Horace III 4 to the Muses April 24

Hello, I'm Bernard Norcott Mahaney. I work at the Bluford branch of the Kansas City Public Library. For April of 2022, I am reading translations of some of Horace's odes. Horace published four books of odes in his lifetime. The first three books were published as a unit in 23 BCE, and I'm reading from those three books in this month of April. I'm using the translation by David Ferry. Today we're looking at poem four of book three, and this is one of the six odes at the beginning of book three that are called the Roman odes, and they're supposed to be like Roman virtues. So the virtue that's extolled in poem four is clemency, the idea of clemency, right? The Romans are the biggest power in the Mediterranean at time that Horace is writing. They control the Mediterranean, and they're supposed to use that power lightly. Now the Romans didn't always do that, but that's sort of the ideal, and he invokes the muses who represent sort of like wise counsel to him as a poet, but also to Augustus as ruler. Come down from heaven, Calliope, and play upon the flute a in clearest voice, or accompanied by the strings of Apollo's lyre. Companions, do you hear her too, or does some pleasing daydream play with me? Do I, as I think I do, wander upon a sacred landscape where the quiet sound of hidden waters can be heard and breezes stir? When I was a child, I strayed out to the slopes of Mount Volturi, out beyond the limits prescribed for me by Pullia, my nurse. And when I tired of playing and fell asleep, why, then the guardian doves spread over me a blanket of fallen leaves, and all the dwellers in the villages around, high Acarantia, Bantia in the woods, and low Farentum, were full of wonder, I slept so unafraid, covered with bay and myrtle, safe and sound from any harm from bears or vipers. These days I take myself, your child, O muses, up to the lofty heights of my Sabine hills, or over to cool Prineste, or Tiberside, or sunny Baiae, where I choose to go. Companion of your waterfalls and choirs, I could go anywhere. I came away unscathed from Philippi, and the falling tree, and the giant wave near Palinura's head. So long as you are with me, I will gladly set foot on board as a fearless sailor on the furious Bosporus, or gladly wander over the burning sands of Syria, safely visit the inhospitable Britons, the Galoni with their arrows, the Scythians who drink the dawn, or the Concanians who are said to love to drink the blood of horses. It is you, O muses, who refreshed our Caesar with the waters of some cool Pierian grotto, when, having sent away his weary troops to settle in the towns, he took his ease. You, goddesses, who give the great gentlest counsel, and take delight in having given it, you know the story of how the Titans and their monstrous cohort were struck down by the lightning bolt of the god who rules the massy earth, the windy sea, all cities, and the realms of shadow underground, for he alone is final governor of gods and men. That upstart gang, waving their many hands, brought horrifying war on Jupiter, as did the brothers determined to pile up mountains, mountain on top of mountain, making chaos, Peleon on Ossa on Olympus. But what could Typheus do, or monstrous Mimas, Porphyrian, Grimacing, Retis, or Enceladus, hurling trees torn up by the roots? What could they do against the chiming shield of Pallas Athena? Vulcan was there beside her, avid for victory. Juno was there, and Apollo, whose bow was ever ready at his shoulder. The god who bathes his unbound flowing hair in the stream that flows out from the Castalian spring, the god who haunts the wood of Lycia, and the hill on the isle of Delos, where he was born. Strength without wisdom falls by its own weight. The strength that wisdom tempers, the gods abhor that strength, whose heart knows nothing but what impiety is, and it is punished. Hundred-handed Gaius has reason to know the meaning of what I say, and so has Orion, who sought to tempt the chaste goddess Diana. She therefore struck him down with her chastening arrow. Earth, lying upon their fallen bodies, groans and mutters in her grief for her monstrous brood, sent down to ghastly Orcus by Jupiter's lightning. Nor has the fire finished eating its way through Aetna's inner jet. Nor has the vulture who watches over Titius's tortured lust finished its meal of his liver. And he who sought to take Proserpina still lies in chains. So that is poem four from book three of Horace's Odes. David Ferry entitles it To the Muses. The muses are certainly invoked, but here they represent the sort of wisdom advising Caesar, Caesar Augustus, also advising Horace as a poet. And they, you know, wisdom combined with strength is a good thing. Clemency shown to the fallen is a good thing. Although the giants who are represented here as the force of like unreason, they're not really shown a lot of clemency by Jupiter. And perhaps they don't deserve it because, you know, if left to their own devices, they would cause more trouble. So that was poem four from book three of the Odes.