Carminum liber primus, secundus et tertius
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Carminum Liber primus, secundus et tertius (also known as "Odes I, II and III") was a collection of poems published in 23 BC by Horace. According to the journal Quadrant, it was "unparallelled by any collection of lyric poetry produced before or after in Latin literature." [1]
Contents |
[edit] Text of poem
The poem begins as follows.
- Parcus deorum cultor et infrequens
- insanientis dum sapientiae
- consultus erro, nunc retrorsum
- vela dare atque iterare cursus
[edit] Book 1
Book 1 was written in 23 BC. It consists of 38 poems. [1]
[edit] Book 2
Book 2 was written in 23 BC. It consists of 20 poems. [2]
[edit] Book 3
Book 3 was written in 23 BC. It consists of 30 poems. It contains The Spring Of Bandusia, considered one of the classic Latin poems. [3]
Horace also wrote a fourth book in 13 BC, consisting of 35 poems, although this book is not considered part of Carminum Liber primus, secundus et tertius. [4]
[edit] Trivia
In a 2003 speech, poet Seamus Heaney stated that this poem resonated greatly with him after the events of 9/11, and inspired him to write "Horace and the Thunder", reprinted with some alterations as "Anything Can Happen" in District and Circle.
- "After that day, a poem which I had cherished for different reasons took on new strengths and new strangeness - Horace, a poem by Quintus Horatius Flaccus, a Latin poet, of the Augustan age. If anybody’s interested, it’s in Carminum Liber Primus. That’s the first Book of Odes, Number 34. Horace, in this poem, gets a shock. He says, I’m a pretty cool kind of guy. I’m not really gospel greedy. I go with the crowd. But, something happened that really put the wind up me. Oops! And the terms of the poem…it’s really about poetry’s covenant with the irrational, I thought first of all. It’s about thunder in the clear, blue sky. Shock, Jupiter, the thunder god, ba-boom."
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Speech by Heaney in praise of Carminum Liber Primus
- Text in Latin
- English text at Project Perseus
- Text in Latin at The Latin Library
- ISBN 0-19-283942-X
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