Interesting Times
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 BC), known in English as Horace, certainly lived through some interesting times. The one-of-a-kind experiment that was republican Rome had come to an end, but it still took several decades of mayhem and civil wars for the new, much more conventional Rome to emerge out of the wreckage. Today's passage is the famous poem where Horace addresses his unhappy country under the allegory of a ship struggling against the storm.
We do not know exactly when the poem was written, but it probably refers to the years between the battle of Philippi (42 BC), in which Horace himself took part, and the battle of Actium (31 BC), which finally ended the Roman civil wars.
O navis, referent in mare te novi
Fluctus! O quid agis! Fortiter occupa
Portum! Nonne vides ut
Nudum remigio latus
Et malus celeri saucius Africo
Antennaeque gemant ac sine funibus
Vix durare carinae
Possint imperiosius
Aequor? Non tibi sunt integra lintea,
Non di, quos iterum pressa voces malo.
Quamvis Pontica pinus,
Silvae filia nobilis,
Iactes et genus et nomen inutile;
Nil pictis timidus navita puppibus
Fidit. Tu nisi ventis
Debes ludibrium, cave.
Nuper sollicitum quae mihi taedium,
Nunc desiderium curaque non levis,
Interfusa nitentis
Vites aequora Cycladas.
If you’d like to discuss this poem or ask a question about something in it or related to it (including its grammar and vocabulary), please leave a comment.
Horace, Carmina I, XIV