Carpe diem!

Today I picked up occasionally the edition of Horace's Odes and Epodes, edited by the Latinist Bernard Kytzler for students (Reclam 2000). Though I found initially Horace's world foreign to me, his carmen I, XI which I happened to read today struck me directly in the heart. It is written in Asclepiadeus maior (---uu- | -uu- | -uu-uu). The phrase "carpe diem" emerges in the last verse. An outworn phrase used to urge people to enjoy the life. But indeed I find it not so jolly as it seems. If you don't think of the nearing death, you won't be in need of urging yourself to grasp the fleeing day. How is it possible to get hold of the time, I ask you mate? Especially the word "pati" in the third verse betrayed the sadness hidden behind the seemingly careless tone of the poet. And the first lines of this poem begin directly with the thought on Death. It reminds me of the poems of the baroque era in which the poet urges his beloved woman not to hesitate to accept his love, because the snow of her shoulders will be ashes tomorrow.


Horatius carmen I, XI:

Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. ut melius, quidquid erit, pati.
seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum: sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.