Laudator Temporis Acti

Dear Mike:

Horace, Epistles 1.20.5, addressing his soon to be published book:

Fuge quo descendere gestis.

Opinio communis:

Indulge the fond Desire, with which You burn,
Pursue thy Flight, yet think not to return. (Philip Francis)

Well, you’re keen to be off. Goodbye. (Niall Rudd)

Off with you, down to where you itch to go. (H. Rushton Fairclough)

But off you go, down where you’re itching to go (David Ferry)

But follow your urge for a come-down (Colin MacLeod)

Vete, pues a donde tan ansiosamente deseas ir (Alfonso Cuatrecasas)

Foge para onde estás louco por descer (Frederico Lourenço)

Vai, scappa a precipizio dove hai tanta voglia (Enzo Mandruzzato)

Fuggi pur dove sogni di scendere (Luciano Paolicchi)

Va donc où tu brûles d'aller. (Ch.-M. Leconte de Lisle)

Flieh, wohin du Lust hast hinabzusteigen (Epstein)

A dissenting voice:

Roland Mayer’s commentary in Horace, Epistles Book I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994):

Fuge quo avoid (10.32n.) the place to which …; the verb cannot imply dismissal yet, but it gives a warning. descendere ‘to go down (to a place of business or other activity)’ (OLD 4).

10.32 fuge magna ‘avoid (OLD 10) anything grand’, fuge echoes fugitivus 10[…].

Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v. fugio: Oxford World Classics translation by John Davie (OUP, 2011):

Avoid the place you are so eager to go down to.

Not mentioned but perhaps grist to the mill is Odes 1.9.13:

Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere

My opinion’s not worth a fig, but I don’t find Mayer wholly convincing except in so far as there have may been for the Roman reader/listener a jolt of ambiguity, one that would underline how pained a bon voyage it was. (The expression is Ross Kilpatrick’s The Poetry of Friendship: Horace Epistles I (Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1986) p. 140).

I think fugere must qualify as an auto-antonym, don’t you?

Best wishes,
Eric [Thomson]