Horace, ode 1.9: Outside it is cold, but inside it is warm and cosy!

Thus far this winter here has hardly been severe and now it is even 10 degrees; my beloved snow and ice are far away. I am jealous of Horace, looking at the snow of  mount Soracte, while sitting near the fireplace, drinking wine and giving advice to a young friend. Instead of a fireplace, I have a central heating and at the moment I am sitting here all alone. The only thing I have in common now with Horace is wine. Cheers to you all and a happy New Year!

Ode 1.9 (metre: alcaic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcaic_stanza )

Vides ut alta stet niue candidum

Soracte nec iam sustineant onus

     siluae laborantes geluque

     flumina constiterint acuto?

nix nivis (f):   snow (connected with English `snow’. sn is not tolerated in Latin at the beginning of a word)

candidus        bright, white

Soracte:         a high mountain in Etruria, 20 miles north of Rome.

silva:              forrest

onus, oneris (n): burden (of snow)

laborantes:    straining and bending

gelus, -us (m):           coldness, but here more probably `ice’

consto –stiti -stitum:            to stand still

Dissolue frigus ligna super foco               5

large reponens atque benignius

     deprome quadrimum Sabina,

     o Thaliarche, merum diota.

frigus, oris (n):          coldness

lignum:                      wood

focus:             fireplace

large:              abundantly

repono –posui –positum: to put again (i.e. to replace the burnt wood)

depromo -prompsi, -promptum: to draw out, draw forth, bring out, fetch

     deprome quadrimum Sabina merum diota = deprome quadrimum merum (in) Sabina diota

quadrimus:    of four winters, four years old (Sometimes commentaries leave one in the dark: is it four winters, because wine was put in jars during autumn or is it a reflection of a time that years were counted in winters, like in Oldgermanic cultures?)

Sabinus:  from the area Sabina near Rome (grammatically Sabina belongs to diota, but but semantically with merum: the wine was Sabine, not the jars)

Thaliarchus:   friend of Horace

merum:          unmixed wine (normally wine was mixed with water)

diota:              a twohandled vessel, wine-jar          

Permitte diuis cetera, qui simul

strauere uentos aequore feruido               10

     deproeliantes, nec cupressi

     nec ueteres agitantur orni.

permitto:       not `to permit’, but `to leave to, commit’

divis = deis

cetera:             everthing outside the company of friends at this very moment

simul:             together

sterno stravi stratum:         to spread out (cf. street. The a is still in German Strasse, Dutch straat), calm down. stravere  is a poetic for straverunt. The perfect does not denote a past action here, but something which is repeatedly done, so translate it as a present!

aeqor. –oris (n):        the sea

fervidus:        vehemt, violant

deproelior:    warring violently

cupressus:      cypress (an evergreen tree)

vetus veteris: old

ornus:             wild mountain-ash ( a kind of tree)

agito:              to set in violent motion (here by the winds)

Quid sit futurum cras, et

quem fors dierum cumque dabit, lucro

      adpone nec dulces amores

     sperne puer neque tu choreas,               15

cras:               tomorrow

fuge quaerere: stop looking for

et quem fors dierum cumque dabit = et quemcumque dierum fors dabit

dierum:                       genitivus partitivus

fors = fortuna

lucrum:                      gain

appono –posui –positum:  place by, consider

spernō sprēvī sprētum:       to despise

puer: some editors take this as a vocative and put it between commas, but it is more likely an appostion to tu, so `you, as long as you are a young man’

chorea:                       dance

donec uirenti canities abest

morosa. Nunc et Campus et areae

     lenesque sub noctem susurri

      composita repetantur hora,

donec:            as long as

virens –entis:            youth (virens is the participle of vireo `be green’ and so the ablative can be in i.)

canities (f):    grey hair, old age

morosus:        peevish, wayward (for reasons unknown to me, young Roman poets considered every male with grey hair as a grumpy old man)

Campus:         the Campus Martialis at Rome

area:               broad open space in a city

lenis, is:          soft

sub + acc:       just before, so `at dawn’

susurrus:       whispering’

composita hora (abl.!):          at the appointed hour

repeto –petivi –petitum:      to find (note the subjunctive: let at as long as you are young (nunc means not now here, but denotes the time of being a puer) the Campus and open places be found with the soft whispering of lovers)

nunc et latentis proditor intumo               20

gratus puellae risus ab angulo

     pignusque dereptum lacertis

     aut digito male pertinaci.

nunc et latentis proditor intumo gratus puellae risus ab angulo = nunc et (repetatur) ab angulo intumo (=intimo) gratus proditor risus puellae latentis

angulus:         corner

gratus:                       pleasing

proditor: here adjective `betraying’

risus, us (m): laughter

latens, -entis: hidden

pignus -oris (n):        pledge, but here a bracelet or ring

deripio -ripui –reptum:       tear away

lacertus:         upper-arm, arm

digitus                        finger

male pertinaci: hardly resisting

This is a poetic translation by Paul Shorey (1910):

See, how it stands, one pile of snow,

Soracte! 'neath the pressure yield

Its groaning woods; the torrents' flow

With clear sharp ice is all congeal'd.

Heap high the logs, and melt the cold,

Good Thaliarch; draw the wine we ask,

That mellower vintage, four-year-old,

From out the cellar'd Sabine cask.

The future trust with Jove; when he

Has still'd the warring tempests' roar

On the vex'd deep, the cypress-tree

And aged ash are rock'd no more.

O, ask not what the morn will bring,

But count as gain each day that chance

May give you; sport in life's young spring,

Nor scorn sweet love, nor merry dance,

While years are green, while sullen eld

Is distant. Now the walk, the game,

The whisper'd talk at sunset held,

Each in its hour, prefer their claim.

Sweet too the laugh, whose feign'd alarm

The hiding-place of beauty tells,

The token, ravish'd from the arm

Or finger, that but ill rebels.