coldhearted scientist وداد

I am still looking for a really good English translation, perhaps Dryden’s, of Horace’s second ode from Book III of the Odes. I seek this, of course, as background to Wilfred Owen’s realistic war poem.

I have found this translation, which is adequate, though dull, this one, which I like better, and this one, which is the most entertaining. The poem is interesting because it is so … fascist … favoring tough upbringings, militarism and the keeping of secrets, and frowning upon deserters and other rule-breakers.

I also found this erudite review of a still more erudite, new commentary on Book III of the Odes, by a very famous scholar. Although I am clearly attracted to erudition, I do not really like Horace, or Virgil for that matter. I much prefer Catullus and Ovid. However, I have found a the site of a Horace enthusiast. It compiles many of the very interesting English translations which have been made of the lovely Ode 9, from Book I of the Odes.

Here is just the beginning of this poem, which greets the coming winter.

Vides ut alta stet niue candidum
Soracte, nec iam sustineant onus
siluae laborantes, geluque
flumina constiterint acuto.

You see how [Mount] Soracte stands out white
with deep snow, and the struggling trees can
no longer sustain the burden, and the rivers
are frozen with sharp ice.

Dissolue frigus ligna super foco
large reponens, atque benignius
deprome quadrimum Sabina,
o Thaliarche, merum diota.

Dispel the cold by liberally piling logs on
the fireplace, and draw out more generously,
o Thaliarchus, four-year-old unmixed wine
from the two-handled Sabine jar.

Axé.