horace ii.10

Horace ii.10

english translation

Horace ii.10

original Latin poem

Horace ii.10

Rectius vives, Licini, neque altum
semper urgendo neque, dum procellas
cautus horrescis, nimium premendo
            litus iniquum.

Auream quisquis mediocritatem
diligit, tutus caret obsoleti
sordibus tecti, caret invidenda
            sobrius aula.

Saepius ventis agitatur ingens
pinus et celsae graviore casu
decidunt turres feriuntque summos
            fulgura montis.

Sperat infestis, metuit secundis
alteram sortem bene praeparatum
pectus. Informis hiemes reducit
            Iuppiter; idem

summovet. Non, si male nunc, et olim
sic erit : quondam cithara tacentem
suscitat Musam neque semper arcum
            tendit Apollo.

Rebus angustis animosus atque
fortis adpare ; sapienter idem
contrahes vento nimium secundo
            turgida vela.

 

Ryan Wilson

Ryan Wilson was born in Griffin, Georgia, and raised in nearby Macon. His work appears widely, in periodicals such as First Things, Five Points, the Hopkins Review, the New Criterion, the Sewanee Review, and the Yale Review. His first book, The Stranger World, was awarded the 2017 Donald Justice Poetry Prize and was published in hardcover by Measure Press in June of 2017.

 

Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC–8 BC), “Horace” to the English-speaking world, was a Roman lyrical poet of satire and historical/pastoral odes. Son of a freedman, eventually he became close friends with Virgil. His famous Ars poetica has been an abc of poetry practice and criticism. He was given a farm near Tivoli, and there he wrote his pastoral and other poems. His main works are his Satires, Odes, Epodes, and Epistles. His Ars suggests that a poet should read widely, and be precise and plain in thought and speech.

 

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