’s known for Bacchus, or Apollo’s isle

of Delphi, or Thessalian Tempe.

There’s some whose only purpose is to celebrate

virgin Athene’s city forever,

and set indiscriminately gathered olive on their heads.

Many a poet in honour of Juno

will speak fittingly of horses, Argos, rich Mycenae.

As for me not even stubborn Sparta

or the fields of lush Larisa are quite as striking,

as Albunea’s echoing cavern,

her headlong Anio, and the groves of Tiburnus,

and Tibur’s orchards, white with flowing streams.

Bright Notus from the south often blows away the clouds

from dark skies, without bringing endless rain,

so Plancus, my friend, remember to end a sad life

and your troubles, wisely, with sweet wine,

whether it’s the camp, and gleaming standards, that hold you

or the deep shadows of your own Tibur.

They say that Teucer, fleeing from Salamis and his

father, still wreathed the garlands, leaves of poplar,

round his forehead, flushed with wine, and in speech to his friends

said these words to them as they sorrowed:

‘Wherever fortune carries us, kinder than my father,

there, O friends and comrades, we’ll adventure!

Never despair, if Teucer leads, of Teucer’s omens!

Unerring Apollo surely promised,

in the uncertain future, a second Salamis

on a fresh soil. O you brave heroes, you

who suffered worse with me often, drown your cares with wine:

tomorrow we’ll sail the wide seas again.’

 

 




Edited by Don Quixote - 19-Feb-2012 at 19:06
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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Feb-2012 at 19:26
Horace, Odes

BkI:VI A Tribute to Agrippa

 

You should be penned as brave, and a conqueror

by Varius, winged with his Homeric poetry,

whatever fierce soldiers, with vessels or horses,

have carried out, at your command.

 

Agrippa, I don’t try to speak of such things,

not Achilles’ anger, ever unyielding,

nor crafty Ulysses’ long sea-wanderings,

nor the cruel house of Pelops,

 

I’m too slight for grandeur, since shame and the Muse,

who’s the power of the peaceful lyre, forbids me

to lessen the praise of great Caesar and you,

by my defective artistry.

 

Who could write worthily of Mars in his armour

Meriones the Cretan, dark with Troy’s dust,

or Tydides, who with the help of Athene,

was the equal of all the gods?

 

I sing of banquets, of girls fierce in battle

with closely-trimmed nails, attacking young men:

idly, as I’m accustomed to do, whether

fancy free or burning with love.



Edited by Don Quixote - 16-Feb-2012 at 19:26
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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Feb-2012 at 20:34
Horace  BkI:V Treacherous Girl

 

What slender boy, Pyrrha, drowned in liquid perfume,

urges you on, there, among showers of roses,

deep down in some pleasant cave?

For whom did you tie up your hair,

with simple elegance? How often he’ll cry at

the changes of faith and of gods, ah, he’ll wonder,

surprised by roughening water,

surprised by the darkening storms,

who enjoys you now and believes you’re golden,

who thinks you’ll always be single and lovely,

ignoring the treacherous

breeze. Wretched are those you dazzle

 while still untried. As for me the votive tablet

that hangs on the temple wall reveals, suspended,

my dripping clothes, for the god,

who holds power over the sea.

 




Edited by Don Quixote - 15-Feb-2012 at 20:35
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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Feb-2012 at 21:45
Horace 

BkI:IV Spring

Fierce winter slackens its grip: it’s spring and the west wind’s sweet change:

the ropes are hauling dry hulls towards the shore,

The flock no longer enjoys the fold, or the ploughman the fire,

no more are the meadows white with hoary frost.

Now Cytherean Venus leads out her dancers, under the pendant moon,

and the lovely Graces have joined with the Nymphs,

treading the earth on tripping feet, while Vulcan, all on fire, visits

the tremendous Cyclopean forges.

Now its right to garland our gleaming heads, with green myrtle or flowers,

whatever the unfrozen earth now bears:

now it’s right to sacrifice to Faunus, in groves that are filled with shadow,

whether he asks a lamb, or prefers a kid.

Pale death knocks with impartial foot, at the door of the poor man’s cottage,

and at the prince’s gate. O Sestus, my friend,

the span of brief life prevents us from ever depending on distant hope.

Soon the night will crush you, the fabled spirits,

and Pluto’s bodiless halls: where once you’ve passed inside you’ll no longer

be allotted the lordship of wine by dice,

or marvel at Lycidas, so tender, for whom, already, the boys

are burning, and soon the girls will grow hotter.



Edited by Don Quixote - 14-Feb-2012 at 21:46
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  Quote Sidney Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Feb-2012 at 10:06
First part of Juvenal, Satire VIII

What avail your pedigrees? What boots it, Ponticus, to be valued for one's ancient blood, and to display the painted visages of one's forefathers; an Aemilianus standing in his car; a half-crumbled Curius; a Corvinus who has lost a shoulder, or a Galba that has neither ear nor nose? Of what profit is it to boast a Fabius on your ample family chart, and thereafter to trace kinship through many a branch with grimy Dictators and Masters of the Horse, if in presence of the Lepidi you live an evil life? What signify all these effigies of warriors if you gamble all night long before your Numantine ancestors, and begin your sleep with the rise of Lucifer, at an hour when our Generals of old would be moving their standards and their camps? Why should a Fabius, born in the home of Hercules, take pride in the title Allobrogicus, and in the Great Altar, if he be covetous and empty-headed and more effeminate than a Euganean lambkin; if his loins, rubbed smooth by Catanian pumice, throw shame on his shaggy-haired grandfathers; or if, as a trafficker in poison, he dishonour his unhappy race by a statue that will have to be broken in pieces? Though you deck your hall from end to end with ancient waxen images, Virtue is the one and only true nobility. Be a Paulus, or a Cossus, or a Drusus in character; rank them before the statues of your ancestors; let them precede the fasces themselves when you are Consul. You owe me, first of all things, the virtues of the soul; prove yourself stainless in life, one who holds fast to the right both in word and deed, and I acknowledge you as a lord; all hail to you, Gaetulicus, or you, Silanus, or from whatever stock you come, if you have proved yourself to a rejoicing country a rare and illustrious citizen, we would fain cry what Egypt shouts when Osiris has been found. For who can be called "noble" who is unworthy of his race, and distinguished in nothing but his name? We call some one's dwarf an "Atlas," his blackamoor "a swan"; an ill-favoured, misshapen girl we call "Europa"; lazy hounds that are bald with chronic mange, and who lick the edges of a dry lamp, will bear the names of "Pard," "Tiger," "Lion," or of any other animal in the world that roars more fiercely: take you care that it be not on that principle that you are a Creticus or a Camerinus!

Who is it whom I admonish thus? It is to you, Rubellius Blandus, that I speak. You are puffed up with the lofty pedigree of the Drusi, as though you had done something to make you noble, and to be conceived by one glorying in the blood of Iulus, rather than by one who weaves for hire under the windy rampart. "You others are dirt," you say; "the very scum of our populace; not one of you can point to his father's birthplace; but I am one of the Cecropidae!" Long life to you! May you long enjoy the glories of your birth! And yet among the lowest rabble you will find a Roman, who has eloquence, one who will plead the cause of the unlettered noble; you must go to the toga-clad herd for a man to untie the knots and riddles of the law. From them will come the brave young soldier who marches to the Euphrates, or to the eagles that guard the conquered Batavians, while you are nothing but a Cecropid, the image of a limbless Hermes! For in no respect but one have you the advantage over him: his head is of marble, while yours is a living effigy!

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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Feb-2012 at 23:23

BkI:III Virgil: Off to Greece

 

May the goddess, queen of Cyprus,

and Helen’s brothers, the brightest of stars,

and father of the winds, Aeolus,

confining all except Iapyga, guide you,

 ship, that owes us Virgil, given

to your care, guide you to Attica’s shores,

bring him safely there I beg you,

and there watch over half of my spirit.

 Triple bronze and oak encircled

the breast of the man who first committed

his fragile bark to the cruel sea,

without fearing the fierce south-westerlies

 fighting with the winds from the north,

the sad Hyades, or the raging south,

master of the Adriatic,

whether he stirs or he calms the ocean.

 What form of death could he have feared,

who gazed, dry-eyed, on swimming monsters,

saw the waves of the sea boiling,

and Acroceraunia’s infamous cliffs?

 Useless for a wise god to part

the lands, with a far-severing Ocean,

if impious ships, in spite of him,

travel the depths he wished inviolable.

 Daring enough for anything,

the human race deals in forbidden sin.

That daring son of Iapetus

brought fire, by impious cunning, to men.

When fire was stolen from heaven

its home, wasting disease and a strange crowd

of fevers covered the whole earth,

and death’s powers, that had been slow before

 and far away, quickened their step.

Daedalus tried the empty air on wings

that were never granted to men:

Hercules’ labours shattered Acheron.

 Nothing’s too high for mortal men:

like fools, we aim at the heavens themselves,

sinful, we won’t let Jupiter

set aside his lightning bolts of anger.

 



Edited by Don Quixote - 08-Feb-2012 at 23:24
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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Feb-2012 at 00:40
Horace, 1:2:

BkI:II To Augustus

 The Father’s sent enough dread hail

and snow to earth already, striking

sacred hills with fiery hand,

to scare the city,

and scare the people, lest again

we know Pyrrha’s age of pain

when Proteus his sea-herds drove

across high mountains,

and fishes lodged in all the elms,

that used to be the haunt of doves,

and the trembling roe-deer swam

the whelming waters.

We saw the yellow Tiber’s waves

hurled backwards from the Tuscan shore,

toppling Numa’s Regia and

the shrine of Vesta,

far too fierce now, the fond river,

in his revenge of wronged Ilia,

drowning the whole left bank, deep,

without permission.

Our children, fewer for their father’s

vices, will hear metal sharpened

that’s better destined for the Persians,

and of battles too.

Which gods shall the people call on

when the Empire falls in ruins?

With what prayer shall the virgins

tire heedless Vesta?

Whom will Jupiter assign to

expiate our sins? We pray you,

come, cloud veiling your bright shoulders,

far-sighted Apollo:

or laughing Venus Erycina,

if you will, whom Cupid circles,

or you, if you see your children

neglected, Leader,

you sated from the long campaign,

who love the war-shouts and the helmets,

and the Moor’s cruel face among his

blood-stained enemies.

Or you, winged son of kindly Maia,

changing shape on earth to human

form, and ready to be named as

Caesar’s avenger: 

Don’t rush back to the sky, stay long

among the people of Quirinus,

no swifter breeze take you away,

unhappy with our

sins: here to delight in triumphs,

in being called our prince and father,

making sure the Medes are punished,

lead us, O Caesar.

 




Edited by Don Quixote - 06-Feb-2012 at 00:42
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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jan-2012 at 18:06
I'm thinking this thread as one on which one can post examples of ancient Roman literature that one likes, as well as historical notes on it, comments, etc. I generally like posting one part of a work apiece, so I'll start with Horace and his odes:

Horace, Odes 1:1

Maecenas, born of monarch ancestors,
The shield at once and glory of my life!
There are who joy them in the Olympic strife
And love the dust they gather in the course;

The goal by hot wheels shunn'd, the famous prize,
Exalt them to the gods that rule mankind;
This joys, if rabbles fickle as the wind
Through triple grade of honours bid him rise,

That, if his granary has stored away
Of Libya's thousand floors the yield entire;
The man who digs his field as did his sire,
With honest pride, no Attalus may sway

By proffer'd wealth to tempt Myrtoan seas,
The timorous captain of a Cyprian bark.
The winds that make Icarian billows dark
The merchant fears, and hugs the rural ease

Of his own village home; but soon, ashamed
Of penury, he refits his batter'd craft.
There is, who thinks no scorn of Massic draught,
Who robs the daylight of an hour unblamed,

Now stretch'd beneath the arbute on the sward,
Now by some gentle river's sacred spring;
Some love the camp, the clarion's joyous ring,
And battle, by the mother's soul abhorr'd.

See, patient waiting in the clear keen air,
The hunter, thoughtless of his delicate bride,
Whether the trusty hounds a stag have eyed,
Or the fierce Marsian boar has burst the snare.

To me the artist's meed, the ivy wreath
Is very heaven: me the sweet cool of woods,
Where Satyrs frolic with the Nymphs, secludes
From rabble rout, so but Euterpe's breath

Fail not the flute, nor Polyhymnia fly
Averse from stringing new the Lesbian lyre.
O, write my name among that minstrel choir,
And my proud head shall strike upon the sky!

The first 3 books are dedicated to Maecenas. Some notes and commentaries on the ode can be found here http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0067:text=Carm.:book=1:poem=1
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