The Roman poet Horace (65-8BC) may have lived over 2000 years ago, but lines from his poetry have found a firm home in English idiom. A favourite of the Emperor Augustus, his Odes are his most famous work, combining metric experimentation and imitation of Greek predecessors with reflections on life, religion, nature, and ethical principles. They are also an excellent cradle of self-help for the Latin-inclined, and here we try to deduce what advice Horace would give a Cambridge student for Lent term.
Quinto Orazio Flacco (Horace) by
Giacomo di Chirico, 1871.
1. Life is for living! Enjoy the Spring.
Lent term can sometimes be a slog. We come back in January, when the days still seem short, and by March the weather doesn’t always seem to have cheered up an awful lot. Spring will come, though, and you might as well enjoy it when it does.
As Horace puts it so aptly in Odes 1.4:
‘Solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris et Favoni
…
Ac neque iam stabulis gaudet pecus aut arator igni
Nec prata canis albicant pruinis.
(1.4.1,3-4)
‘Harsh Winter is melting away in the welcome change to spring and zephyrs,
…the cattle no longer like the steading, the ploughman does not hug the fire,
And meadows are not white with hoar frost.’
Cambridge in Spring is lovely. There’s the occasional spattering of snow (if you’re lucky), but the flowers start coming out, and the nights gradually get shorter, and early morning starts (looking at you, rowers) get more bearable.
Although Horace recommends rustic sacrifice as a way to welcome the Spring, we at The Antiquarian think the Fellows of most colleges would be disapproving of animal sacrifice ‘to Faunus in shady groves’ (l.11).
This doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the spring: go to Grantchester, cycle out to Ely, work on a bench in your college grounds!
2. Balance is everything.
Horace was a great proponent of the popular Greek concept of the ‘golden mean’. Popular in the philosophy of Aristotle, this was summed up by a maxim of the Delphic oracle as ‘μηδὲν ἄγαν’: ‘Nothing in excess’.
In one Ode, he advises a Licinius to:
‘Rectius vives, Licini, neque altum
Semper urgendo neque, dum procellas
Cautus horrescis, nimium premendo
Litus iniquum.
Auream quisquis mediocritatem
Diligit tutus…’ [2.10.1-6]
‘You will take a better course, Licinius,
If you do not always thrust over the deep sea,
Or hug the dangerous coast too close,
Shivering at the prospect of squalls.
Whoever loves the Golden Mean
Is safe…’
Don’t stay up all night working. Don’t do no work. Don’t lock yourself in your room. Don’t starve yourself of your own company. Lent term is all about treading a balance, and making sure your own habits are sustainable in the long run.
3. Keep a steady mind.
Horace’ best advice of all comes in Odes 2.3:
‘aequam memento rebus in arduis
Servare mentem, non secus in bonis
Ab insolenti temperatam
Laetitia…’ [2.3.1-4]
‘Remember to keep your mind level when the path is steep,
And also in prosperity to keep it tempered
And well away from too much joy…..’
Lent term can be rough: exam preparation steps up, there’s a lot of work to be done, and the Winter holidays are no longer just around the corner. There are bound to be ups and downs, magnified by how short the Cambridge term is. Try to work through each problem (and problem sheet) that gets thrown your way steadily, in Week 2 remember that Week 5 is coming (and do that extra bit of work you know you have 3 weeks to do!), and in Week 5 remember the end of term will soon be here.
4. It will all be ok!
Following on from the above point, one of the most abiding messages in Horace’s Odes is that problems will sort themselves out eventually. In 2.10, a poem we have already visited, he writes
‘ …non si male nunc, et olim
Sic erit…
Rebus angustis animosus atque
Fortis appare; sapienter idem
Contrahes vento nimium secundo
Turgida vela.᾽ [2.10.17-18, 21-24]
‘If all goes badly now, some day
It will not be so…
…in difficult straits show spirit
And courage, and when the wind
Is too strong at your back, be wise
And shorten the bulging sail.’
In other words, that deadline, rehearsal or race will be over soon, and you won’t be worried anymore. If everything is too much, email your supervisor and ask for an extension, or take some time to work more slowly than you normally would. Take care of your boat (i.e. yourself)—it’s what Horace would have wanted.
5. Hard essay? Head to the bar. You deserve it.
Just finished a tricky essay? Well done. Horace would celebrate by heading straight to your college bar, as is clear from one of his most famous quotations: ‘nunc est bibendum’.
Although the poem (1.37) from which this quotation comes refers to the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra by Augustus, and not the subduing of a particularly tough essay on Italian political engagement 400-40BCE, Horace’s horror of Cleopatra could almost be a Cambridge student’s horror of not having a coherent argument.
Once ‘send’ has been hit (don’t forget to attach it), then join Horace in having a glass of wine, a pint, or the extravagant purchase of a San Pellegrino.
‘nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero
Pulsanda tellus, nunc Saliaribus
Ornare pulvinar deorum
Tempus erat dapibus sodales.’ [1.37.1-4]
‘now we must drink, now we must
Beat the earth with unfettered feet, now,
My friends, is the time to load the couches
Of the gods with Salian feasts.’
6. Don’t sweat rejection.
Your crush laugh-reacted your crushbridge to them? All you need is Horace’s advice to Tibullus, a contemporary elegiac poet, to get over your heartbreak.
‘Albi, ne doleas plus nimio memor
Immitis Glycerae, neu miserabiles
Decantes elegos, cur tibi iunior
Laesa praeniteat fide. (1.33.1-4)
Do not grieve [Tibullus], remembering too well
Your bitter-sweet Glycera, and do not keep chanting
Piteous elegies wondering why she has broken faith
And a younger man now outshines you.
A manuscript of Porphyrion’s (2nd c. AD) commentary on Horace’s Odes, 15th century.
Horace’s message is clear. Don’t dwell, move on. Sometimes these things happen, and someone better will come along, but if you’re still living in the past, you won’t be able to enjoy the present. Horace speaks from experience:
‘ipsum me, melior cum peteret Venus,
Grata detinuit compede Myrtale’ (1.33.13-14)
‘I myself once, when a better love was offered me,
Was shackled in the delicious fetters of Myrtale…’
Don’t be like Horace.
7. Don’t worry about getting a bad room in the room ballot.
You’re 99/100 on the room ballot? That’s rough. Luckily Horace has some advice.
‘contemptae dominus splendidior rei
Quam si quidquid arat impiger Apulus
Occultare meis dicereer horreis,
Magnas inter opes inops. [3.16.25-8]
‘I am the master of a holding men despise, and prouder
Than if I were said to be hiding away in my granaries
All the crops produced by the ploughs of hard-working Apulians,
A pauper in the lap of wealth.’
Horace knew well the struggle of getting one of the rooms in the building no one likes with toilets in the dungeonbasement (thanks, Trinity), when your friends have the old college rooms or en-suites. Horace’s Sabine Farm is one of the key motifs in his poetry: it wasn’t big, it wasn’t flashy, and it certainly wasn’t a fashionable villa in the centre of Rome, but it was enough for him. Horace, in your position, would revel in his pot-plants and fairy lights. A humble dwelling is adequate; anyway, those big college rooms are always cold.
8. Spending time with your friends is important.
We’ve all been there. Stressed about an essay or a problem sheet when a text pings.
‘Hall?’ Could you? You were just going to microwave a ramen and resign yourself to becoming a hermit this evening. You glance back at your phone. Why not?
Horace would approve. In 3.29, he persuades Maecenas, his patron and close friend of the Emperor Augustus, to come and have dinner with him.
‘tu, civitatem quis deceat status,
Curas et Urbi sollicitus…. ’ [1.39.25-6]
‘You are worrying what constitution would best suit the state,
In your anxiety for the city…’
We’re here translating Maecenas’ political anxieties as deadline anxieties, which Horace would solve by inviting you to a dinner with
‘non ante verso lene merum cado
Cum flore, Maecenas, rosarum et
Pressa tuis Balanus capillis…’
‘a jar of mellow wine never yet disturbed
And roses in bloom, Maecenas,
And basalm pressed for your hair…’ [1.39.1-3]
Hall might not live up to all that, but the message is clear. When everything gets too much, spend time with friends. As Horace says later in the same poem ‘a man will be happy and in control/of his life if he can say at each day’s end/ “I have lived”’ (vv..41-3). No one can work all the time.
An early printed edition of Horace by Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1501.
9. Every generation of Freshers is more annoying than the last.
It’s part of life’s rich tapestry. Sure, it’s definitely irritating when people are noisy in the library, or when clothes are left in the tumble driers. ‘Silly Freshers’ you grumble, now an old and experienced 3rd year, sick of their rapscallion-ish tricks.
‘aetas parentum peior avis tulit
Nos nequiores, mox daturos
Progeniem vitiosiorem.’ (3.6.46-48)
‘Our [college] parents were not the men their fathers were,
And they bore children worse than themselves,
Whose children will be baser still.’
‘Twas always thus. Ask an alumnus/a/um, they’ll tell you this generation of third years weren’t like this in their day. O tempora o mores! (Thanks Cicero).
Take a deep breath and acquire earplugs.
10. Everyone is going to die anyway.
If Horace is sure about one thing, it’s the certainty of death. It comes up time and time again, casting a shadow over Horace’s banquets and sacrifices.
‘linquenda tellus et domus et placens
Uxor…’ [2.14.21-2]
‘We must leave the earth, our home,
And the [college] wife we love…’
Even if death might not be on your mind (probably a good thing), graduation might be! One day, you’ll leave Cambridge, so try to make the most of it! Take care of yourself, but also try to seize every sensible opportunity you can to have fun. Don’t worry about small things—if it won’t matter in Week 9, Horace would tell you not to waste your energy on it.
As Horace at his most famous says:
‘ …dum loquimur, fugerit invida
Aetas: carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.’ [1.11.7-8]
'…even as we speak, envious time
Flies past. Harvest the day, and leave as little as possible for tomorrow.’
All translations from David West’s Oxford World Classics edition (1997).
You can read Horace’s Odes, as well as his other works, in Latin and English for free here! To learn more about the poet, The Cambridge Companion to Horace (2007) is a very good start, as well as David West’s OUP editions of the first three books (there are 4 in total.). His 1997 translation into English is also very accessible. An excellent and interesting manuscript of Horace’s works can be found here, thanks to Trinity College Cambridge’s Wren Library.
Angharad (Harry) Derbyshire is a Classics undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge. She is interested in landscape in ancient literature and visual culture, and textual criticism. She is also an avid knitter and Dungeons and Dragons enthusiast.
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