Horace uses a lot of colorful words in this epode of, well, curses and pure hate for a guy—perhaps a fellow poet—named Mevius. Not much is known about Mevius, if he even existed at all. He is mentioned briefly in Virgil’s Ecologues. Perhaps Mevius was an invention of either Virgil or Horace, a kind of symbolic bad poet the two paragons of literature could shower with hate and abuse. Virgil speaks directly to Mevius in his Ecologues, chapter III:90, when his character Menalcas says:
Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, Mevi,
atque idem iugat vulpes et mulgeat hircos.
Let him who doesn’t hate Bavius love your poems, Mevius,
and let him likewise yoke foxes and milk billy goats.
Oddly Mevius doesn’t answer. Oddly we know nothing about Mavius. Was he a poet, too? Was the whole set of Eclogues addressed to Mevius? I doubt it.
But back to the colorful words used in today’s epode:
mari inverso: in an upturned sea
latus verbere: lashing the side
horridis fluctibus: with horrid waves, bristling? ones like in this famous Japanese woodcut by Hokusai done in the early nineteenth century:
impiam ratem: godless raft because Ajax had raped Cassandra in Pallas Athena's sanctuary as shown here:
pallor luteus: a weed-yellow pallor
non virilis eiulatio: a not manly warbling
opima praeda: fat or rich booty or the prey of an animal caught or killed. Interestingly, I have just come across the same two words in Apuleius’ Golden Ass (Book VIII, chap. V): . . . tam opimam praedam mediis manibus amittimus? I have found two translations, one says this means ‘rich prize,’ the other ‘rich prey.’ As for Nial Rudd’s translation of the epode in the Loeb series, he offers us ‘fat carcase.’ I suppose that we have to make a decision here: either Horace wants Mevius dead and ‘opima praeda’ means his ‘rich corpse,’ or Horace just wants a guy named Mevius, who could just as well be, for all we know, a merchant, to be financially ruined as his rich cargo is scattered by the raging sea upon the shore. If praeda means ‘booty,’ then perhaps I should let ‘booty’ suffice, since it now has two meanings in American English: ‘rich spoils’ and ‘fat ass!”
libidinosus caper: a lustful he goat
immolabitur: will be dusted with sacred meal just before being sacrificed.
Tempestatibus: to the goddesses who control the weather (who haven’t paid a bit of attention to me this hot day in Honolulu)
But I’m still worried about Mevius. Was he real or not? If he was a poet, are Virgil and Horace trying to say that Latin poetry has high standards and that not anyone can aspire to their heights? My question is: why didn’t Virgil and Horace just brush him aside as one would a pesky fly? Why this epode? Something is missing in this story, something lost to us now two thousand years years down the line.
Perhaps. But it is possible that Horace used the name Mevius because it fit the meter and, beginning with a nasal (m), seemed to reinforce the image of an oily, smelly guy who merited no good wishes as his ship left port:
mala soluta navis exit alite,
ferens olentem Mevium
Translation ::
Rope-freed, the ship went out
under an evil bird,
bearing foul Mevius.
Remember to lash at
both sides with bristling waves,
south wind.
May the luckless east wind
scatter, on an up-turned sea,
the ship’s ropes and smashed oars.
May the north wind rise up—
as it does in the high
mountains and shatters
the tremendous oaks.
May no-friend star appear,
night dark, when Orion,
sad, sets. May the poet
be borne upon a sea
quieter than the one that
carried the Greek band of
victors, when Pallas turned
her ire from Illium
burned toward Ajax’s godless
vessel.
Oh, how much sweat will stand
upon your sailors and how
weed yellow your pallor!
And that unmanly warble,
the prayers to Jove adverse,
when the Ionian
Gulf growling from wet wind
from the south breaks your ship
apart.
But if your fat booty
spread out on the curved shore
gladdens the birds,
a lustful goat and a
lamb will be slain to the
Tempests.
translation © 2014 by James Rumford
Original words ::
Prose rendition ::
DDelphin Ordo ::
Notes ::
1 Malā solūta nāvis exit ālite
ferens olentem Maevium:
Nāvis solūta, Maevium olentem
ferens, alite malā exit.
DNavis abit soluta portu infelici auspicio,
vehens fætentem Mævium.
Maevium: Mevius erat homo quidam aut poeta ineptus
Virgilii contemporaneus.
ut horridīs utrumque verberēs latus,
Auster, mementō fluctibus;
Auster, mementō ut latus utrumque
fluctibus horridīs verberēs.
DAuster fac ut tetris fluctibus vexes
utrumque latus navis.
Auster: ventus est qui ab meridie flat
verberes: in subjunctivo ex verbero/verberavi
5niger rudentıs Eurus inversō mari
refractōsque rēmōs differat;
Eurus niger, inversō mari, rudentēs
rēmōsque refractōs differat.
DEurus ater mari perturbato despergat
funes et remos disruptos.
Eurus: ventus est qui ab oriente flat
insurgat Aquilo, quantus altīs montibus
frangit trementıs īlices;
Aquilo insurgat—quantus montibus altīs
ilicēs trementēs frangit
DExsurgat Aquilo tam vehemens, quàm cum
frangit ilices in excelsis montibus concussas.
Aquilo: ventus est qui ab septentrione flat
nec sīdus atrā nocte amīcum appāreat,
quā tristis Ōrīon cadit;
nec sīdus amīcum nocte atrā appāreat,
quā Ōrīon tristis cadit.
DNec propitium ullum affulgeat astrum nocte
obscurâ quâ Orion occidit.
Orion: sidus est qui tempus malum in mense Novembris
indicat.
11quiētiōre nec ferātur aequore
quam Grāia victōrum manus,
nec [in] aequore quiētiōre quam manus
Grāia victōrum ferātur,
DNec tranquilliore mari naviget quàm
exercitus Græcorum victor,
Graia: Graeca. Ludovicus Desprez scribit:
“Ad Caphareum Eubœæ promontorium dijecta
classis Græcorum tempestatibus tantàm non tota
periit, cùm reverterentur post expugnatam Trojam.”
cum Pallas ustō vertit īram ab Īliō
in impiam Āiācis ratem.
cum Pallas īram ab Īliō ustō
in ratem impiam Āiācis vertit.
Dquando Minerva ab incensâ Trojâ
iram convertit in sceleratam Ajacis navim.
Pallas: dea Minerva (Athena). Aiax Cassandram in ara
Palladis (Athenae) violavit et rapuit. Ira commota,
Pallas e Neptuno auxilium petivit, et Neptunus Aiacem
e navi in scopulum iniecit, et Aiax nectus est.
Palladis (Athenae) violavit et rapuit. Ira commota,
Pallas e Neptuno auxilium petivit, et Neptunus Aiacem
e navi in scopulum iniecit, et Aiax nectus est.
15o quantus instat nāvītīs sudor tuīs
tibique pallor lūteus
o quantus sudor nāvītīs tuīs instat—
tibique pallor lūteus,
DO quantus sudor imminet tuis nautis;
tibi verò pallor flavus,
et illa nōn virīlis ēiulātio
precēs et adversum ad Iovem,
et illa ēiulātio nōn virīlis et
precēs ad Iovem adversum.
Datque ejulatio viro indigna, et
vota ad Jovem surdum;
19Īōnius ūdō cum remūgiens sinus
Notō carīnam rūperit.
cum Sinus Īōnius Notō ūdō remūgiens
carīnam rūperit.
Dcùm murmurans Ionium mare fregerit
navim Austro humido!
Ionius: Ludovicus Desprez scribit: “Ionium mare inter Epirum ac Peloponnesum
ab ortu, et magnam Græciam Siciliamque ab ocasu
porrigitur.”
Noto: Notus est ventus australis.
ruperit: ex rumpo
opīma quodsi praeda curvō lītore
porrecta mergōs iuverit,
Quodsi praeda opīma [in] lītore curvō
porrecta mergōs iuverit
DQuod si tu in curvo littore jacens
pascas mergos, opimum spolium,
libīdinōsus immolābitur caper
et agna Tempestātibus.
caper libīdinōsus immolābitur
(et agna) Tempestātibus.
Dà me procellis sacrificabitur lascivus
hircus, et nigra ovicula.
Tempestatibus: Tempestates erant deae tempestatis et
erat Romae templum eis dedicatum
:: Latin books by James Rumford ::
For all 102 odes purchase Carpe Diem, Horace De-Poetized, for $11.50 at
For a Latin translation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at $12, click here:
To find out more about Carpe Diem go to the blog of March 26, 2015;
for more about Pericla Thomae Sawyer, go to the blog of November 22, 2016.
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