See West’s Notes at: West, D. Horace Odes I Carpe Diem: Text, Translation and Commentary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1995), pp.62-65

‘The symptomatology starts in the first stanza: ‘by boiling liver swells in indigestible bile’.  If liver were stewing in a pot, on this interpretation bile would be the stock and the liver would certainly swell.   Then in the next stanza, ‘my mind does not stay in its fixed place’.  Nor would a boiling liver.  ‘My colour,’, similarly, ‘does not stay in its place’.  Here the fit is not perfect, but the proposition that Horace himself changes colour is not too far away and it suggests colour changes in the cooking.  Moisture trickles down furtively on to Horace’s cheeks, as moisture may trickle down the side of a simmering pot.  Now we know why tears are here referred to, very unusually, as moisture, umor.  This overflow demonstrates that the liver is being cooked through and through by a slow heat which is to say that Horace’s tears reveal the depth and the duration of his suffering.[2]

I believe that this ode represents jealousy: ‘But Horace is Horace.  He is not going to have trembling in his breeze or go as green as grass or be near unto death as Sappho was and he is not going to end by being ashamed of himself like Catullus.  He has his feelings and ruefully admits to them, but smiles at Sapho and Catullus and at himself as he does so, by expressing his suffering in this whimsically detailed metaphor from cooking.’[3]

 
Horace’s ending suggests an alternative relationship as an ideal in contrast with the current unsatisfactory one – I put this in a literary context, referring to the ideal of a life-long erotic/patronage relationship.

The phrase ‘She’s gazing in your eyes for her reflection’ (line 2, stanza 4) is meant to suggest, that he (Robbie) is taking the gazing as admiration whereas as she (the latest protégée is gazing both to see the physical reflection of herself, but also to suggest the definition of reflection as ‘thoughts and thinking’ in other words that she has managed to make Robbie think and see things as she does.

[2] Ibid p.63

[3] Ibid p. 64

See West’s Notes at: West, D. Horace Odes I Carpe Diem: Text, Translation and Commentary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1995), pp.66-71

‘Personification is the basis of the intense feeling that runs through the poem and culminates in the last stanza….  The first line shows the ship’s helplessness and the rest of the stanza expostulates, telling her (the ship) to act with speed and courage and make a realistic assessment of her difficulties.  We then learn what they are.  One part of her is naked, another is crippled, another is wailing; she seems scarcely able to hold out as the sea becomes more and more bullying; she is calling on the gods…..  This detailed personification leads to the climax in the final stanza, ‘recently you were an anxious distress to me, now a longing and a care…..The personification is vital but the force of the poem comes also from the vividness and drama of the description.  Horace is on shore.  The ship has been coming in to harbour and has been swept out to sea again by a heavy swell…. The first impression is that this is a vivid account of a ship caught in a storm.  But this obvious interpretation does not work.  The anxiety and passionate longing of the last stanza are out of all proportion unless this is a very special ship.  We know what ship it is.  This poem is … related to poems of Alcaeus… References to the city, to ancestors, and to tyranny suggest that Alcaeus’ ship is the Ship of State and this is the unanimous view of ancient commentators on Alcaeus.  This is also the unanimous interpretation of Horace’s Ode 1.14 in the ancient commentators…. Not all the details in Horace’s scene make a precise fit with the political allegory, but the storm is war.  The new waves are a renewed outbreak.  Courage is needed.  The vessel is in a sorry plight and there is wailing…. The emotion at the end of the poem may well apply not only to the state but also to its guardian, Augustus.  In that case line 17 would imply that Horace had suffered anxiety and distress because of the continuance of civil war and line 18 would suggest that when it broke out again he was concerned for his patron’s safety.’[1]

In the world I have created for my versions of these Odes, this is a ship of poetry, which nicely substitutes the Ship of State in the original.  ‘New wave’ picks up the Latin, mare te novi and the last stanza brings out the swirling/rotic language. I have used the idea of ‘encircle’ to match ‘Cycladas’, the circling islands’

Although I do not open with the words, ‘Oh Ship of Poetry’, nevertheless I have personified the ship of poetry and I think the opening line is good enough, given that my ode has the title, ‘Ode to the Ship of Poetry.  The difficulties of ‘naked’ and ‘crippled’ and ‘wailing’ are all represented in my poem and the god my poetry ship looks to is the god of obscurity who does little to help.  ‘The gods were there to protect the ship but the ancients well knew that they did not always do so.’[2]

The anxiety and passionate longing for the very special Ship of State in the original is replaced by my anxiety and passionate longing about the Ship of Poetry and the dangers it seems to subject itself to by taking on ‘sexy’ new themes.

[2] Ibid p.67

See West’s Notes at:  West, D. Horace Odes I Carpe Diem: Test, Translation and Commentary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1995), pp.72-77

According to West, ‘This ode purports to give the prophecy delivered to Paris on the voyage by the sea-god Nereus.  The language of prophecies is often obscure and portentous and that is why Horace begins this poem with such an awkward first stanza.[1]  In Horace’s poem it is Paris who drags Helen off across the sea and of course the result is the Trojan War.

‘The voice of the prophet is heard again in the last stanza again with characteristic obscurity.  How could Paris have begun to understand that the fleet of Archilles would postpone the doom of Troy?  He could not at this moment have had any notion that Achilles would weaken the Greek armies by retiring in high dudgeon to his tent and thus postpone the fall of Troy’.[2] 

‘The central bulk of our poem is a meditation on one aspect of the Iliad-the abduction of Helen by Paris, its baneful effects upon his own people and also the Greeks, the fearful armoury of the goddess of war, the impotence of the goddess of love, the uselessness of Paris’s carefully groomed hair and prettily scored music… and his vain attempts to avoid the horrors of battle.  Then, after a muster of the formidable enemies who are hunting him down, the prophecy ends with an image of cowardice.’[3]

Here I try to pick up the original context with its sea language, hence the ‘slamming decks ’ to suggest both the deck of a ship and the slamming (i.e. music) decks.  I try to create the feeling of a storm brewing as the DJ slowly begins to realise that he is alienating both sides.  -  also building up towards war. The ‘wolf’ reference in the original is represented by the phrase ‘loping off’’ and ‘watering-hole’ has both a human and animal meaning.  As in the original, my poem has an image of cowardice/failure with the DJ running off to a safe watering-hole..

The main point of mine is a meditation on the ‘abduction’ of a poet into the world of slam/ hip-hop/pop which results in both sides being ‘at war’ both with each other and with themselves Although I do not use antonomasia (as in the original); my ‘Maker of Performance Poets’ is not one particular individual, but rather a ‘type’ which I would hope readers (especially poets who have been dragged into such performance poetry from time to time), will recognise. My prophecy tries to point out that when new technology gets hold of poetry, things will be even worse, thus predicting what is likely to happen next, just as in the original.

[2] Ibid 75

[3] Ibid 76/7

See West’s Notes at: West, D. Horace Odes I Carpe Diem: Text, Translation and Commentary, Oxford: Clarendon Press (1995), pp.78-81

Almond Version
I have reframed 1.16 into the world of modern poetry by using phrases like ‘bang on’ to represent the percussive Corybantes and I have tried to maintain the wit and ‘fire’ of the original.  I have also tried to maintain the tone of anger and sermon which forms the heart of Horace’s poem, though of course in mine the anger is from one poet to another who has previously said derogatory things about the former and now wants that to be forgotten so that they can be friends again.

I let the reference, ‘My God, but you’re your father’s son alright’ carry the mention of ‘mother’ in the original.  ‘Fallen cities’ in the original is represented by the idea of poetry classes (or the criticised poet) being ‘razed to the ground’ and it is he who experiences ‘heavy doom’ and ‘depths’

’Eating your own words’ is meant to refer to Thyestes being tricked by his brother Atreus, into eating a dish consisting of his own (Thyestes’) son in the original and of course there is an injunction to self-restraint.

See West’s Notes at: West, D. Horace Odes I Carpe Diem: Text, Translation and Commentary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1995), pp.82-85

Horace invites ‘Tyndaris to visit him [there] in his country paradise’[1]  The implication here, ‘with tongue slightly in cheek, [is] that the divine protection granted to Horace’s goats is available also to Tyndaris – security, protection from heat, fodder, mating….absence of fear…’[2]  ’To sense the thrust in this poem we have to remember the person to whom Horace addressed this collection, his patron Maecenas.  We also have to remember the gratitude Horace felt to Maecenas for the gift of his beloved Sabine farm.  Horace is a master of tact….  When Horace writes that the gods love him and his Muse and that Faunus protects his flocks, Maecenas knows perfectly well what was meant.  Faunus protects.  Maecenas gave.’[3]  The farm was given to Horace so that he could write his poetry.  ‘This ode informs his patron that he is doing so.  It expresses his gratitude, his contentment, and his continued dedication to the Muse.’[4]
’In 17 the passionate youth is again shown the door as Horace gives a positive notion of some of the pleasures of mature love’[5], but ‘The question is still asked how Horace can movingly plight his undying troth to Lydia at the end of 1.13 and at 1.11 and 1.17 be loving Leuconoe and Tyndaris.  This question in turn tends to lead to the conclusion that these are not love poems but literary exercises.  This is to raise yet again the spectre long-since-laid of the autobiographical fallacy.’[6]

West makes an observation which is extremely meaningful for me, ‘Poets often respond to technical challenges and they are often aware of the work of their predecessors, but writing poetry is not simply a matter of shuffling and redealing the old cards.  Good poets blend their experience of literature and their experience of life in a hugely complex operation which they themselves do not fully understand.  As Horace might have put it, the poet was under the guidance of the Muse who led him where he did not know that he wanted to go.’[7]  It is the idea of responding to the wisdom in Horace’s poetry and mixing it with my experience of life that drives me in my work on Horace texts. 

Here I change the addressee from the sexually predatory Pan (Faunus) into my own encounter with my first creative writing tutor – in a sense Denise’s ‘voice’ becomes my Muse and it’s Denise I invite to my ‘safe’ place, which is in an area called Clockhouse Wood.  (My home, and the equivalent of Horace’s Sabine Farm).  So in my version, Denise takes on the role of both Pan (Faunus) and Tyndaris  I refer to Denise’s Grove Hill voice because the writing group where I met Denise was held in an area of Middlesbrough, called Grove Hill.  Both these references, ‘Hill’ and ‘Wood’ pick up the ‘country’ feel of the original.   In the penultimate stanza ‘write your script and toast your oeuvre with Asti’ is meant to create a picture of the two of us as a pair of suffering women, suffering for our art, to pick up on Circe and Penelope. 

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid  83-4

[4] Ibid 84

[5] Ibid 85

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid 83

See West’s Notes at: West, D. Horace Odes I Carpe Diem: Text, Translation and Commentary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1995), pp.86-91

In the first stanza West’s version refers to the ‘holy vine’[1].  ‘Wine is a consolation and a delight given by the gods (1-6) and there are ample warnings not to misuse it (7-11)[2]
‘… The poem ends with an unflattering account of the participants.  They are led by the blind, by Self-love.’[3]

Horace makes it clear ‘that he wanted nothing to do with self-love and pride and could be trusted to keep silence.  He would drink with the great but he would not retail their conversation.  Such qualities were much appreciated by the Romans… and much appreciated by Augustus.  The proof is the surviving letter in which Augustus asked him to become his private secretary.  This poem is not just a literary game, nor is it simply a piece of flattery from client to patron.  We saw when Horace borrowed his first line from Alcaeus, that he added to it the concept of holiness.  Religious terms abound in the poem.  It is god that makes life hard for teetotallers in line 3… The villains of the piece are not the gods, but their drunken followers.  This is not just literary furniture.  In his cups and his lovemaking, Horace sensed the presence of something more than human.’[4]

In stanza one I use ‘Amber nectar’.  It is a homely term but with hint at sacredness via nectar, drink of the gods and ‘gods’ picks up the sacred vine too.

For the location in the opening of the original, I have an English equivalent; one associated with a literary festival. In stanza two ‘beer, and ‘lover’ pick up Bacchus and Venus in the original. The equivalent in proper names of the Centaurs and Lapiths (archetypal battling boozers) is picked up by using Gazza (Gasgoine the footballer) to add north east colour.

Horace’s dislike for self-love is picked up in my final stanza by the advice, ‘Let others praise your work don’t praise your own. / You’d better keep a tight tongue in your head.’   And the final warning of the original, ‘Keep in check your wild drums and Berecyntian horn with their retinue / of blind Self-love, Vainglory raising her empty head absurdly high / and Trust betrayed, squandering secrets, more transparent than glass.’ [5] picked up as a warning not to view everything through the bottom of a glass: here the intention being to convert the idea of transparency of glass in the original into a warning to the person who abuses alcohol not to see things through the bottom of a beer glass – such a view would be distorted.

Weight of Horace’s original I think is:

Enjoy a drink – praise wine, but don’t abuse it.
Avoid self-love and self-praise
Acceptance that life is hard and perhaps even harder if sober!
’In his cups and in his lovemaking, Horace sensed the presence of something more than human.’[6]

[2] Ibid 86

[3] Ibid 87-8

[4] Ibid 91

[5] D. West,. Horace Odes I Carpe Diem: Text, Translation and Commentary, Oxford:  Clarendon Press,
   1995,   87

[6] Ibid 91

See West’s Notes at: West, D. Horace Odes I Carpe Diem: Text, Translation and Commentary: Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1995), pp.92-95

In a way this ode reminds me a bit of Epode XIV, ‘Mollis inertia’, where the narrator is so overtaken by thoughts of love as to make him ineffective altogether in relation to his writing.  Here though, what is happening is that he is being prevented from writing about anything but love, ‘Love is forbidding him to write poems [about them or] about anything which is not relevant to his love.’[1]

West points out Horace’s love for the oxymoron, ‘Oxymoron is a favourite Horatian figure.  This poem begins with a savage mother, continues with Licence giving orders and in the second stanza has pleasing naughtiness.  All this demonstrates Horace’s taste for the paradoxical and surreal.  He likes surprises.’[2]

‘The poem starts with a sophisticated and perhaps gently self-mocking reference to gods.  The second stanza is a sensuous and beautifully organised description of the attractions of the beloved.  The third conveys the irresistible force of love’s onset and Horace’s total submission to it as the cost of all other interests.  But now in the fourth stanza we see him praying to be saved from the violent effects of love…We leave the theology of Hellenistic Greece, the ravishment of the senses, the world of politics to be with the poet on his Sabine farm telling his young slaves to set up a simple turf altar, bring the statutory greenery for a sacrifice… He hopes that if he sacrifices an animal, the love goddess will come upon him not like a flash of lightning, but in a gentler mood.’[3]

My version of this ode is written in the voice of a middle-aged woman speaker who in a middle-class, Women’s Institute kind of way, is rather surprised by her own rekindled passionate feelings. But whereas in the original it is Venus who ‘rushes upon me with all her force’[4], the narrator in my version is overpowered by Cupid – but he too appears in the original in any case.  

Whilst a passion for poetry is at the forefront of this version, there is also present, a fantasy about having a particular literary figure in the life of the narrator.  It is left to the reader to decide whether at the end of the poem the poet she wants to embrace an actual man/partner, or just a collection of poetry.  She knows too, that her thoughts and aspirations in relation to her poetry are perhaps every bit as much of a fantasy (in terms of achievement), as are her thoughts for the literary figure of her desires, but nevertheless she finds she has to ‘toy with them, / swirl them around for flavour as you would / a delicious mouthful of red.’  This narrator is as much taken over by passions as is the narrator in Horace’s poem – every bit as much out of control.

Horace’s poem is elevated in tone, containing many proper names.  I have tried humourously to lower the tone.  Bacchus in mine is represented by a ‘nightly tipple’ and whereas in the original Glycera sets the narrator on fire, the narrator in my version is set on fire (for love of poetry) by having ‘rubbed shoulders with the T.S. Eliot list’

I maintain the idea of lightning in my version.  Likewise I turn the real slaves of the original into a metaphorical one, when I express a wish that Reason prevail in the acceptance that the narrator needs to act her age.
To bring out the Latin, lubricus, I use ‘slippery slope’ and I substitute the real physical animal sacrifice in the original with a metaphorical sacrifice at the end of the poem.

[2] Ibid  94

[3] Ibid  94-5

[4] Ibid p.93

See West’s Notes at:  West, D. Horace Odes I Carpe Diem: Text, Translation and Commentary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1995), pp. 04-99

My version is also a poem in praise of a patron, a Professor of Classics who has supported and encouraged the narrator in her work and the narrator here also invites the patron to her home to enjoy not fine wine, but Newcastle brown ale from wooden crates, and Northern beer.

The narrator of this poem is, as the narrator in the original trying to express gratitude for the gift which has been given.  In Horace’s case it is the Sabine Farm, in the case of the narrator it is the gift of scholarly support and encouragement.

I use the opening ‘pore over’ to suggest close intent examination, but also it will serve as an echo of pour for the following lines when the narrator invites her patron, the professor to join her for drinks.

The home of the narrator, Denevale is an equivalent for Horace’s Sabine farm/valley and just as Maecenas was applauded when he went to the theatre, so too, the professor in my version is applauded by ranks of students.  Just As ‘Vatican’ in the original was an allusion to Rome, so to in my version Isis is an allusion to Oxford.

The narrator in my version is also intent on hanging onto her identity as a working-class northerner whilst at the same time being confident enough in the relationship with her patron that he would put her invitation to share Newcastle brown ale and friendship above his connoisseurship of fine wine and the Oxford way of life, so there is still the use of an alcohol code to demonstrate different social and intellectual status.  Here too, then, the narrator is defiant, grateful and appreciative yes – praising yes, but determined to offer her own inferior product and stick to her rough northern voice.

See West’s Notes at: West, D. Horace Odes I Carpe Diem: Text, Translation and Commentary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1995), pp.100-103

I found this one of the more tricky poems over which to place a contemporary version.  Basically these two choirs of girls and boys are being told to celebrate – and the occasion is the dedication of the temple to Apollo and to praise Augustus for having built it.  There is no real parallel I can think of in the contemporary world.  I don’t think there needs to be in this setting, but what I have tried to do is capture the traditional roles and expectations of the two sexes and how they might celebrate and then contemporize in order to more accurately reflect things as they are now.

I reverse this ode, making the girls more hard-nosed; Make them sing/write about erotic pursuit whereas the boys take on a more traditionally ‘female’ and ‘innocent’ role.  This is to try and reflect some of the changes in our society where women generally have become more the predator and men have become more willing to demonstrate their ‘feminine side’

‘Cold wait’ is meant to echo the coldness of Mount Algidus in the original and the ‘profile’ outside the door, the black shapes of the conifers on the top.  I use the successful contemporary poet Michael Longley to match the reference to Caesar in the last stanza of the original.

I have also tried to echo the idea of ‘aim’ and ‘conspicuous’ and the phrase ‘You, like your brothers’ is meant to reflect the idea that Apollo and Diana were siblings.

The extreme points of the globe, Persia and Briton in the original is represented by the phrase ‘universal’ in my version.

After telling the girls to be ‘conspicuous’ I tell them to reach for the stars, the point being that just as Apollo drove out war with its tears, and famine and pestilence with their misery – drove them far away from the people and from Caesar out towards Persia and Briton, so that way the ‘girls’ in my version can reach for the stars (as in heavenly stars and showbiz stars)  – this is what they should aim for, but my version also contains a kind of warning, namely that stars burn out/fade  I suspect, knowing Horace’s wisdom that he would have realized that the powers-that-be in Rome would also burn out. /fade.

See West’s Notes at:  West, D. Horace Odes I Carpe Diem: Text, Translation and Commentary: Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1995) pp. 104-107

West holds the view that, ‘The man who wrote the first twenty-one poems in
this book would not have walked in a dangerous forest singing about his Lalage, and if he had he would not have expected his singing to frighten away a wolf.  Such experiences are reserved for more solemn lovers such as Propertius.’[1]

‘The ode is full of genial exaggerations….The doting lover is seen as a soldier.  Hence the spears, bows and arrows of the first stanza.’[2]  The Ode is addressed to Horace’s friend, Aristius Fuscus, who ‘had a very good sense of humour’[3]. 
The two ‘…sit together nodding like a pair of old pigeons who know each other well.’[4]

Almond Version

I think this is meant to be a cheerful poem – an ironic look at the
actions of the lover whom I replace in my version by a naïve poet.  In both versions, the narrator puts himself on the rack – i.e. into a hostile environment, where they know they will be attacked.  In other words, they are their own worst enemy.

’Unaffected’ is a thesaurus alternative for ‘innocent’ which is the meaning behind the original, but for me adds another dimension, intending to hint at unpretentious, unconceited.  The ironic message here is that if you’re innocent/ have a clear conscience, you have no need of defence because you won’t be attacked. 

The main irony behind this poem is that it is not meant to be taken seriously: hence the idea that the famous, well-established poet would fear anything my narrator could possibly say.  This is to mirror the idea in the original of the wolf running away from the singer.

My reference to ‘hard nut’ is a play on my own surname, but also refers to the difficulty of gaining recognition.

’My feet’ is a play on the well-known phrase, ‘getting your feet under the table’ meaning getting accepted, but ‘feet’ is also meant to echo iambic feet as in poetry.

The reference to Teesside is meant to equate with Horace’s Sabine estate giving local colour.  I’ve changed Hughes’ thought fox to wild dog because that way it suggests both Hughes’ fox and Horace’s wolf under the generic title of ‘dog’ both being canine.

ibid

[2] Ibid p.105

[3] Ibid p.106

[4] ibid