Customer Reviews

The Complete Odes and Epodes (World's Classics)

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[This review refers to the Oxford World's Classics
edition of Horace's THE COMPLETE ODES AND EPODES,
and the "Secular Hymn" -- "Translated with an Introduction
and Notes by David West."]

It is always wise, if funds permit, to purchase more
than one edition (translation) of some of these classic
works. To read several translations that are well done
is like experiencing the same piece of classical music
so well interpreted but with different style, flair, and
felicity by different orchestras and conductors.
The Oxford World's Classics series are excellent for
their formatting, the scholarship, and the wonderful
Explanatory Notes at the back which give such helpful
context and understanding.
You know that you are in the company of an interesting
translator (as well as the company of Horace, the poet,
himself) when you read something like this in the
"Introduction":
"Those who know Horace well, find that of all dead
writers there is none who is a closer friend, who speaks
more usefully in easy and in difficult times, and none
whom they would more happily sit down to drink with.
* * * We have seen glimpses of [Horace's] humour and
studied his tactical deftness as a client poet. His
poetry is steeped also in the affairs of the day. He
is interested in those he addresses and sensitive and
affectionate towards his friends. He has an eye for
metaphor and a taste for the surreal. * * * The sound
is unique, setting against elaborate, fixed metres the
music of powerful speech. The complexity of the
structure of many of the poems amazes with subtle
transitions, astonishing leaps of sense, and rich
modulations of feeling. The elusvieness of Horace is
familiar."
-- David West. "Introduction."
-------
But it is in the "Translator's Note" that the real
insight and sensitivity of this translator come out.
For he says of Horace: "The odes of Horaace are among
the densest lyric poems ever written. The allusions
are rich and subtle, and the tone is so iridescent
that readers can never be quite sure of it, and find
endless pleasure in disagreeing with each other about
it. Translation of poetry is always impossible but
translation of Horace's odes is inconceivable."
-- David West. "Translator's Note."
-------
But very fortunately for us, David West proceeded
with his translation quest anyway. And he has given
us some very fine experiences with Horace, even if
they are in English. Here is a part of West's
translation of Ode XXIX from Book III:
Fortune enjoys her cruel business and
persists in playing her proud game,
transferring her fickle honours,
favouring now me, now another.

I praise her while she stays. If she
shakes out
her swift wings, I return what she gave,
wrap myself
in my virtue, and look for honest Poverty,
the bride that brings no dowry.

Immensely satisfying, memorable, haunting...

Okay - so Horace is notoriously allusive, each line packed with meaning. What that calls for, it would seem, is a translation with as many pages of notes as of text, if not more, and a line-by-line gloss in the back.

West in his Oxford World's Classic gives better annotation than most (the Penguin or Modern Library edition), but still could stand to do a lot more. One suspects he wants people to buy his expanded editions of the Odes.

The translations, as poetry, will not knock you off your feet, but they do better than the looser Michie versions at letting you know what Horace more or less wrote. (I find Michie's unrhymed versions very fine as poetry, but the rhymed ones are too glib to bear.) And West's aren't quite as soporific as Shepard's versions in Penguin.

Basically, it seems, I need to learn Latin. And if any of you eager reviewers knows a good English-language commentary on the Odes, don't keep it a secret.

This book was a revelation to me. I don't have any background in Latin but have always enjoyed reading literature, especially poetry. No one had told me what an influence Horace had on the English and French poetry that I have always enjoyed! I kept recognizing things that later writer copied and imitated from him, because he is so lovely. He also is a great poet for a thinking person to read. Mature and interesting. The translations seemed to be good. I had a friend who reads Latin listen to a few and she said they were very accurate. When she read the original aloud to me, they sounded much more lovely than the English. But I suppose that is normal.

After the defeat of Brutus at Phillipi in 42 BC, Horace was allotted the time to devote himself to poetry at his newly granted Sabine estate under the patronage of Gaius Maecenas, a reputed "scion of Etruscan kings." During this time, Horace's literary genius was able to flourish in the Sabine countryside, while he remained in dutiful correspondence with a brilliant circle of poets, including the great Virgil. These poems, collected here in David West's translation of Horace's "Odes and Epodes," are some of the most charming, warm, lovable, and humorous works to be found among the Roman poets of the Augustan Age, even though they may be equally full of both piercing sarcasm and fierce invective. In the Epodes Horace brings forth, through his unprecedented use of the Greek iambic meter in Latin form, the praise due to his patron Maecenas, the mild reflections upon the pastoral life, the pangs of love and war, and the personal sorrows of the defeat suffered at Phillipi. In the Odes, Horace moves on from the iambic meter to the early Greek genre of lyric poetry such as may be found in the works of poets like Alchaeus and Sappho. Furthermore, in the Odes, Horace muses upon friendship and relations with women, offers hymns to the gods and honor to Augustus, and at the same time reveals the typical Epicurean's "love for the moment." With the addition of Suetonius' brief but very important "Life of Horace" and the noble "Secular Hymn" dedicated to the dignity of the Augustus' new state, David West's translation will be a welcoming edition for everyone.

Long beloved for his compassion, his exquisite music, his own gentle life, the often-translated Horace is most beautifully given to us again by David West. Listen to Book II, Ode XI, Qui Bellicosus: "Life asks so little. Smooth-faced youth and beauty runs away behind us....drink, while we may, our grey heads perfumed with roses..." Horace describes himself as a Epicurean, choosing to live on the Sabine farm made possible by his friend, the legendary wealthy Maecenas.

In addition to translations of all the Epodes and Odes, West provides a fine introduction to the man, to his works, and to the world of Rome under Augustus. Together with over 60 pages of notes, this is a worthy addition to almost anyone's library of treasured books. For the price, it is a splendid value although one that could have been enhanced by providing the Latin for each poem.

There can be debate about this. As West remarks, "Translation of poetry is impossible but translations of Horace's odes is inconceivable...What is offered here...enable non-Latin readers to gain some understanding of the detail of the poetry and how it works, and to do so in English which can be read without revulsion." He certainly does that; indeed the poems can be read aloud with great pleasure with or without the wine and roses, though better still with a friend inclined to rejoicing under a plane tree with a cask laid down and sealed with Horace's own hands. And true, one rarely (for example in Helen Waddell's translations of some of the medieval lyrics of the wandering scholars or Robin Flower's luminous translation of "Pangur Ban") can achieve a translation close to the original. So---the argument can run---why add to the price or bother with printing the odes themselves.

Yet, even without mastery of Latin, the loveliness and complexity of the meters can be appreciated, adding still further to our love for this lovely and complex man. Thus, this is a book for those who can subdue their yearning to apprehend, even a little and perhaps achieve even more, of both the Latin and the English...or led by West's translations, to get another book from Amazon which includes the Latin.