“It is said that when Robert Louis Stevenson lay seriously ill at Davos he asked that a Scottish minister who lived in the neighbourhood should be summoned to his bedside. It was very early in the morning; but the good divine, fearing the worst, immediately dressed and hastened to the chalet where his fellow-countryman lodged. He found Stevenson apparently in the article of death; but, as the kindly visitor leaned over the bed to whisper some word of ghostly consolation, the sick man opened his eyes and gasped, faintly, ‘For God’s sake, have you a Horace?'” (Alfred Noyes, Portrait of Horace, 1947)

“Admiring at the fact that for two and a half centuries hardly a scholar or man of letters had lived in England who had not once or oftener in his life been moved to try his hand at a translation from Horace, I was long ago inspired, in the days of enthusiastic youth, to compile an anthology of these fugitive efforts. It was not a bad book, nor an uninteresting, though I say it, and I am an unprejudiced judge, for it brought me in nothing — my publisher, with unnecessary prolixity, being careful to demonstrate to me the exact number of pounds, shillings, and pence he had lost by the venture.” (Charles Cooper, Horace in English, 1896)

Translated by Thomas Hare, 1737.

Let Fortune smile, or be unkind,
Still, Delius, keep an equal Mind,
Nor in Prosperity elate,
Nor abject in an adverse State;
Let chearful Mirth, and mod’rate joy
Your transitory Span employ.
Alike grim Death will seize his Prey,
Whether you mourn your Life away;
Or else, when festal Days succeed,
Seek the Retirement of the Mead,
On easy Grass your Limbs recline,
And gaily drink your choicest Wine.
Beneath an hospitable Shade
By social Pines and Poplars made,
Nigh which a winding Riv’let glides,
And murm’ring strikes its jutting Sides:
Come, Wine and Oil, and Roses bring,
The short-liv’d Glories of the Spring,
Whilst blooming Youth and Wealth remain,
And e’er your Thread be cut in twain.
Depart you must from all that’s here,
From all that in the World is dear:
Your Country-Seat and spacious Groves,
Near which the yellow Tyber roves,
Your City-House, and Heaps of Store
Shall be your Heir’s, and yours no more.
No matter, whether rich or not,
Of Parents high or low begot;
Whether in Beds of State you lie,
Or see no Cov’ring but the Sky:
Hell’s Victim you alike must prove,
For Pluto’s Pity none can move.
We all must go or soon or late,
All share our Lot, and yield to Fate;
Sail Exiles to the Stygian Coast,
There doom’d for ever to be lost.

Translated by Roselle Mercier Montgomery, 1929

Seek not, Leuconoe, to know
What length of life Jove will bestow
On you or me —
Such things, hid from our mortal eyes,
No Babylonian sorceries
Can make you see!

Oh, better far bravely to bear
What heaven sends! No tear, no prayer
Can soften Jove!
This winter that now drives the sea
Upon the rocks perhaps may be
Our last, my love!

Forbear to guess the god’s design.
Instead, be wise and strain the wine —
Age comes apace.
Even as we talk, he steals on us
As though he might be envious
Of this day’s grace!

Then let us, love, since life’s brief span
Denies us hope, pluck while we can
This one bright hour,
Nor trust to future joys too much —
Our eager hands may never touch
Tomorrow’s flower!

“As with the Psalter itself, the Odes have in them repetitions, inequalities, faults of matter and manner. Some of their contents seem unworthy of their place: mannered, uninspired, questionable in their use and their actual present value. Some we may think (but we had better think twice and thrice) we could well do without. We have to make allowances in both for religious or literary conventions; for Jewish narrowness and vindictiveness, for Roman coarseness. But both volumes have been taken to the heart of the world, and have become part of ourselves. It is interesting to remark that both have this note of intimacy, that the Psalms and the Odes, or at least the most familiar among them, are habitually referred to, not by their titles (for they have none), nor by their number in the series, but simply by their opening words. We do not usually speak of the 95th or 114th, the 127th or 130th Psalms, if we wish to be understood, but of the Venite, the Ju exitu Israel, the Nisi Dominus, the De profundis, And so with Horace one speaks familiarly of the Integer vitae, the Aeguam memento, the Eheu fugaces, the Otium divos. This secular Psalter, like its religious analogue, has to be supplemented, enlarged, reinterpreted, possibly even cut, for actual use, for application to our own daily life. But both, in their enormously different ways, are central and fundamental; permanent lights on life and aids to living.” (J. W. Mackail, Classical Studies)