Author: Isaac

Horace’s Ad Pyrrham

By the time of his death in 1955, Sir Ronald Storrs had collected about 350 translations of the Ode to Pyrrha, including 150 to English, 54 to French, 35 to Italian, 24 to German, 14 to Spanish — and the others to some 25 different languages. By 1959, Sir Charles Tennyson had found 100 additional translations to several languages (about 30 to English), bringing the total to 451. Then, following instructions left by Storrs, he published Ad Pyrrham: A Polyglot Collection of Translations of Horace’s Ode to Pyrrha, with an introduction by Storrs and a selection of the translations. The selection aimed at covering “as wide a range as possible in country, period and style,” but Tennyson worried about monotony, and chose to include only 63 translations to English, 20 to French, 12 to Italian, 13 to German, 15 to Spanish, two to Welsh, and one to each of 19 other languages. Thinking that the whole set of English translations might not be monotonous, I decided to put together a collection of as many as I could find. Yet, after having found 417 translations, I was reminded of what W. H. Auden once wrote (paraphrasing Paul Valéry): “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.”

The collection can be found in Collections of Translations.

“This little collection is dedicated above all to those persons who have no system and belong to no party and are therefore still free to doubt whatever is doubtful and to maintain what is not.” (Paul Valéry, Foreword to Outlook for Intelligence)

The Food Police, Administering

Theodore Dalrymple on The Food Police.

Jacques Barzun on Administering and the Law: “Administering as opposed to administration may be defined by this example. Some years ago a distinguished physician in Boston was doing research on several related afflictions characterized by anemia. He developed a new treatment, which included a strictly controlled diet. One day, entering a patient’s room, he met the nurse coming out with the lunch tray, where he saw each of the prescribed dishes eaten only in part or not at all. He had a sudden revelation of his oversight. The carefully measured gluten, proteins, calories, and vitamins were going into his research paper, not into his patients. He had been making policy; he had not been administering it.”

Horace Translations (Update)

Collections of English Translations of the Odes. Update: 53 New Translations Added!

172 translations of Solvitur Acris Hiems (Odes I.4)
218 translations of Vides Ut Alta (Odes I.9)
223 translations of Carpe Diem (Odes I.11)
249 translations of Integer Vitae (Odes I.22)
181 translations of Vitas Hinnuleo (Odes I.23)
238 translations of Persicos Odi (Odes I.38)
165 translations of Aequam Memento (Odes II.3)
173 translations of Rectius Vives (Odes II.10)
182 translations of Eheu Fugaces (Odes II.14)
223 translations of Otium Divos (Odes II.16)
265 translations of Donec Gratus Eram (Odes III.9)
184 translations of Fons Bandusiae (Odes III.13)
197 translations of Diffugere Nives (Odes IV.7)

New Collection of Translations

232 English Translations of Horace’s Persicos Odi (Odes I.38). Including Translations by: William Cowper, Hartley Coleridge, William Makepeace Thackeray, C. S. Calverley, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Austin Dobson, Willa Cather, Franklin P. Adams, Ford Madox Ford, and Muriel Spark.