The Odes of Horace (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Quintus Horatius Flaccus

4.06

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9780140441888: The Odes of Horace (Penguin Classics)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140441883 ISBN 13: 9780140441888

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1976

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This book presents the Latin text on the left hand page and the modern translation on the right. Translated by James Michie, the verses of Horace (68-5 B.C.) move with the grace and inevitability of proverbs: few poets have ever been so readily quoted. His tolerant humanity, his sane belief in the golden mean, and his melancholy recognition of life's brevity have invested him, in the minds of thousands of Europeans, with the quality of a friend. The Latin text of Horace's odes on love and friendship and wine, on Roman greatness and the character of the ideal citizen, appears in this edition opposite modern translations which vary their metres to suit the lyrical forms of the original. About Horace: Quintus Horatius Flaccus was born in 65 B. C. in Venusia, the Hellenized south-eastern region of Italy. His father was an ex-slave but managed to provide his son with an education under Orbilius in Rome and afterwards sent him to Athens to study philosophy. While in Greece he joined, as an officer, the republican army of Brutus and Cassius and attended the battle of Philippi (42 B. C.) where they were defeated by Octavian (later Augustus) and Anthony. Horace returned to Italy to find his father dead and the family property confiscated. It was during the ensuing years of poverty that he began to write whilst endeavouring to improve his circumstances. Octavian decreed a general amnesty in 39 B. C. which enabled Horace to obtain a minor clerical post in the Treasury, and a year later Virgin introduced him to Maecenas (Octavian's right-hand man in civil affairs). A deep and lasting attachment sprang up between the two men, Maecenas giving to Horace in 34 B. C. a small estate which guaranteed him some peace and security. In 23 B. C. he published the first three books of the Odes in the form of eighty-eight carmina or songs; but they were not enthusiastically received. He then published in 20 B. C. and 12 B. C.(?) the two books of Epistles written in hexameter form

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Review:

Horace has always been one of my favourite poets, and I have often toyed with the idea of translating him.
After reading Michie s translation, however, I see that I must dismiss the idea. I do not expect to read a better one. W. H. Auden"

"Horace has always been one of my favourite poets, and I have often toyed with the idea of translating him.
After reading Michie's translation, however, I see that I must dismiss the idea. I do not expect to read a better one." --W. H. Auden

About the Author:

Horace was born in 65 bc.

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