Horace III 6 To the Romans April 26

Hello, I'm Bernard Norkot Mahaney. I work at the Bluford branch of the Kansas City Public Library. In April of 2022, I am reading some of Horace's odes, some of Horace's poems, from his first three books of odes, which were published as a unit in 23 BCE. Today, we're looking at poem six from book three of the odes. The first six odes of book three are sometimes called the Roman odes, and this one, David Ferry, the translator, entitles to the Romans, and it basically is sort of like, we need to be like our ancestors were, and the image of the ancestors in this case, they were simple, frugal people who did what they needed to do, right? So they're bound by their sense of duty, and modern Romans, Horace feels contemporary Romans aren't living up to the example of their ancestors, and they need to get back to that. So that's the main thing in this last of the Roman odes. It's not a question of whether or not you're guilty, Roman, yourself. The transgressions of your fathers must be paid for. You must rebuild the broken down temples and the toppled altars. You must restore also the fallen statues, cleaned of their grime. The only way to rule is to serve the gods. All things begin from them, and it is only the gods who know how all things end. Neglected, the gods brought down upon the Romans all the misfortunes sorrowing Italy suffers from in these days. Twice now, the Parthians have crushed our army, turning us back under a bad star sign. How they must grin, the Parthian warriors, so pleased to have added Roman trophies to all the others that dangle and glitter on their savage necklaces. Confused, bewildered by internal conflict, the city of Rome just barely escapes destruction by the Dacians, formidable and fearsome because of the skills of their famous ranks of archers, or by the Egyptians, formidable as they, but because of their ships, prolific with vileness, this generation has soiled the marriage bed and then corrupted the children in the home, and from this source, reeking, polluted, and degenerate, calamity flows out, infecting everything there is in the Roman state. The young woman, eager for love and eager for pleasure, first takes her pleasure in learning how to dance in the lascivious Grecian way, and practices her skills, her mind alive with images of the unchaste loves to come. It isn't long before in her husband's house at the drinking parties, she's on the lookout, and not without his knowledge, for younger lovers, nor is she choosy about whoever it is when the lights are low, some visiting salesman perhaps, or maybe some Spanish ship captain or other, dealers in shame. In the old days, the days of the fathers of those because of whom the sea ran red with Punic blood, and those because of whom Antiochus fell, and Hannibal the terrible, it wasn't like this. Those virtuous Romans were taught how to use the Sabine hoe to till the soil of their father's farm, and at their mother's call to carry in the cut wood, went on the hill, the shadows shifted, and the sun went down. It was the hour of rest for man and beast. What is there that has been left unruined? Our parents' time was worse than was their parents' time, and then they brought forth us, worse than they were, and after us will be our sons and daughters, worse than we are, than theirs, still worse than they." So this ending of the poem deals with this declension of humankind, or in this case, the Romans. They used to be great, then less great, less great, less great, and now it's more and more rotten, but he's calling the Romans to be more like the Romans of the time of the Punic Wars when they were still sort of virtuous. So that's the end of the Romanodes. We'll have a few more poems of Horace from book three to round out the month.