Odes

Book II

Book II 57 1 With boldness you address a difficult subject— the Triumvirate of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey and the many blunders that brought upon us war, which is Fortune’s game with friendships soured, blades smeared with blood not yet expiated. . . . Delicate subjects, and you walk over coals that still glow beneath deceptive ash. Soon, Pollio, you will put behind you affairs of state and return to your métier, taking your prompts from the tragic Muse in works you write for the stage. Never mind that you defend the accused, that you are part of the Senate’s deliberations, and that you have triumphed in arms in Dalmatia, earning your laurels. You bring to our minds those days of braying horns, and blaring bugles, the horses’ terrified whinnies, the flash of steel catching the sunlight and the grim faces of soldiers. 58 Book II I see the generals, dirty with glory’s dust, and all our foes put down saving Cato whose defiant soul refused to perish except by his own hand. I suppose we can think of our losses of many men as sacrifices to implacable Juno who had to abandon Egypt’s cities and Jugurtha’s wretched death. What plain has not been drenched by Roman blood and marked by graves from impious battles waged in terrible civil wars? The Medes delight in our misfortunes. What sea or river has not been grievously roiled with Daunian carnage? What shoreline has not been sadly stained incarnadine by torrents of Roman gore? But calm yourself, my Muse. Do not be alarmed. We shall return to graceful frivolity instead of Simonides’ dirges and set our quill to lighter tasks. This is the kind of poem for which the inclusion of notes makes the translator’s job much easier. It would have been all but impossible to get the necessary information into the poem about Juno’s enmity toward Rome as reported in the Aeneid. It would have been awkward to explain more fully that the gods were believed to abandon cities that were about to fall—like Alexandria. Jugurtha, King of Numidia, was captured and starved to death in a Roman prison. Daunus was a legendary king of Apulia, and Horace, who came from there, uses the adjective to mean Italians in general. 59 Book II Simonides, from Ceos, Horace calls simply “the Cean,” but his name is not likely to leap to any but the most rarefied mind. Pollio, to whom the poem is addressed, had published a history of the civil wars, and this piece is Horace’s response to that. I am happier when I can avoid notes altogether and rely on the reader’s knowledge, or at least a willingness to Google. But there are so many references and allusions here that, in this case anyway, the note is a help to both of us. My hope is that, having this information, the reader will return to the ode and, knowing what the Romans knew, read it again, not as a text but as a poem, which it was and, I hope, still can be. 2 Silver, hidden away in the bowels of the earth, has no color or shine, Sallustius Crispus, as you well know, preferring the glow it gets from circulation. Proculus will live past the usual span, for his Fame will bear him up on unfailing wings because he helped his brothers the civil wars had all but wiped out. And you will fare better if you learn to control your greed: your kingdom will be as large as if you had joined Libya to Cadiz, restoring Carthage. Excessive indulgence only makes dropsy worse and there can be no cure unless the cause of the thirst that torments the flesh can be found and treated by self-restraint. 60 Book II Phraates IV recovered the throne of Cyrus, but Right Thinking pays no mind to the crowd and strikes his name from the rolls of happy men, training us all to use language correctly and say what we mean. A crown is only secure on the head of one who can see a heap of gold and turn away without looking back. This strikes me as almost Confucian in its recommendation to Sallustius Crispus (who succeeded Maecenas as Augustus’ chief advisor) to avoid excess and to use language correctly . The first line of the poem is an expression of the...