Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Don't Worry About Politics
Horace, Odes 3.8.25-28 (addressed to Maecenas; tr. Niall Rudd):
Nisbet and Rudd, op. cit., p. 228 (introduction to 3.19):
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Don't worry in case the people are in any trouble; you are a private citizen, so try not to be over-anxious; gladly accept the gifts of the present hour, and let serious things go hang.R.G.M. Nisbet and Niall Rudd, A Commentary on Horace, Odes, Book III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; rpt. 2007), pp. 131-132 (on line 26):
neglegens ne qua populus laboret
parce privatus nimium cavere,
dona praesentis cape laetus horae et
linque severa.
it would seem curious to the Romans that a private citizen should worry about political problems; cf. Plaut. Pers. 75f. 'sed sumne ego stultus qui rem curo publicam / ubi sint magistratus quos curare oporteat?', Cic. rep. 2.46.The quotation from Plautus' Persa means "But am I not crazy, worrying about public affairs, when there are officials whose job it is to worry?" Cicero, On the Commonwealth 2.46, says the opposite, that no one is a private citizen when it comes to the safety of the state (in conservanda civium libertate esse privatum neminem).
Nisbet and Rudd, op. cit., p. 228 (introduction to 3.19):
It was a poetic convention to say that guests should concentrate on enjoyment rather than serious preoccupations. Sometimes these were questions of war and politics; cf. 1.26.3ff., 2.11.1, 3.8.17ff,, Theogn. 763f., Anacr. eleg. 2.1ff., Xenophanes, eleg. 1.21ff.Related posts:
