“Many readers remember what old Rogers, the poet, said: ‘When I hear a new book talked about or have it pressed upon me, I read an old one.’ Happy the man who finds his rest in the pages of some favorite classic! I know no reader more to be envied than that friend of mine who for many years has given his days and nights to the loving study of Horace. After a certain period in life, it is always with an effort that we admit a new author into the inner circle of our intimates. The Parisian omnibuses, as I remember them half a century ago, — they may still keep to the same habit, for aught that I know, — used to put up the sign ‘Complet‘ as soon as they were full. Our public conveyances are never full until the natural atmospheric pressure of sixteen pounds to the square inch is doubled, in the close packing of the human sardines that fill the all-accommodating vehicles. A new-comer, however well mannered and well dressed, is not very welcome under these circumstances. In the same way, our tables are full of books half read and books we feel that we must read. And here come in two thick volumes, with uncut leaves, in small type, with many pages, and many lines to a page, — a book that must be read and ought to be read at once. What a relief to hand it over to the lovely keeper of your literary conscience, who will tell you all that you will most care to know about it, and leave you free to plunge into your beloved volume, in which you are ever finding new beauties, and from which you rise refreshed, as if you had just come from the cool waters of Hippocrene! The stream of modern literature represented by the books and periodicals on the crowded counters is a turbulent and clamorous torrent, dashing along among the rocks of criticism, over the pebbles of the world’s daily events; trying to make itself seen and heard amidst the hoarse cries of the politicians and the rumbling wheels of traffic. The classic is a still lakelet, a mountain tarn, fed by springs that never fail, its surface never ruffled by storms, — always the same, always smiling a welcome to its visitor. Such is Horace to my friend. To his eye ‘Lydia, dic per omnes’ is as familiar as ‘Pater noster qui es in caelis’ to that of a pious Catholic. ‘Integer vitae’, which he has put into manly English, his Horace opens to as Watt’s hymn-book opens to ‘From all that dwell below the skies.’ The more he reads, the more he studies his author, the richer are the treasures he finds. And what Horace is to him, Homer, or Virgil, or Dante is to many a quiet reader, sick to death of the unending train of bookmakers.” (Oliver Wendell Holmes sr., Over the Teacups, 1890)

Translated by Eugene Field, 1891.

Be tranquil, Dellius, I pray;
For though you pine your life away
With dull complaining breath,
Or speed with song and wine each day,
Still, still your doom is death.

Where the white poplar and the pine
In glorious arching shade combine,
And the brook singing goes,
Bid them bring store of nard and wine
And garlands of the rose.

Let ‘s live while chance and youth obtain;
Soon shall you quit this fair domain
Kissed by the Tiber’s gold,
And all your earthly pride and gain
Some heedless heir shall hold.

One ghostly boat shall some time bear
From scenes of mirthfulness or care
Each fated human soul, —
Shall waft and leave its burden where
The waves of Lethe roll.

So come, I prithee, Dellius mine;
Let ’s sing our songs and drink our wine
In that sequestered nook
Where the white poplar and the pine
Stand listening to the brook.

“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!