Horace, Ode 2.14

by Michael Gilleland

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Synopsis (by C.H. Moore): "Alas, good friend, do what we will, old age and death come on apace. No sacrifice can stay the hand of the pitiless lord of death; rich and poor alike must come into his realm, and all thy efforts to avoid war, the sea, or fell disease are vain. Thou must leave behind all that thou holdest now most dear. Then thy stored wine, thy heir, worthier than thou, will waste."

  Text Crib
  Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume,
labuntur anni, nec pietas moram
   rugis et instanti senectae
     adferet indomitaeque morti, 		Alas, Postumus, Postumus, the fleeting
years are slipping by, and devotion will
not delay wrinkles, the onslaught
of old age, and unconquered death,
5
 
 
  		non si trecenis quotquot eunt dies,
amice, places inlacrimabilem
   Plutona tauris, qui ter amplum
     Geryonen Tityonque tristi 		not even, [my] friend, if you try each
day to please dry-eyed Pluto with three
hundred [slaughtered] bulls. He keeps
Geryon and Tityos in check
 
10
 
  		compescit unda, scilicet omnibus,
quicumque terrae munere uescimur,
   enauiganda, siue reges
     siue inopes erimus coloni. 		behind the gloomy stream, which must be crossed
in very truth by all of us who feed on the
bounty of the earth, whether we are
kings or penniless sharecroppers.
 
 
15
  		Frustra cruento Marte carebimus
fractisque rauci fluctibus Hadriae,
   frustra per autumnos nocentem
     corporibus metuemus Austrum. 		In vain will we flee bloody Mars
and the broken waves of the hoarse Adriatic sea,
in vain each autumn will we avoid
the south wind which harms [our] bodies.
 
 
 
20 		Visendus ater flumine languido
Cocytus errans et Danai genus
   infame damnatusque longi
     Sisyphus Aeolides laboris. 		You must face the dark Cocytus river,
which meanders with sluggish flow,
and Danaus' accursed race and Aeolus'
son Sisyphus, condemned to endless toil.
 
 
 
  		Linquenda tellus et domus et placens
uxor, neque harum quas colis arborum
   te praeter inuisas cupressos
     ulla breuem dominum sequetur. 		You must leave earth, home, and affectionate
wife. None of those trees which you're
tending will accompany you (their short-lived
master), except for the hated cypresses.
25
 
 
  		Absumet heres Caecuba dignior
seruata centum clauibus et mero
   tinguet pauimentum superbo,
     pontificum potiore cenis. 		Your heir, more worthy [than you], will use up
your Caecuban wines, kept under a hundred locks;
he will spill on the floor the proud wine,
better than [that served] at high priests' feasts.

Notes

There is an excellent recording of a Latin recitation of Horace, Ode 2.14, by Vojin Nedeljkovic in MP3 format.

1 We don't know who Postumus was, and his name may just be used here for special effect, with no real individual in mind. The name Postumus was originally given to boys born after their fathers' deaths. Some think that this Postumus is the same as the one addressed in Propertius 3.12.

2 Old time is still a-flying.

Devotion to the gods (pietas) cannot prevent the death of oneself or others.

3 Along with white hair, wrinkles (especially in the forehead) are a sign of old age.

Old age presses upon us.

4 Homer, Iliad 9.158: "Hades is unyielding and not to be prevailed over".

5 Death does not listen to prayers or heed sacrifices.

6 Pluto is the god of the underworld. According to Ovid (Fasti 4.521) the gods don't weep.

7 Hercules' tenth labor was to capture the cattle of Geryon, a three-headed or three-bodied monster. In order to capture the cattle, Hercules had to kill Geryon.

8 The giant Tityos was slain by Artemis and Apollo for insulting their mother Leto. He was chained in Hades while vultures gnawed at his liver. He was so large that his body covered nine acres of ground.

9 There were five rivers in Hades: Styx (hateful), Archeron (painful), Cocytus (woeful), Phlegethon (burning), and Lethe (forgetful). Horace's gloomy stream (literally wave), is probably Cocytus (named below, line 18).

10 An imitation of Homeric phrases:

13 Mars is the Roman god of war. The Greek elegaic poet Callinus (fragment 1, tr. J.M. Edmonds) also says that death still awaits even the soldier who has come safe through battle: "By no means may a man escape death, nay not if he come of immortal lineage. Oftentime, it may be, he returneth safe from the conflict of battle and the thud of spears, and the doom of death cometh upon him at home."

14 The Adriatic Sea lies between Italy and Greece.

15 Autumn was considered an unhealthy season.

16 Death does not distinguish between rich and poor.

18 All but one of the daughters of Danaus, known as the Danaids, killed their husbands on their wedding night. Their punishment in Hades was to try to fill a sieve with water.

For ancient artistic representations of the punishment of the Danaids, see Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae III (Zurich: Artemis, 1986), part 1, pp. 337-341 (text, by Eva Keuls) and part 2, pp. 250-253 (plates).

19 For various misdeeds on earth, Sisyphus was condemned in Hades to roll a large stone up a hill. When it reached the top, it rolled down again, so that Sisyphus' punishment was eternal.

For ancient artistic representations of Sisyphus, see Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae VII (Zurich: Artemis, 1994), part 1, pp. 781-787 (text, by John H. Oakley) and part 2, pp. 564-567 (plates).

21 You can't take your possessions with you when you die.

In these lines Horace is probably consciously imitating Lucretius 3.894-896: "It may not be long before your house and your excellent wife do not welcome you. Your sweet children will not rush to snatch your kisses and touch your heart with unspoken sweetness." (iam iam non domus accipiet laeta neque uxor / optima, nec dulces occurent oscula nati / praeripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent).

Cf. Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus 3.24.88 (tr. W.A. Oldfather): "Furthermore, at the very moment when you are taking delight in something, call to mind the opposite impressions. What harm is there if you whisper to yourself, at the very moment you are kissing your child, and say, 'To-morrow you will die'?"

23 The cypress tree was associated with funeral pyres, the houses of families in mourning, and tombs.

25 Why accumulate possessions which only your heir will enjoy?

On the other hand, there are those who willingly work to benefit the next generation. Cicero, On Old Age 7.24-25: "They expend effort on things which they know won't benefit them: 'He plants trees to benefit another age,' as our Caecilius Statius says in his [play] Young Comrades. If you ask a farmer, no matter how old he is, for whom he's sowing, he doesn't hesitate to say, 'For the immortal gods, who not only were willing for me to receive these things from my ancestors, but also for me to hand them on to my descendants.'" (in eis elaborant, quae sciunt nihil ad se omnino pertinere: 'serit arbores, quae altero saeclo prosint', ut ait Statius noster in Synephebis. nec uero dubitat agricola, quamuis sit senex, quaerenti cui serat respondere: 'dis immortalibus, qui me non accipere modo haec a maioribus uoluerunt, sed etiam posteris prodere.'). Victor Davis Hanson, The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization (New York: The Free Press, 1995), p. 43, emphasises the essential difference between the cultivation of permanent crops (olive trees and grape vines) and short-term crops (grain and livestock feed).

26 The wine is kept under lock and key to protect it from pilfering slaves.

27 The wine is proud because it is "conscious of its excellence and ... outlives man" (C.H. Moore). Petronius 34: "Wine lives longer than little man" (diutius uiuit uinum quam homuncio).

At a feast wine could be spilled inadvertently, out of carelessness, or on purpose, through spitting while tasting the wine (pytisma).

The Romans don't seem to have played the popular Greek game kottabos, in which drinkers tried to flip wine from their cups into a target bowl -- this game obviously resulted in a lot of wine spilled on the floor.

28 The feasts of priests were notorious for their lavishness:

Survival

Robert Herrick

Robert Herrick (1591-1674) imitated Horace's ode in the first two stanzas of his poem "His Age: Dedicated to his Peculiar Friend Mr. John Wickes, under the Name of Postumus": 
Ah, Posthumus!  our years hence fly
And leave no sound:  nor piety,
Or prayers, or vow
Can keep the wrinkle from the brow;
But we must on,
As fate does lead or draw us; none,
None, Posthumus, could e'er decline
The doom of cruel Proserpine.

The pleasing wife, the house, the ground
Must all be left, no one plant found
To follow thee,
Save only the curst cypress-tree!
--A merry mind
Looks forward, scorns what's left behind;
Let's live, my Wickes, then, while we may,
And here enjoy our holiday.

Richard Fanshawe

Richard Fanshawe (1608-1664) was an ambassador from England to Spain and Portugal. He also translated selections from Horace and Vergil. Here is his version of Ode 2.14: 
Ah Posthumus? the years of man
Slide on with winged pace, nor can
  Vertue reprieve her friend
  From wrinkles, age, and end.

Not, though thou bribe with daily blood
Stern Dis, who with the Stygian Flood
  Doth Gerion surround,
  And Titius Acres bound.

Sad Flood, which we must ferry all
That feed upon this earthly ball,
  From the King to the poor
  Beggar that howls at door.

In vain we avoid Mars's fury,
And breaking waves that kill and bury:
  In vain the sickly falls,
  Fruitful of funerals.

Visit we must the sootie shore
Of dull Cocytus, th' empty store
  Of Danaus wicked stock,
  And Sisyphus restless rock.

Thou must forgoe thy lands and goods,
And pleasing wife: Nor of thy woods
  Shall any follow thee,
  But the sad Cypress-tree.

Thy worthy heir shall then carowse
Thy hoarded wines, and wash the house
  With better Sack, then that
  Which makes the Abbots fat.

Robert Woodford

The following paraphrase of Horace, Ode 2.14, appears in The Poems of Horace ... Rendred in English Verse by Several Persons (London, 1666), pp. 69-71. There it is attributed to S.W. (i.e. Samuel Woodford), but it is actually by his father Robert Woodford. See Harold F. Brooks in Notes and Queries (March 19, 1938), p. 200. 
Time (Posthumus) goes with full sail,
  Nor can thy honest heart avail
A furrow'd brow, old age at hand,
  Or Death unconquer'd to withstand:
    One long night,
      Shall hide this light
    From all our sight,
      And equal Death
Shall few dayes hence, stop every breath.

Though thou whole Hecatomb's should'st bring
  In honour of th' Infernal King,
Who Geryon and Tytio bold,
  In chaines of Stygian waves doth hold:
    He'l not prize,
      But more despise
    Thy sacrifice:
      Thou Death must feel,
'Tis so decre'd by the Fatal Wheel.

The numerous Off-spring of the Earth,
  That feed on her who gave them birth;
Each birth must have its funeral,
  The Womb and Urn's alike to all:
    Kings must die,
      And as still lie,
    As thou or I;
      And though they have
Atchievements here, there's none in th' Grave.

In vain we bloody battles flie,
  Or fear to sail when winds are high;
The Plague or an infectious breath,
  When every hour brings a new Death.
    Time will mowe
      What e're we sow;
    Both weal and woe
      Shall have an end,
And this th' unwilling Fates must send.

Cocytus lake must thou waft o're,
  Thy totter'd boat shall touch that shore;
Thou Sisyphus ere long must know,
  And into new acquaintance grow:
    Shalt with life,
      Leave house and wife,
    Thy loves and strife,
      And have no tree,
But the sad Cypress follow thee.

Mean while thy heir shall nobly quaffe,
  What thou with hundred locks kept'st safe,
Caecuban wines, and wash the Flore
  With juice would make an Emperor rore:
    'T will be thy lot,
      Question it not,
    To be forgot
      With all thy deeds,
E're he puts on his Mourning weeds.

Thomas Creech

Thomas Creech (1659-1700) translated Lucretius and Horace. Here is his version of Ode 2.14: 
The whirling Year, ah, Friend! the whirling Year
        Rouls on apace,
And soon shall Wrinkles plough thy withered Face:
        In vain you waste your breath,
        No prayers can stay nor Vows defer
The swift approach of Age, and conquering Death:

No, tho' ten thousand Oxen stain'd his Shrines
        With sacred Blood,
Should'st thou appease th' inexorable God:
        He opens, and he shuts the grave;
        Geryon's triple Soul confines,
And stubborn Gyges with the Stygian Wave:

That fatal Wave that must be pass'd by all,
        The Rich, the Poor
Are doomed alike to view the Stygian shore;
        The Knaves and Fools, the Wise and Just,
        The Kings as well as Clowns must fall;
And undistinguished lie with meaner Dust:

In vain we all retreat from dangerous War,
        And live in ease;
In vain we shun the Rage of angry Seas;
        The burning Fevers Autumn brings,
        In vain we fly, and idly fear
The Plagues that South-winds bear on sickly Wings.

For all the Stygian Waves are doomed to pass;
        We all must go
And view Cocytus' wand'ring Streams below:
        We all must see the lasting Chains
        That hold curst Danaus his race,
And Sisyphus condemned to endless Pains.

Thy children must be left, thy Lands and House,
        Thy pleasing Wife,
That happy Comfort and Delight of Life;
        Of all the Trees thy hands restor'd,
        None but the Cypress' hated Boughs
Shall follow their short-lived decaying Lord.

The Wines you keep so close thy worthier Heir
        Shall soon possess,
And waste 'midst wanton Luxury and Ease;
        Much nobler Wine the squand'ring Youth
        Shall spill, and costlier Feasts prepare,
Than ever pleas'd a Pampered Abbot's Tooth.

Samuel Johnson

English lexicigrapher, poet, and essayist Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) translated Ode 2.14 as follows. 
Alas, dear friend, the fleeting years
In everlasting circles run,
In vain you spend your vows and prayers,
They roll, and ever will roll on.

Should hecatombs each rising morn
On cruel Pluto's altar dye,
Should costly loads of incense burn,
Their fumes ascending to the sky:

You could not gain a moment's breath
Or move the haughty king below
Nor would inexorable death
Defer an hour the fatal blow.

In vain we shun the din of war,
And terrors of the stormy main,
In vain with anxious breasts we fear
Unwholesome Sirius' sultry reign;

We all must view the Stygian flood 
That silent cuts the dreary plains,
And Cruel Danaus' bloody brood 
Condemned to everduring pains.

Your shady groves, your pleasing wife,
And fruitful fields, my dearest friend,
You'll leave together with your life:
Alone the cypress 

After your death, the lavish heir
Will quickly drive away his woe;
The wine you kept with so much care
Along the marble floor shall flow.
In his Life of Johnson (aetat. 72, 1781), James Boswell relates an anecdote in which the opening words of this ode play a part:
An instance at once of his pensive turn of mind, and his cheerfulness of temper, appeared in a little story which he himself told to Mr Langton, when they were walking in his garden: 'Here (said he,) I had put a handsome sun-dial, with this inscription, Eheu fugaces! which (speaking with a smile) was sadly verified, for by the next morning my dial had been carried off.'

Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton

The English novelist and politician Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) made the following translation of Horace's ode: 
Postumus, Postumus, the years glide by us,
Alas! no piety delays the wrinkles,
  Nor old age imminent,
    Nor the indomitable hand of Death.

Though thrice each day a hecatomb were offered,
Friend, thou couldst soften not the tearless Pluto,
  Encoiling Totyus vast,
    And Geryon, triple giant, with sad waves--

Waves over which we all of us must voyage,
All whosoe'er the fruits of earth have tasted;
  Whether that earth we ruled
    As kings, or served as drudges of its soil.

Vainly we shun Mars and the gory battle,
Vainly the Hadrian hoarse with stormy breakers,
  Vainly, each autumn's fall,
    The sicklied airs through which the south wind sails.

Still the dull-winding ooze of slow Cocytus,
The ill-famed Danaids, and, to that task that ends not,
  Sentenced, Aeolides;
    These are the sights on which we all must gaze.

Lands, home, and wife in whom thy soul delighteth,
Left; and one tree alone of all thy woodlands,
  Loathed cypress, faithful found,
    Shall follow to the last the brief-lived lord.

The worthier heir thy Caecuban shall squander,
Bursting the hundred locks that guard its treasure,
  And wines more rare than those
    Sipped at high feasts by pontiffs, dye thy floors.

John Addington Symonds

Here is a translation of Horace's ode by John Addington Symonds (1807-1871), published in his Miscellanies (London: Macmillan, 1871), pp. 415-416: 
Ah me, my friend: how fast away
  Fly the fleet years! no holy spell
  Time or Time's wrinkles can repel,
Or Death's resistless march delay.

Pile up each day your hecatomb --
  Pluto heeds not! the giant brood,
  Vast Geryon, floating many a rood,
And Tityos writhe in ruthless doom,

Confined by that grim gulf below;
  And all who taste of earthly food
  Must cross that melancholy flood --
Princes and peasants all must go.

In vain from bloody wars we fly,
  And Hadria's roaring breakers shun:
  In vain shrink from the autumnal sun
And south winds breathing balefully;

That murky slow meandering river,
  Cocytus named, we all must view,
  And Danaus' dishonoured crew,
And him who heaves the stone for ever:

Abandoned land and home must be,
  And your sweet wife; of all your trees
  None but the hateful cypresses
May bear their brief lord company;

All your Caecubian hoards your heir,
  Though guarded by a hundred doors,
  Shall waste, and stain his gorgeous floors
With finer wine than pontiffs share.

William Ewart Gladstone

Here is a translation of Horace's Ode 2.14 by British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898): 
Ah! Postumus! Devotion fails
  The lapse of gliding years to stay,
With wrinkled age it nought avails
  Nor conjures conquering Death away.

Think not with daily hecatomb
  To alter iron Pluto's mind,
Him, that with rivers wrapt in gloom,
  Can Geryon huge, and Tityus, bind.

Not one that crops the fruits of earth,
  King, starveling boor who cleaves the soil,
Whatever state, whatever birth,
  Can from the fateful flood recoil.

In vain from gory war we shrink,
  And Adria's hoarse and tortured wave,
Nor breath of sickly Auster drink,
  Through Autumn, catering for the grave;

Visit we must the sluggish course
  Of black Cocytus, and the cask
That faithless Danaids fill perforce,
  And Sisyphus, his endless task.

Earth, home, and winsome wife, thy fate
  Will have thee leave; and not one tree
Of all, save cypress that we hate,
  O transient lord, shall follow thee.

A worthier heir thy wine will drain,
  Behind a hundred padlocks cased,
And Caecuban the pavement stain,
  More meet for pontiff's guests to taste.

John Conington

John Conington (1825-1869) was the first Corpus Professor of Latin at Oxford University. Here is his translation of Horace's Ode 2.14. 
Ah, Postumus! they fleet away,
  Our years, nor piety one hour
Can win from wrinkles and decay,
  And Death's indomitable power;
Not though three hundred bullocks flame
  Each year, to soothe the tearless king
Who holds huge Geryon's triple frame
  And Tityos in his watery ring,
That circling flood, which all must stem,
  Who eat the fruits that Nature yields,
Wearers of haughtiest diadem,
  Or humblest tillers of the fields.
In vain we shun war's contact red
  Or storm-tost spray of Hadrian main:
In vain, the season through, we dread
  For our frail lives Scirocco's bane.
Cocytus' black and stagnant ooze
  Must welcome you, and Danaus' seed
Ill-famed, and ancient Sisyphus
  To never-ending toil decreed.
Your land, your house, your lovely bride
  Must lose you; of your cherish'd trees
None to its fleeting master's side
  Will cleave, but those sad cypresses.
Your heir, a larger soul, will drain
  The hundred-padlock'd Caecuban,
And richer spilth the pavement stain
  Than e'er at pontiff's supper ran.

Roswell Martin Field

In Eugene Field's Echoes from the Sabine Farm (NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920), there is a translation of Ode 2.14 by Field's brother Roswell Martin Field. 

O Postumus, my Postumus, the years are gliding past,
And piety will never check the wrinkles coming fast,
The ravages of time old age's swift advance has made,
And death, which unimpeded comes to bear us to the shade.

Old friend, although the tearless Pluto you may strive to please,
And seek each year with thrice one hundred bullocks to appease,
Who keeps the thrice-huge Geryon and Tityus his slaves,
Imprisoned fast forevermore with cold and sombre waves,

Yet must that flood so terrible be sailed by mortals all;
Whether perchance we may be kings and live in royal hall,
Or lowly peasants struggling long with poverty and dearth,
Still must we cross who live upon the favors of the earth.

And all in vain from bloody war and contest we are free,
And from the waves that hoarsely break upon the Adrian Sea;
For our frail bodies all in vain our helpless terror grows
In gloomy autumn seasons, when the baneful south wind blows.

Alas! the black Cocytus, wandering to the world below,
That languid river to behold we of this earth must go;
To see the grim Danaides, that miserable race,
And Sisyphus of Aeolus, condemned to endless chase.

Behind you must leave your home and land and wife so dear,
And of the trees, except the hated cypresses, you rear,
And which around the funeral piles as signs of mourning grow,
Not one will follow you, their short-lived master, there below.

Your worthier heir the precious Caecuban shall drink galore,
Now with a hundred keys preserved and guarded in your store,
And stain the pavements, pouring out in waste the nectar proud,
Better than that with which the pontiffs' feasts have been endowed.

William Sinclair Marris

William Sinclair Marris (1873-1945) was a governor of the United Provinces of British India. He was also a translator of Homer, Catullus, and the odes of Horace. Here is his translation of Ode 2.14: 
They go, my Postumus, they go,
  The flying years! no pious faith
Can stay the furrows on the brow
  And rushing Age and conquering Death,

Not though with every sun that shines,
  Thou slay three hecatombs to woo
The tearless Pluto, who confines
  Huge Geryon and Tityus too,

With yon sad flood that every man
  Who feeds upon the gifts of earth
Must sail, be he of royal clan
  Or hind of poor and lowly birth.

In vain from bloody war we run,
  Or booming Adria's broken seas;
In vain through days of Autumn shun
  Sirocco's poison-laden breeze.

We yet must see Cocytus coil
  His crawling stream, and Sisyphus
Condemned eternally to toil,
  And the fell race of Danaus.

Land, house and winsome wife must all
  Be left; and of thy cherished trees
None follows its brief owner's pall
  Except the woful cypresses.

Thy worthier heir will drain the store
  Of wine that thou did'st guard so dear;
Yea, spill it on his marble floor,
  Though pontiffs never drank its peer.

Franklin P. Adams

American man of letters Franklin P. Adams (1881-1960) made at least two clever imitations of this ode. In Weights and Measures (1917) he imitated it thus, with the title "As the New Year [18 B.C.] Dawned": 
O Postumus, alas! I hear the bells go tinkle-tinkle!
Zip! goes another flitting year! here comes another wrinkle!
And though I hate to hang the crape -- no skill and no endurance
Can keep your folks from putting in a claim for your insurance.

If daily you endow a school and forty-two Foundations,
Would that put off a single day your last disintegrations?
No! What though you be prince, or prune, a slacker or a hero,
The sum of all your wealth and woes is ultimately zero.

Some day you'll bid your wife good-bye, and -- this no prognosis --
That afternoon they'll say it was arterio-sclerosis;
And in a year, or maybe less, a man of greater merit
Shall spill upon your marble floors the wine he will inherit.
The following imitation, entitled "Cheer Up, Postumus," appeared in Adams' In Other Words (1920): 
O Postumus, dear Postumus, Old Father Time's a sprinter,
The summer of my life is spent, approaches now the winter;
Nor all my Wit nor Piety, to quote Omar Fitzgerald,
Can keep my obit from appearing in the Sabine Herald.

If for a daily sacrifice you killed three hundred cattle,
Think you that it would keep from you the Dread and Final Rattle?
Nix! Though you build eight colleges and lib'ries eighty-seven,
You can't avoid what Rhyme demands I designate as Heaven.

Your home, your wife, your family, your uncles, ay! and aunts --
You'll have to leave 'em all behind. (Have you enough insurance?)
And O, the cobwebbed Caecuban now aging in your cellar
You'll have to deed to someone who's a nice, deserving feller.

Edward O'Hara

It is encouraging to hear that Horace is still being quoted in the House of Commons, but disappointing to hear that he's being translated incorrectly. According to the Hansard Debates for 23 November 2001, Mr. Edward O'Hara (Knowsley South) delivered a speech in which he said:
Let me quote Horace, who wrote: "Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni, nec pietas moram rugis et instanti senectae adferet." Which translates as "Alas fleeing Postumus, the years glide by, nor will piety bring a delay to wrinkles and advancing age."
Of course it is not Postumus who is fleeing, but the years.