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Σχολή

(Leisure)

A Meditation on Horace’s Carmen I.IX

You see the glist’ning peak of Mount Soracte,
which towers, high with snow, its straining forests
bent low and cracking under their wintry burden,
and frozen rivers stop, sharp with ice.

So after supper fetch another log
to feed the fire, and gather at the hearth
to banish the cold, then pour the agéd wine
more liberally and more often, pious Theophilus.

The rest, entrust to God, who even now
suppresses the winds that battle on the sea
and settles the cypress’s violent agitation,
the ancient ash becomes as still as the Mount.

Forget tomorrow’s cares (they may not come),
and count as gift whatever fortune brings.
Now free from work, don’t fritter time away
which He has consecrated for contemplation.

Memento mori doesn’t mean to cram
life full of Bacchanals or lovers’ trysts,
but neither does it mean we ought to build
in frenzy, blind to the habit once called sloth.

To do is better than to be, but what
to do He teaches only in the breeze
to which we hearken in the silence, hearts
aflame, consuming the wood we add (He gave).

So after supper fetch another log
to feed the fire, and gather at the hearth
to banish the cold, then pour the agéd wine
more liberally and more often, pious Theophilus.

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Original Latin from Horace’s Carmen I.IX

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum
Soracte nec iam sustineant onus
silvae laborantes geluque
flumina constiterint acuto?
Dissolve frigus ligna super foco_[5]
large reponens atque benignius
deprome quadrimum Sabina,
o Thaliarche, merum diota.
Permitte divis cetera, qui simul
strauere ventos aequore fervido_[10]
deproeliantis, nec cupressi
nec veteres agitantur orni.
Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere, et
quem fors dierum cumque dabit, lucro
adpone nec dulcis amores_[15]
sperne, puer, neque tu choreas,
donec virenti canities abest
morosa. Nunc et Campus et areae
lenesque sub noctem susurri
composita repetantur hora,_[20]
nunc et latentis proditor intumo
gratus puellae risus ab angulo
pignusque dereptum lacertis
aut digito male pertinaci.

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Jonathan Shoulta taught high school Latin, literature, and philosophy for several years before becoming the Director of Cultural Renewal and Advancement for St. John Paul II Parish in Olathe, Kansas. He has a B.A. in Philosophy from Benedictine College, and is currently working on an M.A. in Classical Studies. He lives in the Kansas City area.

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3 Responses

  2. Paul Buchheit

    Excellent language and imagery in your translation, Jonathan. Thank you!

    Reply
  3. BDW

    One of the things that is so marvelous about the poetry of Horace is its remarkably expansive and “leisurely” tone; one is transported… The following is not a translation, but simply a meditation too, after the manner of Mr. Shoulta.

    Happy
    by Aedile Cwerbus

    Look where high, shiny Mount Socrate stands in weighty seams,
    this woodsman’s labouring beneath the trees near flowing streams,
    collecting firewood to fight the cold with pleasant warmth,
    for frigid Sabine winters, Thomas, hardy wine in jars.

    Permit me, goddess, songs of love, strewn at the same time’s splash,
    with burning wars, the cypress and the wild mountain ash.
    Crass Casualty will come tomorrow giving pain or gain,
    the future of sweet love and youth, of dancing in a train.

    As green turns gray, capriciously, here on this country ground,
    and under gentle night, the hour strikes anew and now.
    One guarantees that he will take away the leaping calf.
    The traitor lurks around the lovely maiden’s happy laugh.

    Reply

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